The first GameFi 3.0 summit held by Ambrus Studio was held on October 1 on Twitter Space, Binance Live and other platforms simultaneously. The peak number of real-time online viewers reached 3,000, and the cumulative number of views on the first day was 6,500+. The summit was chaired by Ms. Yu Jin, a former IDG investment partner and known as the "Queen of Strategy" by the media. The guests included Johnson Yeh, the founder and CEO of Ambrus Studio, who is known as the "Godfather of E-sports" in the industry. Andy Dinh, founder of the valuable e-sports club TSM, Ted Lin, former Chief Growth Officer of Binance, and Robin Guo, investment partner of a16z GameFi.

After the explosion of Axie Infinity and StepN, we have not observed the next GameFi project with enough users and discussions in the market. Of course, there are reasons why the macro environment has turned cold and the entire encryption market has entered a bear market. The user value of the GameFi project itself is doubtful and the life cycle is too short. In this market environment, several cross-border Web2 and Web3 founders, investors and industry leaders focused on the theme of "How the GameFi project can escape the death spiral", from game design, community building, e-sports elements, NFT business He shared his personal insights in various aspects such as culture, and also had in-depth discussions and collisions with the audience.

According to Statista data, the overall market value of the cryptocurrency market at the end of 2021 was as high as 2.3 trillion U.S. dollars, but as of the end of August, the overall market value has shrunk to 1 trillion U.S. dollars, a drop of 56.5%. However, in the case of a rapidly cooling market, PE/VC investment in Web3 has not decreased but increased. In 2021, PE/VC investment in Web3 will total US$30.2 billion, while McKinsey estimates that this figure will reach US$36 billion in 2022.

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GameFi3.0: Products return to user value

From the perspective of industry investors, Robin and Ted proposed that the next generation of successful GameFi projects must be based on "Fun to play", rather than a mining system with games as the shell. Availability, ease of use of Web2 products. To create such a product needs to return to the user's perspective to create products. Infrastructure such as L1, L2, and wallets should be "invisible" in the direct interaction layer with users, and the product needs to fully consider the interaction habits that users have developed in the Web2 stage.

From the perspective of the founder of the GameFi project, Johnson pointed out that in addition to emphasizing the quality of gameplay and lowering the barriers to entry for users, the core game of Ambrus Studio, E4C: Final Salvation (hereinafter referred to as "E4C"), is to create a truly fun game. Its e-sports nature aims to establish a common emotional connection between players and the game, which helps to build a large-scale player community. According to Johnson, E4C is a mobile-oriented MOBA competitive game. Through gameplay innovation, the game will fully balance competitive intensity, strategy depth and operational difficulty, and provide players with a mobile-end native MOBA experience; through free play and no wallet login , operation and interface are adapted to the characteristics of the mobile terminal, which greatly reduces the entry barrier for players.

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GameFi3.0: E-sports elements help capture user value

According to Newzoo data, the total number of global game players will reach 3.09 billion in 2021, of which GameFi players only account for 0.07% of them. In addition to polishing the gameplay and quality of the next-generation GameFi project, it also needs to answer how to attract and convert more mainstream gamers.

On this point, Johnson suggested that the community and e-sports will be the two major means of attracting traditional players, and they will complement each other.

In terms of customer acquisition, the traditional game purchase method is too expensive and not suitable for GameFi projects. For the GameFi project, building a community from the bottom up is the first choice for game acquisition, and Web3 users are the undoubted starting point for snowballing. Ambrus Studio currently gathers more than 26,000 users in the community. Through a large number of game-related co-creation activities, users’ emotional links to the community and projects are established. In the future, Ambrus Studio will gradually iterate into a user community with the theme of games/e-sports, so that That snowballs into traditional player territory.

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GameFi3.0: Commercialization driven by NFT technology

At the product level, Web3 may not yet form a "subversive" trend against Web2, but at the commercial level, Web3 has undoubtedly opened up new ideas for Internet products, especially the innovation brought by NFT technology may make the GameFi project commercially capable Break through the ceiling of traditional games.

As an active investor in the NFT field, Ted believes that the value of NFT in game projects can be reflected in three points. First of all, virtual assets are an important part of the player experience, and NFT makes the transaction of assets more convenient. Secondly, the interoperability of NFT can realize IP intercommunication with one click. Users only need to connect their wallets to display or use the NFT they own on multiple platforms. Finally, NFT scarcity is clearly visible, increasing the value of its ownership.

Andy believes that from the player's point of view, the value of NFT lies in engraving the player's unique memory in a visible form, so that it can be circulated within social relationships.

Robin concluded that in terms of commercialization, traditional games are usually commercialized based on gameplay, such as buyouts, unboxing, etc., but based on blockchain technology, the new business model that game project parties can realize is trading market + handling fee, This forces the gameplay design to add more trading and exchange scenarios. He took "Pokémon" as an example, such as red blue, gold and silver series games, usually add a unique Pokémon in different versions of the game, players who want to collect this Pokémon , must interact with players who own that version of the game, thus encouraging communication and trading between players.

On the basis of encouraging transactions, NFT technology also enhances the value of assets to players themselves. He once led the R&D team at Riot Games to explore a new generation of skin systems to record players' game achievements. After turning to Web3, he found that NFT can realize his original vision. The continuous attempts of technology enable players to continue to add information records to their own NFT in addition to casting itself, or directly "mutate", which will further release the commercialization potential of GameFi.

This point coincides with Johnson’s point of view. He pointed out that the advantages of unique ownership and interoperability brought by the blockchain technology itself are difficult to directly impress players and prompt players to pay. The commercialization of the GameFi project should take advantage of these characteristics , to enhance the commercialization of traditional games.

Johnson believes that NFT is an effective means of monetizing "emotional links", so E4C game NFTs need to be able to continuously record and visualize users' emotional connections, which he describes as a "skin upgrade system".

Taking League of Legends as an example, the sales of champion skins in e-sports events every year is a one-time realization of players’ emotional links. The E4C game under Ambrus Studio will sell NFTs that can be upgraded based on major events/key achievements, etc., providing players with a carrier to record special events and emotional links.

For the project party, the one-time consumption is transformed into a continuous "upgrade" consumption; for the players, the sharing of emotional links will also become one of the sources of their NFT transaction value.

At the same time, the Ambrus Studio Genesis NFT series also provides players with a wealth of in-game rights, including game skin revenue sharing, game limited treasure boxes, and lifetime consumption discounts. Its Ultimate version was auctioned in early August, and all of them were sold at a starting price of 6.5ETH. The currently sold Gold version went on sale on September 30, and a total of 258 were sold during the whitelist stage, with a current floor price of 0.5ETH.