Philip La, the ex-head of product at Sky Mavis, has published an interesting Substack post about how to design web3 mobile games that will pass app store approvals.
One reason I’d suggest this short article is well worth reading is that La has spent the past 12 months dealing with this exact problem in the form of Axie Infinity Origins, a game that’s yet to make it through app store approvals.
In the article, he highlights a template that I think many other designers in the space are also thinking about and implementing. (From what I can see, this is how Mythical Games’ NFL Rivals works, for example).
In this model, all web3 features are purely optional and secondary to players buying IAPs in the traditional F2P mobile business loop.
Instead, NFTs arise when players gain (or buy) what La calls “a mintable” in-game asset that they then choose to turn into a NFT, which operates in a loop external to the mobile game itself via browser-based marketplaces etc.
The trick is that NFTs provide no in-game advantage or access to additional content in general as they will have been mainly created (or bought) using standard IAPs but they can provide value and advantage to individual players who are prepared to spend money in the external marketplace.
So most players can play these games as traditional F2P mobile games without having a clue they contain NFTs, while crypto-curious/experienced players have exactly the same experience while also owning and potentially trading their in-game assets via a wallet and marketplace external to the app.
In this manner, Apple and Google get their 30% on IAPs, which is the process whereby most assets are being created, and the game isn’t structurally unbalanced by NFTs. But there is web3 juice for players who want to get involved with blockchain. Obviously this also is where developers can gain additional monetization.
It’s a neat balancing act, and one in which La also highlights the option for in-game IAP assets to be degraded or consumed to stop inflation etc.
Of course, personally I’m dead against this form of directionalism — that is tailoring the use of blockchain to fit within the existing rules — instead arguing from the point of view of destinationism — that is we should do exactly what we want to do when it comes to blockchain in games, even if that means we can’t operate in app stores.
And interestingly this is what Sky Mavis also appears to have concluded from its attempts to get Axie Infinity Origins through the app stores.
Which isn’t to say that La doesn’t have a point: I think many mobile web3 games will be following a similar playbook in the coming months.
But, either way, everyone should be aware of the strengths and weaknesses of each approach and not end up trying to mix-and-match them.
This Substack is sponsored by Hiro Capital: Investing in the future of gaming
Calendar
Mobile monopoly web3 game Upland adds London and Birmingham — 27th April
Sky Mavis’ Ronin blockchain is unlocking 2% of RON supply — 27th April
InfiniGods has Immortal Siege TD playtest for NFT holders — 27-30th April
Everai is announcing something — 28th April
Mighty Action Heroes’ playtest — 28-30th April
Chainmonsters On Pause news
Sad news from Pokemon-inspired mobile and PC indie game Chainmonsters which is pausing development and operations until it can raise additional funds.
Originally launched on Kickstarter with assets deployed on the Flow blockchain, the game recently moved to Immutable, for which I assume it got some additional funding.
But as founder Maximilian Weber points out, it’s never received professional investment, with the $2 million or so raised since 2017 not sufficient to get the project from its current feature-complete state to being a completed game with all the content and polish that requires.
Still, despite market conditions, someone can hopefully find a couple of million to get the game over the line.
New Games And Their Blockchains news
Another month over at the Big Blockchain Games List. It’s just dropped the chain breakdown of the 55 titles added during April. Arbitrum and Polygon are in joint first place with 7 news games, closely followed by IMX with 6.
A quarter of games haven’t yet revealed or decided what chain they’re deploying on, which is similar to the 31% share for March.
Multichain is down from 13% in March to 6% in April, although we shouldn’t read too much into single month-to-month trends.
Additional Links
Previously supporting Ethereum and Solana, Google Cloud’s Blockchain Node Engine has added support for Polygon.
Nothing to do with blockchain, but ex-Bungie, Wideload, Industrial Toys founder Alexander Seropian has launched a gamedev-focused podcast — The Fourth Curtain
Listen to all your podcasts in Fountain and get paid in sats for the first hour daily.