How to make a successful web3 game
With all the web3 games that are being created, how can you make sure that yours will stand out and attract players?
While there’s no magic formula that will guarantee the success of a web3 game, here are four tips to keep in mind.
Focus on fun
One major criticism against play-to-earn games is that they focused too much on the “earn” part, and not enough on “play”.
At the end of the day, games are a form of entertainment. If you want to attract more gamers, then you have to offer compelling gameplay. Sure, some players might be motivated primarily by the desire to earn, but they’re a minority compared to the more than three billion video game users worldwide.
If we truly want mainstream adoption of web3 games, then we need a variety of games that will attract current PC, console, and mobile gamers to try them out. Which is why we are seeing a second generation of web3 games that are putting the focus back on fun.
One such game is Anito Legends, which dubs itself as play-and-earn. The main goal of the founders is for you to have a great time playing Anito Legends, while enjoying the ability to own digital assets and make a few bucks along the way.
Just how entertaining is Anito Legends? The game has been logging over 20,000 average daily sessions — and the company hasn’t even done its token launch yet!
That’s because Anito Legends regularly introduces new ways to enjoy the game, such as launching PvP (player vs player) and raid battles to spice things up. It helps that gaming is in the DNA of the founders. Combined, the founders have created 21 games, even though Anito Legends is their first foray into web3.
Create quality content
Games are a form of storytelling. While not every game needs a compelling backstory (I mean, do we really need to know why the birds are angry at the pigs? And why there are zombies on the lawn?), quality content helps increase the chances that your game will resonate with players.
One web3 game that exemplifies this is Cryptopia (disclaimer: I recently became the Cryptopia Ambassador for the Philippines). Cryptopia is a metaverse game and city state built entirely on the blockchain. In a way, the game is a proof of concept of the founders’ belief in the web3 ethos of decentralization. The idea is not to just use blockchain technology, but also to create a virtual city state that can be a model for how our real-world society can embrace a decentralized future.
The lore behind Cryptopia attests to this. Cryptopian society is based on a fictional lost white paper by Satoshi Nakamoto, the real-world pseudonymous person (or persons) who invented bitcoin and so implemented the first blockchain.
As the Cryptopia site puts it:
“Satoshi’s work states that the world is due for economic collapse due to its reliance on fiat currency. It would take only one crisis, such as climate change, to unleash an unmitigated global catastrophe. His startling proposal: Cryptopia World, a nation based on the blockchain, a new society would serve as an example for all others to follow.”
Cryptopia, however, saw the rise of four Factions that have different interpretations of the white paper and views on how best to run their society. These are the Eco, Tech, Industrial, and Traditional factions.
What’s fascinating is the wealth of content that has been created for Cryptopia, not just about the game, but also the story behind the virtual world and for the online personas of the Faction advisors. It also makes Cryptopia a great place of learning, as it offers informative content about real-world issues that are important to each Faction, such as climate change in the case of the Eco faction. Add to that content created for and by the thriving community, and you can see how quality content can keep players endlessly engaged.
Listen to your community
One game that really made a splash at the Philippine Web3 Festival was Astro XP. Believe it or not, out of the many game booths at the event, Astro XP was the only one from a Philippine game development company.
Not only that, but also Astro XP touts itself as the first AAA web3 game from a Philippine game developer, giving players the same kind of eye candy and visceral experiences that they have become used to in traditional games.
Astro XP certainly tries to push the envelope, as it is a space-based open-world RPG. Here, you can choose to follow your intergalactic dreams, whether it’s becoming a space settler, an ultrasonic car driver, or a world builder.
Astro XP is also committed to co-developing with its community, to the point that it showcased the game at the festival despite it barely being an MVP. This was to allow players to already experience Astro XP themselves and give valuable feedback. And judging by the queue at their booth, Astro XP proved to be a hit with the attendees.
Moreover, Astro XP proved that it listens to its community. One of the biggest asks from the players who tried it was for Astro XP was to add game controller support. The company quickly responded to this request, so that by the time Astro XP displayed its game two weeks later at Philippine Blockchain Week 2022, it was already a more polished version.
And, yes, one that provided game controller support.
Offer real-world benefits
As the metaverse becomes a reality, we will see more web3 games blurring the lines between the real and virtual worlds. Imagine web3 games that complement compelling gameplay with real-world benefits.
Ark of Dreams is an excellent example of this type of web3 game. Touting itself as an X2Earn (X being any human behavior, such as eating, exercising, shopping, and so on) game, Ark of Dreams aims to offer its players metaverse adventures that are connected to the real world. It does this by partnering with brands and onboarding them to web3, where they can build virtual stores and offer NFTs that are part of the gameplay.
With gameplay that could be described as Animal Crossing meets The Sims, Ark of Dreams is creating a vast world where players can fully immerse themselves in the metaverse. This opens the door to new ways for gamers to work and play, and for brands to interact with consumers.
Metacommerce, for example, allows players to buy a virtual item in the game and have the real-life counterpart delivered to their homes, whether it’s food, clothing, and so on.
Meanwhile, metabusiness allows companies, big and small, to set up shops in Ark of Dreams, which players can partly own through franchising. Meaning that if you buy a franchise within the game, you are also becoming a franchisee of that store in the real world.
Even the virtual pets that Ark of Dreams offers have a dual purpose. Not only are they companions that your avatar can take care of, but also they come with discounts for different brand categories, depending on the type of pet. Which means that Ark of Dreams is providing brands with an innovative way to use web3 for their loyalty programs.
As you can see, different elements can contribute to the success of a web3 game.
For our part, Playfix aims to empower web3 game developers. By offering all the APIs needed to build blockchain games, Playfix makes life easier for game developers by taking care of the technology and infrastructure. So that game developers can focus on what they do best: making fun games.
At the end of the day, the best advice for web3 game developers is also the simplest: give gamers what they want.
Now, let’s play.
