Chronicles of blockchain games: Milestones and future prospects of blockchain game development

Author: MetaCat & ChatGPT

I. Introduction: Why review the history of blockchain games?

Blockchain games, as a highly experimental and groundbreaking application scenario in the crypto world, their evolution is not only a history of technological innovation, but also a history of narrative game, and an exploration of finding PMF. From the initial "rights confirmation + transaction" to the construction of today's "world-class protocol", blockchain games have always been challenging the boundaries of Web2 games.

Looking back at the key nodes of blockchain games in the past fifteen years not only helps to understand the driving logic behind each wave of blockchain game craze, but also provides a historical reference for judging the future direction.

II. Inventory of development stages: key nodes and characteristics of the times

1. Embryonic period (2009–2016): Game experiments under the projection of Bitcoin spirit

After the birth of Bitcoin, some early developers began to try to embed game logic into the blockchain. Huntercoin (2014): It is considered to be the world's first real blockchain game. It is a multiplayer online game running on the Bitcoin sidechain Namecoin. Players move characters on the map to collect resources (i.e. tokens) and control character behavior by submitting transactions. The game runs entirely on the chain state, and even character movement and death are completed through on-chain broadcast transactions. This experiment of "writing the game state on the chain" laid the seeds for later full-chain games. During this period, the chain game technology was not yet mature, NFT had not yet been born, and the smart contract platform was not popular, but the original concept of "blockchain can carry the state of the game world" originated from this.

2. The first year of NFT rights confirmation (2017): Enlightenment of the gamification of digital collectibles

• CryptoKitties (2017): Launched by Dapper Labs, it is the first blockchain game to gain mainstream attention. The core of the game is to breed and trade unique "crypto cats" NFTs through smart contracts. Each cat has a set of genetic codes that control its appearance. Players can combine parent cats to breed new cats, and the combination of different genes produces rarity. This model of "digital asset rights confirmation + rarity-driven transactions" demonstrated the powerful appeal of NFTs for the first time.

The biggest impact of CryptoKitties is that it promoted the formation of the ERC-721 standard and caused serious network congestion on Ethereum for the first time due to games. It also made the public realize that blockchain can not only trade coins, but also carry more complex assets and forms of interaction.

3. The germination of on-chain game design (2018 & 2021): The system is the game

• Fomo3D (2018): Developed by Team Just, it is a game that runs completely on the chain. The rules of the game are simple: every time a user buys a key, the countdown time will be extended (up to 24 hours). When the countdown reaches zero, the last buyer will receive most of the prize pool. This rule design stimulates the speculative mentality of "whoever rushes in last will win", causing a large number of users to trample on each other. The mechanism of Fomo3D essentially simulates a "Ponzi game", but all the rules are written in smart contracts, which are transparent and cannot be tampered with. On the one hand, this game reveals the "self-operation" of blockchain, and on the other hand, it also exposes the unsustainability of the early chain game economic model. Wolf Game (2021): It is an NFT farm game that introduces gaming elements. Players can mint NFTs of two characters, sheep or wolves. Sheep can passively obtain WOOL tokens in the pasture, but they may also be "robbed" by wolves. Wolves have a lower probability of minting, and their way of obtaining WOOL is more active and aggressive. The game introduces the mechanisms of "probabilistic predation", "redistribution of economic benefits", and "NFT identity determines game status", making it not only an asset display, but also a strategic game.

Wolf Game's design is inspired by game theory, emphasizing asymmetric games between players, and has triggered a wave of contract games centered on "transparent game mechanisms but unpredictable results".

4. Game Financialization and Behavioral Incentive Experiment (2020–2022)

• Axie Infinity (2020 outbreak, started in 2018): A pet battle game developed by the Vietnamese team Sky Mavis, it is the first pinnacle masterpiece of GameFi. Players need to buy NFT pets "Axie" to form a team, win SLP tokens through battles, and participate in the economic system of the governance token AXS. Because the tokens can be sold and exchanged for legal currency, coupled with the "scholarship" model (funded by the asset party and the operator shares the profits), Axie has become popular in developing countries such as the Philippines, and even became the "main income" of some users.

However, the economic system relies on continuous purchases by new players to support the earnings of old players. Eventually, the slowdown in growth led to the collapse of SLP inflation and a plunge in asset prices. Axie has become a model of success and failure for GameFi.

• StepN (2022): As a representative of "Move to Earn", StepN uses NFT running shoes and GPS data to "chain" real-life sports behaviors, and players can get GST and GMT token rewards by running. Its incentive mechanism is characterized by "the more you invest, the more you walk, the higher the income", which quickly attracted a large number of users.

However, its model relies heavily on attracting new users and constantly purchasing upgraded shoes to maintain the token price, and eventually faced a deflation crisis similar to Axie. StepN marks the peak of the X2E (behavior-driven earnings) model, and also reflects the exploration of "real participation behavior incentives" in blockchain games.

5. Ebb and Reconstruction (2022–2023): Returning from Speculation to Gameplay

As the GameFi bubble burst, investors and players gradually calmed down, and the market turned its attention to "sustainable gameplay design". During this period, infrastructure such as Ethereum Layer2 and ZK-Rollup gradually matured, and the cost of on-chain interaction was greatly reduced. At the same time, NFT leasing agreements, on-chain identity systems, DAO tool chains, etc. began to provide more possibilities for blockchain games.

Many projects have begun to explore the "long-term playability" of on-chain games, rather than pure financial speculation.

6. The rise of the full-chain game paradigm (2023–): Game logic is fully on the chain

• Dark Forest (2020 prototype, 2021–2023 active): This is an exploration strategy game based on zero-knowledge proof (ZK). Players expand planets in the universe but cannot see the positions of other players. They must rely on "exploration" to obtain information. All operations must be submitted on the chain, and ZK is used to hide the player's coordinates but ensure validity.

Dark Forest pioneered the "privacy game + full-chain operation" and demonstrated new possibilities for ZK in games.

• MUD / Dojo (from 2023): MUD is a full-chain game development framework launched by Lattice. It adopts the entity-component-system (ECS) architecture and supports multi-player state synchronization, module combination, and on-chain logic inheritance. Dojo is a similar framework on StarkNet, emphasizing high performance and ZK compatibility.

They allow developers to build composable on-chain game protocols, transforming chain games from products to "world protocols".

III. Evolutionary laws extracted from the development process

Assets → Gameplay → Protocol:

In the initial stage, focus on "property rights confirmation" and "collection" (CryptoKitties)

Medium-term exploration of "institutional game" and "revenue cycle" (Fomo3D, Wolf Game)

Later, build an "inheritable" open game protocol (Dark Forest, MUD/Dojo)

Every technological upgrade leads to a paradigm shift:

NFT standard takes shape (ERC-721)

AMM and dual tokens drive GameFi explosion

Zero-knowledge proof enables private gaming

The birth of a multiplayer on-chain state synchronization framework (MUD/Dojo)

Player identity gradually upgraded: from consumer to co-builder

Players not only own assets, but can also co-create rules and worlds

Game assets are "composable" and constitute part of the on-chain identity

From incentive-driven to structure-driven:

The decline of GameFi reminds us: incentives cannot replace gameplay

Long-term sustainability depends on endogenous gameplay and ecological collaboration structure

Fourth, Future Outlook: What might be the next stage of blockchain games?

Game is the agreement, modules can be reorganized

Maps, resources, roles, mechanisms are all released in modules

Developers combine new gameplay like building Lego

Cross-game assets and identity integration

Players build an "identity universe" through DID or on-chain behavior

Assets, honors, and histories between different games are interoperable

AI and Web3 fusion drives the evolution of the on-chain world

AI generates events, tasks, and balance mechanisms

AI participates in governance to maintain fairness and scalability

“Sovereign gamers” will become the protagonists

Players are not only operators, but also rule makers and co-governors of the world

The trinity of ownership, participation rights, and construction rights

Conclusion

Blockchain games are a road of exploration intertwined with thorns and enthusiasm. From the popularity of CryptoKitties, to Fomo3D, to Axie, StepN, and then to the on-chain protocol paradigm of MUD/Dojo, blockchain games have repeatedly tried to break away from the framework of traditional game design. It is not a copy of Web2, but a brand-new application dimension and technical system. In the future, we may usher in a digital civilization world that truly belongs to players, developers and AI to build and govern together.