Several popular games have left, is Polygon becoming the "Whampoa Military Academy" of blockchain games?

Author: Zen, PANews

On August 2, two weeks after announcing a complete rebranding of its ecosystem, the Web3 gaming platform Planet Mojo successfully migrated its MOJO token from Polygon to the Base network. Planet Mojo changed its logo from a purple rune to a blue one that fits with Base, and its auto-chess game Mojo Melee, parkour game GoGo Mojo, in-game avatar system Mojo Maker, and the upcoming role-playing game Prophecy of the Ancients have all become part of the active contribution to the Base ecosystem.

Once the preferred network for deploying GameFi projects, Polygon has been favored by developers over the past few years. The 2022 developer report released by Electric Capital even ranked it as a top developer ecosystem. However, with the rise of various public chains and the departure of several popular games such as Pixels and Crypto Unicorns, Polygon, once known as the "cradle of Web3 gaming," has lost its former leading edge, and its market share in gaming is gradually declining.

Scattered like stars? Multiple games going their separate ways

The migration of the pixel-style farming game Pixels to the Ronin blockchain network operated by Sky Mavis, achieving a win-win situation, is a prime example of this trend. Launched in 2021, Pixels chose to migrate from Polygon to the Ronin network at the end of last year. Pixels CEO Luke Barwikowski stated in a press release at the time, "Sky Mavis is the only company that has achieved scalable development in the Web3 gaming space, and it is wise to collaborate with a team based on practice and experience rather than assumptions. Migrating to Ronin and leveraging their expertise is the logical next step in our journey."

Subsequent events proved that this significant change was indeed a wise choice. According to data from DappRadar, Pixels' monthly unique active wallets (UAW) reached 1.8 million, with daily UAW exceeding 700,000, making it one of the hottest Web3 games currently, with its rapid growth momentum sustained for over six months. Ronin has also completely emerged from the shadow of the hacker attack from a few years ago, and its ecosystem, exemplified by Pixels, has begun to attract more high-quality chain games, such as the first Web3 god simulation game Apeiron, which announced its departure from Polygon to join Ronin in December 2023.

On August 2, the MapleStory Universe, a PC-based MMORPG under South Korean gaming giant Nexon, completed its pioneer testing. It combines blockchain technology with the "MapleStory" IP and claimed to have secured $100 million in investment by the end of 2023. The "MapleStory" IP has attracted over 180 million registered users over the past twenty years, making it one of Nexon's most popular games. In March 2023, Nexon announced it would partner with Polygon, closely collaborating with the Polygon Labs team on MapleStory Universe's development and marketing. However, in March of this year, Nexon parted ways with Polygon and opted for a dedicated Avalanche subnet.

Coincidentally, Delabs Games, a South Korean web game developer led by former Nexon CEO Joonmo Kwon, announced its entry into the Polygon ecosystem almost simultaneously with MapleStory Universe. This development team previously created Nexon's popular game series "KartRider," and their plan for Polygon was to launch a Web3 arcade racing game called Rumble Racing Star (RRS). However, in May of this year, Delabs Games announced a partnership with Arbitrum, migrating RRS to Arbitrum and building their upcoming two Web3 games, Metabolts and Space Frontier, on Arbitrum, completely abandoning their collaboration with Polygon.

In addition to the aforementioned blockchain networks, gaming public chains like Immutable zkEVM and Xai have also become popular choices for migration. Games that once contributed significant activity to Polygon, such as Hunters On-Chain, the battle royale game Blast Royale, and the collectible card game Storm Warfare, have gradually migrated to Immutable zkEVM, while pet collection and simulation games Crypto Unicorns, action/cyberpunk MMO Yaku, and mobile RTS game Land Before War have chosen to join Xai.

Is there a time for gathering and scattering? Why are game developers leaving?

Regarding the reasons for leaving Polygon, most development teams tend to remain silent to maintain respect for their former partner. However, from the information disclosed by individual development teams, some clues can be gleaned.

For instance, Angela Son, head of partnerships for MapleStory Universe, emphasized that the team believes using Avalanche offers advantages in meeting server and infrastructure needs when asked why they abandoned Polygon. However, according to insiders who spoke to Decrypt, Nexon chose other networks after Polygon Labs ceased support for Polygon Edge, which allowed the building of custom Ethereum-compatible chains, in December last year. The insider added that Nexon and Polygon Labs had already agreed to part ways before officially deciding to use Avalanche. The Web3 gaming and creator platform Hytopia (formerly NFT Worlds) seems to have made a similar decision to migrate to Arbitrum for comparable reasons.

Scalability issues and "high" gas fees are among the significant reasons for the exodus of chain games. Before leaving the Polygon ecosystem, Crypto Unicorns had already generated approximately $35 million in NFT trading volume. Aron Beierschmitt, co-founder and CEO of game developer Laguna Games, stated that the team faced "challenges" while operating games on Polygon, particularly due to peak network gas fees that increased operational costs and created friction for players. Aron also mentioned that Laguna Games needed to subsidize players' network gas fees by about $5,000 to $10,000 per month, which was unsustainable. In contrast, the third-layer gaming network Xai, built on Arbitrum, completely exempts players from such fees.

The role-playing game Pirate Nation faces similar challenges as Crypto Unicorns. Developed by Pro of Play, which announced a $33 million seed round financing led by Greenoaks and a16z in September 2023, Pirate Nation chose to part ways with Polygon in March 2023 and moved to Arbitrum Nova. Amitt Mahajan, co-founder and CEO of Pro of Play, stated that Pirate Nation needed to switch to a more affordable and scalable platform. "As more and more people migrated to Polygon, we began to encounter scalability issues on the Polygon chain." "We were paying $3,000 to $4,000 in gas fees daily. So it became unsustainable. This prevented us from scaling the game."

In addition to issues with technical support and high expenses, the lack of substantial support from the platform seems to be another significant factor for game developers. The racing NFT game Pegaxy, developed by Mirai Labs, migrated to Avalanche at the end of last year. Corey Wilton, CEO and co-founder of the developer, candidly stated that, in comparison, Polygon Labs did not provide much "help" in developing games and crypto projects on its Ethereum sidechain. "It feels like we didn't get any help in some sense."

Are there successors? Polygon still holds trump cards

Aside from the explosive data from Ton ecosystem mini-games, the overall traditional chain gaming track remains lukewarm, with no chain game breaking out in this cycle. However, Polygon's decentralized prediction market platform Polymarket has become a focal point in the market during this cycle, garnering more attention than the games mentioned above. Since entering the public eye in April this year, the platform has seen a surge in trading volume and user numbers. Especially catalyzed by annual events like the Trump assassination incident, its status as a prediction market has been widely reported by mainstream media, further enhancing its visibility and influence. From June to the end of July, Polymarket's cumulative trading volume surged 58% from $663 million to $1.05 billion, with July's trading volume exceeding $380 million.

However, with great visibility comes scrutiny. According to CryptoSlate, U.S. lawmakers are calling for the CFTC to ban betting on elections. Senators Elizabeth Warren and others have stated that gambling around elections undermines public trust and the democratic process, urging the CFTC to immediately establish rules to prevent the "commodification" of elections. Polymarket, which gained popularity through the presidential election, has its largest market focused on predicting the next U.S. president, with trading volume exceeding $474 million, accounting for over 45% of total trading volume. With regulatory intervention, the future development of Polymarket has also begun to cloud over.

Moreover, the technical foundation accumulated by Polygon is also a trump card for the network, especially the customizable toolkit Chain Development Kit (CDK), which allows developers to create their own layer-2 blockchains based on Polygon's zero-knowledge technology. In March last year, Immutable and Polygon Labs announced a partnership to launch Immutable zkEVM, supported by technology from Polygon, laying the groundwork for Immutable's rapid growth and breakthrough of over a million players this year.

In recent months, the Ronin and Telegram-supported blockchain The Open Network (TON) teams have also announced plans to launch their own Layer 2 networks based on Polygon technology. Ronin is creating its own zkEVM chain on Ronin using the Polygon Chain Development Kit (CDK) to enhance scalability, security, and decentralization; TON will utilize the CDK to create the TON Applications Chain (TAC), enabling EVM-based decentralized applications to connect to the TON ecosystem and paving the way for innovative applications such as games and decentralized identity solutions on the TON blockchain.