Author: 0xFacai, BlockBeats
On August 20, 2024, the Chinese 3A masterpiece "Black Myth: Wukong" that millions of players have been looking forward to was finally officially launched. The number of online players of the game once exceeded 1.4 million, ranking fourth in the history of Steam's highest number of online players. Not only in China, "Black Myth: Wukong" also continues to dominate the list of Steam's global best-selling products. In addition, on today's Youtube live broadcast homepage, almost all of them are Black Myth game live broadcasts.
As the first truly 3A masterpiece, Black Myth received relatively high scores from foreign media such as IGN in its first battle, and countless Chinese players sighed: "When playing games, I finally don't have to go online to search for cultural and historical information." Obviously, the appearance of "Black Myth: Wukong" has blown a "domestic wind" in the international game industry. After the explosion of Black Myth, domestic stand-alone games such as "Sword of the Ape: Awakening of the White Ape", "Shadow Blade Zero", and "Codename: Jinyiwei" have received higher attention from the industry, and this domestic wind is also blowing towards the Web3 game field. Taking advantage of the popularity of Black Myth, BlockBeats has counted several "domestic Web3 games" worth paying attention to.
Tencent system
At the end of last year, against the backdrop of the fading GameFi narrative, a small number of well-made games suddenly emerged, reawakening the industry’s attention and thinking about Web3 games. Most of these game categories are concentrated in casual competitive fields such as FPS, chess and cards, and divination. In addition to a deep understanding of game development, strict control of product details, and mature considerations for track selection, these projects have an important thing in common, that is, they are all created by former Tencent employees.
In 2021, the news that "Axie Infinity revenue surpassed Honor of Kings" swept the gaming circle, which attracted the attention of Tencent. After that, Tencent's internal Web3 business developed rapidly, and businesses such as Zhixin Chain Infrastructure, Chain Game Experiments, and Huanhe appeared one after another, making Tencent a leader in exploring the direction of Web3. During the "wave of layoffs in large companies", many excellent developers from Tencent who had certain game production experience turned to Web3. After more than a year of development, some of their games have begun to emerge.
Matr1x Fire
Matr1x Fire is an FPS shooting mobile game under the Web3 cultural and entertainment platform MATR1X, focusing on PVP multiplayer competition and PVE casual gameplay. The team currently has 7 core members, most of whom are from the former Tencent CODM (Call of Duty Mobile)/PUBGM team (Peace Elite Mobile), Cross Fire mobile game teams, and mainly composed of former Tianmei Studio and Photon Studio background members. It can be seen that the team is very good at the development of shooting mobile games, and has experience in the development and large-scale operation of large-scale games in the Web 2 field.
Official data shows that MATR1X FIRE has more than 3 million global game users, mainly distributed in Brazil / Indonesia / Philippines / Turkey / Thailand / CIS, etc. At the same time, MATR1X FIRE is also available for download in Apple Store in some regions, such as Singapore and Hong Kong.
The Matr1x Fire project is well-funded, with public financing exceeding US$20 million. Investors include Hana Financial Inverstment, HashKey, Amber Group, Folius Ventures, SevenX, Find Satoshi Lab, Jambo Ventures, and the latest North American top gaming fund Makers Fund.
Mahjong Meta
Last August, Mahjong Meta, a Web3 mahjong game based on the Ethereum network, announced the completion of a $12 million financing round, with Dragonfly, Folius Ventures, and StepN's parent company Find Satoshi Labs all on the list of investors. Mahjong Meta is a Web3 gaming platform dedicated to mahjong e-sports and an on-chain mahjong theme park for all players. The core team consists of experienced professionals from leading gaming companies such as Tencent, NetEase, and Lilith.
Mahjong is different from shooting e-sports games like Matr1x. It is a pan-chess and card game that can embrace long-term users. "For example, if a player starts to like playing cards at the age of 25, he is likely to play until he is 60 or even 70 years old. Combined with some e-sports mechanisms, it will be very suitable for long-term operation, and the overall gaming experience can be improved through new seasons."
According to data provided by the team, Mahjong launched its Beta test in May 2023, and attracted more than 15,000 players in the following two months, completing more than 490,000 games. Its game NFT achieved a total transaction volume of nearly 500 ETH on Opensea.
After the official launch, the Mahjong team is still very busy. The team has completed the CV recording with well-known Japanese voice actors such as Nao Kobayashi, and has also invited many artists from home and abroad to create and select scenes and BGM for the game. During the Beta testing phase, many Japanese players found the team to ask about the name and composer of the game's background music. "It is these details that many players are very sensitive to, so many of the small things are handled by me personally. We hope that this game will present a complete narrative closed loop that is self-consistent in all aspects to the players."
Shanda Group
Shanda Network is regarded by many as the "ancestor" of the domestic online game industry because it represented the Korean phenomenal online game "Legend" in its early years. In the era of "Legend", it pioneered business models such as point cards + in-game coins that are now widely adopted. Perhaps influenced by the category characteristics of the games it operates, as a pioneer in the domestic online game industry, Shanda has always been particularly interested in exploring the virtual world and in-game economy. After the emergence of popular narratives such as the metaverse and Web3, veterans inside and outside the company have shown a particularly strong interest in this. Different from the style of Tencent Entertainment, explorers of the "Shanda system" prefer to cut into this new blue ocean from the MMORPG they are good at.
Seraph：In the Darkness
Seraph is a blockchain-based dark fantasy ARPG developed by Actoz. The graphics and operation are roughly the same as the traditional dark-style Loot ARPG. Actoz is the developer behind the game "Legend" that helped Shanda get started. Founded in 1996, Actoz is a well-known listed online game company in South Korea. In addition to "Legend", it has also launched well-known online games such as "MapleStory" and "Millennium", and has also operated classic works such as "Dragon Nest". In 2004, Actoz was acquired by the Chinese company Shanda Games for US$91.7 million, with a 29% stake, becoming Shanda Games' Korean holding company.
Seraph producer Joseph LIM has 20 years of experience in game development and operation, and has participated in well-known game projects such as "Legend", "Legend of the Dragon King" and "Dragon Nest". Technical director Victor KWON has more than 20 years of experience in game development. Alan CHU, the technical director in charge of the blockchain module, was in charge of encryption technology and security business at Amazon and Google. In addition, senior token economics expert Ken CHOUNG is responsible for hosting the game's economic system design.
Seraph's early storyline and some dungeons in the middle and late stages are all free to play. Players can choose to enter the game directly at 0 cost, experience Seraph in a pure Web2 online game, and even earn a small amount of gold from the dungeons. After completing the main storyline, players can open Mystery of Depths, where they can form a team to adventure, which is divided into multiple levels, and the difficulty varies with the number of people.
Seraph pre-season was released in June this year, and participation data increased significantly. Game CMO Ye Zi said, "More than 60,000 players participated, of which more than 30,000 had advanced game characters, and more than 10,000 users made purchases. During this testing phase , we achieved $3 million in fiat revenue, and we were able to allocate over $1 million for token buybacks per the terms of our whitepaper.”
Meta Dinners
MetaCene's founding members mainly come from traditional Web2 game manufacturers such as Shanda Games and Blizzard. The most eye-catching name among them is Tan Qunzhao. As one of the co-founders of Shanda Games, Tan Qunzhao can be regarded as a pioneer of the first batch of online games in China. During his tenure at Shanda, the company launched well-known large-scale online games such as "Legend of Mir", "Dragon Nest" and "Aion". The idea that "AI and Web3 will subvert the game industry" made Tan Qunzhao re-enter the game and launch blockchain games through the development of new technologies.
MetaCene is an MMORPG game that presents a surreal apocalyptic society where survivors interact with various NFTs and redefine civilization. MetaCene made its official debut at the Hong Kong Web3 Carnival in April 2023. In his speech, Tan Qunzhao mentioned that a new era of player-centered games is coming. MetaCene presents a surreal apocalyptic society where survivors create a new virtual society and redefine civilization through communication, cooperation, and confrontation.
The game sets three core gameplays: co-play, co-creation, and co-governance, and divides the entire game into three chapters: The Source of Fire, the Realm of Apocalypse, and the Spirit of All Things. The three chapters are progressive, not only the unfolding of the MetaCene game story, but also the evolutionary trajectory of a new metaverse. Through innovative PVE and PVP gameplay, powerful technical infrastructure, guild DAO governance, sustainable economic system, and in-game editing, entertainment, governance, and creation are carried out with players at the center.
In March this year, MetaCene announced the completion of a US$10 million Series A private equity financing round, led by Folius Ventures and SevenX Ventures, with participation from The Spartan Group, Mantle Network, Animoca Ventures, Longling Capital, Comma3 Ventures, IGG and others.
MetaCene launched the first test in August 2023, and the second test in November of the same year. The on-chain interactions reached 170,000 times, the on-chain asset holders exceeded 6,000 people, the proportion of active players reached 83%, the next-day retention was as high as 75%, and the 14-day retention remained at the level of 50%. The third test was launched in March this year, and the fourth non-delete test was launched at the end of July, providing up to $3 million in Dajin income.