Why Blockchain Could Unlock a Trillion Dollar Industry

Gaming has the potential to become a trillion dollar industry in the next 10 years, but to do so it will need to embrace radical ownership.

You may have heard that blockchain gaming has some serious economic potential, with projections indicating a market size of $65.7 billion by 2027.

But here's the real kicker - those projections may be a drop in the bucket compared to the actual potential. By integrating blockchain technology, the gaming industry could be looking at a massive leap forward into the trillion-dollar realm. It's not just a small bump in growth - it's a game-changing revolution.

Everyone’s a Gamer

It’s a big claim, but this is a big market. Much bigger, in fact, than most people realize. Gaming is already worth $221.40bn, and its growth is showing no signs of slowing down. 

If anything, we’re likely to see gaming grow at an explosive rate as it becomes one of the dominant forms of entertainment media. Players aged 18-35 make up over 2/3 of gamers. 

Gen Z and Millennials spend more time gaming than on any other form of entertainment. And gaming is adding 2 million paid users per month. 

With this rise in the prevalence of gaming has come acceptance. Gamers are no longer unfairly stigmatized as nerdy or antisocial, especially among Gen Z. It’s seen as a normal, enjoyable part of everyday life for a considerable portion of people and that acceptance is poised to drive mass adoption.

Making Players into Payers

So we’re starting on an incredibly solid foundation: an industry with a rapidly growing user base, public goodwill, cultural ubiquity and heavy support from younger generations indicating that these numbers will only grow in the future.

That alone is extremely encouraging, but once you see the current and potential margins, you might begin to wonder if a trillion dollar estimate might even be conservative. As it stands, mobile gaming dominates the market, making up $120bn of the total industry value on its own. And a huge portion of gaming revenue is generated from a small number of users.

Only 4.7% of players have ever made an in-app purchase. This means there's an incredible untapped potential waiting to be unleashed. Even a small increase in that percentage could translate into billions of dollars in additional revenue.

So the billion-dollar question remains: how do we tap into the vast potential of the remaining 95% of players who have yet to make an in-game purchase? How do we motivate and incentivize them to become payers?

The Radical Ownership Revolution

Paying gamers are already willing to put a lot of money into titles that are ultimately completely walled-off ecosystems where the products that they acquire and enjoy have absolutely no value outside of those systems. But if we want to increase the number of paying players, we need to offer them better value for their money. 

Enter blockchain. Or rather, the radical ownership that comes from integrating blockchain into gaming. 

If I buy a sword in a traditional game, the terminal value of that sword is 0. I can’t sell it or use it outside of the walled garden I purchased it in.

Whereas if I buy a sword in a blockchain game it becomes an asset, something I can sell or take with me. The value is fluid or even volatile in some cases. It might appreciate, sometimes by a lot, or it might not. It might actively depreciate in value. But even if it does, and I end up selling it for 50% less than I paid for it, that’s still a heck of a lot more than the $0 in a traditional game. 

This is exactly the sort of gamechanging shift that’s needed to allow gaming to realize its full potential. Increasing that 4.7% of paying players into 10, 20, even 50% is possible, but only if we’re willing to empower gamers with something as radically different and revolutionary as the true ownership that only blockchain can provide.