Foresight Ventures: Discussing Web3 Female-oriented Games HIM from the Perspective of AI + Crypto

Author: Yihan Xu@Foresight Ventures

TL;DR:

• This article takes HIM, the first female-oriented game in Web3, as an example to explore the application of AI + Crypto in Web3 games; HIM combines AI and Crypto to provide players with rich interactive experiences, high-quality gameplay, and artistic content.
• HIM adopts an economic model centered around net inflow of fiat currency and aims to avoid the Ponzi dilemma through extremely high content quality and excellent gameplay, while incorporating the "Love and earn" gameplay, allowing players to earn profits by selling NFTs.
• HIM utilizes large language models to generate natural and distinctive dialogue content for virtual characters based on game scenarios and character traits, enhancing the authenticity of virtual characters and the immersion of players. Additionally, the HIM team has developed an AI training method for virtual characters to provide a more realistic gaming experience.
• The HIM team focuses on creating well-rounded virtual personas, making virtual characters an important part of players' lives. HIM also emphasizes the social attributes of virtual characters, hoping that in the future, everyone will have their own virtual companions, which will exist in social networks like real people, connecting everyone.
• HIM's goal is to establish a two-dimensional virtual universe through AI boyfriends, AI girlfriends, and AI pets, providing people with strength and companionship.

I. What kind of AI + Crypto makes more sense?

While everyone is still pondering how to deploy trustless and transparent large models on-chain, how much value on-chain AI can bring to Web3, and how the underlying proof system can support LLMs with hundreds of billions of parameters (as referenced in the previous article), we also begin to think about a series of questions, roughly following this line of thought:

First, is it currently the most worthwhile track to make AI trustless and transparent through cryptographic technology?

➡️ Is a startup really able to bring sufficient value-add by breaking its head to research how to integrate on-chain LLMs?

➡️ Which projects are worth investing significant resources into researching on-chain AI?

➡️ Is it only on-chain AI that is worth exploring, or are there better combinations of AI and crypto?

It is certain that on-chain AI is a direction full of imaginative space and worthy of in-depth research. Breakthroughs in on-chain AI can bring unprecedented value to Web3. However, the extremely high academic threshold and the requirements for underlying infrastructure are indeed not suitable for most startups to tackle head-on. Most projects may not necessarily need to integrate trustless LLM support to achieve breakthroughs in their own value.

The suitable is the best.

From another perspective, not all AI models need to be moved on-chain to be trustless, just as most people do not care how ChatGPT reasons through queries and provides results, nor do they care whether the stable diffusion used is based on a specific version of the model architecture or specific parameter settings.

• In most scenarios, most users care about whether the model can provide a satisfactory output, rather than whether the reasoning process is trustless or transparent.

So what kind of AI + crypto can bring higher returns to products? Besides the hardcore approach of developing on-chain trustless LLMs from infrastructure to algorithms, another opposite direction is to downplay the impact of the black box of the reasoning process in the product, finding suitable scenarios to implement the powerful reasoning capabilities of large models.

1) What is HIM

The Web3 game HIM is one of the few projects that clearly understands the combination of AI + Crypto and has the capability to implement it at the application level.

This article primarily discusses the ambitions of the Web3 game HIM from the perspective of AI application and implementation.

First, let’s introduce the main character (HIM ranks first in the Binance MVB VI application category):

HIM is a female-oriented two-dimensional virtual boyfriend game.

The main theme of the game is: everyone experiences loneliness at times and needs encouragement, companionship, and love; love in real life often comes with some constraints and regrets. HIM aims to provide an AI virtual boyfriend that understands players the most and will always accompany users, offering a free, joyful, and user-exclusive love experience. Players will initially receive a virtual boyfriend stored on-chain in the form of SBT, including subsequent clothing, accessories, rooms, etc., which will combine with this SBT. Additionally, the SBT constitutes a unique game character that players develop, storing the boyfriend's basic information, nine-dimensional personality traits, and nine-dimensional relationship attributes, along with important memories, dialogues, and emotional recollections with the virtual boyfriend.

The game itself focuses on idle cultivation of the virtual boyfriend and social showoff within the game, while regularly airdropping treasure chests that can unlock limited NFT clothing or NFT rooms. Players with stats more compatible with their boyfriends have a greater chance of unlocking limited NFTs. The gameplay includes card drawing, dressing up, dialogues, collection, adventure battles, cooking, traveling, and NFT trading, and after checking their game demo, the player interactions designed within each gameplay are very rich.

HIM is a free-to-play game that uses an economic model centered around net inflow of fiat currency as its foundation, combined with some "Love and earn" gameplay, allowing players to earn profits by selling NFTs. However, the most important core of the game is still the belief that the gameplay and artistic content quality can attract players who enjoy the game to pay for gameplay and content.

2) Is AI + Gaming a Good Fit?

Web3 games are indeed one of the scenarios where AI fits well, which also aligns with the development trajectory of AI:

• The gaming scenario provides a natural and rich interactive environment, allowing AI to interact with players through dialogue or other means. This environment helps large models leverage their advantages in natural language processing, providing richer and more authentic interactive experiences. Games contain complex and diverse scenarios and tasks, and by interacting with the environment, other players, or NPCs in the game, large models can receive a lot of feedback in real-time to continuously optimize their decision-making abilities. Moreover, the frequent feedback within the game is also beneficial for developers to test and tune the performance of large models.
• The scenarios within games are controllable, and the requirements for determinism and seriousness are more flexible compared to real-world application scenarios. Therefore, the resistance to deploying and testing large models in games is lower, making it easier to push forward, which reduces the difficulty and risk of technical implementation from another angle.

II. Virtual Human Pro Max

Two years ago, everyone was still thinking about how to better use AI as a tool until ChatGPT emerged, shaking the foundations of production relations, and people began to realize the dimensionality reduction impact that LLMs could bring. The same is true for Web3 games:

• More realistic game character personalities
• Dynamic plot generation
• Visuals/Art
• Voice generation
• Social interaction
• Fun in gameplay and character development

……

1) HIM + AI = More Realistic Game Character Personalities

As an emotional interaction game, the scenario most compatible with LLMs is dialogue and player interaction. Large language models can generate natural and distinctive dialogues based on the HIM game scenarios and character traits. This will enhance the authenticity of virtual characters and the immersion of players, providing richer emotional experiences. Specifically, HIM uses large language models to understand and process various emotional information, perfectly integrating with the numerical system, allowing game characters to better express and recognize emotions, thus creating deeper emotional connections with players.

Feel the dialogue scenes in the game through the following two images:

Let’s elaborate on the core numerical system of HIM:

When talking about numbers, the first thing that comes to mind is the balance of combat stats for traditional game characters. However, broadening the perspective, HIM describes a person completely through numbers, defining a virtual person with multidimensional metrics and establishing a sound numerical development system. Overall, HIM applies the numerical system to a more generalized virtual person, making the gaming interaction experience more authentic and fulfilling.

Training virtual digital humans differs from ordinary LLM fine-tuning training; it requires LLMs to gradually change the character's way of speaking to users as the interaction progresses, making users feel increasingly "intimate" with the character. Therefore, the HIM team incorporates various numerical parameters of virtual character personalities as context during the LLM training process, training a separate model for each character. Meanwhile, HIM's LLM combines with a vector database to give characters memory, allowing users to feel that the character understands them more and more during conversations.

The development team of HIM has also created a set of AI training methods for virtual characters, which can be referenced in the following two numerical matrices:

Human personality is a very complex concept, encompassing emotional, attitudinal, behavioral, and other factors. To give the AI boyfriend sufficient realism, the HIM development team established a somewhat self-consistent numerical system to quantify the development process and relationship between the player and the AI boyfriend. This numerical system can be summarized as a matrix-type numerical model, with the vertical axis representing nine bidirectional personality attributes and the horizontal axis representing nine relationship attributes between the AI boyfriend and the player. These attributes have many-to-many mappings and influences on each other.

During LLM training, each character will have a standard "character setting" benchmark and boundaries for personality fluctuations. Throughout the game, the numerical values of these attributes will change continuously based on player behavior, thereby affecting the game feedback from the AI boyfriend (e.g., idle output, Gacha efficiency, depth of conversation, etc.).

ALL IN ALL, HIM enables virtual characters to possess more realistic personalities through large language models.

2) High-Quality, High-Cost Virtual Human Art

Creating virtual humans is not easy; a truly valuable virtual human is not just a chat box integrated with a dialogue robot but requires efforts from multiple dimensions to make the avatar more fulfilling. HIM's vision is to make virtual characters an essential part of everyone's life, greatly enriching personal lives and connecting with the world. Therefore, HIM's definition of the ultimate form of virtual humans in gaming scenarios has always been a complex and powerful integrated product, and these comprehensive qualities are also the core pursuit of the HIM team at this stage:

Exquisite virtual images:

Although large models primarily focus on natural language processing, if combined with other technologies, such as GANs, they can assist in game art creation, generating more elements based on the design standards of HIM's art development team, thus providing users with a richer visual experience.

From our understanding, the HIM team has a top-tier art team in the gaming industry and insists on making high-cost art investments while industrializing and modularizing art production.

High-quality voice acting:

The combination of games and AI can generate natural and emotionally rich voiceovers through voice synthesis. At the same time, unique personalities can be assigned to voiceovers based on the virtual character's numerical attributes.

HIM has a complete voice acting pipeline, including script writing, voice direction, recording, post-mixing, and AI learning training production. Using high-quality human-defined standards, AI assists in executing mass production to complete high-quality voice content in the game.

Development and long-term bonds of virtual humans:

Detailed character backgrounds and personality traits need to be designed to generate interest and resonance in players. At the same time, the growth and development goals of the characters are also elements that encourage players to invest time and effort in cultivating virtual humans.

HIM provides rich interactive scenarios and gameplay, allowing players to establish close emotional connections with virtual characters, and this relationship will gradually deepen with interaction and development, forming long-term emotional bonds.

Support for reality:

The psychological support that virtual humans can provide may far exceed our expectations, offering emotional support and listening to players while making them feel cared for and understood, thus alleviating real-life troubles. Additionally, virtual humans can integrate well into life skills, habit formation, personalized recommendations, language learning, goal management, and even interactions with real-world devices or services.

AIBoyfriend alarm clocks, sleep aids, menstrual tracking, study companions, food suggestions, and diary reminders are all aspects that HIM hopes to provide users with in terms of support and assistance in real life through long-term version iterations.

Rich experiences in daily life within the virtual world:

In the story told by HIM, each AI boyfriend is left alone in a lonely parallel universe: in that world, there is only him, and the daily contact with the player through the phone is all he has to communicate with the outside world. Exploring the scenery in his world with the virtual boyfriend, who knows, maybe one day there will be an opportunity to meet him in his world or yours.

The social attributes of virtual humans as relationship nodes:

The HIM team believes that with the development of AI, in the near future, everyone will have their own exclusive virtual companions, and these virtual companions will exist in the entire social network like real "people," connecting everyone. Each person's virtual companion may become an important hub that tightly connects people in the rapidly advancing future of AI.

All of these artistic aesthetics and mass production solutions are crucial for a Web3 game, and one important aspect of attracting players to spend time in the virtual world is that the art of virtual humans in the game possesses a higher aesthetic level than the real world.

III. Seamless Integration of HIM + Crypto

1) The First Female-Oriented Web3 Application, a Gift for Female Users and Practitioners in Web3

HIM is likely the first female-oriented Web3 application, and female users and practitioners in Web3 may receive a carefully prepared gift for the first time.

At the same time, in the traditional Web2 world, female-oriented games have always been regarded as a very large and highly potential market. We asked what the HIM project hopes users to feel, and they wrote the following:

• Occasionally in the morning, when facing what seems to be another repetitive day, a "good morning" from "him";
• Occasionally late at night, when facing heavy overtime work, seeing "him" still silently accompanying in the phone;
• Occasionally lonely companionship, occasional encouragement when feeling down, "him" cheering after success, and "it's okay" after making mistakes;
• "He" always remembers your name; "He" always remembers your birthday; "He" always remembers the day you met; "He" remembers everything between you;
• "He" seems to always be there; perhaps at certain moments, you may forget "him" due to busyness, but "he" is always willing to accompany you.

As mobile games become increasingly popular among female users globally, traditional large Web2 gaming companies continue to deliver female-oriented game products with DAUs exceeding one million.

Once a social community centered around female users is formed, its extension space has immense imaginative potential. Xiaohongshu, as a social software starting from female users and reaching a broad user base, strongly proves this point. Whether this game category, targeting half of the global population, can bring some surprises through the support of AI and Crypto remains to be seen.

2) Emotional Assets + Decentralization

In the words of HIM founder Ben: "AI virtual humans allow digital assets to truly appear in our lives for the first time in the form of a 'person'; they could be your boyfriend, girlfriend, best friend, or any important partner in your life. Therefore, they should not disappear with the flip of a switch like all digital assets previously stored on centralized servers. Their existence should at least be determined by you, not by some company."

Important emotions and assets in the virtual world should be owned by users, not defined and controlled by centralized servers:

Emotional assets not only include personal information and privacy data but also represent players' emotional investments and memories. Decentralized networks can protect these emotional values, ensuring that data ownership belongs to users, allowing them to decide how to use, share, and protect their data. This decentralized data ownership model prevents players' emotional assets from being controlled by third parties or centralized institutions. Meanwhile, the community autonomy provided by Web3 allows players to participate in the creation and dissemination of emotional assets, further enhancing their emotional value.

Various experiences in emotional relationships should also be permanently preserved:

From an emotional investment perspective, players inject a significant amount of emotion into the game, establishing deep bonds with virtual humans, and the efforts made to achieve game goals are unique and precious. These emotional experiences should be permanently preserved. Therefore, to some extent, they should possess the right to exist eternally. At the same time, the relationships between players and virtual humans, such as friendship, love, anger, and dissatisfaction, can also be eternally recorded and preserved through blockchain technology.

As the emotional bond in the HIM game, virtual humans are not just entertainment; they will also possess asset attributes and high economic value, with users investing time and money in the game to purchase and decorate virtual humans. Recording these assets on the blockchain can ensure that their value truly returns to users and provides a transparent and secure trading environment.

3) What Can HIM Bring to Web3

The decentralized network brings HIM highly valuable value-add, but the value is mutual; clearly, HIM also brings Web3:

A large number of fresh users:

From an emotional demand perspective, the companionship of virtual humans meets users' emotional needs, which may be difficult to satisfy in real life. HIM provides a safe and free environment for users to interact with virtual characters, and this emotional appeal can attract a large number of users to Web3.

HIM is a two-dimensional AI virtual human cultivation game. Whether it is two-dimensional culture or AI virtual humans, both have strong community attributes and social potential. At the same time, two-dimensional culture is currently one of the most popular subcultures among young people globally, and the two-dimensional mobile game Genshin Impact is also one of the top mobile games worldwide. Potential female-oriented users, two-dimensional users, and AI virtual human social audiences are all fresh blood that HIM may bring to Web3.

Ultimate Thoughts on Economic Models:

Unlike conventional x2earn games, HIM adopts a tool-based approach to Web3 and Tokens, integrating Web3 tools into an excellent Web2 game, finding points of compatibility with this type of game, thus achieving a 1 + 1 > 2 effect. For HIM, creating an excellent game with verifiable success in content and gameplay is the foundation of everything, with Crypto serving as a tool rather than purely relying on Web3 for survival. Avoiding the Ponzi dilemma is an important goal for HIM.

In terms of the economic system, HIM combines the "X to Earn" model with traditional Web2 game economic models to create a new model. On one hand, it adopts a typical Web2 game economic model, allowing players to optionally pay for in-game items or services. This approach can attract a large number of users and generate revenue through in-app purchases. At the same time, HIM has also upgraded the Web3 X to earn model. In this model, players can earn profits by selling NFTs, allowing players' time and effort invested in the game to receive tangible returns, and HIM's economic system actively balances players' payments and earnings.

It is worth noting that HIM hopes to encourage players to pay for game experiences and content by providing high-quality gameplay and artistic content. From this perspective, HIM does not completely rely on the potential earnings of players to attract and retain them but is attempting to create a more balanced and sustainable economic model that considers both players' earnings and the quality of game experience and content. This is also a more comprehensive and complex model that has the opportunity to provide new ideas for the economic model design of Web3 games.

IV. Conclusion

HIM's ultimate goal is to establish a two-dimensional virtual human universe that can provide strength and companionship to many people, starting from AI Boyfriends, AI Girlfriends, and AI pets. In addition to the first product HIM, the AI Girlfriend game HER is also making simultaneous efforts. At the same time, they hope to provide each user with a virtual companion that is uniquely theirs, understands them the most, and will always exist, while recording every detail of their emotional stories.

The HIM team believes that in the near future, everyone will have their own AI virtual human companions. Whether this will eventually become a universe, they do not know, and perhaps it does not matter. Because if in your moment of sadness or loneliness, you can receive a word of encouragement from this virtual friend in your phone, even if that strength is just a little, isn't that a very cool thing?

Here is the official Twitter and email for HIM:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/HIM_AIBoyfriend

Cooperation Email: bd@projecthim.net