Gaming is very often viewed as the key to mass adoption of blockchain tech, and the driving force of the GameFi sector is in-game tokens and NFTs. It is no secret that GameFi is generating serious buzz throughout the cryptocurrency world, but there are certain limitations that currently slow down GameFi development, such as a poor in-game experience, economy, and lack of in-game asset composability. One of the biggest shortcomings of the GameFi sector is the lack of interoperability between blockchains. How can Rubic’s Cross-Chain Tools solve these issues for GameFi projects? Let’s find out!

GameFi Sector as Part of Web3

Let’s explore why Web3 gaming is considered a key area of focus for Web3 development.

Source: Hypermint

The trend of the GameFi market tends to follow that of the crypto market in general, with it declining from $23.2B to $4.3B, down 81.5% year-to-date. In November 2021, GameFi’s market cap reached its peak of $26.6B before its drop. During the first two months of 2022, the market continued to decline, but StepN came along and changed everything, turning the market around and driving the market cap of GameFi to an all-time high. However, StepN’s boom didn’t last long.

Source: Gamefi 2022 Review & 2023 Outlook By BitMetis&BitMart

Because of the market downturn, the price of almost every GameFi token experienced a sharp decrease. However, the number of active users became more stable. The boom in active user numbers was triggered by the hype of Axie Infinity during the middle of 2021, which was the beginning of GameFi’s bull market. It reached its peak on January 6, 2022, with over 1.1M daily active users.

Source: Gamefi 2022 Review & 2023 Outlook By BitMetis&BitMart

After that peak, there were two more rounds of the boom in the number of active users.

Moreover, Gaming projects received 16% of blockchain industry investments, more than any other kind. Total investment in gaming increased by 84% from

Source: Gamefi 2022 Review & 2023 Outlook By BitMetis&BitMart

2021 to 2022. As of 2022, 717 new blockchain games have been launched. Undoubtedly, the Web3 Gaming ecosystem is expanding and growing.

Then why are GameFi profits decreasing?

GameFi had its initial glory until the third and fourth quarters of 2021. Although people still invest in GameFi, profits are decreasing steadily, along with the bear market.

According to State of Crypto’s survey, 89% of crypto investors worldwide saw their GameFi profits decrease in the last six months. 62% of respondents lost more than 50% of their profits from GameFi.

This drastic drop also comes from poor game economy design. As a result, players lose interest, and the game’s performance declines, resulting in heavy losses for investors.

To grow further, GameFi has to provide its users with a seamless in-game experience. Graphics, plot, UX/UI, speed of interaction, assets, and transactions still need to be improved, especially when compared to traditional gaming. Whether or not a GameFi project operates smoothly depends on its chain’s processing speed. If that speed is slower, then the user’s experience will be negatively affected, and players will be disappointed, impatient, and lose motivation to continue playing.

The presence of GameFi dApps on several blockchains (Multi-chain solutions) seemed to solve these problems.

Most of the obstacles to blockchain game expansion come from the fact that they are built on a single blockchain, with trading tools and transaction fee structures that are more suited to financial transactions rather than games.

Being multi-chain, a game solves such problems as slow transaction speeds and expensive gas fees, since it provides users with valuable flexibility. This feature allows them to experience a game in any chain where it is available, at their own convenience.

More remarkably, every time a new chain is connected, it brings in a community of new users. This can help to improve the stagnation of blockchain games when it comes to the situation where new players can’t be drawn in, and old players are already over-exposed in terms of further investments.

However, while creating a Multi-Chain ecosystem, GameFi came to face another issue.

What we see right now is a fragmented landscape of games, based on dozens of competing, non-interoperable blockchains. In this multi-chain Web3 GameFi environment, a cross-chain solution is necessary to support blockchain interoperability. Though there are 3 major chains in Web3 gaming — BNB Chain, Ethereum, and Polygon — they still lack interoperability. There is still no comprehensive solution to transfer tokens across chains within any one game’s ecosystem.

Cross-chain interoperability is needed across multi-chain games. Interoperability also lowers the barrier of entry into any game space, whether it is multi-chain or not.

For instance, when someone begins playing Axie Infinity, they are required to purchase three Axies before starting to play. To buy AXS, a newcomer has to leave the game platform and go to a CEX or DEX to purchase assets at an unfavorable rate. Imagine if gamers could buy AXS in a one-click action directly within the game interface — it would remove that barrier of entry for many gamers.

GameFi: From Multi-Chain to Cross-Chain

Let us explain how Rubic’s Cross-Chain Tools can be a ready-to-use solution to connect multiple blockchains within any GameFi project. We’ll use an average Web3 game based on several networks as an example.

Usually, Multi-Chain games have several Game Interfaces built on various blockchains. All Interfaces have their own unique flavors and different opportunities for players.

The Rubic Cross-Chain Tools solution can allow players to easily onboard and transfer tokens from the chain of their choice into the game. Let’s explore the problem we’re dealing with here in more detail.

Unfortunately, no major exchanges currently offer in-game assets.

For now, the easiest solution to get in-game tokens includes several steps:

1. A player has to do his/her own research to find exchanges where the desired token is listed.

Different platforms have different levels of security, reliability, and liquidity. It requires a lot of comparing and analysis to choose the one exchange with the most cost-efficient rates.

2. The player has to find supported pairs. The second currency is what users can utilize to purchase game tokens.

3. Then if the player doesn’t have the cryptocurrency required to purchase in-game tokens, he/she has to obtain it.

The purchase of in-game crypto with a fiat currency like USD is generally easier than with another crypto. But if the user decides to purchase in-game tokens with different crypto, he’ll need to buy the first currency and use it to buy game tokens on the exchange he chooses.

As we see it, the current solution lacks interoperability between blockchains and wastes users’ time. Players cannot easily purchase in-game assets from any network they prefer.

In a situation like this, integrating Rubic’s Cross-Chain Tools would give users the ability to purchase in-game tokens with thousands of assets on 70+ networks, or with fiat currency via our Fiat On-ramp solution, directly on their website or within their game.

Rubic’s Cross-Chain Tools. SDK and Widget to the Rescue!

Rubic provides easily-integrated solutions to simplify the transformation from a multi-chain game to a blockchain-interoperable Web3 GameFi ecosystem. There are a few main reasons for a GameFi project to become blockchain-interoperable:

1. Wider Audience

Rubic’s Cross-Chain Tools open up a GameFi project to new audiences, allowing users to enter any gamespace seamlessly and without additional actions, regardless of what blockchain their funds are located on.

2. More User Opportunities and Usability

With the Rubic SDK or Widget, GameFi projects will give players more opportunities to purchase their in-game assets, allowing them to purchase tokens with 15,500+ assets from 70+ blockchains.

Gamers won’t need to go to a CEX or any other external provider to purchase assets at their high rates — they will simply go to the game’s website or the game itself and make the best deal right there. Thus, GameFi projects will attract more users and multiply their trading volume.

3. Easier Onboarding

Rubic’s Cross-Chain Tools ensure that newcomers will have an easier entry into the Game Space.

The Rubic Widget, along with cross-chain swaps between 70+ networks, provides newcomers to crypto, and GameFi in particular, with a simple-to-use tool for transferring their Fiat to Crypto. A built-in Fiat On-ramp solution is ideal for those who are curious about Web3 gaming, but don’t yet know how to get started.

The process of transferring Fiat to in-game tokens is made simple with the Rubic Widget. It enhances a user’s experience within any Game Space and invites newcomers to enter the game effortlessly.

The first stage in building interoperability is to provide a built-in solution for cross-chain swaps. Battle-tested by the market, Rubic’s SDK and Widget lead the pack in several ways:

1. A huge number of tokens and DEXs are supported. 15,500+ tokens on 70+ blockchains for swapping (out of 20,200 tokens circulating in the crypto market) utilizing 200+ aggregated DEXs that provide the best transaction routes and ample liquidity.
2. Best UX/UI as a one-click experience. Сross-chain swaps have a complicated route — Swap -> Bridge/DEX -> Swap — which Rubic packs into a one-click transaction.
3. Best rates & trade times. On Rubic, the average transaction time takes around 90 seconds. The algorithm used at Rubic optimizes transactions to save on gas and fees, thus finding the best deal on the market in the most efficient time.
4. Security & liquidity. Due to the aggregation of DEXs, providers, and bridges, users are guaranteed ample liquidity when making a purchase. No user’s funds have ever been kept on Rubic’s platform; every transaction is performed by sending calls to Rubic’s providers’ smart contracts. An additional note, Rubic’s technical support is available 24/7.
5. Adjustable fees. Up to 50% of the fees coming from trades via Rubic’s SDK/widget go straight to our integrators. Besides the fees taken by Rubic, projects can choose preferable additional trading fees that will be charged by the platform via Rubic’s widget/SDK.

You can explore our articles devoted to Rubic Cross-Chain Tools to better understand the integration process and the key benefits of integrating our solution.

1. Rubic: A Cross-Chain Tech Aggregator for the Interoperable Future of Web3
2. DEX Omnichain Future: Rubic Tools as a Way to Go Cross-Chain
3. How to Drive Your Token Sales on Your Website

There are multiple options for a GameFi project to go Cross-Chain with Rubic: integrate our Widget into their website, implement our SDK directly into their game, or both.

Rubic Widget

Integrating the Rubic Widget will take just a few clicks. To make our technology easy to integrate, Rubic created a Widget Configurator. This feature allows developers to:

• Customize the dark/light mode theme and choose a background color, so developers can match it with the look of the game interface.
• Input UI translations to match their customer’s preferred language.
• Set up an initial/destination token and blockchain, then choose the default amount of tokens to swap.

The Rubic Widget, with its minimalistic and classic design, will be a great fit for any project’s existing interface. The process of integration is simple and usually takes no more than 10 minutes to integrate.

The Rubic Widget has been integrated by numerous GameFI projects such as Decision and Kompete.

Rubic SDK

SDK integrations may take more time, but it’s definitely worth it! Developers can make it fit perfectly into their game’s art style, as the Rubic’s SDK gives developers full control over the UI design. The Rubic SDK is also a fully whitelabel solution. This enables developers to hide the fact that their in-game cross-chain solution comes from an external provider.

As a white-label solution, Rubic’s SDK can be easily integrated into a game’s UI, by letting developers write their own logic in the code on how users will go through each step when making a swap. The UX is clear and friendly to the extent that any crypto novice will understand how to make a cross-chain or on-chain swap.

Going Forward

As GameFi continues to evolve, Rubic’s Cross-Chain Tools also continues to improve and aggregate new types of Cross-Chain solutions. We envision the Rubic SDK as the ultimate all-in-one cross-chain solution for any dApps, especially GameFi, which will be key for the mass adoption of crypto.

Let’s make GameFi interoperable!