When home consoles first entered the gaming market, their appeal was clear: “An arcade in your living room.” The pitch was simple and compelling, but the reality often fell short. Early consoles couldn’t match the sheer sensory power of arcade machines—nor could they replicate the communal buzz of playing games shoulder-to-shoulder with friends in a neon-lit arcade.
Still, the promise was there, and for a time, consoles relied on mimicking what had come before. Titles like Pac-Man and Donkey Kong were arcade staples, and bringing them into the home was a natural starting point. But these early efforts often felt hollow. The hardware was weaker, the visuals were simplified, and the games weren’t designed to sustain long periods of play on a couch. The home console was, in its infancy, a skeuomorphic imitation of the arcade, a new medium trying to justify itself by recreating the old.
And yet, even in those early years, there were glimmers of something more.
The Turning Point
The breakthrough didn’t come from more faithful arcade ports or better graphics. It came when developers started asking a simple question: What can consoles do that arcades can’t?
The answer wasn’t obvious at first. The limitations of early consoles—rudimentary graphics, slower processors, and no coin slots to monetize a player’s every failure—seemed more like obstacles than opportunities. But those constraints forced creativity.
Take Adventure on the Atari 2600. It didn’t look like much, with its blocky graphics and abstract shapes. But it offered something profound: exploration. Instead of trying to capture the fast-paced intensity of an arcade game, Adventure gave players a world to discover at their own pace. It was messy and imperfect, but it hinted at the possibilities of the medium.
Then came The Legend of Zelda, a game that revolutionized how people thought about home consoles. It wasn’t just that the game was expansive; it was that it invited players to return to it, day after day, to continue their journey. With the advent of save systems, players could leave behind the "one-and-done" mentality of arcades and embrace something new: persistence. Console gaming didn’t have to be about chasing high scores. It could be about building something, discovering something, and growing alongside the game.
Other games followed, leaning into what made consoles unique. Super Mario Bros. introduced levels that felt like living, breathing worlds. Final Fantasy brought sweeping narratives and character progression that unfolded over dozens of hours. These were experiences no arcade could replicate—not because consoles had finally caught up, but because consoles had found their voice.
Embracing the Unique Affordances of a Medium
This story has played out in other mediums, too. Early films often resembled stage plays, with static cameras capturing the action as if the audience were seated in a theater. It wasn’t until filmmakers embraced the unique affordances of cinema—camera movement, editing, visual effects—that the medium began to truly evolve. The same can be said for early mobile apps, which mimicked desktop interfaces before designers began to understand the power of touchscreens and mobility.
In each case, the turning point came when creators stopped looking backward and started looking inward. Instead of asking how to recreate the old, they asked how to embrace the new—its constraints, its possibilities, and its unique way of engaging people.
What This Means for Onchain Gaming
There’s a lesson here for anyone working with a new medium, and it’s one that onchain gaming is just beginning to learn. Like early consoles, many onchain games are still imitating what came before—adding blockchain elements to traditional game structures without fully embracing what makes the blockchain unique.
But as with consoles, the real breakthrough won’t come from copying the past. It will come when developers start to ask: What can onchain games do that traditional games can’t?
The answer to that question isn’t fully clear yet, and that’s what makes this moment so exciting. Just as early console developers leaned into persistence, exploration, and player ownership, onchain games will find their breakthroughs by embracing the blockchain’s unique affordances—and maybe even its constraints.
History shows us that every medium needs time to find its voice. Onchain gaming is still in its early days, but the potential is there. The question now is whether we’ll have the patience—and the creativity—to let it grow into something truly its own.
