In addition to starting from NFT, allowing developers to set game asset transaction fees and enable different game assets to interact with each other, perhaps to break the barrier between blockchain games.
Written by: Ashvarya, an engineer focusing on technology
Translation: Lu Jiangfei
The game industry is undergoing earth-shaking changes. The mainstream game platform has shifted from “desktop” to ” mobile “. Today, nearly 51% of the global game market is dominated by mobile games. It is estimated that by 2021, the revenue of the mobile game industry will grow to 100 billion US dollars, but the problem is that mobile game developers are not the biggest beneficiaries. They often need to pay up to 30% commissions for app stores (paid apps) or in-game transactions .
In contrast, blockchain-based games and collectibles have gradually formed a niche market with a unique economic model, especially the ” cryptocat ” CryptoKitties , which is undoubtedly a blockchain digital asset game/collectible One of the main catalysts for industry development.
“Cryptocat” was launched on the Ethereum network in 2017. Players can collect, breed, and auction kittens. The game creates a new economic model that can sell game assets (ie, encrypted cats) to other players. Just like ordinary cryptocurrency. The most expensive “crypto cat” in history appeared in 2018. At that time, the “cat” named Dragon was sold for more than $170,000, which once triggered a frenzy of “crypto cat” transactions. Many people poured in The game continued to breed and sell virtual kitties, and as a result, the transaction volume overload caused the Ethereum transaction speed to drop sharply.
And now, “cryptocat” has become part of the KittyVerse platform, which is formed by multiple game developers and has launched several game assets based on ERC-721 tokens (such as Kitty Race), which not only expands crypto assets The use in other games also brings players a better gaming experience.
Blockchain game economic model
Since the birth of “cryptocat”, blockchain games have experienced incredibly rapid development, and they have also shown great potential for future development. According to dapp.review data, there are currently more than 750 blockchain-based games/collectibles in the crypto market.
Generally speaking, blockchain game developers will use the built-in assets of the game to raise funds. The main methods include:
- Pre-sale of in-game assets;
- Crowdfunding to sell game built-in assets;
- Post-sale of the game release.
In this mode, game developers can raise a small portion of funds from loyal players and users, and they can also charge a proportional fee or usage fee (as shown in the figure below) for each digital asset trader, so as to better Support them in creating games.
Since game assets can be transferred freely, blockchain games surpass Web 2-based games, because players are very likely to lose rare game assets that have been in operation for many years in centralized games, such as game accounts being hacked and game archives deleted , Or be affected by other unfavorable centralized decisions on the game platform.
In contrast, blockchain games provide players with many more guarantees for their digital assets/collectibles, including:
- Safe and tamper-proof game asset ownership records;
- Support cross-game digital asset transfer function;
- Allow players to sell game assets or properties in the secondary market and make profits.
Current status of blockchain game concepts
Despite the huge market advantages of blockchain games, the field has not made a leap so far. One of the main reasons is the lack of interoperability between existing blockchain games, despite the fact that blockchain numbers released based on the same blockchain network Assets (such as games/collectibles) are interoperable, but many game developers seem to be reluctant to use this feature.
Why does this happen?
This is because once most game developers gather a large number of interested players on the Internet, they will “contain” these players in their own game fence to avoid losing players. If any type of value and assets can be transferred between games, players may not only stay on one game platform. Therefore, game developers would rather not realize the economic benefits brought by in-game exchanges than those of their own players. “Send for nothing” to a decentralized and uncontrolled free and open market.
In this case, most game developers will limit the financial rewards to in-game purchase transactions (or activities). As a result, the entire game ecosystem will be isolated as only 1 or 2 games, and no better expand. Let us continue to analyze this problem in order to better understand the crux:
Blockchain game ecosystem analysis
In the first half of 2019, among the game projects using the ERC-721 token standard on the Ethereum blockchain, there was at least one DApp game trading address exceeding 12,000 per week, and the number of active users of blockchain games in the first half of 2019 was also An increase of 70%-although these indicator numbers look good, according to the 14 game projects analyzed, 90.77% of players said they have played only one blockchain game.
This shows that although blockchain games are very popular, there is a big gap between games (or NFT communities). Among them, “My Crypto Heroes” is currently the most isolated blockchain game project. 93% of the games are listed in this game. Players said they have never played any other blockchain games (Source: NonFungible.com).
In order to expand the blockchain game ecosystem, we hope that DApp players can try more game applications, because for now, in addition to the “cryptocat”, the proportion of ordinary players of other blockchain games experiencing multiple games is connected. Less than 10%.
What can we do about the current status of the blockchain game industry?
In fact, in addition to starting with the widely used NFT tokens, the blockchain game industry now needs a new set of standards: allowing game developers to set license fees , so that they can incentivize developers and make them no longer worry about losing players. Thereby promoting the cross-platform use of game assets-this also means that game developers can control the economic returns of the game in the free market and support them in further development work through profit.
Take NEAR Protocol as an example, this protocol can break the barriers between blockchain games. Developers based on the NEAR Protocol can directly set the game asset transaction fee percentage each time they call a smart contract. Obviously, a blockchain game business model based on automated loyalty and automated licensing has emerged! This model was difficult to implement in the past blockchain applications because cost variables were not easy to set, but now game projects (developers) can collaborate and cooperate with each other to create their own asset use cases in other game applications.
Let us take two blockchain games with the most active users as an example: CryptoKitties and MyCryptoHeroes, and allow the digital assets of these two games to interact on each other’s platforms. For example, “Crypto Kitty” can participate in combat missions in the MyCryptoHeros game, through training to produce a special “Crypto Kitty” asset, namely “Ninja Kitty”.
In this mode, not only can the developer’s income be increased, but also user participation can be increased. Blockchain gamers will also be more eager to try other game applications. In addition to increasing the income of developers, as the complexity of DApp browsing decreases and the user experience is further simplified, developers can directly push blockchain games to the encryption community or blockchain community, and then promote the popularization of blockchain games.
More importantly, developers can now extend their perspective to a wider range of player roles, and the user experience will be richer:
Players can try DApps for free just like trying other applications, and developers can prepay for them so that players don’t have to get cryptocurrency in advance to enter the game. In addition, players can only register with email and password first. Once they are ready to upgrade account security, blockchain games can transfer the access key to the user account in a safe and automatic manner.
With the help of the blockchain mechanism that runs silently in the background, players will get a smooth user experience during the launch and participation of blockchain games, which is no different from accessing apps such as Facebook or Instagram.
Concluding remarks
Blockchain games have just started, so more work needs to be invested in the basic layer and basic protocols so that they can be recognized by a wider mainstream user/developer community, and their usage and participation can also increase. By providing easier cross-game asset transfer services and a better user experience, it will help reshape the blockchain game ecosystem.
Source link: hackernoon.com
