Author: Paul Veradittakit, Partner at Pantera Capital; Compiler: 0xjs@黄金财经
TON (The Open Network) is a blockchain with Toncoin as its core cryptocurrency that can process over 100,000 transactions per second and is directly integrated into the messaging platform Telegram.
TON allows developers to create mini-programs and games that run directly in Telegram. These applications are accessible via links or bots within the app, and can be opened with a single click without downloading software. More than 500 million of the 950 million monthly active Telegram users interact with mini-programs each month. For example, the TON wallet is also integrated as one of these mini-programs, enabling a seamless crypto wallet onboarding experience.
Games are often a tug-of-war between game developers and platforms. Developers want to use platforms that are easily accessible, easy to distribute, and inexpensive, while platforms try to build moats around their ecosystems so that users and developers stay within their closed communities, while charging high fees to everyone. For example, the Apple App Store charges a 30% fee on all revenue.
With the TON blockchain, however, the incentives for game development can be reversed, as the driver for mutual success between platform and game is through increased use of cryptocurrencies like Toncoin. If more people play games that integrate TON (e.g. through new tokens, NFTs, in-app purchases, airdrops), more players may buy Toncoin, which could increase its price, benefiting both developers and the platform itself. The incentive is therefore to share games as widely as possible by making the TON platform and games as inclusive as possible.
There are no fees to develop games on TON, active development support is available, and games are incentivized to help each other grow. In fact, it only takes a click to start creating a game, and Telegram has 950 million monthly active users.
Many of the popular games on TON currently use a "click to earn" model, where players can earn rewards such as token airdrops or NFTs through simple, addictive gameplay. Many games are marketed for the purpose of obtaining token airdrops. The most popular games currently include Catizen, Notcoin, and Hamster Kombat.
These games themselves are not innovative, but their popularity has exploded, similar to web2 games. One of the first examples of these games was Cookie Clicker, a web2 game where users click on cookies, which peaked at 1.5 million players in 2013. Cats&Soup, a game launched in 2022 where users collect cute cats by tapping, was downloaded over 50 million times worldwide last year and earned $2.2 million in Q4 2023. More recently, Farm Merge Valley, a game where users combine farm animals into larger animals, went viral after launching on Discord’s new embedded games platform.
These games rise and fall quickly because of their association with fashion. Many only last a maximum of 6 months before their “cool” or “cute” factor wears off. TON is a great place to launch these games because it has easy access to Telegram’s 950 million monthly users and the games can incentivize continued use through tokens. For example, Catizen has a $CATI token with a current FDV of >$500 million and has earmarked 34% of all $CATI for airdrops to users. The first 15% was distributed to early adopters in September 2024 (150 million tokens, valued at approximately $82,290,000), with the remaining 19% going toward future airdrops to users who play the game. A demo of the Catizen roadmap can be found here.
Catizen’s integration with TON has been very successful; games are shared in Telegram group chats, users are incentivized to keep playing to continue receiving airdrops, and the team behind Catizen is able to earn 20% of the total token supply in addition to in-game purchases and advertising. In fact, the average paying user’s lifetime value is around $35, which is on par with successful web2 game standards.
Catizen is also exploring new ways to grow, such as through staking $CATI, yield farming, airdrop partnerships, and building games to join its ecosystem's Launchpad.
Using its popularity and existing user base, Catizen is able to promote partner games or advertise other games within its own games while also promoting its own token.
Catizen has its own Game Center, which allows games to be published within Catizen's own platform in return for cooperation. For games within the Game Center, they provide their own SDK , using their experience to simplify the complex multi-language TON stack to make it suitable for game developers.
Tap to earn games are the first games launched on TON, and they had to experiment. Now, developers on TON have more experience, better infrastructure, and a better understanding of the best incentive mechanisms. But a big problem with these games is that they lose life very quickly. For example, from August to November this year, Hamster Kombat lost 259 million players, or 86% of its user base, in less than 3 months. As a result, the next generation of games funded and built on TON are social, mid-core, and DeFi games.
Social games are games that incorporate shareability as a core mechanic into the game, leveraging Telegram as the underlying messaging platform. This may include games that require sharing to progress. For example, Candy Crush Saga was a huge success because it was one of the first games to incorporate leaderboards and sharing into the core game experience. This feature can be integrated into other types of games.
Midcore games (as opposed to hardcore games) have more complex game mechanics and are more appealing to players who want a richer gaming experience. These games are suitable for players to play for longer periods of time, are targeted at specific demographics or regions, and have more flexible monetization schemes.
Gatto is a classic example of a game that started out as a click-to-earn game and is now transitioning to midcore. Gatto started out as a pet collection game, but later launched a PVE game mode, incorporating replayability into the game.
Gatto PVE game screenshot
Delabs is a game studio that specializes in publishing mid-core games on Telegram and TON. The Telegram Gaming Accelerator (founded by Helika and Notcoin), which provides funding and advice for Telegram games, also prioritizes mid-core games.
DeFi is the key to the success or failure of blockchain. As DeFi protocols naturally develop on top of TON, some game studios may gamify DeFi processes, whether in liquidity provision, exchange, yield farming, or other aspects.
Now is the best time to develop games on TON. The obstacles that many of the original TON games faced are no longer there; there is now better documentation and technical support, airdrop program design has been improved, there is more data to make decisions, and there are more investors and incubators available to support game developers who are eager to succeed. They have better plans to teach and integrate web2 game developers to TON.
For example, games now understand that they should focus on metrics such as retention and revenue per user, and different regions use Telegram very differently. Interestingly, Indian users use group chats heavily because Whatsapp has a group chat limit of 1,024 people, while Telegram has no limit.
To start building your next TON game studio, check out the resources at the bottom of the article.
Pantera made its largest ever investment in TON in May. Pantera is actively investing in the Telegram ecosystem.
Here is a list of Pantera’s portfolio companies in the TON gaming space:
Helika: Web3 gaming data analytics, marketing tools, and game management infrastructure platform. They also launched the Telegram Gaming Accelerator, a 10-week program to help gaming studios improve their games before launching on TON
Metatheory: Gaming studio recently launched the casual game Gimmecat on TON.
Genopets: The popular Solana NFT game studio, creator of Genopets: Pixelton, a retro PvP battle game in partnership with Genopets
Official Support:
TON Founder Resource Hub
TON Ecosystem
TON Game Manual/Support
TONCommunity for early TON Builders
TON SDK
Research:
Accelerators/Investors:
Telegram Gaming Accelerator (50 million fund)
The Open League
TON Foundation Accelerator
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