Our GAM3 Awards, a key event in the web3 gaming landscape, is set to make a return in 2023. The event's jury lineup, a blend of familiar faces from 2022 and new representatives from various sectors of web3 gaming, has been unveiled. Notable additions include figures from web3 gaming venture capital firms, blockchain and ecosystem experts, infrastructure partners, and content creators, alongside established gaming leaders and tech giants like Amazon and Google.

We are proud to introduce one of our jury members Manish Agarwal, an IIM-A & NIT-W alum who joined India's nascent gaming ecosystem 15 years ago. As the CEO of Nazara, he was the driving force in making it India's first & only publicly listed gaming company. Manish is currently building the world's largest web3 gaming community with IndiGG, to onboard the country's 500M+ gamers.

Manish has worked relentlessly to develop the Indian gaming ecosystem with over 20 years of experience across Unilever, Microsoft, rediff.com, UTV, and Reliance Entertainment. Manish has been actively driving representation on behalf of the industry on various issues. He is presently the convener of the online gaming committees at leading industry associations like the FICCI Gaming Committee (FGC) and the Digital Gaming Committee at the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI). He is also a founding member of the Indian Game Developers Forum.

As a self-confessed voracious reader, Manish’s strength is his ability to completely get in sync with any current digital trends and mold it towards the betterment of his business. Manish has guided his teams towards adopting business models that can accommodate the changes of the recurrently shifting digital trends by keeping the monetization arrangement unharmed. 

1. What is the most enjoyable part of your role? 

"To be able to create respect for a gamer in the eyes of their parents when their child becomes famous in local micro community and generates some micro income from his gaming skills."

2. How do you see the progress made in web3 gaming since last year? 

"I am seeing the following:

i. Many tourists (game developers, guilds, etc) have vanished and good builders are busy building solid foundational ventures. 

ii. High-quality games are coming! The second half of 2024 will be super exciting.

iii. Lots of onboarding and infrastructure issues have been resolved and it seems ripe time for adoption-focused Dapps to shine."

3. What is the most valuable addition web3 brings into gaming, from your perspective, if any? 

"Ownership of course. At Kratos, we are striving to bring ownership to gamers through blockchain and that excites me. However, web3 is an infrastructure play for upcoming games across genres, and when this happens you gain several benefits, the most obvious being ownership and interoperability but this also means new forms of game designs might develop on top of these open economy-designed games and metaverses."

4. What is your outlook on 2024 and beyond for web3 gaming?

"Globally, I see the emergence of freemium Tokenomics in Asia leading the change of guard in gaming; from zero economic benefits to gamer to sharing of economic value between games and gamers. The other exciting thing is the upcoming web3 games themselves, games take time to build and there have been quite a few web3 games that have been building since the early 2020s or 2021s. We will start seeing quite a few of those games starting in 2024."

The return of our GAM3 Awards in 2023 promises to be a celebration of the web3 gaming industry's growth and innovation. With industry figures like Manish on the jury, the event is set to recognize excellence in the ever-evolving world of web3 gaming.