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Source: W Labs Footprint Analytics
Original title: Count GameFi model development, is there still a promising future?
This article describes: GameFi has also gone through a cycle of ups and downs. This article uses a large number of charts to expose the bubble of GameFi's original sin and explore what kind of model will last for the future to develop for a long time.
GameFi has been on the rise for more than a year, from the rapid upward climb of the number of users in the last quarter of 2021 to the beginning of weakening in early 2022, a significant decline occurred in February.
to March 2022 With the popularity of StarSharks, Crabada and other projects, GameFi seems to have rekindled hope, but in April and May, the two games were also inevitably trapped in the death spiral. StepN, which is eye-catching in the new Move-to-eran model, has also been sluggish after publishing an announcement to clear Chinese users.
GameFi has experienced rapid rise and fall within a year. The base of 3 billion gamers around the world has not brought much benefit to Web3. More players still come from the circle of encrypted worlds such as DeFi or NFT. Looking around, the vast majority of GameFi active cycles are not long, but their development paths have also brought some inspiration to the market:
1. The faster the development, the less high-quality projects, the
GameFi projects are mixed, and there are many fork projects that want to make a fortune. 70% to 80% of GameFi projects in the market cannot reach an active status of 200 people per day for 5 consecutive days. Among the projects launched in 2022, more than 80% of the projects can reach an active status within 30 days of launch, but How long have they persisted?
Footprint Analytics - Days from Project Launch to Active
2. The project activity cycle is worrying
0% of projects have fallen into silence in less than 30 days, and it has rarely been there since November last year The project was able to remain active for more than three months. Footprint Analytics - Days from Project Active Launch to Inactive
Most GameFi projects on the chain are fast from going online to entering active, but they don’t stay active for a long time.
3. The development paths of each public chain are different
. Through the periodic analysis of the GameFi project from online to active and then to inactive, the horizontal axis is set as the number of days required for the project from online to active state, and the vertical axis is From the number of days active, the bubble size is the total number of users. The more you lean on
, the more you lean on the left, the more you reach an active state, the more you lean on the upper part, the longer you lean on the upper part, the longer you keep the project active, so the better the project will perform. , therefore, the better the project will perform in the upper left corner, .
HIVE has performed outstandingly in many projects with Splinterlands. After it went online, it entered the active period and was still maintaining, so it fell in the upper left corner and became a larger yellow bubble.
Footprint Analytics - Project Lifecycle Layout
Ethereum is not GameFi friendly in terms of gas fees and transaction efficiency, which makes it not ideal in the GameFi field. Many projects have long climb cycles in the early stage, short active time, and the total number of users is not high. But it has a strong foundation after all. Perhaps after solving these problems, the launch of more high-quality games will allow it to occupy a wider market share in GameFi. Compared with
projects on BSC, it is easier to quickly produce popular products, with medium duration and relatively good user size. Polygon is quite average compared to it, but ThunderCore shows unexpectedly active duration.
Footprint Analytics - Project Lifecycle Layout (Zoom in)
creates GameFi In addition to the boost from the bear market, the situation is closely related to its original sin. This report will attempt to uncover the causes of the above problems and explore the possible future of GameFi.
1. Original sin of GameFi 1.0 model
1. The first half of barbaric development
. The GameFi 1.0 period led by Axie Infinity is centered around Play-to-earn.Whether it is the gameplay (such as simple and rough staking, tower climbing PVE, card battle PVP), or the economic model (single currency, dual currency, Token + NFT, U-primary, currency standard, etc.), 's essential framework still belongs to the Ponzi structure, that is, the "outer circulation" model of continuous entry funds .
The so-called external circulation is that old players use the funds invested by new players to reinvest. New players continue to pay interest and short-term returns to old players to create the illusion of old players making money. Therefore, all tokens generated by old players who make money in the game need to be purchased and consumed by new players, otherwise players will continue to sell, causing the token mobile pool to only sell orders but not buy orders, and the token price will fall in a spiral manner in a death-like manner.
External cycle mode
From the GameFi token market value statistics statistics, GameFi has experienced a steady growth period from July to September 2021 and an outbreak period from October to November, due to the influence of the overall environment and individual projects, the entire system has been The funds entering the field have begun to slow down. In this case, the external circulation mode of GameFi 1.0 will quickly experience problems, and off-site funds cannot meet the continuous interest generation needs of on-site funds, thus gradually changing from a positive spiral to a death spiral.
Footprint Analytics - GameFi Token MarketCap
Therefore, most GameFi 1.0 projects will have a life cycle and only have one cycle. Once dies, it is difficult to restart upwards . Different models, teams, backgrounds, operations, and environments all affect the entire project throughout the process and will also produce various cycle forms.
- Blue Chip Project Form
Axie Infinity As the originator of Play-to-earn, its background, resources, and player consensus are unmatched by other chain games in the current period. Therefore, it can still maintain a rise for several months without only the base dual currency model and breeding system, and then slowly declined, and still has some loyal users today.
Footprint Analytics - Axie Users AXS Token Price strong background project form
Both are dual token models BinaryX attracts large investors' lock-up positions with community consensus and creates a strong wealth-making effect , attracted a large number of users in the early stages of the project. But it is also facing the problem of unlimited inflation of sub-coins. Once there is not enough gold-raising effect, it will immediately enter the negative feedback stage, and the number of users will drop rapidly.
However, with the help of the exchange and project parties' high control over BNX, the price of coins rebounded, but there were still very few game users .
Footprint Analytics - Binary Users BNX Token Price Pure Fund Track Project Form
Single Coin Model CryptoMines is a pure fund Track, and its life cycle pattern also represents most local dogs Project development.
At the beginning of the project, it attracted a large amount of funds to enter the market with a very short return cycle, and users and market value will increase dramatically in a very short period of time. When the bubble blows to the critical point of market capital and emotions, the higher the rise, the faster the fall, the . The hot projects used to be almost all cliff-like death spirals.
Footprint Analytics - CryptoMines Users ETERNAL Token Price
Although the project's economic model, operation model, and life form are different, whether it is the regular army Axie Infinity or the local dog king CryptoMin The Sandbox, which is also the concept of the metaverse, both fell into the trap in December 2021 Dilemma.
Footprint Analytics - MC of Axie The Sandbox
The entire GameFi field ushered in a cold winter, perhaps because of the influence of the overall environment, but more due to the Ponzi attributes of the entire GameFi itself. With the support of FOMO sentiment for several months, the overall growth rate of token's capital expansion can no longer keep up with the demand for internal capital returns of the game, so the bursting of the bubble has become inevitable.
2, the second half of gradual innovation
After a round of cleaning and a period of precipitation, some high-quality projects with reliable background, small economic model innovation, and strong operational capabilities can still be in the poor large-scale environment. There has been a small wave of GameFi craze from February to March this year. Among them, the most eye-catching ones are Crabada of the Avalanche chain and StarSharks of the BSC. StarSharks used the gimmicks of "Tianmei" and "Binance" in the early stage of the project, which kept its popularity high. Its Creation Blind Box had a high premium before the game was launched.
Unfortunately, it happened to catch up with the GameFi cold winter period, and users' desire to make money was extremely reduced. Therefore, the number of StarSharks players was not too high in the early stage, and it was also jokingly called it "at the peak of the opening".
However, compared with many projects in the previous era of barbaric development, StarSharks' background, economic model, and game quality have certain advantages. Coupled with the fuel of some communities, it has allowed it to grow steadily throughout Q1 this year and began to decline gradually after reaching its peak in April.
Footprint Analytics - StarSharks Monthly New Users Active Users
analyzes its model. StarSharks also uses the classic dual token model, the main output is SEA, and the governance token is S SS.
To prevent the unlimited inflation of the sub-coin SEA caused a death spiral like other dual token models, StarSharks turned the entry threshold into consumption SEA to purchase blind boxes, and was therefore transferred from token's selling pressure to the NFT pool. SEA has the main control effect, and 90% of the spent sub-coins are directly destroyed, making the circulating disk of sub-coins less than .
and the parent coin SSS is mainly the empowerment of pledge dividends. When its empowerment effect is average, its output is not much.
StarSharks Model Introduction
From Footprint Analytics, the number of active users has been growing at a constant speed from January to March, indicating that the SEA consumed at entry is also growing at a constant speed. However, the price of SEA began to decline in early March, reflecting that through the accumulation of several months, the number of SEAs produced on the market showed an acceleration trend, and the output was greater than consumption, which was quickly reflected in the price decline. Essence
As expected, StarSharks ignited the fuse after canceling daily tasks and rental markets, and the number of users began to fall sharply. Therefore, for GameFi projects, model analysis and data tracking can reflect the cycle in which the project is located to a certain extent.
Footprint Analytics - StarSharks Token Price vs Active Users
StarSharks is moving upstream in the downward trend, although it has not been able to escape the death spiral. In this ups and downs, StarSharks' own advantages and disadvantages are enough to let other projects in the GameFi track learn and take them as a warning:
Advantages:
. Since the current GameFi funding volume is small, hundreds of active users can In the early stage, the project was activated . The project combined with background narratives to support players' expectations for the GameFi project from March to April, and gained the interest and trust of a large number of users.. The team successfully seized the turning point of the two periods, and will violently fight gold. The return cycle is adjusted to a stable return cycle of gold . Under the maintenance of the community and large-scale users, the stable spread of the rich-making effect disadvantages:
. Although the life cycle is elongated, it has not changed the overall architecture in essence. , The pace of subsequent new updates did not keep up in time, resulting in some profitable users escaping, destroying the balance2. What are the possibilities for GameFi in the future
StarSharks did not escape the ending of the death spiral, but it also reflects from the side: this simple and crude, 5 to The P2E model that makes a 7-day profit-making profit has been gradually eliminated, and is more inclined to high-quality chain games with a certain quality assurance and a return cycle of 30 to 90 days.
When everyone is looking forward to it, GameFi1.0, which officially entered the second half, does not seem to have performed too well in Q2 this year. Whether in terms of the number of online games or the overall game assets, it is showing a slow recession.
Footprint Analytics - Monthly Number of New Projects
So, what kind of model will allow GameFi to develop for a long time in the future?
1, 3A game with content quality first
The so-called 3A game refers to some games with high development costs, high volume and high quality. 3A does not have objective judgment criteria, so in the GameFi field, chain games are generally evaluated based on the strength of the project team, background, project vision and game demo. Currently recognized 3A games include BigTime, Illuvium, StarTerra, Sidus, Shrapnel, Phantom Galaxies, etc. 3A games such as
have obvious advantages and often attract great attention in the early stage of the project, but there are still various problems criticized by players: the development process of
- is too slow and the content, picture quality, etc. are only slightly advantageous compared to Web3. The market value of some projects that have been released tokens also declined in the first half of this year, as well as the market value of the entire GameFi market declined in the first half of this year Road.
Footprint Analytics - Monthly Number of New Projects
Even so, 3A games are still worth looking forward to, because Play-to-earn has always been controversial in the GameFi field, but the high-quality game content and quality Always the players want to see of. Therefore, as long as there are some good news, activities, etc. in these 3A games, they can increase players' confidence in it to a certain extent. .
BigTime Nowadays, there are often some parties or competitions in the game.
Illuvium can still sell all 2W pieces of land in a very short time in early June.
will eventually be in the stage where 3A games are blooming. MOBA, RPG, SLG Various types of people create different scenarios and contents based on their own positioning. There is no need to consider P2E too much in games, but use truly interesting gameplay and content to attract users to truly experience the game and enjoy the differences brought by blockchain games. Maybe users have to wait for a while, maybe next year, Q2, Q3, or longer, but this will be the purest Game direction .
2, the X2E product
StepN, which is mainly narrative, has set off a Move-to-earn craze both inside and outside the circle. At the same time, it has also created a subdivision of X2E. Learn-to-earn, Sleep-to-earn, Watch-to-earn, Sing-to-earn...
From Footprint Analytics, although X2E in other modes is still in its early stages. The concept phase, but M2E's StepN led a wave of craze in May, with other imitators emerging one after another.
Footprint Analytics - X-to-earn Token Price
But in addition to Genopets, this game in Pokémon mode, other X2E projects such as StepN, Korean running shoes SNKRZ, singing Melody, jump rope F ItR, etc., is more like making money Web3 products with attributes, so this area needs to pay more attention to the social attributes brought to users by product functions. As a large meta-universe scene, SocialFi has always been what players pursue. Big World chat, ranking comparison, game event competition, and guild battle content can all give players a flow experience outside of Earn. . There are not many real GameFi in this direction. Perhaps many casual and card chain games can be combined with from this aspect.
3. Fi game
for transition of interests No matter what the future is, the mainstream form of the current stage is still based on the Play-to-earn model. The consensus of Web3 players on making money is still deeply imprinted in their minds, so more project parties are still constantly iterating and updating the economic model.
The dual currency model after market verification is currently a system verified by the market. Therefore, it can be expected that the GameFi model will still use the dual-currency model or multi-currency model in the future, but at the same time, it is necessary to set up DAO vaults and NFT trading markets, and innovation needs to be added in different links. In addition, more cautious setting is required in terms of values. Set .
It should be noted that the NFT trading market must be the project party’s own trading market, which at least ensures that taxes are the main source of income for the project party at the current stage, rather than the funds of players who enter the market completely.
Because NFT will be an indispensable and very important part of GameFi in the future, the project party can try to use NFT props as the main output of the game, whether it is ERC-721, ERC-1155, or EIP-3664, which are evolving new things like ERC-721, ERC-1155, or EIP-3664. protocol.
The second most important thing is the framework design of the game model, which is related to the sustainability of the project. , like GameFi 1.0, simple loops between token and NFT between sweeping monsters and improving character attributes, will appear too thin. This model is more like a Ponzi framework, and the funds entering the market continue to contribute to the previous funds. The project party gives the token selling pressure to the NFT, and when the NFT reservoir overflows, it will fall into the death spiral .
template: W labs GameFi One of the design ideas for economic model
If you want to enrich the game ecosystem, needs to extend the game life cycle to more horizontally and vertically on the original model. When the power of the internal circulation of the game itself is large enough, a centrifugal force that can escape from the inertia of the death vortex will be generated.
- horizontal extension
The horizontal extension in it is used to enrich the settings of the basic scene and is a framework parallel to the original model. Here you can add more output and consumption scenarios of token and NFT equipment, such as setting the life of the equipment and the standard for repair; or splitting the players of Free-to-earn and Play-to-earn layer to set different gameplay.
- longitudinal extension
longitudinal extension can be divided into two structures: upward and downward. The upward extension is used to solve the problem of too few players having enough options. 99% of players make profits by poaching and selling this single model, so more scenarios can be added. , for example, add advanced copy, PVE, and PVP, and these scenarios must also be distinguished by , and provide more empowerment through interests and consensus. The downward extension is different from the upward extension. extends the entire project's life cycle by greatly increasing the number of props and playing it. If you add fragments and gems of props and then add synthesis and decomposition functions, the downward framework can draw a lot from the gameplay of traditional games.
3, Conclusion
GameFi 1.0 has confirmed after a cycle that Web 2 and Web 3 players still have great attribute differences at least at this stage. , a Ponzi, is a drainage method in the early stage of the project, but relying solely on the external circulation mode is not feasible. If the project party cannot find its own internal circulation method to absorb the previous bubble, it will be difficult to escape the fate of the death spiral. Essence
Currently, most GameFi projects are still not playable enough, and they do not technically reflect the advantages of blockchain. Therefore, a gameFi model for transition can only be constructed from the perspective of Web 3 users and economic models. The project built with this model is not long in life, and it also makes the development of each public chain unsatisfactory. Some public chain games have many but poor quality, while some public chains have a popular game but the chain ecology is very unbalanced.
The future of GameFi needs to find more ways to find a way out in terms of game content, gameplay, and picture quality. If there is strong background support, it will be more effective. Only by continuously maintaining community consensus on this basis can the life cycle of the game be extended. Whether it is a 3A game with better content and image quality, an X2E project based on narrative, or a game that is more deeply rooted in economic models, it may be a new starting point for GameFi to bottom out and rebound.
Editor in charge: felix
