FC Talk EP01 Highlights｜New Things: Is World PVP the New Alpha? How to Find Web3 Games

Highlight

1. On-chain real gold PVP is a game with extremely high competitiveness, requiring a high level of on-chain integration and a profitable mechanism, thus necessitating a reasonable asset issuance and trading environment;
2. Gamified competitive products are gradually becoming popular, but a truly explosive product is still needed to lead the market;
3. The optimal profit-making strategy for Web3 games is high turnover; the higher the frequency of capital rotation, the greater the potential profits;
4. The breakthrough for full-chain games needs to start from asset issuance and trading, creating a "Uniswap" for this track;
5. A more feasible and universal innovative idea is: rather than trying to create a genius-like invention from scratch, it is better to reselect which tools from past paradigms are available to you.
6. New things worth noting: on-chain real gold PVP (World PVP; Fantasy.top), Friend.tech V2, Farcaster, mini-programs on TG (e.g., catizen)

Core Features, Success Factors, and Trading Strategies of PVP Games

Eric (Core Contributor of Cellula, Twitter @de2epblue)

World PVP itself is a full-chain game. The most likely breakthrough point for full-chain games is around the asset gaming mechanism, and World PVP excels in this regard, combining community strategies with some randomness and periodicity. Moreover, I don't think it's a coincidence that another explosive application has appeared on Base. If I were to bet on a Layer 2 that could produce a blockbuster application in this cycle, I would actually be willing to go all in on Base. This soil continuously gives birth to new things, and while we observe these new things, we should also consider why they keep emerging from this soil, whether the temperature, humidity, and participants are more suitable for nurturing new things.

Yinghao (SevenX Game Investor, Twitter @linsajiao)

I define World PVP as on-chain real gold PVP, which has six characteristics:

1. A high level of on-chain integration to ensure the safety of users' or players' funds and earnings;
2. Real gold, making players feel they can earn, even if they lose this time, as long as they don't leave the table, they might earn next time;
3. Non-zero-sum games, requiring mild positive externalities to attract continuous external capital;
4. User diversity, as different users' capital attributes and earning goals bring about strategic diversity, making the entire game more rich and interesting;
5. Three-dimensional gaming strategies, where different lines of interrelated gaming mechanisms mix together, allowing players to have continuous exploration (whether they can make money in it, or how much they can earn at what time) and gaming space;
6. Sustainability: continuous new users, new assets, and new markets, first with positive internalities, then with positive externalities.

World PVP offers two insights for game developers: first, the social attribute; the main UI of World PVP is a chat board where players can discuss, formulate strategies, and influence each other. Once the social aspect kicks in, the entire game becomes different, and its stickiness increases significantly; second, the Meme attribute, which is a lever for both C-end products and public chains in the crypto space, driving volume and breaking boundaries.

Saku (CEO of MATR1X, Twitter @saku_web3)

Rather than saying World PVP defines a category, it is more accurate to say it is a game mechanism or gaming mechanism. The key here is that it needs to be sufficiently complex; when there is a certain level of complexity and diversity, the ecosystem within it can be sustainable.

For a real gold/gaming game, my trading strategy is to watch the inflow of funds; the frequency and amount of player deposits have a trend line, and when that trend line shows a turning point, it may indicate a problem with the game's mechanism. In fact, all PVP games have a concept of a pot; when the pot shows a turning point, it may be time to exit. In other words, trading during good sentiment is the easiest way to make money, but this is merely a pure gaming logic.

Profit-Making Strategies in the WEB3 Game Track

Saku (CEO of MATR1X, Twitter @saku_web3)

The most profitable strategy is actually to improve the efficiency of capital utilization (turnover rate), that is, to quickly create mining machines and continuously run ROI; the higher the frequency of capital rotation, the better. The second is the pot logic, where the most profitable time is when capital inflow shows an upward trend; once a turning point appears, one should consider exiting. The last method is to hoard scarce assets; as the entire market appreciates, the assets in hand will also appreciate. Comparatively, the first two methods are the easiest strategies to make money under the current logic of gold mining in Web3 games.

Eric (Core Contributor of Cellula, Twitter @de2epblue)

I’ll share a case: in 2021, when Axie Infinity was at its peak, a friend's gold mining studio used AI to simulate real people to continuously optimize strategies, resulting in substantial profits.

Yinghao (SevenX Game Investor, Twitter @linsajiao)

There are two categories. The first category is a combination of Play to Earn + scalability, while the second category includes on-chain real gold PVP products and some asset launcher models (Pump.fun), which use gamified gaming methods to achieve wealth effects, transforming from low-quality dogs to high-quality dogs, and then from high-quality dogs to Memes. In the current bull market, during a small time window, the second category may achieve a larger financial effect than the first category and is expected to become the next hotspot in the Web3 gaming industry. Meanwhile, as more and more projects enter this field, market competition will become increasingly fierce.

FC (Founding Partner of SevenX, Twitter @FC_0X0)

I provide a secondary perspective from a friend who bought BigTime tokens at 1/10 of the current price. The first is to truly experience it, which helps you gain an intuitive understanding of whether a game is fun and whether it has the potential to break out and be accepted by more people; the second is horizontal comparison, which means looking at key indicators and data comparisons between more games, so you know whether what you bought is overpriced or underpriced; the third is the entire team's roadmap and economic model.

Discussing Profit Distribution in Web3 Game Design

Eric (Core Contributor of Cellula, Twitter @de2epblue)

In fact, the development of Cellula has exceeded our expectations because from day one, people have been using AI tools like ChatGPT and MyShell to write strategies, simulate, and calculate to find higher computing power or cost-effective mining machines. At the same time, players have also begun to pay attention to the growth of the computing power curve and formulate corresponding strategies based on different mining cycles. In the game, some players can achieve higher ROI (return on investment) by carefully thinking about the underlying mechanisms of the game and making wiser choices. Overall, the design rules of this game itself can continuously motivate players to explore and practice better strategies. In the future, we hope to introduce more externalities into the entire system, bringing in more external applications and protocols for joint mining.

Saku (CEO of MATR1X, Twitter @saku_web3)

The MATR1X system starts from what is called Web2.5, laying a solid foundation of data and technology, ultimately moving towards a full-chain path. An important aspect of this path is the standardization of assets; currently, the assets in this industry are very chaotic, with various types of assets and protocol standards. Our approach is to encourage those who can provide liquidity and develop assets to participate in this system through a somewhat centralized application scenario, placing assets on various chains, and finally unifying and standardizing these assets. Therefore, in our design, we hope users can mine using assets and data. We have always tried to incentivize long-term asset holding, asset creation, and spreading.

Mass Adoption of Web3 Games

Saku (CEO of MATR1X, Twitter @saku_web3)

Attracting non-Crypto users requires game quality and experience to be indistinguishable from Web2 games while incorporating Web3 elements. However, achieving this is difficult because very few teams are willing to spend significant resources to do so. I believe a true blockbuster is still needed to prove to the market that this can work and that the path is effective, which will drive market explosion.

Opportunities and Challenges of Full-Chain Games

Eric (Core Contributor of Cellula, Twitter @de2epblue)

If we draw an analogy with DeFi, I think full-chain games are still in the dark before the dawn, similar to when Uniswap appeared; everyone is still working on various order story DEXs, but fundamentally, it hasn't addressed the most basic needs: that everyone can issue assets, trade assets, and provide liquidity. We are also looking forward to the moment when a full-chain game Uniswap emerges, which must start from asset issuance and trading; there is no other way. However, as more people attempt this, we may be very close to a breakthrough.

Another point is that true Alpha should be counterintuitive or described as "strange"; you might find it interesting, but your first impression is that it won't work. At this moment, you need to be fully alert and re-examine the product. The four-cycle has repeatedly confirmed that every bull market narrative ignites in unnoticed corners.

Combinatorial Innovation Can Also Be Destructive

Eric (Core Contributor of Cellula, Twitter @de2epblue)

Many innovative things have actually existed in traditional markets or games for years; they just take on new forms or carriers. Therefore, what we can do is not simply look backward or forward or seek a sword in the water, but to deconstruct and fragment it highly, then reorganize it, which can greatly increase the success rate of creating new things. For example, CryptoKitties, when you look at its contract, is essentially a complete replication of the genetic process, just expressed in a different form, including AMM as well. When we designed Cellula's chaotic system, we also encountered bottlenecks, but ultimately found that rather than trying to create a genius-like invention from scratch, it is better to reselect which tools from past paradigms are available to you.

In summary, if a certain paradigm is very new and has been proven to work, even having the ability to transcend cycles, then you should deeply deconstruct and analyze it, abstract it highly, and engage in combinatorial innovation, which can also be destructive.

Paths and Methodologies for Discovering New Things

Yinghao (SevenX Game Investor, Twitter @linsajiao)

In this rapidly changing market, standing from the user's perspective is actually the most effective approach. User recognition is the standard for testing whether C-end products are valid and whether they can quickly generate FOMO within a time window. Therefore, I join various groups (Degen player groups, gold mining studio groups, communities capturing Alpha through on-chain data anomalies, etc.) to gather information.

Recently discovered new things include on-chain real gold PVP, which has a relatively broad definition; besides World PVP, there is also a card-based gaming product—Fantasy.top. Additionally, the V2 version of Friend.tech will diversify asset issuance within the ecosystem and provide an open trading environment, fully realizing the logic of asset speculation. Lastly, Farcaster offers a good environment for deploying assets without the need for deployment, allowing developers to create their applications more conveniently. Some MEME tokens have already been applied in this ecosystem, such as for tipping, payments, and as internal settlement tokens for applications.

Saku (CEO of MATR1X, Twitter @saku_web3)

There are some interesting application products gradually becoming popular on Telegram's TG bot. It feels like a viral spread and marketing of previous WeChat mini-games has all been moved to TG bots. Using TG bots can lower the barrier for users to participate in blockchain, and MATR1X is also trying to build some mini-programs on the platform to help them share some transaction and inquiry processes.

The channels for discovering new things mainly include two: one is capturing anomalies in on-chain data, and the other is communities discussing new things.

Eric (Core Contributor of Cellula, Twitter @de2epblue)

Focus on the Base ecosystem. In fact, some other applications have already emerged in the social aspect of Base. We are watching whether World PVP will lead a small wave of games in the Base ecosystem. One way to track this is to follow a few people on Twitter within the Base ecosystem; they will share new things emerging in the community.