NFTs Enrich Gaming Communities, Drive Stronger Engagement, Says Gaming Veteran

According to Luke Paglia, the COO at AGMI Studios, while traditional non-fungible token (NFT) art has lacked real utility, which explains its declining popularity, NFTs still have an important role to play in the gaming industry. To back this assertion, Paglia cites game developers’ use of NFTs “to innovate and bring new forms of value to players while transforming the way players interact.”

Developers Struggle to Keep Up

Paglia argued that by doing this, essentially making players owners and stakeholders, NFTs help enrich gaming communities and drive stronger engagement. Furthermore, they also encourage more people to invest their time, energy, and money in the games they love playing. The COO believes these attributes ensure that NFTs will survive.

Regarding some stakeholders’ perception that gaming developers are moving too fast for hardware infrastructure makers to keep up, the AGMI Studios executive said the opposite is true. He argues that today’s hardware is more capable than ever. On the other hand, developers are struggling to keep up, and Paglia said the many bugs and problems seen in games point to this. The COO said many developers sacrifice the time-consuming optimization part just so they can get their updates out the door.

Meanwhile, in his written answers sent to Bitcoin.com News, Paglia predicted that in a world where artificial intelligence (AI) is likely to dominate content creation, more people may begin to value authentic human creativity. This preference for human-generated content will see some even willing to pay a premium just so they can access such content. The COO also shared his thoughts on how he envisions the Web3 gaming industry in six years.

Below are Paglia’s answers to all the questions sent.

Bitcoin.com News (BCN): Chipmaker Intel has recently struggled with a category of CPUs it manufactured. For months, users have complained about their Core i9 CPUs crashing mid-game. This has led to speculation about how the CPU failures could affect the company and the gaming industry. Do you agree that the persistent Intel Core i9 CPU failures could significantly impact gaming companies? If so, can you share your thoughts on how this might happen?

Luke Paglia (LP): Intel is having a tough time with the gaming community right now, and its response has been less than optimal. It has failed to reassure users that if Core i9 CPU buyers experience a problem, their hardware will be replaced with no questions asked, and that doesn’t do much to increase confidence. Rather, its reluctance suggests this could be a much bigger issue than first thought.

As far as game developers go, it’s a real source of frustration, but I don’t think it will cause them any serious difficulties, because video gamers seem to be well aware it’s an Intel problem and has nothing to do with the underlying game. The biggest impact will be felt in cloud gaming/online games. Alderon Games, which published an in-depth report into Intel’s faulty CPUs, has already taken measures to prevent further harm to the development of Path of Titans, conducting a mass migration of its servers to AMD processors. It claimed that it saw 100 times fewer crashes on games played on AMD chips, and I can see other concerned game developers taking similar steps.

BCN: Considering Intel’s massive reputation in the tech industry, some Web3 gamers assume it is game developers who are moving too fast. In your opinion, is the software development sector of the Web3 gaming space outpacing improvements in hardware infrastructure to support the products?

LP: No, it’s the opposite. Software developers have long struggled to keep up and take advantage of the additional computing power available to them, which is well known. Today’s hardware is more capable than ever — we have consoles we can take anywhere and play AAA games, and various mini handheld computers that can play the most advanced games with low-power settings.

Many of the problems and bugs we see in games have more to do with the lack of optimization. At some of the bigger development studios, programmers are under a lot of pressure to get things done fast, and many sacrifice the time-consuming optimization part to get their updates out of the door. So they don’t have time to iron out any kinks, resulting in the problems we see. This isn’t nearly as big a problem for smaller studios, because they don’t skip out on the optimization process. They can afford to wait and are willing to delay a new update or Xbox release to ensure the game is fully optimized and ready.

BCN: Could you explain the basic philosophy behind “My Pet Hooligan” and your plans to ensure it is an efficient game with a sustainable structure that will significantly contribute to the Next-Gen Web3 gaming ecosystem?

LP: Web3 gaming has aimed to integrate AAA-quality gameplay with play-and-earn mechanics, but no one has succeeded in doing this yet. We believe My Pet Hooligan will be the first to achieve this, and we have put together a talented team at AMGI Studios to make it happen, with experts in AI, gaming and animation who previously worked at big companies like Disney Pixar, Riot Games, EA, Warner Bros. and Industrial Light and Magic.

What we’re building is a social-action game that features cutting-edge motion capture, AI technology and high-quality animation, while simultaneously bridging the gap between traditional games and Web3 with digital assets that provide novel value to players.

We’re doing this to foster a greater connection between players and the game. For instance, My Pet Hooligan is the first shooter game to support real-time face animation that allows players to embody their NFTs in-game. By combining state-of-the-art graphics with thrilling gameplay and providing strong incentives with an in-game economy that won’t go sour, we will ensure players keep playing and progressing, and enjoy themselves while doing so.

BCN: Web3 multiplayer games are dynamic because developers need to consider efficiency across various internet jurisdictions. Therefore, developers must keep end-users with low-capacity infrastructure in mind when designing their games. For a multiplayer Web3 game developer, what steps do you think need to be taken to ensure the games run smoothly on low-end hardware with limited CPU capabilities?

LP: Blockchain games incorporate transactions so developers must ensure that these operations don’t disrupt the actual gaming experience. Lag and interruptions that result from blockchain interactions can be extremely detrimental to the in-game experience, and these are best solved with high-grade remote procedure calls that deliver data reliability, throughput and uptime.

Another challenge, which we saw at My Pet Hooligan, is the potential for sudden influxes of players and increased transitions, especially during major in-game events and following new updates. So we had to ensure our servers were primed for this. A working engine, i.e. a friction-free server with high throughput, is essential to handle any surge in traffic.

More generally, we can employ methods from traditional gaming, like categorizing devices according to their quality, and leveraging the quality settings in Unreal Engine. We also deliver different assets based on device quality. So high-end devices might get 4K or HD, while low-end ones get standard definition to reduce their memory footprint. And we can run different code paths based on the device’s quality settings, skipping some animations on lower-end devices to ensure smoother gameplay.

BCN: Some believe non-fungible tokens (NFTs), which surged in popularity last year, are dead or dying slowly. They cite declining trading volumes and falling prices for some of the most expensive collections as evidence. As someone involved in the NFT space, do you believe this art form is fading? If not, why do you think NFTs are here to stay?

LP: Traditional NFT art that lacks any real utility may not always remain as popular as it was when it first became a thing, but the purpose of NFTs is evolving, and in the gaming industry they’re going to play a very meaningful role as they enable the concept of collectable, digital content that has tangible value. NFTs allow game developers to innovate and bring new forms of value to players while transforming the way players interact with each other. By allowing players to become owners and stakeholders in their gaming journey, NFTs can help to enrich gaming communities drive stronger engagement and encourage more people to invest their time, energy and money in the games they love playing.

BCN: As the world braces for an artificial intelligence (AI) boom, many have expressed concerns about what this means for user-generated content. Could you explain to our readers how the growth of AI impacts the creation and consumption of user-generated content?

LP: There are justifiable fears about the rise of AI monopolizing content creation, due to the speed it works and its incredible scale, but at the same time we must remember that there’s always a human who is telling that AI what to do. And that AI is making it possible for more people, who lack the skills to create high-quality content themselves, to explore their creative side simply by describing the ideas they have.

For example, Github’s Copilot doesn’t replace human coders, but it does make coding easier for novices. AI speeds up and augments human creativity and makes it more accessible and I believe more rapid innovation will be the result.

I think it’s likely we’ll also see people are willing to pay a premium for “authentic”, human-generated content. AI content is often recognizable but it still faces a lot of problems, like erroneous facts in written outputs and problems with the finer details, like human hands and text in images. People may begin to value authentic human creativity, which doesn’t have these issues, even more so in a world that’s flooded with synthetic content.

BCN: Where do you see Web3 gaming by 2030, especially in the areas of game development, infrastructural expansion, and market size?

LP: The Web3 gaming market has already advanced considerably from the days when Axie Infinity ruled the roost, and we’re seeing more top-tier games integrating with blockchain capabilities. At AMGI Studios, one of our goals with My Pet Hooligan is to make the Web3 gaming experience indistinguishable from Web2, and we’re very close to doing that. The Web3 mechanics simply enhance the exciting Web2 game experience, providing more value for players than was previously possible.

When the first Web3 games make their mark on Web2 gaming audiences, it’s going to open the floodgates, and ultimately I think there will be no more distinction between the two. Every game in future will integrate blockchain technology and that will drive rapid growth in the blockchain industry itself, with more decentralized networks that are dedicated towards gamers. The market size for Web3 gaming is as big as the gaming industry itself, and it will get there.