As gaming giants crumble, onchain gaming promises remain unfulfilled

Opinion by: Daryl Xu, co-founder and CEO, NPC Labs

While gaming has been on a steady decline since the end of COVID-19 lockdowns, 2024 hit the industry especially hard, with layoffs and studio closures hitting even the most prominent studios. 

While unsustainable development costs and an innovation crisis seem to be the main culprits behind the collapse, Web3 gaming emerged as a potential solution promising to return power to developers — and it raised billions of dollars in investment to do so. 

Yet, despite a continued rise in crypto adoption,…