Original Title: "A&T View: The Most Complete Gamefi Upstream and Downstream Development Status and Prospects in History (Part 1)"
Summary
Summary
Compared with other web3 tracks, Gamefi will have more web2 users, more interactions that require better performance, and the homogeneity and quantity of assets on the chain are high, so a more vertical web3 infrastructure is needed. This trend has also emerged;
At present, the degree of decentralization of most gamefi only stays on the chain of core assets (core NFT, game currency), and the upstream of production and research basically uses web2 tools, and the degree of decentralization is very low. In the future, there is a high probability that the level of game on-chain will continue to increase, including game rules, game data on-chain, and even many full-chain games. Therefore, although it is not necessary for all upstream production and research to be decentralized, this piece of infrastructure has yet to be developed on the road to web3.
When the next gamefi bull market starts, there will be a large number of web2 games that need to be uploaded quickly (the time, capital, and labor costs of making a web3 game from scratch are too high), and the mature gamefi sdk will have explosive demand, which is more optimistic.
need:
chain
need:
The game can allow in-game items to exist in the form of tokens or NFTs through the chain, allowing players to freely trade or lease;
For players, their special requirements for the chain are mainly high TPS and low GAS; for project parties, a large number of fast interactions are required in the game, and latency and Gas need to be reduced; in addition, many game roadmaps have added The concepts of metaverse and AR/VR all raise the demand for chains with high scalability.
Development status:
Old public chains such as Ethereum no longer occupy an absolute dominant position. Aiming at the pain points of Gamefi development (mainly the high requirements of TPS and Gas), various solutions have appeared on the market. In summary, there are three major models:
Universal public chain:Such as Ethereum, Solana, Polygon, supporting all types of applications
Ethereum no longer has an absolute advantage. Top 10 popular chain games such as Splinterlands and Alien Worlds come from non-Ethereum public chains. However, the user base, stability and ecological maturity that Ethereum can provide are unmatched by other chains.
Existing mature Layer 1, such as: Solana, Avalanche, BNB Chain, in the face of the big triangle problem of the blockchain, try to provide solutions in terms of scalability, sacrifice security and decentralization to varying degrees to reduce gas and increase transaction speed , serving Defi and Gamefi applications. However, the existing layer1 has problems such as imitation disks, the proliferation of Pixiu disks, and frequent security incidents, so it can only attract some blockchain games.
Layer2 solutions, such as op and starknet, provide expansion solutions for Ethereum, which benefit from the advantages of Ethereum’s interoperability, security, and EVM compatibility while increasing speed and reducing gas; It lays the foundation for the development of blockchain, that is, state storage and logic execution are also completely on the chain, which has the advantages of decentralization, license-free, composable, and interoperable.
Next-generation layer1, such as aptos, sui: The new move language combined with the new blockchain architecture makes the move ecological chain have the characteristics of high throughput, low latency and asset orientation. sui and aptos are committed to building a high-performance blockchain that can serve billions of people, and faster TPS will greatly expand the experience of gamefi.
Chain game dedicated chain:A dedicated chain specially deployed for Gamefi, dedicated to creating a complete ecosystem around NFT/Gaming to meet the exclusive needs of game development, such as WAX, Immutable X, Flow, etc.
Focus on solving the problem is still TPS, ie WAX's TPS can reach 8000
Ecological comparison is supported by high-quality, active users, and large user base game projects, which has a snowball effect-more and more popular games provide a user base for emerging blockchain games
Highly susceptible to fluctuations in Gamefi's overall performance.
Chain game application chain:A chain specially built for a certain chain game, one chain serves one product, in this way to solve the problem of blockchain capacity, and provide more room for improvement in the quality and fluency of the game. Such as Ronin for Axie Infinity, DFK Chain for Defi Kingdoms
Exclusively enjoy the processing power of one chain. Due to the small number of nodes, the performance of the application chain exceeds that of ordinary public chains. It can handle tens of millions of transactions a day, and supports chain games with a daily activity of one million. Games are very different from other applications. The strength of hardware and the experience of software All have extremely high requirements. For chain games with a large number of users, it is obviously not ideal to still choose to share the network, because the game experience is easily affected by other chain applications.
It is usually a chain brought up after a successful game, so it is mainly suitable for games with a large player base, high DAU and long life cycle;
One chain, one application means there is a cross-chain requirement, so there are security issues for asset cross-chain and cross-chain bridges
View:
wallet
wallet
Existing needs/pain points:
The earliest web3 wallets provided portal services for accessing funds and interacting with dapps. With the continuous development of the web3 ecology, the number of public chains continues to increase, the diversity of assets continues to expand, and in the face of the new needs of web2 users, web3 also has new needs and pain points for wallets, including but not limited to:
The chains of different dapps are different, it is very inconvenient to add and switch multiple chains
The wallet cannot fully display NFT assets and some assets that are yield-farming
Unable to easily register and log in using the login method of web2
Wallet theft incidents occur frequently, and security is worrying
The interaction between the wallet and the dapp is not smooth enough, and multiple confirmations are required in the middle
Current status of game wallets:
Most gamers still use mainstream plug-in wallets, such as metamask, coinbase wallet.
Interacting between mainstream wallets and different dapps requires browsing different websites and manually connecting wallets. Rainbow Wallet, Trust Wallet and Metamask have begun to try to combine wallet and DApp service functions into one, allowing users to exchange tokens directly in the application, providing users with a one-stop solution, but they cannot log in to the game directly from the wallet.
Wallet onboarding of traditional web3 games is very complicated for web2 players.
Some games provide in-app wallets to reduce the above friction.
In-game use only
Not decentralized enough, most of them are escrow wallets, and the private key is not in the hands of users
Interactive experience is very convenient
After logging in, you can directly recharge legal currency to buy in-game assets, similar to the experience of traditional games
Verticalized wallets have emerged in other fields, and there are no products for game-specific wallets.
At present, there are wallets for specific fields in other fields. By building specific wallets for specific user groups, developers can build more useful functions for the audience and serve them more effectively. For example, DTTD, the main NFT social wallet, can directly DM owns wallets with different NFTs and shares their newly purchased NFTs
The mainstream EOA wallet is part of the core network protocol. Due to the limitation of the underlying core protocol of Ethereum, there is no way to support users' strange web2-level account experience requirements.Smart contract wallets are on the rise.
In the future, smart contract wallets for the game track may gradually appear. For example, Argent is building a single application for the DeFi and Web3 fields, and is actively exploring new functions and vertical fields, including virtual real estate, games, DAO and NFT.
Smart contract wallets implement access and control through code, allowing almost unlimited functions, including the ability to retrieve lost accounts, adjustable gas fee payment methods, no need for mnemonics, preset execution logic, etc.
image description
Image source: https://smartwallet.substack.com/p/smart-wallet-new-paradigm-for-blockchain
Outlook/Viewpoint:
need:
Interoperability
need:
For game project parties, the realization of interoperability between games can bring natural initial liquidity and more utility to in-game assets, improve the utility and value of NFT and game tokens, and promote the circulation and exchange of in-game assets. promote. In addition, introducing third-party goods into their games can also help reduce development time and costs to a certain extent.
status quo:
status quo:
Interoperability of NFTs
At present, there are only a few projects that specifically provide NFT interoperability services, and most of them are interoperability features incidentally added by game developers during the development process. At present, the interoperability of NFT in games can be divided into the following two categories:
The experience accumulated by the player in one game can give the player more rights or a higher level in the other game
In theory, the life cycle of NFT can be extended, but it requires the game platform to continuously release new games, which has high requirements for the game platform's distribution capabilities.
2D simple textures are technically simple and can be implemented quickly; the introduction of 3D requires a unified development standard and model, which requires a long time, manpower and material resources
It can empower the PFP community that lacks content, and it can also bring more users and traffic to the game
Generally, well-known PFPs are introduced, such as cryptopunks and azuki
A core game + other NFTs can be introduced
NFT intercommunication can be realized between games in the game platform with multiple games, eg mobox
Token interoperability
The token income of different games is interoperable through DEX/CEX
View:
need:
NFT trading market
need:
status quo:
status quo:
General-purpose NFT secondary market, for example: Opensea, Magic Eiden;
Most of the transactions still occur in the third-party NFT secondary market, such as OpenSea. These established secondary trading platforms have outstanding traffic advantages and brand advantages.
But from the perspective of Gamefi's transaction needs, there are problems with the general-purpose platform, because the third-party market is not designed for game asset transactions. The NFT of the game usually needs to update metadata frequently. General-purpose platforms such as opensea do not support updating metadata data through API for the time being; in addition, there are some game data that cannot be displayed with regular on-chain Metadata.
Embedded game internal marketplace, for example: stepn's built-in marketplace for buying and selling shoes
Enables developers to own and customize the UX through game-specific flows and interfaces
Reduce the friction of players in the experience, and buy and sell directly in the game
The project party can charge fees to expand the source of income, and can also bypass the secondary taxation of the third-party secondary market
Vertical NFT marketplace, such as: Fractal, Lootex, DMarket.
The nft marketplace for games can theoretically provide many additional services, such as providing data and comments about games, providing rankings of different game categories, and using the review system to improve content quality, using DCF model pricing for game NFTs, and cross Sales etc.
Compared with the trading market inside the game, it is more open; compared with the general type, it is more detailed
In the web3 world, since a trading market can cover NFT assets of multiple games, the GMV of the game NFT trading market will be considerable
For the project side, the vertical NFT marketplace will also provide more detailed services than the general marketplace, such as providing additional purchase promotions. In addition, the ratio of commission is currently less than that of the general marketplace
View:
In the short term, most games still take into account both the marketplace embedded in the game and the mainstream third-party trading market. The in-game marketplace is irreplaceable in terms of user experience and project side revenue, but in the future as the verticalized NFT marketplace provides more valuable and detailed services, more games may gradually turn to the new verticalized marketplace.
Production and research related upstream
GameFi SDK
need:
need:
For the gamefi project party, it is very difficult and costly to make a game from scratch, and chain reform is a good choice, and the SDK can speed up the speed of chain reform;
For traditional game manufacturers, the biggest difficulty in entering Web3 lies in the universal lack of blockchain development talents, while the development of smart contracts has a certain threshold. The industry talent is seriously insufficient compared with the market gap and the cost is high. For most game manufacturers In other words, it is difficult to quickly recruit an experienced blockchain development team in the short term, and an easy-to-use SDK can save them a lot of manpower, material and financial resources;
status quo:
status quo:
The gamefi sdk on the market can be divided into two categories - those who have made web3 games and then transformed into sdk providers; game platforms provide additional gamefi sdk.
The sdk provided by the blockchain game developer，eg mirror world，canoe
Seamless web3 Sign-in
Support both mobile and web
Support multiple chains
Support multiple chains
Generate your own marketplace
Generally, there will be a blockchain game developed using this sdk to prove it works
Generally provide the following functions:
The difference between different sdk service providers mainly lies in the different emphases, some focus on providing NFT sdk in detail (such as blind box sales, NFT upgrade), and some focus on defi convenient sdk (such as token economic design)
sdk provided by the platform，eg voodoo,game space
Prefer to provide customized services, the price is relatively high
The main functions provided are similar to those of chain game developers
Compared with chain game developers, it will provide chain reform services for more serious games
View:
The gamefi sdk is not very difficult for the gamefi project side. Basically, those who have made a forming chain game, and even a certain part, can provide sdk services. In a bear market, it is easy to have more shovels than dirt. In the long run, as more and more traditional games enter the game, the demand for gamefi sdk exists. However, due to the low technical threshold of gamefi sdk, short-term gamefi sdk providers may form competition on different chains in terms of strategic positioning and product services. In the long run, there should be an oligopoly that dominates gamefi as a service and supports multiple chains.
need:
need:
At present, there are many mature game engines available on the market, including the familiar Unreal engine, unity, etc. The current business model is also very friendly, most of which are free to use, and when the revenue reaches a certain scale, a 5% licensing fee is paid. However, some web2 game companies choose to develop their own game engines (similar to the needs of developing web3 game engines), mainly for the following reasons:
I want a function that focuses more on the characteristics of my game. Eg: capcom focuses on the hit engine. Facing the public, an all-inclusive engine may not be able to be so detailed;
It is more in line with your own habits, you can save a lot of time, and form a positive cycle with a suitable engine-better and faster product quality-better engine.
status quo:
status quo:
At present, gamefi basically uses traditional game engines, and traditional game engines will be more compatible with the creation of blockchain games in the future. For example, Venly’s Unity plug-in can use items in the game as blockchain assets compatible with Polygon. manage. The solution can also visually edit NFT contracts and tokens through the Venly Manager window.
There are also native engines for gamefi, eg, Fragcolor, which feature an additional creator-centric equivalent of a game-revenue economy. In this model, each game asset is considered a "fragment" that can be used with others to form a final NFT. Each sale then distributes revenue to the respective creators of that NFT piece for royalties. However, the feature of this native engine is decentralization, but it is of little practicality for the project side, and the current development situation is not optimistic.
View:
Gamefi's game development process is actually mostly consistent with web2 games, and the types are also the same. At present, there is no need to develop an engine from scratch for Gamefi, or in other words, a gamefi-specific engine does not have much meaning for the time being.
cloud computing service
need:
need:
The game's demand for cloud access:
The release time of the game is short, and the online speed is fast, and the cloud server can dynamically adjust resources. During the peak period, a large number of cloud hosts can be prepared to deal with it; after a few months, the game is stable, and the server needs to be merged to release the remaining hosts. Lose.
Cloud server vendors can provide a complete set of solutions, including computing, network, storage, database, middleware, container, security, etc.
The demand for decentralization of cloud services:
status quo:
status quo:
Basically all games currently use traditional cloud computing services, such as AWS, google cloud, etc.
At present, there are almost no gamefi using web3 decentralized cloud computing services.
The decentralized cloud platform can theoretically provide users with decentralized computing, storage and network resources at a lower cost by utilizing the idle resources of end users, private data centers or enterprise infrastructure, making application deployment faster than traditional providers. Affordable.
At present, decentralized cloud platforms can be divided into the following categories
Store large or static data, eg IPFS-based Filecoin and Arweave, etc.
A database dedicated to storing data, eg Ceramic
For cloud computing and hosting, eg Fluence, Livepeer, graphics rendering platform Render Network, etc.
Comprehensive cloud computing solution platform, eg, Dfinity
Reasons not to use a decentralized solution:
Compared with the centralized cloud platform, the decentralized cloud platform is still in the early stage at present, the development cost is high, the price is even higher than the centralized cloud platform, and the delay problem has not been solved
View:
At present, the services provided by decentralized cloud platforms are far inferior to centralized cloud service solutions in terms of price, adaptability, and maturity. Players don't care whether the way of data storage is decentralized, and GameFi will still use centralized cloud services in the short and medium term. In the long run, if the centralized cloud platform can provide more competitive prices in an ideal state, some gamefi project parties may choose a decentralized cloud platform, but because of usage habits and migration costs, the centralized cloud platform should still be dominant.
need:
need:
For the game project side, they need to understand the player's contribution in the game to adjust the distribution of tokens, and give rewards to real players instead of fast-in and fast-out gold users. They also need to know more about players' user portraits To understand the needs of players for the next step of game development, adjustment and promotion;
status quo:
status quo:
The project party will carry out data burying during the beta and other public testing stages, and judge the characteristics of the players based on the data obtained in the public testing.
The obtained data and user portraits are not real-time
limited information available
The data and information obtained are usually just some player behavior data, and multiple behavior data need to be combined to get the final result
Does not include off-chain information
Projects, such as carv and dequest, have begun to appear on the market to provide players with "portraits" by aggregating on-chain and off-chain game data.
In addition to creating value for project parties, these projects can also provide value to users, which is equivalent to issuing a "certificate" to users
Usually issued to players in the form of NFT/SBT
Generally, both on-chain and off-chain data are aggregated
View:
Compared with the intuitive behavior of defi users on the chain, each gamefi player has a large number of game behaviors and interactions in multiple games on the chain and off the chain. If these data are organically aggregated and analyzed, they will be of practical value to the project party of.
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