The IP-based blind box on the chain may become a brand-new fan economy model, but the current development of NFT is still limited by the underlying infrastructure.
Original title: “Bubble Mart Revelation: Blind Box + IP Will Be the Key to NFT Outbreak? 》
Author: Zheng Yi
“356 times oversubscription, the dark market closed up 103%, with a valuation of 46 billion.”
One and a half years after the delisting of the New Third Board, Wang Ning took his Bubble Mart to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange again. Compared with the previous valuation of 2 billion yuan, this time it is more triumphant than a king, and its value has skyrocketed. After 21 times, the “Blind Box One Brother” deserved it.
According to the prospectus, during the three years from 2017 to 2019, Bubble Mart’s revenue was 158 million, 514 million, and 1.683 million, up 80%, 226%, and 227% year-on-year; net profit was 1.56 million and 9952 Million, 451 million, a 289-fold increase in just three years.
Behind the beautiful report card is the success of Bubble Mart’s “addiction” economy. The “surprise” at the moment of opening the box and the “sense of accomplishment” of collecting hidden models are actually the magic weapon for the Molly dolls in the blind box.
As a representative of new consumption, the trendy play represented by Bubble Mart, like the recent emergence of NFT players in the crypto community, is a niche subculture. Therefore, Bubble Mart successfully went out of the circle in just a few years. The entire NFT track has certain reference significance.
TCG cards, electronic collectibles and NFT
The blind box mode is not the first of Bubble Mart, the market is already hot. As a childhood memory of many generations born in the 80s and 90s, Pokémon began issuing TCG cards as early as 1996. Nintendo of Japan printed Pikachu, Little Fire Dragon, Jenny Turtle and other well-known Pokémon images into cards. On sale, collectors are eager for it.
The full name of TCG card is “Trading Card Game”. Each card pack contains a fixed number of cards. The card pack is opaque. Collectors will get random cards after unpacking. There are basic cards. There are also limited models. For enthusiasts, collecting basic cards is only the primary goal, and collecting limited funds is the reason for constantly “choosing hands”. According to official data, as of 2019, the Pokemon series of cards have been issued in 77 countries and regions around the world, with 12 languages being issued, and the cumulative number of cards sold worldwide exceeds 27.2 billion.
In addition to Pokémon, there are also TCG cards sold by the Japanese manga “Yugong”. This card set the Guinness record of “World’s Best Selling TCG” in 2009. According to data, In 2019 alone, its sales reached 27.3 billion yen, equivalent to about 1.7 billion yuan.
Pokémon card pack (left) and Yu-Gi-Oh card pack (right)
In addition to TCG card packs, as a lever to stimulate consumption, game manufacturers have already introduced them, and even become a common means to pull new and promote activities. In the E-sports game Ancient Ruins Guardian War DOTA2, players can buy treasure chests, and they will randomly get accessories after opening the boxes. At the same time, there will be a very small chance of obtaining hidden rewards such as messengers and rare sets. In the Onmyoji mobile game launched by NetEase, the surprise of drawing cards is pushed to the extreme, “Did you get SSR today?” Once dominated the hot search, it became a topic of interest among players.
From paper cards, polyethylene toys to electronic collectibles, the blockchain is finally stored on the chain, which seems to be a natural development path for innovative crypto entrepreneurs.
In 2018, the application Crypto Kitties on Ethereum suddenly became popular. Users can collect, incubate, and purchase unique virtual kitties. This gameplay also brought the NFT technology behind the application into flames. The so-called NFT is a non-homogeneous token, which has the characteristics of uniqueness and indivisibility, and these characteristics are naturally compatible with scarce products.
In July of the same year, a blockchain game called Gods Unchained opened for pre-sale. The game is very similar to the classic card battle game Hearthstone, and retains the features of opening and collecting cards, the biggest difference Yes, all cards in Gods Unchained are NFTized. According to the game’s official explanation, the NFTized cards are not restricted by the platform, they can be traded and circulated freely on the chain, and they will never disappear.
The pre-sale of this game has attracted more than 9 million yuan in just half a month. A large number of players paid to purchase card packs, and the potential of NFT cards seemed to be revealed at that moment.
The hidden worries behind the blind box, scarcity and permanent preservation
From the mediocre trendy play company to the hot purple blind box brother, although Bubble Mart’s road to market seems to be smooth, there are still hidden worries behind the physical blind box model.
In order to stimulate consumption and repurchase, Bubble Mart has launched many “hidden” blind boxes. Players need to try their luck without breaking the box to have a very small probability of getting it in the bag. In order to obtain hidden money, fanatic fans “end box” directly open the whole box has become a commonplace meal, but there are sane users who do not catch a cold, and even call it “IQ tax.”
These users believe that the scarcity of each hidden item is completely determined by Bubble Mart, and there is no total amount limit. If Bubble Mart releases a large number of hidden models at some point in the future, the value of the figure will be greatly increased. shrink. “Uncertainty of real scarcity” has also become a psychological threshold to prevent players from entering the “hidden money” market.
Sheng Chao, the founder of iNFT, said to PANews: “Although blind box games give users a material and spiritual stimulus, due to the opacity of the rules, the interests drive the lower part of the merchants to perform various “black box operations”, which reduces the number of players. The trust of many users has gradually lost.”
In his view, NFT and blind box economy are naturally complementary and can naturally be combined. NFT is unique, indivisible, and the total amount is determined by the characteristics of the code to determine its asset attributes. At the same time, the blind box mode can add entertainment characteristics to NFT assets, which caters to the psychological characteristics of users to get a sense of surprise.
If the brand’s “additional issuance” may cause the value of hidden models to decrease. The fakes copied by pirates in bulk will deal a fatal blow to the hidden models. In the field of TCG cards, a large number of pirated rare cards have been put on the market. As the threshold for fraudulent paper cards is too low, crazy pirates even directly reproduce the entire set of cards.
Although the electronic collectibles based on the game IP cannot be faked, the lifetime of the IP also determines the lifetime of the collectible. Once the server stops serving, the player’s assets will be wiped out. In today’s rapid iteration of the game industry, many games have a life span of months, and it is rare that they can continue to operate for several years.
Comparison of physical collections, electronic collections and NFT
“If NFT is used as the underlying technology of the product, then electronic collectibles can be stored forever.” Yang Xinqi, founder of DPAY Wallet, told PANews. As a senior programmer who has worked with code for many years, he thinks it is cool to combine the “blind box economy” with NFT technology. “The data on the blockchain cannot be tampered with. The blind box on the chain based on NFT technology can greatly improve the fairness of merchants to customers.” At the same time, in Yang Xinqi’s view, the NFTization of traditional game assets is the future development direction.
Superposition of liquidity and financial attributes
“When you open it to the ordinary model, you will definitely be discounted, and the “Thunder model” is worthless. Of course, the hidden model can make a lot of money, but there is such a small chance that there is such good luck!” Blind box senior player Yuan Renwei complained to PANews Tao. From contact with blind boxes to now, various styles of Molly figures are full of his bookcases. “The taste has changed since then, and I feel more like a gambling.”
A large number of blind box figures lie on the bookcase and eat ashes, but Yuan Renwei also has no idea of selling them, the main reason is “too troublesome.” Whether it is looking for buyers, mailing, confirming receipt, etc., it is very cumbersome for office workers. Looking at the dazzling array of figures, Yuan Renwei’s interest in opening blind boxes has gradually declined. The lack of fluidity and hands-on Shen Yushi are chronic poisons for Bubble Mart.
Compared with blind boxes, the liquidity of electronic collections is completely subject to the rules of centralized issuers. For example, in a game like Hearthstone, the card is completely unavailable for circulation and trading, and the user’s investment can only increase the value of the account, that is, unless the user transfers the entire account, the external value of any single asset approaches zero. Although items such as accessories, suits, and messengers in the competitive game DOTA2 can be traded, there are also strict trading restrictions, such as the number of transactions and the time for adding friends.
The good cycle of the internal economic market is actually a product that lasts for a long time. NetEase developed and launched the online game Fantasy Westward Journey in 2003. Although the gameplay is simple and the model is rough, it still occupies an important position in the market today, 13 years later. The important factor is to allow players to freely trade items, pets and even accounts. The “Treasure Pavilion” system.
“The ERC-721 non-homogeneous token standard that NFT relies on has a short time to form, and it is understandable that its implementation is slow. However, in the future, if game companies combine blockchain technology, they will form a new competitive advantage. NFT is a solution to asset liquidity. Excellent solution.” Yang Xinqi said.
Gods Unchained, which is asset NFT, has completed the “economic internal circulation system” from the starting line. According to a report from the data analysis platform Alethio, in November 2019, when the game’s trading market went online, the number of card transactions on the chain rose rapidly, surpassing USDT within a week.
Behind the rush of players is actually the victory of asset liquidity. From purchase, to unpacking and then to transaction, users form a clear consumption closed loop. The repurchase behavior of players after “self-blowing” has further stimulated the sales of card packs.
In addition to increasing liquidity for blind boxes, NFT technology can also magnify the financial attributes of products. When the DeFi aggregator DEGO was launched, there was a “blind box” airdrop. Users only need to pay the smart contract call fee to get a random level of hammer. The hammer can not only be sold in the secondary market, but also in the DEGO system. China participates in mining, governance and dividends.
NFT development: Blind box play is supplemented, IP is the key
As a blind box brother, the success of Bubble Mart is closely related to IP management. The blond baby Molly is memorized by people. Whether you think it is cute, charming or even ugly, it really hits consumption. The aesthetics of the reader. Various basic models, various linkage models, and hidden models that emptied players’ wallets have become Molly’s core tags.
In addition to Molly, the founder of Bubble Mart Wang Ning is also actively creating, buying and introducing various IP images. According to the prospectus, as of June 30, 2020, Bubble Mart operates 93 IPs, including 12 own IPs, 25 exclusive IPs and 56 non-exclusive IPs. In terms of IP management, he even wants the company to become a blind Disney.
Wang Ning’s logic for taking IP management as the company’s core business is very simple. Every IP that has been in operation for many years has its own traffic, which can be transformed into users’ real purchasing power. In other words, it is the success of IP that has supported Bubble Mart’s market value of 100 billion today.
As an emerging field, NFTs actually face the same problem, with rapid technological changes and financial attributes following closely behind, but the traffic within the circle has stagnated.
Maizie Wallet PM Lu Yaoyuan told PANews: “Blind Box on the Chain” wants to explode and needs to wait for a batch of high-quality IP and NFT applications to appear, and randomness in the application brings lucky rewards, playability, sex battles, and rankings. Ranking, collecting completeness achievements, etc. will stimulate the development of the application. “
As a “shortcut” to obtain traffic, blockchain entrepreneurs are already actively introducing some influential IPs out of the circle. For example, based on the WAX chain developed by EOSIO, the famous American comic pepe frog was introduced this year, and the GoPepe series of cards were issued. According to DappRadar data, as of the end of the third quarter of 2020, GoPepe has more than 1,300 daily active wallets, with a transaction volume of US$81,000, accounting for 90% of the total transaction volume in this category.
Source of user growth data brought by GoPepe series IP: DappRadar
Sheng Chao, the founder of iNFT, believes that IP itself is a cultural product with a certain fan base, especially games and animation works. This natural communication attribute and user stickiness are actually highly compatible with NFT. In the future, combining with IP resources may become one of the fastest ways to implement NFT technology, and IP-based “chain NFT blind box” distribution may become a brand-new fan economic model.
NFT landed, the underlying infrastructure is still constrained
Although the blind box economy is used as the operating model, the landing method of importing traffic through high-quality IP looks beautiful. However, there are still many constraints in the actual development.
For example, a DApp deployed on Ethereum is limited by high GAS fees and transfer speed, which makes it difficult to bring players a good user experience; if deployed on a non-Ethereum public chain, there is a huge bottleneck in the number of DApp users.
In addition, the various infrastructures of NFT are not yet complete. Except for Math Wallet, most mainstream wallets cannot support NFT asset display. Yang Xinqi, the founder of DPAY Wallet, said that since the blockchain is an open world, the non-threshold issuance method of NFT also breeds a large number of pirated IP. The issuer of the asset is very important, because the genuine authorization is the most valuable part of the NFT asset, and the wallet is an entry-level product, and the relevant function construction needs to be followed up in time.
Sheng Chao, the founder of iNFT, pays more attention to the problems in the NFT circulation link. “The low-level public chain GAS fee is too high to suppress user development. The NFT cost of some transactions or forging is already greater than the NFT asset itself. This is not a healthy development state.” At the same time, Sheng Chao also pointed out that the current management of NFT exchanges is also chaotic. The original assets cannot be confirmed, and the NFT price boundary cannot be determined. The transaction fee span is also huge, ranging from 2% to 20%, and a unified industry standard has not yet been established.
Maizi Wallet PM Lu Yaoyuan believes that in addition to the perfection of infrastructure such as wallets, exchanges, and public chains, a robust on-chain data system and rich gameplay that are not limited to “blind boxes” are also the core of the flourishing development of NFT.
