Author: Aiko, Folius Ventures; Translation: 0xjs@Golden Finance

While other developers rushed to develop clicker games after the TON explosion, Catizen laid the foundation in the TON ecosystem 1.5 years in advance and then succeeded gracefully with their hit game.

Here are 5 key reasons why Catizen outperforms its competitors in every aspect:

1. Game design (popular games can unlock reward systems with positive externalities)

While others were still making clicker games, Catizen was ready to build an entire empire from day 1. It took their team four to five months from selecting a promising prototype to the actual launch of Catizen.

Fun gameplay is the foundation. Catizen’s flywheel works like this: Fun - Users - Cash Flow - Partnerships - More Valuable Rewards for Users and the Ecosystem.

2. Monetization (Web2+Web3 model of profitability, sustainability and value sharing)

Players spend money to buy fish coins for fishing (Gacha mechanics), or to purchase discounted items and automation tools from the store - a monetization model familiar to Web2 gamers.

Starting with solid monetization and revenue, Catizen became the only Web3 company among all gaming projects in the field to develop TON mini-games and earn more than $12 million in revenue.

Catizen combines classic Web2 monetization with Web3 Launchpool and airdrops, creating tremendous value for the TON ecosystem, partners (such as Mentle), and its players (who receive NOT and TON token airdrops).

Through the Web2+Wbe3 monetization approach, they achieved three milestones:

Acquire users with spending power and potential to adopt cryptocurrencies; Open up a new market of TON gamers, not just airdroppers; Educate users to build a long-term Web3 engagement loop: Spend - Play - Gacha - Get multiple reward airdrops in different assets.

3. Operational capabilities (ensuring it continues to attract attention, increase users, and scale)

Operations are key to maintaining long-term engagement - a testament to the team’s commitment. Catizen deeply understands Web3 culture, partnerships, and leverages operational experience from Web2.

Two classic examples are:

- NPC: including memes like Pepe or mascots of partners like TON (randomly increase profits/airdrops/number of cats);

- Miao Zhuan: An activity where users can get more Gocha opportunities by inviting friends. The rewards include partner token drops (xZEN) and in-game items;

It is easy to launch a game, but it is difficult to maintain growth and user stickiness through operations.

Catizen is not a one-hit wonder – it continues to benefit its users through operations.

4. Speak out on social media

Most game teams lack the basic ability to operate social media and increase organic appeal. They either rely on NFT marketing with high-quality graphics, or rely on "guilds" to get more exposure, just "copy" and "paste" marketing strategies, with almost no active users.

However, Catizen has taken it upon themselves to run their Twitter like a cat lover's TikTok account. They make funny videos, use lots of cat memes, and often comment on well-known tweets. This stuff is naturally engaging, and people stick around and follow Twitter, whether they're gamers or not.

Now, with over 1.2 million on-chain users and 21 million registered users in total, Catizen no longer needs to prove how popular they are.

Meme is just the surface, behind it is a professional development and PR team. If you noticed that they announced that they would use 1% of their profits to rescue stray cats, you know they have bigger plans.

5. Popular content channels (this is no fluke, success can continue)

The development team behind Catizen has been developing mini-games since 2018 and has created more than 20 hit games with over 300 million downloads on WeChat, Google Play, and Facebook Gaming.

For new TON game developers, it takes time to figure out how to find product-market fit, build infrastructure, and acquire users.

However, Catizen has a pipeline of 200 games. We can expect them to quickly leverage their existing user base, raising the bar higher for all gaming audiences on TON with each release - making truly great games increasingly difficult to develop.

In addition to games, Catizen and its parent company are also preparing to launch short video content and e-commerce products.

Conclusion

Finally, many are eagerly awaiting the next Axie Infinity, and a sustainable game that can attract a large user base and generate positive cash flow.

Well, check out Catizen on TON. They have all the makings of a potentially explosive Web3 game.

Disclaimer: None of this is financial advice. DYOR. Aiko always speaks highly of teams she truly believes in based on facts and data. It’s no secret that Aiko has invested in the talented Catizen team.