“The Web3 Land Dilemma — Exploring the Solution”
“Wen Land, Azra Games?”
Project Arcanas, our first game, is about commanding legions to conquer an uncharted galaxy where magic and technology collide. We’ve discussed collecting commanders, war machines, and a special mint of resource-generating NFTs called “The Genesis Explorers.”
One feature ubiquitous in web3 projects is conspicuously absent: land.
When asked about “land” in our first AMA, our CEO Mark Otero said, “The best games are extremely crisp. A game must do one thing extremely well to be a great experience”. To understand our “one thing” and how it plots against the web3 rush of “land” sales, we need to look back in history at the most famous land rush — California. 1849.
The Original Gold Rush
In 1848, when James W. Marshall struck gold at Sutter’s Mill; California was land under military occupation with an economy in shambles. Today, the GDP of California is roughly 3.4 Trillion US Dollars, ranking 5th worldwide if it were a nation, not a state. None of this would be possible without the intrepid Forty-Niners who transformed this war-torn land into one of the greatest economic powers the world has ever seen.
California during the gold rush was a mix of slow-moving information, unsettled legal doctrine in the midst of transitioning power structures, and bold explorers inspired by economic opportunities.
Likewise, Web3 circa 2022 is a mix of fast-moving information, loosely outlined regulatory frameworks, and bold digital explorers inspired by economic opportunities. It represents a unique opportunity in human history to bootstrap a new economy, similar to California in the late 1800s, but speedrun at 100x velocity.
The Metaverse Gold Rush
In October 2021, Facebook’s announced that it was changing its corporate name to Meta, to reflect its ambition to lead the world in more holistically blending the digital and physical worlds in a new metaverse.
Decentraland ($MANA), Sandbox ($SAND), and other metaverse-related cryptocurrencies 10x’d in the weeks following Facebook’s announcement and a modern gold rush of digital land was on.
This new gold rush brought digital land to the forefront of the metaverse, followed by some of the largest NFT mints in history to date, including Otherside Deeds by Yuga Labs, Axie Infinity Land, and Illuvium’s land sale.
These land sales come with implied promises of large returns and the right to be a digital rent seeker in the future of unrealized metaverses. But serious questions remain about how digital landlords impact the psychology of players and a game’s long-term health.
The most basic question is this: does land make a game more fun?
“Do One Thing Extremely Well.”
From the beginning, our team has been executing on a single prompt: “What is the one thing that we must do extremely well to create a great experience?” For Mark, the answer lies in the genre we’ve chosen — collectibles and combat RPGs.
The choice of genre is also not by accident. Project Arcanas is Mark’s ninth CCG game and he’s uniquely positioned to drive this exploration.
In RPG games, players explore fantasies through their favorite characters, and the progression loop of these characters is what drives the fun. Time put into character upgrades is an investment, creating a deep attachment to the ciphers that serve as the gateway to immersion.
Selling land assets in an RPG can complicate the progression loops of characters, forcing players to split some investment away from the key driver of their immersion, and forcing developers to divert resources into building utility into the land to justify its existence.
Any feature outside the core loop risks distracting game teams from doing one thing extremely well. That is not to say that “land” is always a poor design choice — but rather a call for developers to investigate the potential of any new feature on the core loop.
What Role Does Land Play in Metaverse Games?
While the land itself may be an obstacle to doing one thing extremely well in RPG games, there are properties of land that can be accretive to a game experience in other genres, and thus an exploration of the properties of land can contribute to shaping land-like assets in RPGs.
Mineral rights
In the physical world, the ownership of land often comes with mineral rights to exploit. In virtual worlds, economies often skeuomorphically mimic real-world economies. Land in metaverses often generates assets used to craft other goods.
This is useful in building an RPG. Grinding and crafting upgrades for your characters are two essential ingredients in the recipe of progression that leads to fun outcomes and presents an opportunity for land-like assets that impart mineral rights to be used to bootstrap virtual economies.
Scarcity & Location
There are two often-repeated quotes in real estate. The first is “Real estate is the best investment because it’s the only thing they aren’t making more of.” The second is “Location, Location, Location!”
In a virtual world where supply scarcity is as simple as a few lines of code, real estate is no longer “the only thing they aren’t making more of.” Thus, this artificial scarcity is not sufficient to impute the inflationary hedge that accompanies real estate in the physical world.
The second idiom gets to a deeper truth. In the physical world, it is the location of the land, not simply its scarcity that drives value. In the virtual world, the location may be as simple as “what’s trending.” If a project loses its luster, all the parcels within it depreciate together.
Real estate is simply a subgroup of “property.” What we may learn here is that owning things of value is a deep human desire. Boiling things down to this basic motivation unlocks the key to recognizing the place “land-like assets” hold in RPGs.
Network effects
Land in the physical world is the magnet for social interaction. Despite living in a digital world that can connect billions, we’re still wired for small tribes united by like-minded worldviews and common enemies.
Having access to the plots of land where the other humans physically, economically, culturally, and socially gather represents the real value that can be hoarded or sold. RPGs have long used clans, guilds, and communities as the constructs that allow people to gather, meet, and cooperate.
Here we see our next opportunity for a web3 RPG.
The Genesis Explorers
In Project Arcanas, our first mint is in fact a “land-like asset.”
The Azra Games Genesis Collection NFTs take on the persona of Genesis Explorers, people who identify with the same spirit of the original gold rush Forty-Niners. These explorers can function in this new digital economy in the same spirit as those explorers panning for gold in Sutter Hill in 1848.
They retain the underlying benefits of Land in a metaverse without ruining the progression loop of an RPG meant to immerse players in a world of technological and magical fantasy through the eyes of memorable characters.
Mineral Rights: The Genesis Explorers are resource miners that can be deployed on Exploration Missions in Project Arcanas for exclusive rewards used to craft or trade with other players. Instead of investing in sterile buildings and oil derricks, players improve their resource mining by investing in upgrades for their Explorers, staying true to the core motivations of the RPG genre.
Scarcity & Location: The Genesis Explorer Collection will be Azra Games’ first and only sale of a special category of NFT we call PFPs (Not just profile pics, but Play Forever Passes). Explorers are limited in supply and varied in rarity — but most importantly, their utility extends beyond one game. Instead of a plot of land, the Explorers are prospectors that can pick up and change locations, allowing the holder to mine exclusive resources in any project released by Azra Games. These game systems are deflationary by design and built to provide perpetual utility and unique rewards to Genesis Collection holders.
Network Effects: Since January, Azra Games has attracted a thriving community of like-minded degens and players. With our first NFT mint comes the opportunity to create even deeper associations and belonging amongst fans. In time, DAOs will offer the opportunity to codify the incentive structures that drive guilds and clans today. They may themselves become the land-like assets that represent cooperative network effects in games.
Conclusion
Balancing land, fun and fantasy represents a new trilemma in GameFi. Project Arcanas will bring land-like assets to our players through characters called Genesis Explorers (mineral rights), the cross-game utility built into Play Forever Passes (scarcity & location), and DAOified Guilds (social network effects). We will balance this important economy through well-crafted deflationary systems.
Building fun games are extremely challenging. Forcing land into every game is not the answer, but we uniquely understand the necessary conditions for fun experiences to emerge.
From evaluating “Land” to any other feature that’s trending, the razor laid down by our captain will remain the same: “The best games are extremely crisp. A game must do one thing extremely well to be a great experience.”
Travis Boudreaux
CTO, Azra Games
