Do you remember the countless hours spent playing Super Mario Bros on your old Nintendo console, or the inability to put down that time-tested classic snake on your old Nokia brick? Or how about the times when you used to pump endless amounts of coins into good, old-fashioned arcade machines?
These is what happens when games become truly additive, and with the prospect of so-called “Play-to-Earn” games on the horizon, the addictiveness of games is about to go through the roof.
In an interview with Budding Psychologists, the research Nick Yee explains that video games become addictive because of the way they tap into three “motivation components” that stimulate and reward the human brain. More specifically, they cater to our primal desires for a sense of achievement and rewarding social connections, as well as our need for an immersive escape from the real world we live in.
These desires are most obvious in highly competitive games, such as online multiplayer games like Call of Duty, Dota 2, Counter-Strike 2, League Of Legends, Fortnite and Rocket League, which have all been so incredibly successful.
These games, which have emerged as some of the most popular battlegrounds for profession e-sports gamers, manage to strike a perfect balance between the three main motivation components that fuel our addictiveness. For instance, they’re difficult to play and require a lot of skill on behalf of the player to come out on top, feeding our sense of achievement when we win.
Moreover, they’re incredibly social experiences too, with these games being host to immense communities with millions of players globally. In many top-tier games, these communities have evolved into various clans who discover that collaboration can increase their chances of winning while enhancing their enjoyment of the game.
Of course, such titles are incredibly immersive too, with their extremely realistic gameplay offering players the chance to completely shut off what’s happening in their real world lives. It’s almost as if the player lives an entirely new life within the gaming universe.
With the rise of Web3, there’s a very real prospect that video games can become even more addictive, as they add in yet another powerful motivation into the equation. Namely, they incentivize players to do everything to achieve glory with the prospect of hugely enticing financial rewards.
Web3 games are differentiated from traditional games by their integration with blockchain, which makes it possible for players to actually own their gaming assets. One of the most popular blockchain games is Axie Infinity, where players are tasked with nurturing, growing and evolving monsters known as “Axies” in order to fight them in player-vs-player battles.
What’s special about these Axies is that they’re NFTs, or non-fungible tokens that live on the blockchain, which makes it possible to keep a track record of who owns it. What’s more, each NFT is entirely unique. Some of the most powerful Axies are truly one-of-a-kind, with some possessing incredibly rare attributes that can make them extremely valuable to fans of the game.
In addition to NFTs, blockchain games also support the integration of cryptocurrency, which is used to reward players who win head-to-head battles. In the case of Axie Infinity, players can earn Smooth Love Potion (SLP) tokens for defeating their opponents, and these can be sold on a crypto exchange for genuine, fiat money.
It’s these innovations that pave the way for Web3 games to incentivize their experiences and make them even more addictive. After all, if a game is exciting to play and stimulates all three “motivation components”, the prospect of earning rewards for winning only enhances that feeling of accomplishment when players come out on top.
The unique icenives of Web3 games are now being taken to the next level by a new breed of blockchain gaming platforms, such as Funtico, which is home to a growing library of incentivized games with a focus on thrilling gameplay.
Funtico’s key innovation is the introduction of organized tournaments, which kicked off earlier this year with its flagship game Formula Funtico, a high-octane racing game that’s designed to push players to their limits with a grueling test of skill, endurance, and razor-sharp focus.
For the inaugural tournament, Funtico offered a staggering prize pool of 100,000 USD, including cash prizes, the opportunity to design a Go-Kart that will become a part of the game, exclusive NFTs and many more.
Functio sees tournaments as the key to community building within its incentivized gaming platform, which is why it’s planning to host recurring events for each of the games within its growing library, giving players the opportunity to achieve enormous prestige within the community.
In this way, it’s like Funtico delivers all three motivation components on steroids, with winners enjoying enormous satisfaction from the rewards they gain, together with the increased engagement within the community that the tournaments generate, and more opportunities to escape from the real world.
Playing video games can satisfy a lot of our primal urges, which is why many become incredibly addictive. By creating a more competitive environment based on organized tournaments, Web3 gaming platforms can help to create a sense of achievement that’s on a par with anything we can do in the real world.
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