Following the concepts of chain abstraction and account abstraction, Zypher Network further proposed the concept of server abstraction and, based on zk technology, took the lead in launching a server abstraction solution applied to the Web3 gaming field. Based on this solution, game developers can create and run games in a completely decentralized environment without relying on traditional centralized server architecture, allowing the game world to operate across multiple distributed nodes and possess autonomous dynamic sharding and efficient data synchronization capabilities.
The brand new server abstraction narrative may be the optimal solution for the operational mode of Web3 games, making game operation more efficient, secure, and trustworthy, and it is also expected to become a key driver for a new round of growth in the GameFi track.
The Web2.5 moment of blockchain games
Blockchain games themselves are touted as Web3, retaining traditional gameplay while introducing token economic elements such as Crypto, NFTs, and P2E features, which assetize game content and allow players to possess asset ownership. However, the vast majority of underlying chains do not possess the conditions to support the operation of game logic. Let's make an assumption; for example, if each player in a game generates one on-chain transaction per second (such as moving, skill release, etc.), and we assume there are 10,000 active players participating in the game at the same time, then the underlying chain should reach at least 10,000 TPS to support these players to play smoothly; otherwise, the game will be extremely laggy, and Gas fees will be extraordinarily high (one can look at the Gas fee situation on various chains during the inscription period). Currently, there seems to be no chain that can meet the above requirements through practical verification.
Therefore, to ensure a high-quality gaming experience, especially for some real-time online games, the game logic usually runs on off-chain servers (storage, computation, etc., all happen off-chain), which provides an experience very smooth akin to Web2 games. However, continuous synchronization of data between on-chain and off-chain is required to ensure that the state among players remains consistent.
For example, when I purchase a sword in the game, the off-chain database needs to synchronize this on-chain transaction data in real time to increase the number of weapons in my inventory, allowing me to use it anytime I need it. Therefore, the process of synchronizing on-chain and off-chain data is continuous and involves a substantial workload.
In fact, this Web2.5 approach needs to bear a series of issues brought about by centralized servers, including censorship, hacking, and other risks leading to single points of failure in games, as well as scalability issues. Of course, due to the need for continuous synchronization of on-chain and off-chain data, it may also lead to data breaches and cheating caused by data hijacking or malicious actions from game developers, especially when economic interests are involved, making it difficult to ensure that executors do not misbehave, as there are no mechanisms to restrict malicious behavior.
Another potential issue is that the token economy is on-chain while the game logic is off-chain, and the two are usually parallel. The logic of the game and player interactions are usually very complex, involving a large number of real-time decisions, state changes, and randomness, which makes it difficult to encapsulate game logic completely in smart contracts. For example, items in the game, character skills, event triggers, etc., are usually dynamic, making it hard to represent them entirely through static code, so developers often need to adjust strategies to match the game.
The developmental dilemmas of blockchain games
Therefore, when on-chain computational power is limited, transaction costs are high, and real-time requirements are strict, Web2.5 games generally struggle to achieve relatively complex game logic. This has also led to many Web3 games lacking in quality and being unable to profit from the game content itself. In this context, developers often stake their revenue on token economies and NFT sales or rely on financing for support, while the game itself typically cannot maintain daily active users solely through token appreciation and P2E incentives, as seen in typical projects like Axie Infinity and Star Atlas.
On the other hand, we see that many Web3 development teams at this stage claim to develop blockchain AAA games, which may not be realistic.
The development cycle of AAA games is extremely long, whether it's (Black Myth: Wukong)—a AAA masterpiece characterized by immersive gameplay and captivating cultural background (with global total sales exceeding 18.1 million copies), or (Starfall: Counterattack)—a game launched by Sony, which only had around 700 peak daily active users on Steam within less than half a month of market release, both experienced an eight-year development cycle. However, the huge investment and time spent make it quite unrealistic to gain returns from the crypto market. Especially for Web2 AAA development teams with mature business models, they may be even less willing to disrupt their business models in the Web3 field and add unnecessary burdens.
Faced with complex game logic and elements, existing infrastructure is hard to provide good support, which is also one of the fundamental reasons.
Therefore, whether in terms of technology, investment, timelines, or existing industry resources (including infrastructure, etc.), it is difficult to provide support, especially given the rapid changes in the winds of the crypto market.
We see that there has not been a significant change in the on-chain gaming field, making it difficult to overcome the dilemma of user attrition and nearly no new users, remaining in a low valley period.
Fundamentally changing the operational logic of existing games to rationally break away from Web2.5 and transition to Web3 may be the key to improving the development and growth issues faced by blockchain games, and the server abstraction narrative proposed by Zypher Network may be the optimal solution.
Server abstraction narrative
First, let's talk about server abstraction.
Chain abstraction and account abstraction have previously been highly discussed narratives in the industry, both aimed at lowering the threshold for users to utilize on-chain facilities by folding in native encryption design. For example, account abstraction allows for custom account behaviors, enabling accounts to execute complex smart contract logic. It simplifies user experience and supports flexible designs for various authentication and transaction methods. For instance, based on account abstraction features, when I create a wallet account, I can use familiar characteristics (such as email or even fingerprints) to replace mnemonic phrases, or implement Gas payment on the abstraction layer. Chain abstraction, on the other hand, separates applications from the underlying implementation of specific blockchains, allowing developers to deploy applications across different blockchains without worrying about the details of the underlying network, thus enhancing cross-chain interoperability and development flexibility. Based on chain abstraction facilities, developers can seamlessly integrate multiple chains, and users can achieve cross-chain transactions without feeling it.
Essentially, both account abstraction and chain abstraction achieve different behavioral directions and functional expansions by establishing different execution layers or structures. Different projects implementing chain abstraction and account abstraction solutions have certain differences.
Zypher Network extends the concepts of account abstraction and chain abstraction, further proposing the concept of server abstraction.
Server abstraction is more like a serverless state, aimed at establishing a new distributed resource service layer in a decentralized manner, reducing or hiding the complexity of underlying server infrastructure, ensuring that users and developers can transparently and efficiently access the required services without directly managing or interacting with physical and cloud servers. Server abstraction can directly meet the computational and storage resource needs of decentralized applications (dApps) or blockchain projects without relying on centralized servers.
As the underlying engine in the blockchain gaming field, Zypher Network is the first to apply the narrative of server abstraction in the blockchain gaming space.
Zypher Network's server abstraction solution
Zypher Network itself is a set of Web3 game engine infrastructure based on zero-knowledge proof schemes. It not only provides developers with multifunctional tools based on zero-knowledge proofs (ZKP), lowering the threshold for developers to use ZKP and other technologies to develop Web3 games but also acts as a distributed game engine system that provides a powerful and flexible infrastructure for the decentralized operation of games after game development is completed, meeting various technical needs and enhancing the gaming experience, while further embedding necessary functions as needed.
Zypher Network itself does not deploy game logic on centralized servers, but directly writes game logic into the on-chain circuit, while the work of generating proofs based on ZKP and other tasks is done off-chain, with the final verification of the proofs returning on-chain.
Proof generation is driven by its off-chain distributed verification node network layer. In this network layer, each node has the ability to generate zero-knowledge proofs and communication, providing strong computational support for the game, driven by token economics. We see that its on-chain and off-chain parts work together to support the operation of the game, fulfilling the role of a server, but both parts operate in a decentralized manner. Therefore, there are no actual server facilities in this system; we can understand it as abstracting the server while achieving superior effects compared to traditional servers.
Operational logic
l Off-chain part
When the game is running, the nodes in the Zypher Network engine will aggregate the action logs generated by some continuous game behaviors of players into ZK proofs. Within a certain period, these game actions (each is a transaction) are aggregated into a ZKP proof, and multiple proofs are submitted to the chain in a single transaction. This method not only significantly reduces Gas fees but also ensures a delay-free gaming experience for some PvE game deployments.
For some PvP scenarios, Zypher Network further launched the Z4 engine based on the aforementioned node network, providing a foundation for real-time online multiplayer. The Z4 engine supports players to enter game rooms through matching; these rooms are stateless, and nodes themselves do not save data, significantly improving the engine's scalability, fault tolerance, security, and responsiveness, facilitating the distribution of computing tasks among multiple nodes without worrying about data synchronization issues, thus enhancing overall performance and efficiency.
In the game room of the Z4 engine, players' actions will also be packaged and sorted in ZKP format and uploaded to the chain for verification and execution of results. It is worth mentioning that Z4 nodes support the use of virtual machines (wasm/evm/...) to run game logic, allowing smart contracts, economic models, and game logic to be built together in a composable manner. Moreover, if higher efficiency is needed, developers can directly write game logic in the nodes without using a virtual machine, and the gaming process will not involve transactions or Gas fees, significantly reducing development costs for developers and gaming costs for players, and greatly improving the operational efficiency and load capacity of online games.
Once the nodes complete the aforementioned series of tasks, they will be able to receive incentives from the network. Of course, nodes also need to stake some tokens to increase the cost of malicious behavior, and misconduct will result in penalties.
l On-chain part
The on-chain part of Zypher Network launched a modular Layer3 system (Zytron engine) dedicated to serving the gaming ecosystem, supporting developers to build their own APP Chains in a modular way. By providing a series of plug-and-play tool components, developers can construct autonomous worlds and small strategy games at the lowest cost without a steep learning curve, or migrate AAA games onto the chain while retaining production-level UE, and can offload the complex computational processes corresponding to game logic to off-chain nodes. Based on Layer3, off-chain nodes can automatically scale according to load, further ensuring efficient game operation and a seamless user experience.
From the perspective of off-chain proof verification, on one hand, the Zytron engine itself is customized and modularly deployed in a Layer3 manner, achieving 0 Gas design through a series of technical optimizations, while having some pre-compiled contracts on-chain, which provides extremely high verification efficiency compared to the vast majority of chains. On the other hand, the Zytron engine is also integrated with EigenLayer, deploying the AVS computing layer on EigenLayer, which also achieves highly efficient and secure verification efficiency while ensuring decentralization. For different game proposals, customizable verification methods that better match the specific game scenarios can be selected to ensure more efficient overall game operation.
In addition, the Zytron engine has also integrated Celestia as the default data availability (DA) option, further reducing the data burden on the on-chain system.
In summary, all designs are aimed at ensuring the more efficient and decentralized operation of the system or game.
It is worth mentioning that Zypher Network has currently launched the first Layer 3 mainnet designed specifically for game developers on Linea, signaling a new milestone in the ecological technological progress.
From Web2.5 to Web3
The shortcomings of Web2.5 mainly reflect on aspects of security, trustworthiness, and efficiency. At the same time, due to the difficulty in achieving complex game logic, the quality of on-chain games themselves is low, making the attention of developers and players primarily focused on the economic ecosystem.
The advantages of the Zypher Network server abstraction solution are very clear, as it can provide support for game operations in a parallelized manner through a distributed node network without requiring constant synchronization of on-chain and off-chain data. This system also possesses the high scalability that traditional centralized servers lack, while there is no single point of risk, and the entire operational process is trustworthy.
On the other hand, in this system, due to the unique architectural design and modular integration with external systems, the chain does not bear excessive pressure due to the computation and verification processes involved in the game's operational logic. At the same time, its unique architectural design supports localized programming and is compatible with various EVMs. Usually, economic models, smart contracts, and game logic are no longer parallel; they can achieve dynamic combinations.
With Zypher Network, the Web3 gaming field will no longer be limited to small and medium-sized games; some large games with complex game content and logic, AAA games, can all be transformed into Web3 and continuously receive high matching support in operation. Blockchain games can also triumph through high-quality game quality, and developers can win a larger market through the games themselves, rather than solely relying on FOMO economic models and the value and rise of tokens.
In fact, if Web3 games can achieve an experience equal to or even better than that of Web2 games, I believe that with the support of P2E and asset ownership and other series of features, Web3 games will have greater attractiveness and influence, and will be able to move towards a broader market, continuously welcoming new growth points.
The server abstraction narrative is expected to be key to maintaining the vitality of the GameFi track and advancing to the next stage of development, and it is hoped to become the mainstream architecture for future Web3 applications, while Zypher Network is becoming the initiator of the server abstraction narrative.
