Is Web3 gaming ready to cross the chasm?

A Fireside Conversation with Joony Koo at YGG Play Summit Philippines

At the YGG Play Summit in the Philippines, Joony Koo of Spacebar provided a candid look at the current state of Web3 gaming, where it stands today, what’s holding it back, and what history suggests about the next breakthrough. In a conversation framed around the similarities between early mobile gaming and today’s blockchain ecosystems, Koo explained why Web3 has yet to experience its “iPhone moment” and what it will take for the industry to truly cross the chasm.

Koo began by drawing parallels to the pre-App Store era, when feature phones dominated, and basic mobile games were notoriously tricky to find.

“You would have to pay a few hundred dollars just to look for what pays out of these 50 bytes,” he recalled, describing the clunky carrier-operated portals and expensive data charges. “The friction on those phones was as hectic as the friction we see in crypto or Web3.”

Just as early mobile users needed different carrier portals for other devices, Koo pointed out that today’s players face a similarly fragmented world:

“If you want to play a new game on a new chain that just popped up yesterday, you’ll probably find yourself making a new wallet, getting an RPC code, and starting everything all over again.”

Due to the difficulty in discovering games, most players in the 2000s ended up using the content that manufacturers pre-installed. Koo noted that this is not unlike today’s blockchain ecosystems, where chains effectively act as gatekeepers.

“For example, if a chain like Monad is launching, they’re curating 20 to 40 games for mainnet. Those are the games most people will end up playing,” he explained. “It’s the same pattern as device manufacturers and carriers controlling discovery back then.”

Koo also emphasized the lack of innovation during the early iPhone era. When the iPhone launched, it didn’t even have an App Store yet, and most developers simply ported existing games from other platforms.

“These games weren’t using native iPhone features at all.. no drag-and-drop, no gyro sensors, no analytics, no in-app purchases,” he said. “And we’re seeing the same thing with Web3. A lot of games are traditional ideas with tokens and NFTs slapped on top.”

He noted that early iPhone success didn’t come from ports, but from developers willing to experiment with entirely new mechanics built specifically for the mobile experience.

One of the major obstacles in Web3 gaming, according to Koo, is the industry’s heavy focus on token economics.

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“Most of the games in Web3 are extremely focused on the token economics,” he said. “When you put a token into your game, it creates a vicious cycle of pump-and-dump behavior that the developers or players cannot control.”

“I’m sitting here without an answer to what a native Web3 game should be,” he admitted. “But you need an experimental mentality. You need seasons and cycles that allow you to try new mechanics, change what doesn’t work, and explore what truly resonates with users in crypto.”

Games that treat blockchain as a creative medium, not merely a monetization layer, are the ones most likely to endure past market cycles.

Koo issued a candid warning to studios that assume the next bull cycle will revive their project.

“When the market goes back up, that doesn’t mean the games that were successful last cycle will take off again,” he said. “There will be new games with new ideas. If a game isn’t experimenting or building something truly native to Web3, it won’t survive the next cycle.”

Perhaps the biggest missing piece of the puzzle is a platform powerful enough to unify the Web3 gaming ecosystem, something equivalent to what the iPhone and the App Store did for mobile.

“There will be a platform that’s very transformative,” Koo said. “That moment hasn’t come for crypto gaming yet.”

Developers today are constantly jumping between chains.. Abstract, Monad, Ronin, and beyond, searching for the right infrastructure.

“Every year, developers ask: ‘Where the hell do we build our game?’ But there’s no de facto Web3 chain, yet that houses everything you need for a great Web3 game.”

Koo believes that when the right platform arrives, it will become obvious, just as the iPhone did in 2007.

Web3 gaming today is full of potential but hampered by friction, fragmentation, over-financialization, and a lack of native design. Yet Koo remains optimistic that a transformational moment is coming.

“We need to keep looking,” he said. “The one ring that moves them all, the platform that changes everything will come. And when it does, that’s when Web3 gaming will finally cross the chasm.”

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Watch: How do you define Web3?