What are the values and issues of full-chain games?

Original author: Tax_Cuts

Original compilation: Wenser, Odaily Planet Daily

Editor's note: As one of the hopes for mass adoption in the Web3 space, on-chain games have always been a hot topic of market interest. However, due to barriers to entry, operational costs, and gameplay issues, they have yet to become mainstream in the industry, and the user base remains relatively limited. Odaily Planet Daily has found an article for everyone, shared by Tax, a former investor at Alliance DAO and YC, and now co-founder of the on-chain game Primodium, discussing the value of on-chain games and existing problems for reference and dialectical consideration.

Four Practical Problems Solved by On-Chain Games

First, new products need to solve problems that could not be addressed before; otherwise, existing products will capture all market share. Fortunately, on-chain games are a blue ocean field with not many producers vying for attention, meaning we do not need to compete for players' attention with Web2 gaming giants like Rockstar.

However, it is crucial to ensure that new problems are effectively solved.

For on-chain games, this means providing new experiences that players cannot find in other games. On-chain games tend to be relatively slow and clunky, so the experiences they offer need to be distinctly different from traditional games, with their value primarily reflected in the following aspects:

Value Point One: Real Economic Assets

Strictly speaking, crypto assets are just digital, but due to the decentralized (power of the network) consensus, we can truly endow them with economic value. For traditional games, assigning economic value to game assets often relies on the support of large, established companies. In contrast, on-chain games carry this attribute from day one.

Value Point Two: Free Transfer of Value

Game assets in traditional games are often subject to custodial regulations and technical limitations. Developers typically cannot hold USD cash funds, and banks do not provide APIs for developers to build corresponding applications. In contrast, on-chain games allow players to transfer assets through in-game actions.

Value Point Three: Staking Chip Attributes

Staking chips can make otherwise boring gameplay (due to its inherent gaming nature) interesting; a commonly cited example is poker. The gameplay of on-chain games can be simple, but staking chips can make the game outcomes more exciting, as they are built on a cryptocurrency system (closely related to the market performance of cryptocurrencies).

Value Point Four: Removal of Consumption Restrictions

Traditional gaming channels often impose certain restrictions on in-game purchases. For example, an in-app spending limit of $99 makes the purchasing experience poor for users buying in-game assets costing more than about 0.03 ETH (approximately $100). In contrast, the cryptocurrency market has no consumption restrictions, and the market depth is sufficient, allowing on-chain games to operate continuously in this risk environment.

The Ideal and Reality of On-Chain Games

Three Hidden Problems of On-Chain Games

You may have noticed that common advantages of on-chain games, such as decentralization, persistence, and composability, have been omitted. In my view, the "features" of these solutions often do not reflect the actual problems faced by on-chain game players, and thus are not good reasons for building on-chain games.

Problem One: Decentralization of Power

Players typically want more game updates and content. Real-time operations in traditional video games are an important part of game studios' work. Decentralized games weaken the centralized role of "game studios." In traditional games, balancing and nerfing data are often done in the interest of players. The "centralized story" of World of Warcraft that Vitalik experienced has its merits, but in the long run, unbalanced gameplay can hinder more players from joining. However, for the operation of the in-game economic system, trustlessness will play an important role in its viability. In other words, an economic system that does not rely on a single role is healthier for the game ecosystem.

Problem Two: Game Persistence

The lifeline of on-chain games lies in their click-through rates. (Whether traditional or on-chain games,) it is quite rare for a game to operate for ten years while maintaining a certain player retention rate. Most games do not go offline; rather, players lose interest in them. Just because it can "exist forever on the blockchain" does not mean more people will be interested in playing the game.

Problem Three: Composability

Writable plugins can help create more interesting player dynamics, but on-chain games are not the only way to achieve this feature. Web2 games already have available editing plugins, but many people do not use them. This is because players prefer to consume game content rather than produce it. Players may have other reasons to participate in content production, but composability is not such an absolute reason for playing games.

Summary: A New Gaming Experience is Key

Overall, on-chain games can solve problems that Web2 (or even the Web2.5 type that combines traditional Web2 games and blockchain games) cannot address, but most of these issues largely depend on the primary principle of "why everything must be built on-chain."

However, the most important point is that on-chain games should be able to provide a completely new gaming experience. Yet today, almost all crypto games have not followed this approach. They are either traditional games with a token system (commonly referred to as Web2.5 games) or ordinary games that run entirely on-chain, providing conventional gaming experiences. In the long run, no real players will experience these games just for consumption.

Therefore, we still have a lot to do, and on-chain games have a long way to go.