A recent survey revealed that most game developers and their studios have no interest in developing or working with nonfungible tokens (NFTs) or crypto payments.<\/p>\n
The survey released by the Game Developers Conference on Jan. 21 titled State of the Game Industry 2022<\/em> polled 2,700 game developers on their level of interest in NFTs and cryptocurrency. Results were less than favorable for gamers themselves, who have shown great interest in NFTs.<\/p>\n A resounding majority of respondents indicated that their studio is \u2018not interested’ in cryptocurrency as a payment tool (72%) and is \u2018not interested\u2019 in NFTs (70%). Only 1% responded that they were already developing NFTs or already using cryptocurrency as a payment tool.<\/p>\n Of the 14 comments on NFTs and crypto from developers published in the survey, only one was generally positive, while the others ranged from backhanded to scathing. The only positive comment read \u201cIt\u2019s the wave of the future.\u201d<\/p>\n Another respondent intimated that the entire NFT industry is problematic when they said:<\/p>\n How this hasn\u2019t been identified as a pyramid scheme is beyond me.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Other comments echoed concerns about the future state of the gaming industry if it embraces crypto and NFTs: <\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re going to drive a wedge right in the heart of this industry. It\u2019s going to become really clear what folks\u2019 motivations are, and it\u2019s not going to be pretty.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The NFT market is currently driven by traders, collectors, and gamers. On OpenSea, the world\u2019s largest NFT marketplace, trading volume is driven by collectible items. Currently, the Azuki collection has the highest seven-day trading volume on the platform with 27,163 ETH ($6.5 million).<\/p>\n Decentralized App (dApp) games that utilize NFTs account for about $35 million in volume over the past 24 hours. That volume comes from about 867,000 users according to DappRadar. According to Mordor Intelligence, when NFTs are integrated more broadly across the $178 billion traditional gaming industry, they will reach over 3 billion gamers worldwide.<\/p>\n Respondents shared a generally negative outlook on metaverse gaming, as well. Even though over 12 companies are now developing augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) devices for gamers to immerse themselves in games, the report stated that \u201cabout one-third of respondents believe the metaverse concept will never deliver on its promise.\u201d<\/p>\n