The Integration of Social and Gaming: The Future Direction of Web3?

1. The Essence of Decentralized Social Networking

Socializing is a fundamental human need that requires a medium to support it. From face-to-face communication to internet social platforms, the development of information technology has driven the transformation of social interaction methods. Currently, centralized social platforms control user data, limiting users' autonomy.

Decentralized social networking based on blockchain technology allows users to truly own their identity and data. Users can freely choose where to express what kind of opinions and open what kind of permissions. However, it currently faces bottlenecks in traffic and application scenarios.

2. Games: The Natural Medium of Social Interaction

Games can break the limitations of time and space, providing rich scenarios for social interaction. From World of Warcraft to Fortnite, in-game social interactions have been widely validated. GameFi aims to solve the ownership issues of game assets through NFTs and tokens, but still faces challenges in interoperability.

The concept of GameID has emerged, recording players' experiences, reputations, assets, and achievements across games. This lays the foundation for decentralized gaming social interactions.

Three Modes of Integration in Social Games

1. User-centric GameID platform

Representative projects: Carv, DeQuest, Arche, etc. Aggregating user game data to build cross-game identity profiles, providing value for players and game developers.

2. Cross-platform social tools

Representative projects: XMTP, Web3MQ, Swapchat, etc. Provide decentralized communication protocols to achieve cross-platform instant messaging.

3. NFT Access Type Games

Representative projects: Arcade, Worldwide Webb, etc. Allow players to import their own NFTs into the game to use as characters, expanding the application scenarios of NFTs.

IV. Future Outlook

1. GameID is expected to become a key link connecting games and social interactions.

2. Lightweight games based on existing social relationships still have significant development potential.

3. AI-driven virtual relationships may bring about innovations in social forms.

The integration of social and gaming is expected to break through the current traffic bottleneck of Web3, becoming an important application scenario. We look forward to the emergence of truly phenomenal applications.