The law of development of blockchain games
As virtual assets, the natural attributes of game assets have a high degree of compatibility with the blockchain, and blockchain games are also considered one of the first and easiest applications in the blockchain industry. However, since the birth of the first blockchain game CryptoKitty in 2017, blockchain games have gone through four years of development, but their development progress is far below expectations.
Source：CryptoKitties
At the beginning of the year, the explosion of the NFT concept also drove a wave of blockchain games, and more blockchain game projects were launched on the market, but the problems that have existed since the birth of blockchain games have not been well resolved. High barriers to participation, single gameplay, simple graphics, poor interactivity, and a high degree of homogeneity still restrict the industry's overall development.
When the traditional game industry enters the era of massively multiplayer real-time battles, and the number of people online at the same time surpasses tens of millions, blockchain games seem to be still at the beginning of the century. The screen is full of electronic pets and card battle game modes, monthly active users. Breaking 10,000 is already a good result. The birth of new technology is to promote the industry's progress, but in the field of games where the blockchain is introduced, the latest technology has led to the so-called "regression."
The industry has been trying to solve the above problems, and the imperfection of various infrastructures is one of the reasons widely recognized. Because of the inadequate infrastructure, congested transactions on the chain, and high handling fees, it is impossible to meet large-scale games' performance requirements and exquisite graphics. Therefore, blockchain game developers can only take second place and focus on gameplay and game screens. Simplified to the extent that the current blockchain infrastructure can carry, the result is single gameplay, a simple screen, and extremely low user stickiness in blockchain games. At the same time, the high handling fee of blockchain games further limits the range of users participating in the game.
Of course, the inadequate infrastructure is a fundamental reason for the above problems, and this problem cannot be solved quickly. However, the lack of innovation and irrationality of the operation model also restrict the block's development of chain games.
#lack of innovation
The game is used to play, and its core is inseparable from a word of the play. Although exquisite graphics and special effects can play the role of icing on the cake, innovative gameplay is the most significant source of competitiveness. The current mainstream blockchain games have a relatively high degree of homogeneity, roughly divided into the following categories: pet development/battle, card competition, virtual world management, Etc., compared with the rich and diverse gameplay mechanisms in traditional games, and the playability very low.
Source: Gods Unchained
It is true that many innovative ideas of blockchain games are restricted by infrastructure such as storage and cannot be implemented, but the solidification of the overall thinking takes a large part of the responsibility.
There is no shortage of excellent game projects in the traditional game field with simple gameplay mechanisms and low storage and interaction requirements, such as 2048 that was popular many years ago, and the synthetic watermelon that was popular at the beginning of the year. A little bit more complicated is the pixel style represented by Stardew Valley. Game. Perhaps the explosion of the games mentioned above is somewhat accidental, but what can be drawn from this is that it is possible to develop games that are welcome in the market under the existing blockchain infrastructure.
Due to the lack of innovation, the blockchain gameplay mechanism is single, which is not attractive to the large user groups in the traditional game field, and the range of potential users can only be limited to the original user groups of the blockchain for a long time. For the current player group dominated by blockchain native users, the game's entertainment is secondary, and obtaining higher revenue through the game is the primary purpose of their participation. Due to the bottleneck in user growth, blockchain game developers and operators can only compete in a limited user group. In response to the needs of potential users, the barriers to participation and benefits of blockchain games are getting higher and higher, but they are playable. However, it is still backwards, and the imbalance of development has become more serious, almost becoming an "infinite loop."
In order to break the above development bottleneck, blockchain games urgently need breakthrough innovations in gameplay mechanisms to attract a broader user base. For example, the NBA TOP SHOT in the field of collectables innovatively combines the NFT of collectables with the dynamic images of well-known sports IPs, attracting a large number of NBA fans to enter the blockchain field, and its success out of the circle further accelerates the NFT The growth of the overall market also brings more innovative thinking to the area of collectables. It is believed that the "NBA TOP SHOT" in the field of blockchain games can also change the current developer's operational thinking by attracting more players in the traditional area, breaking the "definite loop" of high participation threshold, increased revenue, and low playability.
Source: NBA TOP SHOT
However, the competitive advantage of games is never possible without the innovation of gameplay. If you want to achieve long-term development in this field, you should never neglect the investment in innovation. At the same time, in the early stage of developing new things, achieving an optimal balance between tradition and innovation is also a direction that is worth thinking about in the future.
#The rationality of the operating model
From terminal games, web games to mobile games, the rationality of the traditional game operation model has been well verified over the years of development. The primary sources of revenue for conventional games: the sale of game props and platform advertising revenue are realized after the game ecology has a particular scale and traffic. A well-developed game ecology is the core premise. But the more technologically advanced chain games, the blockchain games we often call, have entirely different operating models.
Blockchain games can be said to be born out of traditional games. As the price of game items continues to rise, out of concerns about the data security of game companies’ centralized servers, the earliest value of the blockchain concept in the game field lies in its trust mechanism, and the chaining of game assets is also its initial application direction. By transferring valuable game assets to the blockchain, storage security is guaranteed, and players do not have to worry about virtual asset losses caused by hacker attacks or centralized server failures.
As the trust mechanism of the blockchain has been widely recognized, gamers' demand for the security of game items has been continuously enlarged, and blockchain games have also developed more in-depth, and more and more independent blocks have appeared on the market—chain game. However, while growing, the original "asset" attributes of blockchain games have also been preserved; unlike traditional games, where there is a complete game ecology and asset value in the game, there are many blockchains. Games are all about creating in-game assets, exerting their particular value, and establishing a game ecology around the virtual asset standard.
The operation model of virtual asset value first and then game ecology naturally has certain development restrictions:
1.The value of virtual assets in the early stage is artificially established to a certain extent, lacking the valued support of a complete game ecology and reasonable market value discovery. It is easy to cause value collapse in the later stage.
2.Establishing a game ecology with a specific fixed asset as a substitute limits the many possibilities of game development, and much functional gameplay cannot be implemented on these assets, resulting in the game being playable Sex itself.
3.Many blockchain game developers have targeted the vast user base in the traditional game field as potential target users and tried to make games according to their preferences.
The fee to participate in the game is unattractive to users who are accustomed to free games. Those who are willing to participate are native users of the blockchain. Unclear positioning affects the overall development of subsequent game projects.Due to the conflict of playability, the user churn rate of many blockchain games has remained high, and the decrease of participating users has promoted the decline of the internal assets of the game. Many blockchain games, even before the establishment of a complete game ecology It "disappeared".
Of course, the current operating model of the entire blockchain game is also reasonable because participating in the game requires an initial capital investment. The exact in-game asset value enables players to invest in early capital to improve returns while ensuring a certain platform income. However, future changes and innovations in operating models are significant for future sustainable development.
On the whole, blockchain games want to maintain long-term sustainable development. The breakthroughs in infrastructure such as on-chain storage and interactive performance are significant, but the innovation in the gameplay mechanics and the rethinking of the operating model are equally important.
Risk Warning: The analysis on this website is personal opinions and can not be considered as investment advice. Investors should conduct their own due diligence investigation and analysis to make an independent investment decision.
