Expert Takes: Jamie King

Jamie, as a co-founder of Rockstar Games, you are one of the pioneers of the modern games industry. How do you view the current state of the metaverse and Web3 gaming, and where does it go from here?

The metaverse is already alive and well in the Web 2.0 world with Roblox, Fortnite, and GTA Online. I think they can definitely be called metaverses. But the crucial next step is rolling this out at scale. We need to build the real estate that makes everyone want to come and play.

That requires toolkits and UI infrastructure that make it really easy for metaverse builders to create assets of clear value—and that make other people want to be in the metaverse. AI could well be part of the solution, accelerating the creation of experiences and aiding mass adoption. For one thing, it could help solve the “empty playground” syndrome by filling up metaverses and making them fun spaces full of interactive 3D NPCs. I also think strategic partnerships and collaborations between metaverses will be important in creating value.

There are other challenges to overcome too. Think about the graphics quality of AAA games and then visualize a metaverse at scale, with all its players, props, and assets.

But I’d say the hardest thing in video games is accumulating the right tools to hook the creative community and make it easy for users to quickly design really fun experiences. That’s what brings in audiences. When such experiences shine, that drives word of mouth. Your friends are playing, so you want to play too. That’s the biggest hill to climb right now in Web3 gaming—we need a high-quality gameplay experience that gets everyone talking. And I think we’ll see that very soon.

What are the fundamental ingredients of Web3 gaming? How does it change the game?

The main pillar of Web3 gaming is that you can own your own assets. The sums of money that are being spent in traditional gaming are huge: microtransactions now account for $100 billion of the industry’s $180 billion in revenue. But you are only renting those assets within an ecosystem where you don’t have any control over the rules, and where those rules can change at any time. In Web3 gaming, you have true ownership and can have decentralised governance and community-driven development. And because of blockchain technology, this ownership is transparent. All transactions on in-game assets are secure, immutable, and unchangeable.

So you have blockchain technology, which gives you true ownership of in-game assets. You also have play-to-earn, which enables gamers to make money via those in-game assets. But crucially, there’s also the idea of community-driven development. If you look at the history of Web3 games, they have always been very community‑driven, with community feedback and involvement. That makes perfect sense: if I now own these assets, then I care about this brand, I care about this game, and it makes me more active as a community member.

Why do you find decentralised governance so exciting? What does it change?

I think that more brains are better than one. No matter how smart your company is—and no matter how smart the people in your company are—there are always going to be a lot of other smart people elsewhere. If you can harness that, it’s like having a team of world-class experts constantly at your disposal.

This interview is from our first opus, released in June 2024. You can read the full opus here on our website.