introduction:
When it comes to chain games, what comes to mind is the fatal death spiral in the 1.0 period of chain games. Our Guatian Lab started to discuss this topic in February 2021. Until now, after the tide recedes, there are very few surviving projects.
Nowadays, chain games that focus on playability have suddenly emerged on the market. Most of them have moved from the excellent teams of WEB2 games to the WEB3 game track. There is a momentum to lead the development of chain games 2.0.
This article is discussing: In the upcoming bull market, is this chain game that emphasizes playability the most likely to touch the Holy Grail? If so, as a user, how to logically find a specific item and ambush it in advance?
1. About the Holy Grail
1. Cryptocurrency “Holy Grail”
Also in February 2021, Gulu, the founder of Bihu, the former largest Chinese-language blockchain content platform, shared a wonderful speech in the community Looking for the Holy Grail of Cryptocurrency: Gulu, founder of Bihu, analyzes the potential of productivity platforms such as Ethereum. The Holy Grail can be understood as a “hot project”.
Gulu believes that after Ethereum ETH switches to the POS consensus mechanism in 2022, the annual deflation will be about 0.15%, which will open the second growth curve of Ethereum. In fact, the current annual deflation of Ethereum is about 0.43%. At present, EIP-1559 has burned 3,550,364 ETH. The bull market will accelerate deflation. In addition, Ethereum is the infrastructure of L2, and the prosperity of L2 is the prosperity of Ethereum. An accelerated rise in the future is just around the corner. Hold on tight, hold on!
2. The Holy Grail of the blockchain game 1.0 era
Of particular importance are these two projects:
Axie Infinity, the total revenue is estimated to exceed 400 million U.S. dollars, and the highest circulating market value is 10.4 billion U.S. dollars;
STEPN, the total revenue is estimated to exceed 200 million U.S. dollars, and the market value in circulation is up to 2.3 billion U.S. dollars.
(Both do not include token sale proceeds)
3. What about the “Holy Grail” of chain gaming 2.0?
Referring to the results of the previous round, make an estimate: the total revenue exceeds 300 million US dollars. The overall life cycle will be longer. Calculated on a yearly basis, except for the first three months when the income is low, the last three months are the recession period. The daily income may be between 2 million and 10 million US dollars.
It is currently August 2023. It seems to be a deep bear, but BTC has been pulled from 15,500 U to about 30,000 U. It is reported that the worlds leading financial institutions are secretly deploying Bitcoin, which is betting on the last violent bull market in the currency circle (Part 1) The same is true for a round of mainstream voices), the circulation market value of the next round of chain game sector Holy Grail projects is estimated to exceed 15 billion US dollars.
2. Chain game subcategories: asset composition
The ultimate goal of this article is to establish and find the Holy Grail project, but even if it is a bear market, the new chain game projects are still diverse and full of mud and sand. If you spend energy analyzing each of them, you must always have quick-acting heart-relief pills.
We still establish a set of search methodologies, first screen categories from large to small, and then strike precisely. Let’s talk about categories first: there are many ways to classify chain games, and W Labs has detailed classifications in previous articles. This paper divides chain games into the following four categories according to the form of asset composition. Lets see which of these four types are more likely to find the shadow of the Holy Grail:
1, NFT breeding-based games: Axie Infinity, STEPN
These two projects ushered in the 1.0 era of chain games. The two projects fought to become gods in the last bull market. Axie started at the beginning of the bull market, and StepN closed at the end of the bull market. They are also waiting for the arrival of the next bull market, preparing to restart the Holy Grail aura, so the product is also iterating and improving:
Axie Infinity
It has already entered the Apple store and Google store in some countries, which helps to introduce more new players of Web2.
In the past, you had to buy three Axies to play the game. However, in the recent update of the game, the free mode is enabled. Free players accumulate materials through daily tasks and weekly tasks, upgrade and give away Axies. They have the opportunity to obtain Axies with good combat power, which is helpful for novices. Users get started and enjoy the game faster.
STEPN
Proposed the FSL ecological concept, launched DOOAR, which is mainly used for multi-chain decentralized exchanges; launched MOOAR, a multi-chain NFT market and launch platform. The studio behind it will soon release a new game, Gashero, and has also collaborated on a number of games.
At present, StepN has also been put on the shelves of Apple Store and Google Store, and you can pay for running shoes with a credit card. It is also committed to introducing more new Web2 players.
The two first brothers in the last round both come from the category of reproduction, which shows the charm of reproduction, and what is hidden behind reproduction is its distinctive Ponzi model characteristics. Just like Gua Ge wrote an article on W Labs Why is WEB3 a Ponzi model? , the Ponzi model is not good or bad (the scam is the bad thing), directly hitting the greed and conceit in human nature.
Let me add here that the broadly defined Ponzi model is also common in real life: in the past decade or so, many Internet companies have begun to use huge subsidies to attract users, which is also a type of Ponzi model; recently, many Internet companies have begun to use huge subsidies to attract users. A similar model was used at the end of the popular local fantasy masterpiece Feng Shen Bang 1, and the most shocking scene in the whole drama appeared, The Grand Master brought the four heavenly kings back to the court, which filled the audience with the infinite reverie of the second part. Anticipation laid the foundation for the second box office. This is a subtle and elegant Ponzi, and it can be regarded as the level of Pang Taishi in Ponzi.
But whether this category can continue to be brilliant in the next round, given the currency circle’s emphasis on “speculating on the new rather than speculating on the old,” users need to see a different new narrative, which is very challenging.
2. NFT mining and Defi combined games: MBOX, Tiny world
In the era of chain games 1.0, MBOX also achieved great success. It was once the leader of BSCs upstream games and the most beautiful kid on BSC, with the highest circulating market value reaching 1 billion U.S. dollars. Tiny World continued this path, and its model is the same as MBOX Very similar, the maximum circulating market value is about 150 million US dollars (destroy 50% of the tokens, the destroyed part is not included).
However, only Web3 users and advanced users can understand and understand the Defi part. It is easy for novice users to dismiss it, and it is difficult to attract Web2 users in the short term.
Its hard for those who dont want to win the world. As far as the current situation is concerned, in this category, the possibility of showing signs of the Holy Grail is even smaller than that of the first category.
3. Full-chain games: Dark Forest, Loot
Full-chain games are very popular recently, that is, games in which game rules, calculation logic, and data storage are all completed on-chain. To expand further, full-chain games do not require permission on the chain, and assets can be freely combined. It was gradually mentioned by everyone at the beginning of this year, and it was widely discussed on Twitter in June and July.
We have always believed that the current full-chain games cannot be classified as games, but can only be classified as a special category like DEFI, because the current user group is not the same type of people as ordinary game users. They are basically a group of WEB3 Builders and believers. . But the full-chain game is a seed player with orthodox encryption genes. For example, Dark Forest was written by Brian Gu alone in 2020. At that time, he was still working at the Ethereum Foundation. During the research process, he found that ZK was quite interesting, and he just wanted to make a game, so the experimental product was born. Tried a new technology: zero-knowledge proof, to solve the problem of fog of war in the game. From that moment on, the whole chain game began to look like a game.
However, we must continue to support and encourage such products to move forward. This is the hope that WEB3 may replace WEB2 in some fields in the future. For example, the application of zero-knowledge proof in WEB3 Texas Holdem, traditional WEB2 online Texas Holdem basically does not dare to After playing, especially after watching All or Nothing, everyone knows that Wang Chuanjun (the one who sleeps on the floor today, sleeps with the boss tomorrow) can control the system and deal out the cards he wants at will, and zero-knowledge proof if used in WEB3 Texas Holdem In poker, it is possible to achieve an open and transparent licensing mechanism.
Full-chain games use the characteristics of the blockchain, but currently have many limitations, which are not conducive to the design of complex logic and rules in the game. Therefore, they are currently mainly in the exploration stage while building infrastructure, and the product experience of ordinary users is not enough. The Holy Grail project should not be seen in a short time.
4. Games with only core assets on the chain and high playability
The blockchain gaming 2.0 era, which everyone has high hopes for, is deduced based on the assumption that WEB3 will have the next bull market. The necessary condition for the next bull market is that through some new opportunities on the WEB3 track, there will be a large number of of new users and new institutions. These novice users come in, and there must be an app for them to play. This category is aimed at this goal:
Focus on playability and make new users High;
Pay attention to product experience, do not pursue whether it is completely on-chain at this stage, and only core assets can be on-chain;
Pay attention to the construction of the user ecosystem, shorten the distance between the project and users, and make users feel that they are also part of the project.
In our opinion, this category of games is the category most likely to reach the Holy Grail in the next bull market, and it is also the category that W Labs has designated as the most focused research from last year to this year. There are several properties:
The production team is basically from the outstanding team of WEB2 games. There are still standards for the playability, completion, and enjoyment of the game. After all, Chinese Games has led mobile games for ten years and has accumulated too much experience and talent;
The playability of the product is significantly higher than that of WEB3s native games, and it is also familiar with the preferences of ordinary users for products (this is the most important point);
The original WEB2 thinking is deeply rooted, and the operational thinking of WEB3 is not enough;
So how do you pick out the Holy Grail project in this category? The definition of playability is completely the judgment of the wise and the benevolent. If you love Moba, I like SLG. If you play cards, I will play mahjong every day. So this article sets a standard: as long as a certain WEB3 chain game inherits the essence of a global hit WEB2 game, or even directly imitates it, then its playability has been verified by a large number of ordinary users. We will analyze the Holy Grail project from these projects.
We selected three representative WEB3 chain game projects Matr1xFire, Seraph and Oil War from W Labs project database as cases and analyzed them one by one. They represent different game types and different WEB2 benchmarks. projects, and different stages of development.
3. Case analysis: menacing, competing for the Holy Grail
1. Matr1xFire: CSgo for WEB3
Friends who have played CS are all a bit older, and have been influenced by gun games since childhood. It seems that 30 years later, friends who eat chicken are no longer young, and have been good luck, eat chicken tonight since they were young.
Matr1xFire will start to take action in the market in Q3 of 2022. From the beginning, W Labs searched for people to do a team background check, and sent people to experience the game on site. It is indeed a team from Dachang Goose Factory. It has many years of experience in the integration of FPS research and operation, and has financing. The fundamentals are very good. Our style is that we would rather lose money than make a mistake; we would rather be cautious before birth than have a grand funeral.
After confirming that the follow-up can be continued, a special discussion channel was opened in the Guatian community WGGDAO, and also called on Gua friends to pay more attention to Matr1x, and actively organized and participated in the first test and the current second test. At present, it seems that Matr1x can be regarded as the most potential Holy Grail project in the first half of 2023. At least in terms of the price of the main NFT 2061 (from Mint Price 0.1 E to the current 1.3 E), it reflects the users trust in the project.
Let me briefly introduce the basic situation of the project:
Matr1xFire is a Web3 FPS shooting game. The game draws on CSgo’s mature business model, plus the innovation of Web3 to issue assets and put them on the chain. It integrates game NFT art, e-sports events and million-word novels to create a Web3 brand.
Team members have more than 8 years of experience in game development and distribution. The founding team is from a major game manufacturer and has participated in the development and distribution of more than 10 large-scale games. The total turnover of game projects exceeds 3 billion US dollars, and the active users are close to 100 million. They have also accumulated rich experience in global market product distribution, with teams located in South Korea, Japan, the United States, Singapore, Hong Kong and other places.
In 2022, Matr1x successfully completed its A-round financing of US$10 million, funded by Hana Financial, the second largest financial group in South Korea, Hashkey Capital, Amber Group, and Seven X, an early investor in Ethereum.
In Matr1xFire, in addition to experiencing traditional shooting content, such as a variety of game modes, a variety of game maps, support for small-scale competitions, team e-sports, events, etc., players can also drop treasure chests through the game, and then spend a certain fee to open them Treasure boxes, get item skins, both treasure boxes and item skins exist in the form of NFT, which can be freely circulated and bought and sold on the chain.
We are looking at its benchmark WEB2 game CSgo. On March 25 this year, the number of simultaneous online users reached a new high, exceeding 1.5 million. The number of boxes opened in March increased by 17 million compared to February. It is estimated that The income is at least 100 million US dollars, and the sword is still young.
In fact, the treasure chests, keys, skins, props, etc. of shooting games can naturally be made into independent NFTs with a high degree of matching. Under the Web3 business model, the project party issues more NFTs to help complete the initial start-up, gather the community, and build consensus. This is also the reason why Matr 1 x assets are released one by one:
YATC trophy NFT, which reflects the value of the champion, can help to establish an attractive event in the early stage;
MAX Token reflects the value of the entire ecology, can connect more resources, and continuously absorb resources for the ecology;
2061 NFT, giving back to early supporters, reflecting player value, and accurately looking for FPS players in the early stage;
Character NFT raises the threshold for gold-making in the game and does not conflict with free users. It can mainly prevent mass masturbation accounts;
The project team seeks players who like FPS, explores the incremental market, and tirelessly conveys a beautiful vision that can be built together. It draws a blueprint for the Web3 version of e-sports, and also solves the long-term problems of many web3 projects. That is, how to acquire new users if the number of Web3 users is too small, how to break the asset death spiral, and where to find the first wave of seed users for the product.
Matr1xFire is on the way to the Holy Grail. Some of the operations in August made people feel that they are breaking through the embarrassing situation that the Web3 stock market is small, and the playability and economics of breaking the game cannot be achieved at the same time. The direction of the Win to Earn model also inherently lengthens the cycle of the death spiral. The team’s skill in financing also makes users feel that they can survive at least until the next bull market. Within W Labs, we often use the term “hexagon warrior” to describe Matr1x.
I seem to hear some new friends saying that Matr1x is now a blue-chip chain game project. What should we do if we didn’t catch up when it was launched? Don’t worry, that’s why we found three cases to analyze. Matr1x was the first to take off. Let’s take a look at the others and learn the analysis logic.
2. SERAPH: Big Pineapple of WEB3 (Diablo)
Seraph is another project that has been popular in internal testing in the past few months: it has conducted two internal tests in April and July this year, and the test results are very good. According to the news obtained from the projects AMA, there are 3,500 people each. Participating with 4,200 players (not addresses, but accounts), the average online time of users is 4 hours, and the user retention data is also considerable.
The game type is ARPG, which is the main idea of monetizing monsters and equipment, which makes the game more and more popular. I have to say that this kind of gameplay of swiping and collecting equipment sets still has many loyal fans.
Basic introduction to Seraph: Seraph is an APRG game imitating Diablo, behind it is the Korean listed game company Actoz Soft, which has released familiar masterpieces such as Millennium, Legend and A 3. The overall tone and operation of the game is also based on the dark style. The background is set in a dark age, an era that calls for heroes. There are a total of 5 heroes to choose from (for the time being, only 3 heroes, barbarian, mage and Valkyrie), Then its time to embark on an adventure, killing and killing with your mouse and keyboard.
The main assets of the game are equipment, and socketable items such as gems, jewels, and runes. After the hero is upgraded, he can learn different skills and magic by assigning skill points. After completing the basic adventure, the player can unlock the Mystery of Chaos, Void Realm and Mystery of Depth modes after satisfying various conditions. Drop items and equipment of different types and levels. The settings in the web3 part are mainly to produce Soul Spar through special NFT (Unique NFT) empowerment, which is used to further upgrade the NFT and obtain tickets for chaos mode. The core token $SRF is mainly used to identify NFT, forge equipment and participate in governance.
Diablo 4 of the WEB2 game Diablo series, Seraphs target, was launched in June this year. Lets take a look at the data: it sold nearly 700 million US dollars, and there were 7.1 million characters in the first season that started in July. feel good? But players have been scolding, especially after the pre-season patch was released, and the score dropped to 2.6. In fact, scolding Blizzard has become a daily social behavior for Blizzard players, hahaha.
Even if the target game is scolded again, it cannot conceal the fierce user base of this type of game. The two internal tests of Seraph also illustrate this point. However, so far, Seraph has been lackluster in its operations. The community has been quietly doing some joint publicity activities, and even officially announced a 500,000 U reward event on Twitter, but it has not been spread among various web3 communities. At the same time, the current total transaction volume of the previously issued NFT Seraph Priority Pass is only 31 ETH, and everyone still does not know how this NFT is empowered. We prefer that the overall operation plan has not yet been launched, and the project side is currently just laying out the plan. We hope that the project side can spend more time researching on the operation steps and nodes.
Overall, the quality of Seraphs products is still very good, and through a wave of memory kills against Diablo, it can be regarded as giving gamers who like to play games a real place to belong in the boring bear market. In addition, the general direction of the economic model revealed on the project AMA will be based on equipment NFT, which is also worth looking forward to. Well keep watching to see if Seraph has the ability to touch the Holy Grail.
3. Oil War: WEB3’s Oil Tycoon
I have a soft spot for business simulation games. I played the oil tycoon Turmoil game in WEB2 a few years ago, and I never tire of it. Recently, when I was sorting out new online games, I accidentally discovered the game Oil War. I downloaded it immediately and spent 10 U to try it out.
Regarding the current profile of chain game users in the WEB3 circle, there are still a small number of hardcore gamers, and most players are still casual. Therefore, business and development games should be more suitable for the current chain games. The peasant world and sunflowers in the last wave of bull market are proof, what are you doing every day? Planting flowers, building buildings, fishing, and stealing vegetables, you can get it with dozens of U per day. The low threshold of gameplay and strong sociality have become the two characteristics of operating and developing blockchain games. At the same time, this type of game is also very suitable for the Ponzi model in terms of token flow.
Let’s talk about the basic situation of Oil War: it is a Web3 simulation business game that simulates the complete process from oil extraction to sales. Let’s first look at the background of the game. The game developer is MetaSensor and the publisher is Surf Guild, a chain game studio with 8 years of traditional game company background. It has raised US$1 million in seed round and has cooperated with well-known partners Wemade, Blockchainspace, Playmining and other collaborations.
Similar to Matr 1 x and Seraph, Oil War is also an imitation and inheritance of the classic web2 game Oil Tycoon. In traditional games, QQ farms or simulated cities, which are management and development types, are very capable of gathering users. Chain games are currently particularly lacking in users. I hope Oil War can highlight this feature of the game itself.
But unlike the oil tycoon, in addition to the basic PVE mining map to break through and upgrade and make money, the game also creates unique gameplay such as team championships, prop systems, and land management. The consignment line function allows players to trade freely. web3 combined, have the opportunity to earn rich encrypted assets.
In the game, players can earn game tokens oil coins by completing daily tasks, completing merit awards, team rankings, land development and management, etc., and exchange them for governance tokens OT at a fixed ratio of 1000:1, and further exchange them for other on-chain assets. , realize realization. The game is only open for PVE and tournament gameplay at this stage, and I look forward to opening other high-level gameplay in the future, which will be a good business development work.
The game economic model of the oil war is a typical fusion model of web2+web3. The game will be launched on Google Play and AppStore, with a traditional in-app purchase model, and players can deposit money through traditional channels; at the same time, the project team has also developed a Compass game service platform specifically for web3 (similar to Wemix of Yumeide, which is a bit ambitious), for Trading game virtual assets (NFT assets, governance tokens OT, etc.), you can also conduct NFT and currency transactions with mainstream games and web3 assets on the market, and use this to connect to the broader web3 world.
It can be seen from the construction framework of the Compass platform and ecosystem that the project team has a relatively pragmatic and long-term layout for web3 - using compass as the entrance to leverage the resources and leverage of web3, and filling the platform content with its good game development capabilities. At the same time, a DAO platform such as Surf Guild is attached to integrate Web3 and community resources. This three-wheel layout of development, trading, and operation is a complete ecological closed loop. If it can be turned around, it will form a powerful wheel effect and bring continuous expansion power to the project side.
There is another point that must be emphasized. From the preview of the next version update of the game, it is found that the product will soon add an advertising SDK interface. Did the project party find an advertiser? If so, that would be awesome. We have always emphasized that external income is one of the best ways to solve the death spiral, rather than cutting each other between the project party and the players. This game involves oil again. Did it get the sponsorship of the turban princes in the Middle East? Ha ha.
Compared with the already popular Matr 1 Currently, Oil War is still in the early trial stage, and the community is also in its early stages. Interested players can try this style of game. The graphics are very good, and more language versions (including Chinese) will be supported in the future.
4. Summary of this article
We believe that in the rolling wheels of web3 games, there are always excellent projects that stand out, some last for a long time, and some are short-lived. The length of the game life cycle, in addition to the difference in the economic model of the game itself, is more important than the game content, quality, and the success or failure of subsequent operations.
From the users point of view, how to find chain game projects that may become the holy grail in the next round of bull market? This article explains an idea:
First of all, the bull market in the next round of crypto circles is still inseparable from a large number of new users;
Secondly, new users will not immediately enter full-chain games or DeFi games with high thresholds. They prefer products that are similar to the WEB2 games they are familiar with in terms of playability and product quality. Among the chain game categories with high playability, the most likely to run out of the Holy Grail;
Again, find some WEB3 products that imitate traditional popular games, and analyze from all aspects to verify the possibility of becoming the Holy Grail.
This article lists three cases. At present, Matr 1 x is the earliest to start, and it is also the best. The entire team, from the founder to the community members, is deeply imprinted with player-centric and community-centric thinking. He spares no effort to endorse the game.
Seraph can be regarded as a high-quality work in terms of the quality of the game and the data of the internal test. In the future, we look forward to seeing the actions of the project party in operation and community, so that we can make good use of the previously accumulated potential energy and really get on the runway to take off.
Oil War is obviously still in the early stages of gaining momentum, but judging from the layout of the project party (game development and download, Compass trading platform construction and Surf Guild community), we can vaguely glimpse its web3 ambitions, and it will also be An excellent web3 game ecological product that focuses on quality and is centered on players.
Finally, I would like to emphasize that the Holy Grail project is hard to come by, and there were only two in the last round of the bull market, and betting on one is a hundredfold return, so it is necessary to conduct in-depth research on every aspect. We have deeply gossiped about the growth process of the previous two Holy Grail projects. In fact, it was a thrilling process, until the entrepreneurial team was transformed into a steel warrior who is invulnerable to all poisons in a short period of time. Deng Xiaoxian, even if you get Xiaolongnvs blind box, you can still mint Madam Ma (why I suddenly popped up this sentence, its weird).
This article is finished.
Produced by W Labs Gua Tian
Case official website
Matr 1 x: www.matr 1 x.io
Seraph: www.seraph.game
Oil War: oilwar.surfguild.io
