Big companies enter the market and benchmark against mainstream players, blockchain games expand towards playability

Produced by | Bai Ze Research Institute

This year, the largest game on Ethereum, Axie Infinity, has achieved remarkable development. In August this year, Axie Infinity generated more than $334 million in revenue in a single month, surpassing the $231 million revenue of the traditional game Honor of Kings in July this year, which has made the blockchain industry excited and brought this "niche" field back to the public eye.

Today, with the support of concepts such as the Metaverse and NFT, blockchain games are still heating up.

Traditional game giants have joined the game

Last month, the largest video game store Steam banned "Play-to-Earn" games, specifically all games based on blockchain technology or that can exchange NFTs and cryptocurrencies. This ban was also written into the rules of the Steam store. Some players who frequently use Steam told Bai Ze Research that Steam made this change because the company does not allow game items with real-world value.

But apparently, some blockchain game companies are dissatisfied with this ban. Enjin, a well-known NFT trading market, joined the Blockchain Game Alliance and 26 blockchain game companies to petition, hoping to lift the ban on blockchain games on the Steam platform. They believe that blockchain games have pioneered many new concepts and will revitalize the entire gaming industry from both the perspectives of players and publishers. Cutting off this booming industry at such a critical stage of development ignores the progress we have made this year, and doing so is also unfair to existing blockchain companies.

On the contrary, Steam's biggest competitor, Epic Games Store, welcomes all blockchain games abandoned by Steam, but on the premise that they must fully comply with financial regulations and have a clear blockchain usage policy. Under this premise, Epic allows blockchain games to use their own payment system.

Although Epic CEO Tim Sweeney said the company was once not interested in NFTs, it now welcomes "innovation in technology and finance" and suggested that blockchain is neither inherently good nor bad.

Video game development giant Ubisoft also entered the blockchain game field this year. The company's game IPs include well-known "Assassin's Creed", "Far Cry", "Watch Dogs", etc. Ubisoft talked about its ambitions for the emerging type of blockchain games at the second quarter company earnings conference. Chief Financial Officer Frédérick Duguet even suggested that "Play-to-Earn" could be used in Ubisoft's own games, allowing players to earn cryptocurrencies while enjoying the game. Ubisoft "hopes to become one of the main players in blockchain games."

Ubisoft has already taken the first step. Last month, it invested in Animoca Brands, a blockchain game development studio whose products include Revv Racing, Revv Motorsport and racing games. These games are all based on cryptocurrencies and allow players to collect NFTs. In addition, Ubisoft lists other companies it has previously supported on its official website’s “Supported Game Startups” page, including dApp cloud service Aleph.im and game company Horizon Blockchain Games.

Another major video game developer, Electronic Arts (EA), has also expressed interest in blockchain games in recent months. EA owns game IPs including Battlefield, FIFA, and Need for Speed. At EA's earnings conference this month, CEO Andrew Wilson said that NFT and "P2E" are the future of the gaming industry. "I think collectible NFTs will play an important role in our future, and although it's too early to tell, I think we are in a very good position, and we should expect us to think more innovatively and creatively about this as we move forward."

Recent job postings at EA that include “NFT” and “blockchain” suggest the company is at least aware of the surge in popularity of blockchain games. “We are working for EA on game subscriptions, our PC storefront and platforms, competitive games (including FIFA, Apex Legends and Madden NFL), and new business opportunities including fantasy sports, blockchain and NFTs, and more.”

Benchmarking mainstream games, playability is enhanced

QQ Games

QQ Games was created in 2003. It is the first self-developed game product of Tencent, a Chinese game giant. It is also the world's largest "casual game community platform", with over 100 game categories, 200 million active users, and a maximum number of online users exceeding 8 million. The platform has covered chess, mahjong, casual competition, board games, strategy, development, simulation management, role-playing and other game types.

As mentioned earlier, GAMEE, a branch of Animoca Brands, a blockchain game studio invested by Ubisoft, has developed a mobile game platform called Arc8, which is suitable for Android and iOS systems. Its beta version attracted 1 million users in September. It covers chess, board games, strategy and other game types. The platform allows users to earn its native tokens by playing these games. According to the official website, players on the Arc8 game platform have currently played 5.2 billion games.

League of Legends

This most popular multiplayer online competitive game needs no introduction. It has a large number of loyal fans in different countries. Moreover, the popularity of the game has remained high for 12 years. It is difficult for a game to truly surpass the popularity of League of Legends.

In the blockchain world, a blockchain game called Thetan Arena is called the "League of Legends blockchain version" by players. As the name suggests, the game is similar to League of Legends, but each character is minted as an NFT. This means that players can truly own them, and even if the game is offline, the characters still exist.

PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds

PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds (PUBG) is a tactical competitive shooting sandbox game developed by the South Korean studio Krafton. In this game, players need to collect various resources on the game map and fight other players in the shrinking safe zone to survive to the end. According to official data, at its peak, PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds had 3.148 million players online at the same time, setting a historical record.

Blockchain game developer Satoshis Game has developed a multiplayer battle royale survival game called Lightnite, which has first-person and third-person shooting perspectives. In the game, players must fight each other, and killing players can get the Bitcoin dropped by the players. These rewards will be paid in real time through the Bitcoin Lightning Network. The technology behind Lightnite is the Lightning Network (Bitcoin transaction layer), which integrates Bitcoin microtransactions into the game. The only thing players need to do is download a wallet that supports the Lightning Network.

Red Dead Redemption

"Red Dead Redemption" is an open-world western action-adventure game series in which players can see pioneer towns, vast grasslands and mountains. In addition to exciting gunfights and fights, players can also meet many characters with different personalities in the game and experience the struggles and changes in the last wilderness of the American West with them.

The blockchain game "Gold Fever" is a benchmark for this game. At its core, "Gold Fever" is a multiplayer online role-playing game that allows players to truly own rare in-game items (NFTs), such as characters, weapons, and artifacts. The top-level PC game developed by Unreal Engine 4 may be the blockchain game with the best graphics at present.

World of Warcraft

"World of Warcraft" is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game produced by Blizzard. After its official release in 2005, it became popular all over the world. "World of Warcraft" has greatly promoted the development of the online game industry.

The blockchain game "Mist" is a benchmark for this classic game. "Mist" is an open-world action role-playing game with a unique dynamic combat style. Players can collect items (NFTs), fight epic monsters, and explore infinite immersive environments in this game. According to the survey of Bai Ze Research Institute, the game currently has a large number of blockchain game players following overseas, but it has only been live-streamed this month, and the beta version has not been opened. However, judging from the demonstration video and official introduction, the game has already begun to have the three elements that an RPG game should include: preset environment + core rules of gameplay + original fun.

Hearthstone

Hearthstone is a free game based on the world of Warcraft. Players can purchase card packs separately. Players can choose from ten professional "heroes" as the protagonist, similar to the professions in World of Warcraft. Most game modes are based on the traditional 1v1 method (the hero battlefield mode changes opponents every round), and players cannot trade cards.

Skyweaver, developed by Horizon Blockchain Games, a blockchain game studio invested by Ubisoft, is a perfect match for Hearthstone. It is a free card game where players can own, trade and gift cards (NFTs). The deep strategy game is combined with a player-owned market, where more cards can be won in battles.

CS:GO

"CS:GO" has a similar first-person shooting gameplay to its predecessor "CS". Players can choose between two camps: counter-terrorists or terrorists. The goal is to eliminate the enemy or complete the mission of the map within a time limit.

Earlier this month, blockchain game studio Faraway received a total of $30 million in Series A funding to develop a web-based first-person multiplayer shooter game on the Solana blockchain. It is reported that this round of financing was led by crypto derivatives exchange FTX, and other supporters include well-known venture capital institutions Pantera Capital, Sequoia Capital and A16z.

Faraway said that by making web-based games, restrictions on computer hardware will be eliminated, and the lower entry barrier will encourage large-scale adoption by online gamers. In addition, this accessibility allows native integration with existing Web3 wallets. Faraway Studio's previous first-person shooter game "Mini Royale: Nations" has been recognized by a large number of players for its highly social and tribe-based competitive and cooperative gameplay. In the game, players can experience multiplayer competition to earn tokens, team competition and other modes, as well as build mines, refineries, and even form countries and create cities.

Playability is the foundation of any game

According to the survey, some gamers have quite obvious differences on current blockchain games. Sometimes blockchain games are considered a way for players to make money sustainably by playing games, while other players believe that they are often exploitative and speculative and may lead to unsustainability. Many people, including professional game media and game companies, have the following views on blockchain games:

-The performance is too poor. Ethereum has less than 20 tps, and any interaction requires a transaction fee.

-The blockchain games we have seen so far are not really games, they have simple mechanisms and poor playability

The 1.0 era of blockchain games belongs to Cryptokitties, which also opened the door to game Dapps. From the perspective of traditional game players, this is not a real game, but the novelty brought to people by the "transaction attributes" and "unique private characteristics of assets" of NFT. The milestone significance of Cryptokitties is that it proves to everyone that Ethereum is not the only application of token issuance, but there is more room for imagination and scenarios to play and create. As a result, during the bear market of the crypto market in 2018, this type of blockchain games grew explosively.

The 2.0 era of blockchain games belongs to Axie Infinity, which also pushes the new gameplay of GameFi and "Play-to-Earn" to a peak. Gu, a blockchain game analyst at Bai Ze, believes that most of the current blockchain games are not playable and are only built from the perspective of P2E profit. Moreover, most players do not consider the richness of the game at all, but only look at the popularity.

The next stage of blockchain games may be to return to the inherent essence of games: playability. In the exploration of "Play-to-Earn" by blockchain game developers, various games have produced different economic models and solved the "win-win" between developers and players. However, even if you make a game that meets all values, if it is not fun, players will not pay for it, not to mention the consensus of the community and the value of game assets. So returning to the essence of the game, with playability, we can attract more players to enter while retaining existing players, and even impact mainstream games and be accepted by mainstream players.

As blockchain infrastructure becomes increasingly complete and traditional gaming giants enter the market, perhaps it’s time for blockchain games to upgrade.