Leading gaming company Immutable X (IMX) announces that Immutable zkEVM — a next-gen Zero-Knowledge (ZK) proof-based scaling platform developed in collaboration with Polygon Labs — will allow developers to completely abstract transaction fees for frictionless onboarding and enhanced user experience. As it stands today, gas fees — or commissions that users must pay to process their transactions — are among the biggest roadblocks for the mass adoption of decentralized gaming.

Despite being an essential and integral part of any web3 ecosystem used to incentivize miners or node operators to keep blockchains secure, democratic, and decentralized, transaction fees can also be detrimental and strenuous for players, especially those coming from traditional gaming communities.

“There are a couple of norms in the blockchain space that mainstream players simply won’t accept — gas fees fall into that category. To truly appeal to all gamers, web3 games must be able to offer players a familiar and streamlined user experience, making the blockchain components as effortless and native as possible,” said Alex Connolly, CTO and Co-Founder at Immutable. “Gas fees are one of the most prohibitive elements when integrating digital asset ownership into games, and Immutable is setting the new standard by removing them from the player experience altogether.”

VanEck, one of the world's top 10 ETF issuers with over $65B in assets under management, recently singled out Immutable as the top contender in the web3 gaming space most likely to attract millions of traditional gamers. In their latest predictions for 2024, VanEck touched on Immutable’s approach to delivering an exceptional user experience via Immutable Passport and other tech innovations, stating how they “resolve many of the technical pain points that have inhibited the success of Web3 gaming so far.”

This latest innovation seeks to build upon that recognition by addressing one of the most pressing challenges in web3 gaming – the issue of gas fees. Apart from adding unnecessary hurdles to the user experience, gas fees also require players to always be mindful of having extra funds in the right wallet, often in the form of a blockchain’s native token to pay for transactions. For gamers, in particular, this means they usually have to jump through several hoops (bridging, swapping, on-ramping, etc.) to get the correct currency in the right place at the right time.

To solve this issue once and for all, Immutable zkEVM — a gaming-focused chain that offers full compatibility with the Ethereum Virtual Machine, unlimited scalability, and enterprise-grade security — will enable game developers to eliminate the very concept of gas fees, making them not only invisible but essentially non-existent for players.

This will make trying out new games significantly more affordable by removing the industry's most challenging user experience barriers. By leveraging Immutable zkEVM, game developers can sponsor gas fees for any Immutable Passport user, entirely abstracting away these commissions to enable frictionless onboarding and increased transaction conversion rates.

When the Immutable zkEVM mainnet goes live early next year, Immutable plans to sponsor gas fees for all games in its ecosystem for a limited time to ensure a smooth transition. Because of all the steps Immutable has taken to ensure Immutable zkEVM is gas efficient, the cost to game studios will be negligible — approximately $500-$1,000 for every 100,000 users. With proper game economy design, Immutable believes gas sponsorship will increase player adoption, conversion, and overall revenue for game studios, far outweighing the cost of gas.

Ultimately, Immutable zkEVM and Immutable Passport will allow developers to not only abstract gas fees away from their player experience but also potentially pave the way for a new monetization model in the gaming industry. By treating the cost of gas sponsorship like traditional server or infrastructure costs, games will be able to introduce digital asset ownership in a way that benefits players and game studios alike.