I was recently asked: “what are the best-designed Web3 games with sustainable economics?”

For the time being, there’s an easy answer to this – close to none. 

While several projects have shown short-term growth, no game has yet achieved sustainable scale – which is necessary to evaluate the long-term viability of an in-game economy.

Let’s dive into a few thoughts:

1. Structural Realities of Game Development

The gaming industry is one of the fastest-growing globally, but the development cycle remains long and capital-intensive. Most quality games require 2-5+ years of development and a high degree of specialized expertise. 

On top of this, development budgets range from several million dollars for mobile to hundreds of millions of dollars for console and PC games – far exceeding the average treasury in Web3 gaming. 

These factors make it difficult for gaming tokens to navigate a space mainly driven by attention and ever-shifting narratives.

2. Early-Stage Scale vs. Long-Term Stability

Projects like Axie Infinity and Pixels achieved significant early scale