This article mainly includes the following sections:

• Why your investment in blockchain games is losing money --- --- Investment research techniques
• Pain points of Web3 Games ------ Game engines
• About MetaArena
• Zero-cost tutorial

1. Why your investment in blockchain games is losing money ------ Investment research techniques

We may see many Web3 Games in the market, all claiming to have great technology and promising prospects, but as soon as you enter, the NFT immediately halves, the token drops, and the break-even period is "constantly 30 days"…

This is a typical wave project, and this phenomenon is particularly evident in "single games" and "anti-speculation." The project parties only want to create a nested game to make money once; after completing one project, they continue to switch to the next project and start over, leaving us to lose all our funds in traps designed by others.

If you are tired of this endless abyss of losses, we need to learn "a little bit" of investment research techniques. When a project appears before you, you should be able to see at a glance what it is about and whether it has prospects.

Taking blockchain games as an example, let's share "a little bit" of basic investment research techniques, such as the ability to quickly identify what a project is about ------ project classification.

Blockchain games consist of 8 parts --- --- user-end aggregators, games, multi-platform publishers, liquidity providers/financial tools, blockchain solution providers, game engines, developers/studios, and public chains:

Among the above tracks, many people invest in "game projects," and this sub-market is mixed with good and bad projects, with many domestic projects lacking integrity. Many simply develop a game and then start endlessly selling NFTs, and after selling NFTs, they sell "tokens," ultimately the game goes live and is basically crushed… This is the reason for losses caused by following the trend without investment research.

So how do you delve deeper into blockchain games and find a few good Web3 Games to invest in?

If you are a conservative investor and do not want to waste too many resources on "wave projects," then "speculating is not as good as investing in fundamentals" is a good investment technique. We only need to study those basic setups within the sector that are "faster, cheaper, and more innovative."

Currently, there is nothing revolutionary or "novel" in game public chains, but there are still many pain points that need to be addressed in game engines.

2. Pain points of Web3 Games --- --- Game engines

Web3 Games has always been a battleground for capital. As early as 2017, many developers began to focus on Web3 Games, and the efforts of four to five years led to the explosion of blockchain games in 2021, affecting tens of millions of users, thousands of developers, and dozens of public chains, allowing developers, service providers, publishers, guilds, studios, and players to experience a frenzy of 100 times in 7 days.

As the market rapidly cooled, the industry began to reflect on its early shortcomings while preparing for a higher explosion in the future.

The industry generally believes that although the blockchain games at that time were nominally Web3 Games, they merely put assets on the chain. The core architecture of the games was basically built using Web2 game engines and deployed on centralized servers, leading to a lack of transparency, opaque operations, and frequent insider trading.

About Game Engines

Here, it is necessary to explain the role of game engines in games: Before the emergence of game engines, game developers had to start coding from scratch repeatedly and had to check the game code line by line. However, they could not run and test at any time, so Web2 game developers thought of using game engines to solve this problem. A game engine integrates the code and assets needed for the game into a set of development tools, reducing the need for game developers to write repetitive code, graphics materials, etc.

Industry Pain Points

Due to the immaturity of Web3 game engines, until now, traditional game manufacturers entering GameFi generally have two choices:

• One is to develop new games, such as giants like Zynga, Ubisoft, and Konami, which have certain development capabilities and are exploring and developing new games in this field.
• The other is to chain-modify existing mature games, continuing the original game's ecosystem, including gameplay, game culture IP, player stickiness, etc.

However, regardless of the method, there are considerable implementation difficulties. Some game logic is difficult to implement on-chain; of course, it not only includes game models but also includes crypto-based economic models, public chain selection, wallet support, smart contract development plans (audits), NFT design and development plans, as well as after the game goes live, guild DAO construction, DeFi model embedding, project operation, etc.

When all elements of the game are embedded on-chain, every transaction made by players in the game will be a transaction. Players may need to sign a transaction for each action, pay a gas fee, and wait for the movement log to be "finalized," which can also lead to "lag" in the game loop.

If you want to develop a game that includes most of the above functions (a trimmed version) and does not lag, the development cycle will take at least six months to a year, with development costs of no less than $800,000.

Developing Web3 games involves a lot of repetitive code, graphics materials, design architecture, NFT design and development plans, etc. If developed one by one, it would undoubtedly be reinventing the wheel, wasting a lot of manpower and resources.

At this time, a reliable blockchain game engine is needed to solve these problems.

MetaArena has built a blockchain game engine driven by ZKP (Zero-Knowledge Proof), based on a modular sovereign Layer3 Rollup and various zk-driven Services SDK components, providing the necessary composability, programmability, scalability, and privacy for all-chain games. This engine is driving blockchain games towards a new form.

3. About MetaArena

In simple terms, MetaArena is a Layer3 Rollup built on a modular blockchain. It utilizes Realm engine technology to provide developers with a set of SDK tools, enabling them to create small strategy games or migrate AAA games to the chain at the lowest cost, quickly, and without loss.

Although it is a game engine-style Layer3, to let more people see the technical accumulation of Web3 game engines, MetaArena has developed the first game for users: Final Glory. In "Final Glory," players can choose different professions to engage in adventure battles and resource acquisition to achieve growth. Different branches of different professions have different abilities, determining the user's role in the game society. Players can also form powerful guilds to participate in guild tasks and competitions, occupying core resource outputs. The game has no task prompts, allowing players to explore freely.

"Final Glory" uses a dual-token model of Blue Diamond and $TIMI:

• Blue Diamond requires users to recharge USDT at a 1:1 ratio for one-way exchange, mainly used to purchase various in-game items;
• The total amount of Blue Diamonds is 1 billion, with 50 million airdropped, limited to founding players and event participants.

• TIMI is the platform's governance token, which can be traded to purchase in-game items and equipment, as well as for circulation and trading on the MetaArena platform;
• The total amount of TIMI is 21 billion, with 80% of the tokens distributed to players through game output and staking;

From June 20 to July 10, participating in the second round of game testing can earn:

• Double $TIMI token rewards
• A random number of dragon mount fragments (1 to 5)

4. Zero-cost tutorial

The Final Glory game is initially free to access, and anyone can enter. Data is interoperable between PC and Android.

The "Moon Door Exploration" event includes five areas each day, with one reward opportunity per area.

The event consists of three scenarios: talking to NPCs to open treasure chests, defeating guards to open treasure chests, and directly opening treasure chests.

Treasure chests contain a large amount of in-game resources, with a chance to obtain double $TIMI and dragon mount fragments. 30 dragon mount fragments can be combined into a dragon mount NFT for trading in the secondary market. Each exploration can earn a fixed 0.2 $TIMI.

Basic Tutorial

Step 1: Download

• Official website: https://metaarena.org
• Before starting the game, first download the required resources. After completing the resource download, enter the game to receive red diamonds.

Step 2: Daily Check-in

In the upper right corner of the game page, you can see the daily check-in "Exploregon Gift" treasure chest. Remember to claim it every day.

Step 3: Moon Door Exploration

Click the button next to the treasure chest to enter Moon Door Exploration, or click the pop-up after entering the game.

Step 4: Choose Exploration Area

Select the area you want to explore. The more stars, the higher the difficulty and the richer the rewards.

Start from a three-star area.

Step 5: Explore the Map

Follow the prompts to reach the Moon Door location.

Click to enter the Moon Door world.

Find the corresponding treasure chest and open it, defeating the guardian monster.

Or interact with NPCs to defeat monsters.

You will receive equipment and TIMI tokens in the battle report.

Step 6: Check TIMI Tokens

Enter Settings-Asset to view TIMI tokens. Each exploration of the Moon Door will earn 0.2 TIMI tokens.
That's all for today's tutorial. This is a zero-cost game, mainly focusing on earning NFTs and tokens. More openings + synchronizers can maximize benefits.