2 blockchain games done right
Talking EVE Frontier and Wildcard
Top 300 Web3 Games Index: ↑3% today, ↓54% YTD
Ronin Games Index: ↑11% today, ↓42% YTD
Immutable Games Index: ↑7% today, ↓61% YTD
AI Gaming Agents: ↑4% today, ↓55% YTD
Jon’s TX Games Index: ↑4% today, ↓51% YTD
Given current headwinds, maybe you could be forgiven for questioning whether blockchain is a technology that has any sustained use in gaming.
Sure, blockchain was great technology with which to raise funding in 2021-2022 but as the graph below shows, building a sustainable revenue model seems to be limited to the very best DeFi protocols such as token exchange Uniswap, rather than trading digital assets like the OpenSea marketplace.
I think this framing gives us a clue as to why the current generation of web3 games aren’t more successful. In many cases, they’re bolting on blockchain as a one-shot business model layer rather than building a game bottom-up using blockchain for game design reasons.
The simple question is ‘how does blockchain make your game better?’ Notably that’s ‘how does it make your game better?’ Not ‘how does it make your game’s business model better?’
If this question isn’t straightforward enough, here’s CCP Games’ CEO Hilmar Veigar Pétursson to explain why he’s making a blockchain game.
Granted, the sort of games the Icelandic developer makes are very specific. Famously, EVE Online was the first ‘database game’.
So when he started thinking about blockchain, Hilmar — an ex-CTO — focused on the specific features that a blockchain enables, notably the persistence of state, provable ownership and decentralization, in terms ensuring everyone has equal access to the code base.
Indeed, seen through the lens of its infamously hardcore PVP game EVE Online, he also noted some broad similarity.
“What is interesting about a system like Ethereum, which is trying to be a computer more than Bitcoin being a database, is that the environment is very adversarial,” he says. “Everything on Ethereum is competing, competing for attention, competing for block space. It’s a very adversarial environment, just like EVE Online is a very adversarial environment.”
This combined with CCP’s ongoing struggles to enable sufficient access to the third party developers who have built so much of EVE Online’s ecosystem, especially in terms of UX software.
And that’s why EVE Frontier is building on Ethereum via a framework called MUD, which uses the Redstone L2 blockchain. It’s also why CCP is open sourcing its Carbon game development suite. Going blockchain and going open source are different sides of the same coin.
Using the analogy that EVE Online is a city state, like Rome, Hilmar says EVE Frontier is like building a new city, say New York.
“Rome is not a worse city because New York exists,” he explains, adding “I believe that by building a new city, we will become better at building cities. There are pieces of technologies, techniques and procedures that over time will make us better city builders and that should benefit both games.”
But this is not to play down the significance of EVE Frontier being a blockchain game. Anyway Hilmar is adamant CCP isn’t building EVE Frontier the game. Instead it’s building the tools that will let the community build games within EVE Frontier, and thanks to blockchain, also monetize them.
“We are not going to build the actual city. We’re going to build tools for people to build cities. We’re going to build city builder tools,” he says.
Of course, this sort of approach doesn’t come cheap. EVE Frontier wouldn’t exist if it hadn’t raised $40 million from the likes of a16z, Bitkraft, Makers, Hashed and Nexon. In that sense, then, it’s not a game that could have raised sufficient capital from NFT and token pre-sales.
It’s more ambitious than that. And that’s the point.
You can check out my interview with Hilmar in BCGW #194 via YouTube and Spotify, with the transcription at BlockchainGamer.biz.
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Calendar
Wildcard’s closed alpha playtest for Wildpass holders — 14th March
Pre-reg for Immutable’s big hope RavenQuest going live — 14th March
Sui Gaming Summit at GDC 2025 — 18th March
Immutable’s GDC 20025 Saloon party — 19th March
Saga’s GDC 2025 Sidekick event — 19th March
Parallel goes live through app stores — 19th March
First Forkast CGX staking loot boxes drop — 20th March
Nyan Heroes starts play-to-airdrop event #4 — 26th March
Wildcard Reveals Its Cards news
Much anticipated esports MOBA web3 game Wildcard is gearing up for launch. Today — 6pm EST — it’s running its first streaming event via the Thousands.tv platform, with the first closed alpha playtest for NFT holders coming on Friday. It’s also dropped the first wave of its WC tokens — 20% of the token supply, albeit currently locked to prevent trading c.f. Apptokens! — and released its whitepaper.
And this reveals that much anticipated esports MOBA game Wildcard isn’t going to be a web3 game after all.
Instead, the game will be a F2P PC/console game focused on player expression (i.e. skins, cosmetic enhancements, customization) and be “traditionally monetized”. No blockchain. No play-to-win.
The web3 elements, including the WC token, are part of a metagame called Wildclash, which in turn, will be distributed and used through the crypto-native Thousands.tv platform.
In this way, WC holders can support one of eight game factions, using their tokens collaboratively in terms of voting and draft picks, as well as individually in terms of staking and prediction markets on individual matches. There will also be an opportunity for high value individuals and groups to own Wildorgs, effectively franchises within the overall sport.
Significantly, this approach is very much in keeping with best practice of using blockchain for the things it does best — in this case, incentivizing community — and not for raising money or unbalancing gameplay.
Also similar to CCP, Wildcard raised $46 million from game VCs, so it hasn’t sold NFTs to raise capital and is giving away 100% of the MC tokens to its community, so no-one cares about token price.
All this is a very good thing!
Additional Links
OpenSea is going to add support for Ronin, it seems.
Holders of Mythic and Exalted NFTs from the pre-order of the SuiPlay0X1 console have been airdropped assets from NHN’s Pebble City game, although only worth $3 apparently!
My Pet Hooligan can now be wishlisted on Xbox.
Line is partnering with Sony’s L2 Soneium to bring four games to web3.
RPG Treeverse is now live on Epic Games Store and Play Store with App Store to follow.
⚔️ Pre-register for Axie Infinity: Atia’s Legacy here. ⚔️