The Future of Game Publishing is Permissionless

Steam, Apple, and Google enforce a 30% revenue share, creating a massive innovation tax. This gatekeeping strangles indie studios and forces monetization-first design.

• $60B+ in annual fees extracted from developers
• Zero ownership of player relationships or data
• Arbitrary content removal and policy changes

Deploy game logic, assets, and economies as immutable smart contracts on L2s like Arbitrum or Polygon. This creates a permanent, ownerless distribution channel.

• 0% platform fee for core distribution
• Fully composable assets (e.g., NFTs usable across games)
• Provable scarcity and rules, eliminating publisher rug-pulls

Centralized publishers lock assets and currency inside their games. This destroys liquidity and player equity, turning digital items into worthless pixels upon server shutdown.

• $0 secondary market value for in-game items
• Zero interoperability between game ecosystems
• Total player asset risk tied to corporate solvency

Adopt token standards like ERC-721 for items and ERC-6551 for smart contract wallets owned by NFTs. This turns in-game assets into portable, composable property.

• True digital ownership transferable on open markets
• Assets become collateral in DeFi protocols like Aave
• Enables on-chain provenance and royalty streams for creators

Algorithmic storefronts and pay-to-play featuring create an uneven playing field. Discovery is a black box, favoring studios with massive marketing budgets over quality.

• Pay-to-rank promotion models dominate
• No algorithmic transparency for visibility
• Long lead times and gatekeepers for updates

Build discovery via decentralized curation markets (e.g., Mirror's token-curated registries) and community-owned frontends. Players and influencers earn for surfacing quality games.

• Stake-to-feature models replace corporate payola
• Community-owned frontends like HyperPlay aggregate content
• ~5x lower customer acquisition costs via direct incentives

App stores and Steam take a 30% revenue cut, creating a massive barrier for indie developers and stifling innovation. This centralized gatekeeping determines market winners.

• $20B+ in annual fees extracted from developers
• Months-long approval cycles for updates
• Zero ownership for players over in-game assets

Protocols like HyperPlay and Elixir create sovereign storefronts where developers deploy directly to users. Smart contracts handle payments, distribution, and royalties.

• <5% protocol fee, paid in native tokens
• Instant, permissionless game listing and patching
• Portable player identities and asset ownership across games

Each game and platform siloes its player base and social graph. Cross-promotion is manual and inefficient, leaving community growth potential untapped.

• High CAC for user acquisition
• Zero composability of player reputation or achievements
• Closed economies prevent asset utility across titles

Networks like Ronin and Immutable zkEVM function as gaming-specific L2s where player actions, assets, and social graphs are native primitives. Think Uniswap for guilds or LayerZero for player profiles.

• One-click guild formation with shared treasuries
• NFTs as cross-game skill/achievement verifiers
• Seamless asset bridging between game economies

Algorithmic feeds controlled by platforms prioritize big-budget marketing over quality. Great games die in obscurity due to poor discoverability.

• Pay-to-win visibility in featured slots
• No verifiable proof of player engagement or retention
• Subjective editorial control limits creative risk

Platforms like Gala Games and decentralized curation protocols use staking and retroactive public goods funding models to surface quality. Every play session is a verifiable on-chain signal.

• Stake-to-feature mechanics align curator incentives
• Transparent, on-chain metrics for true engagement
• Community-driven ranking via veToken models

Apple/Google app stores and Steam take a 30% revenue cut, creating a massive incentive leak. Web3 games currently just replicate this model with NFT marketplaces.

• Key Benefit 1: Direct-to-player distribution via on-chain storefronts (e.g., HyperPlay) cuts this to <5%.
• Key Benefit 2: Revenue is programmable, enabling dynamic splits with modders, guilds, and co-marketers.

Games are walled gardens. ERC-1155 and ERC-6551 turn in-game items into permissionless, interoperable primitives.

• Key Benefit 1: Assets can be used across games, mods, and DeFi protocols, creating network effects beyond a single title.
• Key Benefit 2: Enables user-generated content economies where creators capture value directly, not just the publisher.

Traditional publishers decide which games get funded and marketed, creating a high-risk, winner-take-all model for developers.

• Key Benefit 1: Permissionless funding via NFT sales, DAO grants, and community rounds democratizes access to capital.
• Key Benefit 2: Modular game engines (e.g., MUD, Dojo) and L2s (e.g., Immutable, Ronin) provide a full-stack, open alternative.

Game economies are black boxes prone to manipulation and sudden inflation by developers.

• Key Benefit 1: Fully on-chain logic provides transparent, auditable rules for token minting, rewards, and sinks.
• Key Benefit 2: Enables trustless secondary markets and derivatives, turning game economies into public infrastructure.

Player progress and inventory are locked inside individual game servers, killing composability and user ownership.

• Key Benefit 1: Non-custodial wallets (e.g., Privy, Dynamic) become your universal gaming profile.
• Key Benefit 2: Account Abstraction (ERC-4337) enables seamless onboarding, social recovery, and gas sponsorship by publishers.

Games as temporary services vs. games as persistent, player-owned states. Inspired by Dark Forest and Loot.

• Key Benefit 1: Autonomous Worlds run on decentralized infrastructure, ensuring permanent persistence independent of a studio.
• Key Benefit 2: Creates a new design space for emergent gameplay and economies governed by code, not a corporate roadmap.