The view that “Gaming” would be the next leg of crypto user growth has lost steam as most P2E economies have fallen apart + token prices have fallen ~60-90% across the board. So let’s look through the opportunity, problems with the current structure, and how Crypto Games could be structured in the future to both attract organic users, but also build sustainable businesses.
Great post... look forward to your deep dive into the one game you think has a lot of promise. Any comments on Illuvium and its model?
I have been a gamer and big into playing poker now. Gaming needs to be fun and give constant sense of achievement for it to be addictive.
And poker is probably one of the most successful Play2Earn real world games, and keeps making tens of thousands of players to keep coming back to playing poker tournaments even though only 10% make any money and only the top 2-3% make any decent money. What makes people keep coming back - is the pure fun and the high of winning pots (in case of games - winning small battles) or dealt pocket AA or other premium hands and the camaraderie with other players on the table and the wider poker community. And any day I would chose live poker over online poker. By the way WSOP is on these days.
But I really really hope crypto gaming takes off because I believe in owning my in-game achievements and merchandise rather than the game developers owning them and overall vision of decentralisation. Hope we have games that can mimic the fun of poker P2E and be successful and sustainable.
Great post mate. I agree with everything you've said. Not much of a gamer myself but gave a few projects an opportunity. They have all been 0/10 experience. Big problem but even bigger opportunity here to those that get it right. Keen to see your paid post next week
Thank you for sharing your thoughts and analysis with us, much appreciated.
As for games, Lords of Light by Rainicorn might be an interesting outlier. It is still in alpha and the development has not been going to fast. Aditionally, there is almost no marketing whatsoever.
However, the previews so far seem to indicate a really fun and interesting game, perhaps a real rival to Hearthstone for instance. Important investors include Merit Circle and Sanctor capital.
Perhaps you will do a deep dive on this project at some point, if you have the time and if you find it worthy.
Other games which might be interesting, but are still ways away from delivering anything tangible: MIST (only 6% of the supply in circulation), BLOK (only 9% of the really huge supply in circulation) and Shrapnel (no token yet).
Would love to hear your thoughts on Cradles. A lot of the things you talked about, that make a crypto game sustainable is on the roadmap and they have some unique blockchain tech, that no normal game has as of yet.
Amazing read! It's mostly what I think about this industry as well. We actually started developing a game on blockchain with "fun to play first" as our mantra. We'll see how it goes, currently bootstraping to launch an MVP in August and raising a seed round to take it to the next level :) We're super early but you can already check it out on www.mafiaverse.xyz
Gods Unchained isn't new, but the user base is already established, growing, and unaffected by the price of the coin or crypto. It's addictive and thrives on it's ability to match players in real time against each other. Somehow, new comers can beat veterans, but there is an endless combination of strategies and account-growth paths.
The GODS token is one token. But it's free to play, and GODS or ETH can be used to enhance one's playing cards. I dunno, i've been beating this drum for a while.
Also, it's an IMX game. So the onboarding is about to get less cumbersome.
What I don't understand is why a whole new crypto gaming ecosystem needs to be developed? Imagine if your FIFA cards from FIFA 2022 were now in crypto. That's what needs to happen. But -
How do the game developers earn money? Will they shift to such a system? What are the incentives to *make* such a game? Everyone is talking about user incentives, but not about developer incentives. Ultimately, they will clash in a simple Play-to-earn model.
Is the only difference between normal gaming and crypto gaming the ability to "own" your characters and achievements? If that is the case, then it is pretty much useless owning your stuff if games are going to gatekeep access to that and not allow assets to be transferable, like you mentioned. Curious to see where this goes. I think having a good game + having the in-game items tradeable in the open market by non-game participants --> coming up with proper incentives here is very very tough.
An excellent write-up! This confirms my whole experience as a casual gamer in AXS, and it's fascinating to get an informed view on the tokenomics of it all. Thanks for sharing this one for free.
Nice post! Are you familiar with Nat Eliason and his work? Some recent, thoughtful analyses of crypto gaming economies and opportunities that I found useful.
Great post... look forward to your deep dive into the one game you think has a lot of promise. Any comments on Illuvium and its model?
I have been a gamer and big into playing poker now. Gaming needs to be fun and give constant sense of achievement for it to be addictive.
And poker is probably one of the most successful Play2Earn real world games, and keeps making tens of thousands of players to keep coming back to playing poker tournaments even though only 10% make any money and only the top 2-3% make any decent money. What makes people keep coming back - is the pure fun and the high of winning pots (in case of games - winning small battles) or dealt pocket AA or other premium hands and the camaraderie with other players on the table and the wider poker community. And any day I would chose live poker over online poker. By the way WSOP is on these days.
But I really really hope crypto gaming takes off because I believe in owning my in-game achievements and merchandise rather than the game developers owning them and overall vision of decentralisation. Hope we have games that can mimic the fun of poker P2E and be successful and sustainable.
Great post mate. I agree with everything you've said. Not much of a gamer myself but gave a few projects an opportunity. They have all been 0/10 experience. Big problem but even bigger opportunity here to those that get it right. Keen to see your paid post next week
Excellent post. You write it in a way that was easy to understand & you write about a subject that is going to be huge. Thankyou!
Thank you for sharing your thoughts and analysis with us, much appreciated.
As for games, Lords of Light by Rainicorn might be an interesting outlier. It is still in alpha and the development has not been going to fast. Aditionally, there is almost no marketing whatsoever.
However, the previews so far seem to indicate a really fun and interesting game, perhaps a real rival to Hearthstone for instance. Important investors include Merit Circle and Sanctor capital.
Perhaps you will do a deep dive on this project at some point, if you have the time and if you find it worthy.
Other games which might be interesting, but are still ways away from delivering anything tangible: MIST (only 6% of the supply in circulation), BLOK (only 9% of the really huge supply in circulation) and Shrapnel (no token yet).
Would love to hear your thoughts on Cradles. A lot of the things you talked about, that make a crypto game sustainable is on the roadmap and they have some unique blockchain tech, that no normal game has as of yet.
Hello Onchain Wizard :)
Can you have a look at NFT Worlds ? It will be interesting to have your input on this.
Cheers.
Amazing read! It's mostly what I think about this industry as well. We actually started developing a game on blockchain with "fun to play first" as our mantra. We'll see how it goes, currently bootstraping to launch an MVP in August and raising a seed round to take it to the next level :) We're super early but you can already check it out on www.mafiaverse.xyz
Gods Unchained isn't new, but the user base is already established, growing, and unaffected by the price of the coin or crypto. It's addictive and thrives on it's ability to match players in real time against each other. Somehow, new comers can beat veterans, but there is an endless combination of strategies and account-growth paths.
The GODS token is one token. But it's free to play, and GODS or ETH can be used to enhance one's playing cards. I dunno, i've been beating this drum for a while.
Also, it's an IMX game. So the onboarding is about to get less cumbersome.
What I don't understand is why a whole new crypto gaming ecosystem needs to be developed? Imagine if your FIFA cards from FIFA 2022 were now in crypto. That's what needs to happen. But -
How do the game developers earn money? Will they shift to such a system? What are the incentives to *make* such a game? Everyone is talking about user incentives, but not about developer incentives. Ultimately, they will clash in a simple Play-to-earn model.
Is the only difference between normal gaming and crypto gaming the ability to "own" your characters and achievements? If that is the case, then it is pretty much useless owning your stuff if games are going to gatekeep access to that and not allow assets to be transferable, like you mentioned. Curious to see where this goes. I think having a good game + having the in-game items tradeable in the open market by non-game participants --> coming up with proper incentives here is very very tough.
What do you think about Immutable X Token (IMX) launching a fee-capture mechanism into their token? Maybe it has some potential to generate revenue?
An excellent write-up! This confirms my whole experience as a casual gamer in AXS, and it's fascinating to get an informed view on the tokenomics of it all. Thanks for sharing this one for free.
Cryptoys just raised 20m from a16z. Looks like fun game but so far no idea how’s their tokenomics like.
Nice post! Are you familiar with Nat Eliason and his work? Some recent, thoughtful analyses of crypto gaming economies and opportunities that I found useful.