Could the Metaverse be where GameFi is headed?

Both GameFi and the metaverse are among the most popular concepts in the crypto market in 2021.

The metaverse is a very broad concept, and many people think it will be the focus of human narrative in the next century. However, due to the immaturity of the current technology, although the Metaverse is favored by many capitals, it is still intangible and invisible. We can only get a glimpse of its true nature in literary works such as the movies " Ready Player One " and " Runaway Player ". appearance. (capable of addressing GameFi interoperability)

And GameFi is one of the very specific landing directions of the encryption industry, and it is one of the four main trends in the development of NFT. The other three trends are: on-chain artwork and generative art, NFT avatar communities, and individual works uploaded by traditional artists and photographers.

However, despite the rapid development of GameFi, there are still hidden dangers that may affect the development of the entire sector in the future. And the Metaverse will be the killer tool to solve the GameFi problem.

GameFi solves the unsustainable problem of traditional blockchain games

In traditional games, although game props and gold coins belong to us in name, when it comes to judging the ownership, the company often becomes a vested interest. Tencent once filed a lawsuit against its off-market transactions regarding the ownership of the account number and gold coins of the game "Dungeon and Fighter". right. Therefore, the player is more like a consumer than an investor.

Also, there are issues with interoperability between individual games. Although we can enjoy the interaction between characters in different games provided by the game developer Bizzard , all of its games are not interoperable, and the props of game A cannot be used in game B. This is a very normal thing in the traditional game world.

And blockchain games are working on solving this. Previous blockchain games tended to focus on NFT collection and spinach racing.

The earliest form of chain games is NFT collection, and Cryptokitties has attracted a lot of attention. But after the binge, Cryptokitties also left a mess. The unsustainable gameplay made Cryptokitties unable to capture liquidity and value for a long time, which also doomed Cryptokitties' final downturn.

The game of spinach is also unsustainable, lacking the support of a large amount of liquidity, it is essentially gambling in the cloak of a chain game. These forms of games previously existed extensively on EOS.

The emergence of GameFi is solving this problem-unsustainable.

GameFi is a combination of Game and Finance. Its real core lies in "Finance", which is a sustainable economic system, so GameFi will derive the "play to earn" model. In essence, GameFi is a financial activity - a financial activity that lowers the barriers to entry through the form of games. If this economic system is sustainable, the game can survive for a long time.

GameFi's leading agreement Axie Infinity thus rises. In Axie Infinity, players can raise and breed Axies, and let Axies participate in battles. The winner can get Axie Infinity's native token Smooth Love Potion (SLP). Similar to gold coins in traditional games, but SLP can be sold directly, and players can exchange it for other cryptocurrencies or legal tender.

Axie Infinity's economy is driven by two core gameplays - breeding and combat. On the value consumption side, players need to spend AXS/SLP to breed offspring, and AXS/SLP needs to be purchased in exchanges or AMMs. On the value creation side, players can benefit from fighting to win SLP/AXS, and can also benefit from selling Axies (NFT). At the same time, players can also obtain Stake rewards by staking AXS and participate in game governance. In the value flow, Axie Infinity's economic system forms a closed loop, which means that Axie Infinity will be able to continue to develop.

What is limiting GameFi's continued expansion?

If we observe the development of the overall GameFi sector, we will find that the faults in the GameFi sector are very serious and have formed a top-heavy pattern. According to statistics from Coingecko , only Axie Infinity ranks in the top 50 by total market capitalization. Although other GameFi protocols perform well, they are basically ranked after the top 100 by total market capitalization. This is at odds with the wave of innovation in the crypto market sparked by GameFi.

Of course, this isn't an indictment of Axie Infinity's dominance of the GameFi segment. The success of Axie Infinity is inevitable for the development of the crypto market. But if GameFi wants to succeed, it needs more innovation and the emergence of leading agreements.

The encryption market has never lacked innovation, and the same is true for GameFi. At present, a lot of new games have emerged in the GameFi field. However, their development is still restricted by the following factors:

threshold

The encryption industry and DeFi operations are the first threshold. The on-chain operation of deposit and withdrawal channels and wallets requires a certain learning cost, which is fatal for players outside the industry to enter. However, this can be solved with simple learning. And then, players need to spend real money to participate in the game-this is unacceptable for many players.

Similar to staking liquidity mining, we need to lock LP assets in smart contracts in order to obtain income, and the same is true for GameFi. But it is worth noting that the form of GameFi is slightly different from liquidity mining. GameFi requires us to exchange assets for game props NFT to participate in game activities.

The difference between the two has caused a change in the player's psychology. Players will start to worry that if the NFT cannot be sold, they will lose all their assets. Many players are unwilling to face such risk exposure.

Although mature GameFi such as Axie Infinity does not need to worry about this situation, their economic system has been successful, and more players who are willing to "play to earn" will continue to pour in, but a strange new game will be lost because of its economic system. The problem of the immature system has been questioned, and it is impossible to obtain sufficient players and liquidity to support the development of the game.

performance and form

The performance of the public chain also restricts the development of GameFi. This is already an old problem of Ethereum. Scalability and confirmation time restrict the increase in the number of players. However, with the launch of high-performance public chains such as BSC, Solana, and Avalanche, the problems of performance and cost are gradually being resolved.

However, it is worth noting that due to the problems of the blockchain architecture, many game forms are not suitable for deployment on the traditional Layer 1 public chain, and limited by previous financial thinking, most of the current blockchain game forms are very single and cannot provide Players are presented with a deep and interesting game world.

For players, such a game is very easy to cause aesthetic fatigue.

However, technical problems can be solved in technological development. Just like the Ethereum sidechain built by Axie Infintiy, some public chains focusing on carrying blockchain games have begun to appear. KardiaChain and WAX blockchain, which carry chain games such as My DeFi Pet , AlienWorlds and Thetan Arena, have gained a certain user base.

According to statistics from KardiaChain Explorer , there are currently more than 34 addresses on KardiaChain, and the number of transactions has exceeded 14.83 million times.

The number of accounts on WAX has exceeded 6.94 million.

How does Metaverse empower GameFi?

As mentioned above, technical problems can be solved through technical means, while the problems of liquidity and the number of players need new forms of empowerment to solve.

Judging from the current gameplay and form of blockchain games, Metaverse is a very suitable concept for empowering GameFi. And many chain games have also begun to move closer to the Metaverse.

For example, the GameFi protocol Copuppy hopes to gain a certain degree of market attention by launching the dog universe and taking advantage of the metaverse. Sandbox is also taking the route of the metaverse. Players can transform every piece of land in it and build their own kingdom. However, it should be noted that the "metaverse" launched by a single protocol is only in name, and their size cannot support the world view and fluidity of the metaverse. Many protocols have begun to collect money under the name of "Metaverse", which requires our attention and careful screening.

So, how will the Metaverse empower GameFi?

We can imagine that there is a metaverse that can accommodate a large number of games, and this metaverse supports developers to create games in it.

Interoperability

All games in this metaverse can achieve interoperability - only need an efficient NFT market to achieve. At the same time, thanks to the support of the metaverse, linkage between games can also be completed-different characters can play in other game worlds. Just like the children's movie " Wreck-It Ralph ". We can understand it as Metaverse supports the interoperability between NFT and games.

It is conceivable that if there is a decentralized Bizzard in this metaverse, we only need to purchase a character NFT to play " Overwatch (FPS first-person shooter)" and " Heroes of the Storm (MOBA multiplayer online battle arena)". game)" two games, the gameplay of the two games is completely different.

fluidity

The liquidity mentioned above is also resolved. In the Metaverse, after achieving interoperability, we will look at liquidity from a holistic perspective. We don't need to buy new characters and props again before playing a new game. By using the original NFT assets, we can easily participate in brand new games.

As the metaverse develops, general-purpose NFTs will emerge. With the universal NFT, we can enjoy most of the game services in the Metaverse. This means that when new games are launched, they get an initial liquidity. If the game is high enough, liquidity will present a positive feedback loop.

Therefore, more high-quality games will appear in the Metaverse itself, and more liquidity will flow into the Metaverse.

Variety of game forms

Whether the game is fun is also the focus of our attention.

Although the focus of GameFi is Finance, "play to earn" itself is only a financial act and cannot promote the influx of a large number of game players. In the ranks of "play to earn", most of them are speculators, or gold workers who come to make money due to the limitation of regional economy. Therefore, the "play to earn" model will prevail in Southeast Asia.

Web3.0 is an open world, and we cannot forget to rely on financial profit to attract everyone to join, and what many people value is not the economic benefits that playing games can bring to them. Game experience will determine the number of players. The vastness of the metaverse can fully support game developers to build various games on it to provide players with a rich gaming experience.

epilogue

However, the current technical support is still unable to support the operation of a huge Metaverse. At the same time,NAVEEN JOSHI wrote in "Why do people say that people's expectations for the metaverse immersive virtual world are beautiful and ridiculous? As mentioned in the article, the metaverse intends to bring all the positive aspects of the real world into the virtual world, but it will also bring data security, privacy and legal issues.

The road to the future is long and difficult. We can only imagine how exciting the linkage between Metaverse and GameFi will be, but the specific realization path still needs us to explore and work together.