Democratizing Game Development: Slashing Dev Costs with DePIN (#62)
September 4, 2025 | 50:09 | Episode 62
In episode #61 of the DePINed Podcast, host Tom Trowbridge sits down with Jon Radoff, founder & CEO of Beamable, to unpack how decentralized infrastructure is reshaping the $230B+ global gaming industry. This is a vertical we don’t often explore in DePIN, but one that might hold the biggest potential of all.
Gaming’s Hidden Engine: The Backend Stack
Everyone knows Unity and Unreal power the front-end visuals of modern games. But few outside the industry realize how massive and complex the backend infrastructure is: multiplayer servers, databases, payment rails, content updates, social features, and more.
Radoff estimates that up to 20% of gaming revenue is spent just on infrastructure. For a company like Roblox, that’s hundreds of millions per year. And much of it goes to centralized cloud giants.
What Beamable Does
Beamable provides a full-stack backend platform purpose-built for game developers—from multiplayer logic and persistence to payments and live updates. With Beamable, studios don’t need to rebuild infrastructure from scratch.
In late 2024, Beamable is launching its own DePIN network to decentralize this backend layer—delivering up to 70% savings on compute and 90% on bandwidth compared to AWS. Even more crucially, developers won’t risk vendor lock-in or service shutdowns (like Amazon did with GameSparks).
Why This Matters for Developers
By turning backend into a modular plug-and-play system:
Studios lower both CapEx and OpEx.
Small teams can launch competitive multiplayer games.
Developers keep full sovereignty over infrastructure.
And Beamable supports over 100 live games today. Developers get up to 500K free API calls/month, removing infrastructure costs during early development. Monetization kicks in only as games scale.
Beamable’s DePIN Architecture
Beamable’s network consists of two types of nodes:
Worker Nodes — vetted compute providers that handle game workloads.
Checker Nodes — lightweight validators that monitor performance, SLAs, and fairness.
Node operators name their prices; studios pay in fiat or crypto. A native token powers staking, slashing, and name registry functions—all governed via Beamable’s protocol.
Beamable’s approach is verticalized: deeply tailored to game workloads but designed for broad composability with other DePIN networks.
Vision: Taking on the Hyperscalers
Jon Radoff doesn’t want to replace AWS overnight. But his ambition is clear: Beamable is building toward a world where a meaningful share of global game infrastructure—currently monopolized by the big 3 clouds—is delivered via decentralized networks.
With a growing customer base, battle-tested SDKs, and a network-ready architecture, Beamable is set to unlock the next generation of onchain and offchain games.
About DePINed Podcast
DePINed is a podcast exploring the frontier of decentralized physical infrastructure, hosted by Tom Trowbridge, co-founder of Fluence. Each episode features in-depth conversations with founders, builders, and investors who are shaping the future of real-world Web3 networks.
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