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Web 3 Gaming has a serious problem. The audience largely consists of men 25 and older with a significant portion in the 35–54 year range.
I was talking to a prominent Web 3 gaming content creator last week who told me something funny.
He said “Wasif you wouldn’t believe it…my audience consists of mostly boomers.”
The creator is in his early 20’s and I’ve learned that Gen Z likes to label anyone older than them “boomers” but I was still intrigued.
He offered to show me his analytics and the marketer in me could not help but dive into the data.
This was the audience breakdown for a Web 3 Gaming Youtube channel:
Gender Distribution
Male — 95%
Female — 5%
Age Distribution
13–17 Years — 1%
18–24 Years — 8%
25–34 Years — 31%
35–44 Years — 33%
45–54 Years — 20%
55–64 Years — 6%
65 Years — 1%
On paper the stats for Web 3 gaming should not be too alarming, after all, the average age of a gamer skews older these days. According to Wikipedia, the average female gamer is 44 years old, while the average male gamer is 33.
The worrying stat here is that the average Web 3 gaming audience skews heavily male and much older than the average Web 2 gamer.
The creator went on to explain that his audience consists of “old dudes” who want to know which gaming ecosystem to spend their time and money in.
The problem I argued is that this audience does not actually play video games.
“They are mostly speculative investors.”
Therein lies the underlying problem.
Web 3 gaming has evolved beyond the simplistic ponzinomics driven game play that powered titles like Axie Infinity. There are actual fun games out there that offer engaging game play experiences. And yet, DAUs for these games are abysmal with most multiplayer games having absurdly long que times for matchmaking.
In a traditional Web 2 environment, many of these Web 3 titles would be considered dead games.
Although Web 3 has very compelling games to offer in 2023, the audience for these games have not expanded beyond the core Web 3 audience which skews heavily male and of an older demographic.
These people don’t actually want to play Web 3 games. They want to invest in game assets that can be flipped for a profit or loaned out via a scholarship program to generate revenue.
This is a serious issue because many Web 3 games have tokenomics that do not function if the DAUs are not there. Without a solid player base there will not be enough demand for game assets and tokens. Without demand for game assets, the speculative value of these assets and token values decline and the entire ecosystem starts a prolonged death spiral.
Web 3 gaming and the premise of digital asset ownership has tremendous appeal but as it stands, the audience for this industry needs to expand beyond its base.
The problem is pretty clear.
I am curious to hear if you have any thoughts on a solution.
Thank you for reading.
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