In the next bull run, how to find the "holy grail" of chain game tracks

Introduction

When it comes to blockchain games, what comes to mind is the deadly death spiral of the blockchain game 1.0 era. Now that the tide has receded, there are very few projects still alive.

Currently, chain games that focus on playability are emerging in the market, with most transitioning from excellent teams in traditional gaming to the Web3 gaming arena, showing a momentum to lead the development of chain games 2.0.

This article explores: In the upcoming next bull run, is this emphasis on playability in blockchain games the most likely to become the "holy grail"? If so, how can users logically identify a specific project and prepare in advance?

1. About "Holy Grail"

1. Cryptocurrency "Holy Grail"

The founder of the largest Chinese blockchain content platform, Bihu, Gu Lu, once shared "Finding the Holy Grail of Cryptocurrency," where the Holy Grail can be understood as "blockbuster projects."

Gulu believes that after Ethereum ETH transitioned to the POS consensus mechanism in 2022, it will experience an annual deflation of about 0.15%, which will open the second growth curve for Ethereum. In fact, the current annual deflation of Ethereum is approximately 0.43%, and EIP-1559 has burned 3,550,364 ETH. The bull run will accelerate deflation, and since Ethereum is the infrastructure for L2, the prosperity of L2 will lead to the prosperity of Ethereum. The rapid rise of Ethereum in the future is just around the corner.

2. The "Holy Grail" of the Chain Game 1.0 Era

The ones that cannot be avoided are these two projects:

• Axie Infinity, total estimated earnings exceed 400 million USD, with a circulating market value of up to 10.4 billion USD;
• STEPN, the total estimated revenue exceeds 200 million USD, with a circulating market value of up to 2.3 billion USD.

( does not include token sale profits )

3. The "Holy Grail" of Blockchain Gaming 2.0

Based on the results of the previous round, let's make an estimate: the total revenue exceeds 300 million USD. The overall lifecycle will be a bit longer; if calculated over a year, excluding the first three months which are low-income periods and the last three months which are recession periods, the daily revenue may be between 2 million to 10 million USD.

It is currently August 2023, and it seems like a deep bear market, but BTC has risen from around 15500U to about 30000U. There are reports that leading global financial institutions are secretly positioning themselves in Bitcoin, betting on the last violent bull run in the crypto space (. The mainstream voices in the last round said the same ), and the circulating market value of the "Holy Grail" projects in the next round of the chain gaming sector is estimated to exceed 15 billion U.S. dollars.

2. Subcategories of Blockchain Games: Asset Composition

This article classifies blockchain games into the following four categories based on the composition of assets:

1. NFT breeding-based games: Axie Infinity, STEPN

2. NFT mining and DeFi combination games: MBOX, Tiny world

3. Full Chain Games: Dark Forest, Loot

4. Only games with core assets on-chain and high playability

Category 4 games are most likely to reach the holy grail in the next bull run, and are worth paying special attention to. Their characteristics are:

• Focus on playability, allowing new users to get high;
• Focus on product experience, not pursuing whether it is fully on-chain at this stage, core assets on-chain is sufficient;
• Focus on building the user ecosystem to bridge the gap between the project and users, making users feel like they are part of the project.

3. Case Analysis: Coming on Strong, Competing for the "Holy Grail"

1. Matr1x Fire: Web3's CSgo

Matr1x Fire is a Web3 FPS shooting game that draws on the mature business model of CSgo, combined with the innovative aspects of Web3 asset issuance and on-chain integration. It merges game NFT art, esports events, and millions of words of novels to create a Web3 brand.

The team members have over 8 years of experience in game development and publishing, and the founding team comes from major game companies, having participated in the development and publishing of more than 10 large-scale games, with total game project revenue exceeding $3 billion and nearly 100 million active users.

Matr1x successfully completed a $10 million Series A financing in 2022, with investors including Korea's second-largest financial group Hanwha Financial, early Ethereum investor Hashkey Capital, Amber Group, and Seven X.

Matr1x Fire is on the road to the "Holy Grail", and some breakthrough actions in operations in August have made people feel that it is breaking through the awkward situation of the small Web3 existing market, where playability and economy cannot be achieved together. The model direction of Win to earn has also inherently extended the cycle of the death spiral. The team's adept fundraising has made users feel that at least they can survive until the next bull run.

2. SERAPH: The Big Pineapple of Web3 ( Diablo )

Seraph is an ARPG game inspired by Diablo, developed by the Korean publicly listed game company Actoz Soft, which has released well-known masterpieces such as "Millennium," "Legend," and "A3."

The main assets of the game are equipment, as well as gems, jewels, and other items that can be embedded. After leveling up, heroes can learn different skills and magic by allocating skill points. After completing basic adventures, players can unlock Chaos, Void, and Abyss modes by meeting various conditions, which drop different types and levels of items and equipment.

The core token $SRF is mainly used for identifying NFTs, forging equipment, and participating in governance.

The quality of Seraph products is excellent, and by tapping into a wave of nostalgic dark themes, it provides players who enjoy gaming a true sense of belonging during the tedious bear market. The economic model revealed in the project's AMA will be based on "equipment NFTs", which is also very promising.

3. Oil War: Web3's Oil Tycoon

Oil War is a Web3 simulation management game that simulates the complete process from oil extraction to sales. The game developer is MetaSensor, and the publisher is Surf Guild, a chain game studio with an 8-year background in traditional gaming. They raised 1 million USD in the seed round and have collaborated with well-known partners such as Wemade, Blockchainspace, and Playmining.

Players can earn the game token oil coin by completing daily tasks, achieving merit rewards, team rankings, land development and management, and can exchange it for governance token OT at a fixed ratio of 1000:1, and further exchange it for other on-chain assets to realize monetization.

The economic model of the oil war game is a typical fusion model of web2 and web3. The game will be available on Google Play and the App Store, featuring a traditional in-app purchase model, allowing players to deposit funds through conventional means; at the same time, the project team has developed a dedicated Compass game service platform for web3, used for trading virtual game assets. It can also conduct NFT and token-to-token transactions with mainstream games and web3 assets in the market, thereby linking to a broader web3 world.

4. Conclusion of this article

From the user's perspective, how to find blockchain game projects that may become the "Holy Grail" in the next bull run? This article elaborates on one approach:

1. The next bull run in the crypto space still relies on a large number of new users.

2. New users will not immediately dive into high-threshold full-chain games or Defi games; they are more receptive to products that are similar in playability and product quality to the traditional games they are familiar with. Therefore, in the category of blockchain games that have core assets on-chain and high playability, it is most likely that a "Holy Grail" will emerge.

3. Find some Web3 products that imitate traditional blockbuster games, and analyze from various aspects to verify the possibility of becoming the "Holy Grail."

This article lists three cases, among which Matr1x is currently the earliest to launch and also the most outstanding. From the quality of the game and the data from the internal test, Seraph can be considered a high-quality work. Oil War is clearly still in the early stage of building up to its debut, but from the layout of the project team, one can vaguely glimpse its ambitions in web3.

Finally, I want to emphasize that the "Holy Grail" project is something that can only be encountered by chance. In the last bull run, there were only two such projects, and hitting one of them means a hundredfold return, so it is even more important to conduct in-depth research on every aspect.