It sure seems that way. Despite the protestations of folks like Chroma Squad developer Mark Venturelli and the Itch.io digital distribution platform, some gaming industry luminaries clearly still think of Web3 as the future of gaming, and it now looks like Tomonobu Itagaki is one of those people.
Earlier today, Itagaki posted a tweet announcing his new gaming venture Apex Game Studios, as well as the studio's first project, Warrior, a play-to-earn game full of the usual Web3 garbage: NFTs, earnable tokens, and everything that goes with these systems.
Warrior revolves around Mob Servants, NFT characters that can be used in battle and upgraded with new skills. As well as these Servants, every other asset in Warrior can be traded using the game's WDT tokens.
Handily, Itagaki also provides a roadmap for this highly anticipated (cough) project; his team is planning an NFT pre-sale in Q4 this year, followed by a beta launch of Warrior in 2023. In Q4 of that year, Itagaki also sets out a buzzword-filled promise to "implement a multi-chain framework to increase the influence and asset liquidity" of the game.
Don't worry; you're not alone if your eyes glazed over reading that. Itagaki also says he wants to "solve the performance and security issues of GameFi 1.0 and achieve GameFi 2.0", which sounds extremely exciting and fun, right?
The gaming industry has what can best be described as a controversial history with Web3 and NFTs (read: nobody likes them or wants them in games, but companies keep pushing them because they're a speculative economic bubble).
Mobile games like Ni no Kuni: Cross Worlds and NFL Rivals are built around blockchain gaming and NFTs, and industry luminaries like Keiji Inafune are also creating their own NFT collections. This despite the fact that NFTs almost always raise a hugely negative reaction from the gaming public, leading to companies like Team17 and Chaosium frantically backpedaling on plans to create NFT ranges.
