The My Crypto Heroes Playbook — Episode 1: Game Ecosystem Design
A behind-the-scenes look into one of the most played blockchain games in the world. A written format of a presentation I gave at Blockchain Game Portal in Taipei this year.
Building good games is hard. Building games with an open economy is even more difficult. This multi-part series will explain how we managed to build one of the leading blockchain games out there: My Crypto Heroes.
We will explain how we achieved a weekly trading volume of ~650 ETH, why currently ~6,500 users play the game daily, and how we structured our primary sales that resulted in 13,000 ETH so far.
You will understand how we aligned our incentives with our community and why we designed the digital asset economy the way it is.
This episode 1 will explain the game design of My Crypto Heroes. We will dive into the different asset classes: Heroes, Extensions and Land. You will learn how we managed to keep scarcity of our assets while giving the players a feeling of progress.
Episode 2 explains our NFT Economics and why our users’ trading activities are so high on OpenSea:
Episode 3 introduces our community and how we managed to align our incentives with our most engaged players:
Introducing My Crypto Heroes
My Crypto Heroes is an auto-battler that features Heroes and Extensions, which are unique assets (ERC721 tokens) stored on the Ethereum Blockchain. Since these assets are stored on-chain, it allows players to buy and sell items for Ether, anytime and anywhere. This creates an interesting economic challenge: How do you make sure these assets stay valuable over time or even increase in value as more players join the ecosystem?
It’s actually pretty complex, but I’ve tried to keep the explanation as concise and simple as possible. If you want more details, find us on Twitter or join our Discord.
Let’s dive in!
Assets in My Crypto Heroes
Assets are Heroes, Extensions (= weapons), or even Land that can be bought and sold for GUM (in-game currency) or ETH (via OpenSea). I’ll use the terms NFT, ERC721 token, or asset interchangeably. They all mean the same: A unique item that represents real monetary value.
Heroes
Heroes are the central part of the ecosystem. In total, there will ever be a maximum of 200 different Hero Types (Einstein, Napoleon, etc.) in the game. Each Hero has different rarity levels. As a rule of thumb: Higher rarity = stronger hero = more utility = higher value. There are 4 rarity levels with different supply: Legendary (20), Epic (100), Rare (250), Uncommon (1000).
Users can purchase heroes from 1) other players for ETH (OpenSea) or GUM (in-game) or 2) directly from us if the heroes is being auctioned right now. (I’ll talk about our auction process in Episode 2)
Once the hero is out of the auction, he/she can only be bought from other players. This ensures the value goes up and is one reason why we have such high transaction volume on OpenSea.
What’s important to note here: The more heroes = the more quests = the more chances to find Extensions = the more ETH / GUM you earn per month.
Extensions
Extensions are weapons in MCH. Extensions drop in quests and can be won through weekly tournaments. The only way to buy Extensions is from other players, either for GUM (in-game currency) or ETH (via OpenSea). Extensions cannot be directly bought from us.
Each quest drops a different Extension series, while their supply is capped. Every 90 days (currently), the quest and the respective Extension series changes, and the supply gets refilled with the new Extension series.
Once the Extension cannot be farmed in a quest anymore, the only way to acquire this Extension is to buy it from other players. This ensures the value goes up and is one reason why we have such active secondary trading.
There are 5 rarity levels, each with a different drop probability: Legendary, Epic, Rare, Uncommon, and Common. As a rule of thumb: The higher the quest difficulty, the higher the chances to find a higher rarity Extension.
This means: The stronger your team = the higher the quest level = the higher the chance to find more rare items = the more ETH / GUM you earn per month.
Side note: Every quest run drops an Extension, but most of the time they are Replica Extensions. Replica are copies of the ‘real’ extensions that cannot be sold for GUM / ETH and are designed to help players get stronger without affecting the NFT ecosystem. Only if you’re lucky, you drop an Original Extension, which is a unique asset that can be sold for ETH / GUM.
Land Sectors
Earlier this year, we’ve sold land to our users in a public crowd sale. Land is also an ERC721 token and can be freely traded for ETH on OpenSea. There will be no more Land parts sold for the current 9 Lands, so anyone who is interested to buy some Land today, needs to buy it from other players.
Every time a user spends ETH in My Crypto Heroes, we share 30% of that revenue with land owners.
This creates some interesting incentive structures: The King of Lime created a 55 ETH giveaway for new users, the King of Strawberry is creating in-depth guides, and the King of Ocean is continuously hosting massive giveaways to keep his land healthy. You can read more about this in Episode 3.
Play Styles in My Crypto Heroes
The game design for My Crypto Heroes is inspired by the different classes during the Edo Period: Farmer, Warrior, Artist, Merchant.
Farmer
Farmers grind quests to find original Extensions that can be sold for ETH or Gum (in-game currency). They also buy low level Heroes and Extensions, level them up, and sell them again. Their main focus is to turn their time and passion into assets, making sure the ecosystem has steady supply of new (high level) assets.
Warrior
Warriors love the competition and go on weekly tournaments, or battle in the Land Battle. Winning PvP battles gets them Extensions rewards (from weekly Cup), or a Land Revenue Share if they belong to the top Knights in their Land (Knight = highest Land rank). Another way to profit is by defining the META through finding new Team compositions, which impact the market value of assets. Warriors invest their ETH / GUM into the best Heroes and Extensions, resulting in a steady demand for those assets. Warriors turn their skill and passion into assets.
Artists
Artists can upload custom skins to Heroes (stored on IPFS), which alters their Active Skill and strength parameters. Similar to League of Legends, players can purchase skins for the in-game currency GUM. But instead of buying these skins from us, users can sell their own creation to other users, creating a peer-to-peer marketplace of user generated content. This allows artists to turn their passion into assets.
Merchants
MCH Heroes and Extensions are one of the most liquid assets in the Blockchain gaming space. This allows Merchants to buy and sell assets, while making a neat profit if they can time the market right. They buy items cheaply from Farmers and sell it to Warriors, just in time before their next big tournament. It’s a dream come true for anyone who traded with in-game items in World of Warcraft or with Skins on CS:GO.
Putting it Together
The game economy, quest design, tournament rewards, and hero sales structure are a fine-tuned machinery that keeps the value of unique assets intact. The details are actually quite complex, so I’ll let our ecosystem diagram speak for itself.
If you like to understand more details of the ecosystem continue with the next Episode:
Build with us!
At My Crypto Heroes, we’ve spent the last 18 months building, launching, and growing this game and community. If you’d like to get in touch, reach out to me on Twitter or join our Discord.
If you need support with your economy design and want to work closer with us, have a look at our MCH+ accelerator. This a program aimed to support game projects to dive into the crypto world:
PS: If you’re looking for a referral code when creating your MCH account, feel free to use mine: 5yXJ
