Three Current Issues of GameFi
The future of the meta-universe is not the development of individual games or the innovation of isolated ecologies, but a huge revolution of the consumption structure. Being in such a revolution, games are the application scenario that I think could be adopted instantly to realize meta-universe.
Different from the playability and various categories of traditional games, the GameFi games on the market is more embodied in the “Fi”, that is, the DeFi financial attributes on which it relies at the bottom. As for the existing GameFi projects on the market, most of the users are involved based on the revenue brought by GameFi itself. Few product relies entirely on the playability to attract GameFi players, which makes me feel sorry. On the other hand, the status quo also strengthens our team’s idea to develop GameFi games.
There are three main features of the current GameFi industry:
First, the current GameFi model is not self-sustaining:
Starting from last December, the ever-hot GameFi track began to lay down, and the growth trend saw a sharp retreat. Some GameFi games began to either collapse or experience dramatic cut in the currency, including some well-known projects such as Cryptomine and Peasant World. The leading project, Axie Infinity, has widely popularized the concept of Play to Earn (Play to Earn), but is P2E the renewal mechanism for chain tours? Not necessarily so.
The core of P2E is similar to the early strategy of trading profits for market share in Drip, but its cleverness lies in introducing elements of finance and even Ponzi. Therefore, the companies do not need to burn their own money to buy volume, but rather burn speculators’ money to buy volume. Needless to say, P2E is a great marketing tool, but definitely not the core driver of the chain game’s longevity.
This is because once the number of new users of the game decreases, the profit of speculators decreases below interest under the inventory game, the mechanism of P2E will also disintegrate.
Second, few GameFi content actually supports the value of its in-game assets
The period from the middle of last year until the end of the year was the stage when the GameFi track exploded and the whole market was supported by irrational funding and new influx of users, which support the value of the project. When the market started to enter a correction, even with the volatility of the whole crypto industry, the value of game assets and currency within the GameFi project started to gradually return to their true price levels.
The lesson learned from traditional gaming is that, economically balanced games can continue to attract players over a long period of time and make early game assets more valuable due to scarcity. However, GameFi is still in its early stages, and its overly simple game content does not allow for subtle economic adjustments compared to traditional games. Its mechanics are more gritty and its feedback is more “violent”.
We are concerned that in Axie Infinity, despite the official adjustment, the SLP price is still falling and is constantly at a new low. How to find a more sound mechanism? How to maintain the economic balance of the game? And how to protect the value of in-game assets of users? These questions are one that all chain game teams should think deeply about.
Third, the actual needs of blockchain gamers have not been met:
Most GameFi rely on consuming new users to keep bringing in money outside the game ecosystem to provide all the Earn revenue. The game itself is just the packaging and the medium rather than the real purpose. The current GameFi provides no real play value.
How to improve the playability of the game? In addition to the money brought by new users, the “consumption” of existing users in the game can also solve the game’s current economic dilemma. This kind of game will then have the value of turning to Dao. Otherwise, Dao is just another short-term means to solve the selling pressure by attracting users to stake platform tokens.
I do see great potential in the GameFi industry, which has a huge user base together with more combinatorial and unknown possibilities to be explored. The restrictions of the traditional game version and the wealth-creating effects of GameFi games have not only attracted more users to flock to the chain game, but also attracted more excellent teams to transform into developing GameFi games. I am convinced that in the near future, people will get used to the existence of meta-universe, the parallel world, and accept their digital identities. The future GameFi can also empower game users through the blood-making ability of blockchain native financial demand.
