Why gamification has never been properly mixed with blockchain (and why we will change it)
Gamification is magic. You implement gameplay mechanics in your system and *poof*, you boost engagement like it’s nothing. Except you don’t, because introducing gamification properly is hard. Blockchain platforms that tried it know it all too well. With Cryptons Game — pre-ICO ongoing — we’ve worked hard to recognize the ails they suffer from and treat them all.
So, why gamified crypto platforms aren’t so successful?
They were all singular projects, focused around a single game or mechanic.
Let’s talk Cryptokitties. The platform lets you collect and breed kitties.
That’s basically it.
It’s an interesting idea, but the fact it’s so bare bones makes it not very appealing. You can only get so much enjoyment from this simple mechanic. Imagine Pokemon, but one where you don’t travel the world, don’t meet any characters, don’t even partake in creature duels. You just breed your Pokemons.
But even if you took the most interesting mechanic(s) and made the most interesting game, it will not succeed in the long run. Because even the best game eventually gets boring.
If you follow the esports industry, you’ll see that the oldest still active games out there constantly evolve. CS:GO is nothing like Counter-Strike 1.0 or CS: Source, its previous iterations. Even the current version is constantly updated with weapons balance patches, updated official map pool and so on.
The game needs to be changing to keep engagement.
WHAT’S OUR ANSWER?
Cryptons Game doesn’t exist in a void. It is a part of the Cryptonic Universe.
We take the mechanic of collecting and breeding your characters (living robots called Cryptons), but we make them customizable. We let you level up their stats, increasing their value. And most of all, we let you use them in games.
Yes, games. Multiple games of multiple genres, because if you don’t like an action platformer, maybe you’ll like a collectible card game. And if you get bored with it, maybe you’ll try your skill in our MOBA.
Each of your Cryptons can be used in each game. In the action game, he’s your avatar. You control him directly. In the card game, your Cryptons are reflected in your cards and their strength. Each victory boosts their stats, so you keep upgrading your assets while.
There is a stream of games already planned and in production. Because your platform can’t get stale. You can’t count on a single mechanic to keep it going for years to come.
2. They were shallow.
In today’s gaming, lore is everything. A whole convincing world was created for Dishonored or Skyrim, and even something as skill-based as League of Legends has detailed descriptions of characters, places, events. People are drawn to virtual universes because they can almost convince you you are somewhere else. Details are important, and that’s something literally every gamer knows.
What do we have in our tokenized industry? 90% of crypto games are Cryptokitties clones — basically different skins for the same mechanic. There is nothing there to support them. No story, no lore, no universe. Nothing that would keep you invested and make you want to learn more.
Even some most ambitious project, such as Crypto Barons, seem… generic. Your standard medieval fantasy, knights in armour, maybe dragons. They’re what they are because the developers took the easy way, came up with a setting or story you’re already familiar with. But a gamer will instantly recognize lazyness, and these games will hardly succeed.
WHAT’S OUR ANSWER?
Cryptons Game exists in what we call the Cryptonic Universe. It’s another plane of reality — another dimension if you will. Out there, the dominant life form aren’t carbon-based. Machines are alive, and organic creatures, well, have a wholly different place than here. But let’s not spoil too much.
The backstory is a tale of expansion gone wrong. Of a peaceful, strong and unified culture that spread itself too thin to keep their unity, and for the first time in their history learned that differences lead to war. However, their character made it impossible for them to live in separation, and extinction became inevitable. The last Cryptons remaning managed to postpone death and sent a message to another world. To us.
Communicating with Cryptons through thinking tools called Emissaries, humans are set to help the aliens survive. Players are among these men who explore another galaxy and discover the ancient civilization of machines, trying to provide them Quintessence, their life force, in exchange for riches and technological advancement.
The whole world, the story, the characters are designed to explore the most interesting aspects of classic science fiction. What if organic life wasn’t the ‘proper’ life in the eyes of the rest of our universe’s inhabitants? What if we met a race that’s basically our negation, evolving from peaceful to warlike and striving to go back? What if we suddenly got access to advanced technology, but got stuck with our 21st-century mindset?
Now we have something previous crypto platforms lacked. A world that’s interesting to explore.
3. They weren’t made to last.
As I previously stated, your game needs to evolve. Funny thing, there was an online game called Evolve, but despite its huge potential it didn’t… evolve. It was quite popular at release, but its creators refused to listen to gamers, stuck to their own set-in-stone vision, and caused the game to die.
You need to change. Sometimes you even should break your own rules and maybe switch genres. Or media. Pokemon was made into a cartoon. Mortal Kombat had a platform game and a movie. There were comic books.
But for that, you need a fully realized universe, an interesting setting to explore, because when you have a generic setting with characters you will never remember, no one will be interested in digging deeper. And as we know from our previous segment, interesting lore is something that crypto games have been lacking.
WHAT’S OUR ANSWER?
Cryptons Game will be not only a platform featuring various games, but a whole multimedia universe. We’ve planned tabletop games. Comic book stories. Graphic novels. Short stories.
They’re all possible, because we have a universe with a mystery, with a history, with characters in it, and one that’s different than anything else. A world with POTENTIAL, far from generic.
Thanks to it, the Cryptonic Universe can last long. In this world, there are hundreds of stories to tell, and infinite possibilities to explore.
4. Thematically, they missed the mark.
So, you make a crypto game and you want to set it in some kind of a fictional world. What do you choose (providing you decided to actually build a world)?
Most choose a fantasy world. Knights, wizards, magic. But does it suit the crypto theme?
Fantasy as a genre has a serious flaw: you can write yourself outside the tightest corner with magic. Magic can do anything if the writer says so. Did you see Lord of the Rings? Gandalf was pretty effective in dispatching these flying creatures with his beam of light in the single scene where he did it. Pity he didn’t use the same power when confronted with them again. Why didn’t he? Because magic. It’s how it works. Maybe he was tired. Who knows?
This ‘who knows?’ is what makes fantasy easy to write (especially badly). And what makes it bad for blockchain. A crypto world needs to be crystal clear. You shouldn’t make your world hazy, just kind of making sense, because it sends a message to the users that even you don’t know what you’re doing. Tolkien took years to create his universe and updated it until his death, and there are still holes, and you think you’ll make a similar world in a year?
WHAT’S OUR ANSWER?
Sci-fi is the answer. We chose this genre, because it is grounded in reality. There is no magic — there’s technology, and even with advanced tech there are things you just expect and know to work. The best word to describe good sci-fi is ‘believable’. It’s a genre that explores real possibilities and dangers. Sure, there are things that you just need to accept, but the world stays the same, its rules don’t change. And it is a powerful message. Users know where they are, while fantasy can surprise you like a kid who suddenly, in the middle of playing, says „No! I have a magical shield and your sword doesn’t hurt me!”
Besides, on a personal note, I feel fantasy became stale. It’s too easy to just slap an armor on a dude and paint a dragon in the background. Sci-fi requires more creativity, because it doesn’t only need to look cool — it also needs to make sense. It’s a bigger challenge, but the reward is also huge. Exploring a new sci-fi universe is just so damn engaging, while fantasy is actually limited and predictable.
5. Who are they for, again, and why?
The purpose of introducing gamification is, or should be, to utilize video games mechanics to make a system appealing to everyone, not only its current supporters. Video games became casual entertainment. Everyone plays them. They are a chance to bring in new audiences to blockchain, but do crypto game platforms use their power to achieve that goal?
In my opinion, they don’t. They fail to utilize the gamification to create something more than what’s already there. Game is but a skin over a cold and hard blockchain skeleton. If you don’t already know it, you won’t get started easily. The entry cost is still high, the platforms don’t do much to explain blockchain and its benefits. Gamification is just there, but it doesn’t benefit newcomers.
I often don’t see a reason why they even bothered to create a video game, other than to say they are one of the first to mix games and blockchain. Their games aren’t unique nor deep, they don’t serve any other purpose than to be played, and on blockchain they can do much, much more.
WHAT’S OUR ANSWER?
In the Cryptons Game, gamification has a target and a purpose. Thanks to lowering the transaction cost and introducing gameplay mechanics, we open blockchain for new audiences: people not familiar with crypto, who don’t understand it and don’t know how to benefit from it.
A stream of varied games is there to attract various target groups: gamers with different interests. Strategy game fans. Action game fans. Card game fans. But gameplay is not only for fun. It’s a great way to teach. What is blockchain, how does it work, what can you do with it?
Imagine you learn all the intricacies as easily as you learn all the Starcraft 2 mechanics in its tutorial. That you think you are playing a game — which you are — but at the same time you learn about tokens and coins and distrubuted ledger. Only when you realize how complex some games are — such as Dota 2, showing dozens of statistics at a single time and requiring players to follow them all — you can understand how powerful a tool they are in introducing people to complex systems.
Gamification of the Cryptonic Universe adds new layers to the blockchain experience. It makes it easy, approachable and friendly. It makes it attractive and rewarding on a new, emotional level. Its variety ensures its longevity. On the other hand, blockchain adds new layers to gaming. When you play, you actually achieve: you increase the value of your assets instead of just showing other players that you are better.
This is how I think gamification should be done. This is how it is being done on https://cryptonsgame.com/ — Check it out and join pre-ICO.
We are UpNorth
We are a group of blockchain programmers and video game producers. We love games and play them on a daily basis, which is why we understand what gamers need, want and look for.
We aim to deliver great, full-fledged video games that they’d want to play anyway, regardless of their blockchain ties. Because if your game is there to simply show that you can make a blockchain game, and isn’t a GREAT game in itself, then what’s the point?
To quote Reggie Fils-Aime from Nintendo: „If it’s not fun, why bother?”
