Written by: Haotian
Yesterday, Delphi_Digital published a report on web3 MMOs, which introduced how MetaCeneGame acquires users based on blockchain architecture and how the new ServerFi game paradigm is implemented. After reading it, I briefly share a few thoughts:
1) An early investor of Black Wukong said that he would not invest in web3 games because they did not love games. This statement resonated with many practitioners. In the web3 game market dominated by GameFi, this statement really hit the soft spot of some web3 games nakedly and accurately.
Highlighting the Fi attributes while ignoring the characteristics of the game itself is the key to why the GameFi track has not ushered in the next spring despite the long-awaited. In other words, web3 games must first be games before we can talk about the various values of the web3 economic model mechanism.
2) In addition to Metacene, there are also experienced teams such as Avalon, MapleStory Universe, and Project Awakening that are planning to develop web3 MMORPG projects. In addition to the short-term hype of GameFi, the convenient payment system, player asset ownership, and transparency of the game economic model of blockchain technology itself also have important innovation and incentive factors for MMORPG games themselves.
Although the phenomenon of bad money driving out good money exists in every industry, the "good money" that remains dormant and persistent is the source of industry confidence.
3) Metacene was created by teams with backgrounds in web2 games such as Shanda Games, Blizzard, and Perfect World, and is practicing the new gaming paradigm of ServerFi from a longer-term perspective. It focuses on long-term participation and value creation, and reduces the original intention of Ponzi structural risk speculation.
This makes it look more like a qualified web2-level game, and is trying to use the web3 token model to build an in-game economic system. It is still unknown whether such an exploration can succeed, but at a time when everyone doubts the misalignment of the "values" of web3 games, its appearance is just in time.
4) Web3 game incentive models such as "Play to Earn", "Dual Currency Model", "Liquidity Mining", and "NFT Staking" cannot determine the success or failure of a game. The key lies in who the user group is. If there are only some short-term FOMO speculators, their user attributes naturally determine that the game will not go too far;
If there are a group of players who really play the game and have high retention and high loyalty, and the short-term profit expectations no longer form the game's decay entropy, then the game does not need to be too popular, and a group of loyal fans (paying players) can support the continued survival of a game. Whether it is web2 or web3, most successful games are like this.