Source: Tax_Cuts

Compiled by: Odaily Planet Daily Wenser

Editor's note: As one of the hopes for Mass Adoption in the Web3 field, full-chain games have always been a hot topic of market concern, but due to its entry barriers, operating costs, game playability and other conditions, it has not yet become the mainstream in the industry, and the user scale is relatively limited. Odaily Planet Daily found an article for everyone, from Tax, a former Alliance DAO, YC investor, and current co-founder of the full-chain game Primodium, sharing the value of full-chain games and existing problems for your reference and dialectical view.

Four practical problems solved by full-chain games

First, new products need to solve problems that could not be solved before, otherwise existing products will occupy all market share. Fortunately, full-chain games are a blue ocean field, and there are not many producers competing for the attention of this field. In other words, we do not need to compete with Web2 game giants such as Rockstar for the attention of players.

But to do this, it is crucial to ensure that new issues are actually addressed.

For full-chain games, this means new experiences that players can’t find in games elsewhere. Full-chain games are relatively slow and clumsy to operate, so the experience they provide needs to be very different from traditional games. Their value is mainly reflected in the following aspects:

Value point 1: Actual value assets

Strictly speaking, crypto assets are just numbers, but due to decentralized (powerful network) consensus, we can truly give them economic value. For traditional games, giving economic value to their game assets often depends on the support of large and mature companies. For full-chain games, this attribute comes with them from day one.

Value point 2: Free transfer of value

Game assets in traditional games are often subject to custody supervision and technical restrictions. Developers are usually unable to custody US dollar cash funds, and banks do not have API interfaces for developers to build corresponding applications. In contrast, full-chain games allow players to transfer assets through in-game operations.

Value point three: betting chip attributes

Stakes can make otherwise boring gameplay (due to its inherent gaming nature) interesting, with poker being a classic example that many people often mention. The gameplay of full-chain games can be simple, but stakes can make the game results more exciting because they are built on a cryptocurrency system (closely related to the market performance of cryptocurrencies).

Value point 4: Remove consumption restrictions

Traditional gaming channels often impose certain restrictions on in-game purchases. For example, the in-app spending limit is $99, which makes the user experience of purchasing any in-game asset that costs more than about 0.03 ETH (about $100) very poor. In contrast, the cryptocurrency market has no restrictions on spending and sufficient market depth, so full-chain games can continue to operate in this risky environment.

The ideal and reality of full-chain games

Three hidden problems existing in the full-chain game

You may have noticed that common advantages of full-chain games such as decentralization, persistence, and composability have been omitted. In my opinion, these "features" of solutions often do not reflect the actual problems of full-chain game players, and therefore are not good reasons to build on-chain games.

Problem 1: Decentralization

Players often want more game updates and content, and real-time operations in traditional video games are an important part of the work of game studios. Decentralized games will weaken the centralized role of "game studios", and in traditional games, the balancing and weakening of data is usually done for the benefit of players. Vitalik's "centralized story" of World of Warcraft has its merits, but in the long run, unbalanced gameplay will hinder more players from joining. However, for the operation of the in-game economic system, de-trust will play an important role in its viability. In other words, an economic system that does not rely on a certain role to operate is healthier for the game ecosystem.

Problem 2: Game persistence

The lifeline of a full-chain game lies in its click-through rate. It is quite rare for a game to be able to run for ten years and maintain a certain player retention rate (whether it is a traditional game or a full-chain game). The problem with most games is not that they are offline, but that players have lost interest in them. Just because it can "exist forever on the blockchain" does not mean that more people are interested in playing this game.

Question 3: Composability

Writable plugins are good for creating more interesting player dynamics, but full-chain games are not the only way to achieve this. Web2 games have editing plugins available natively, but many people don't use them. This is because players prefer to consume game content rather than produce it for the game. Players may have other reasons to participate in the production of game content, but composability is not an absolute reason to play games.

Summary: A brand new gaming experience is the key

In general, full-chain games can solve problems that Web2 (or even Web2.5-type games that combine traditional Web2 games and blockchain games) games cannot solve, but most of these problems largely depend on the first principle of "why everything must be built on the chain."

However, the most important point is that full-chain games should be able to provide a completely new gaming experience. But today, almost all crypto games do not follow this idea. They are either just traditional games with a token system (commonly known as Web2.5 games); or they are ordinary games that run entirely on the chain and provide a regular gaming experience. In the long run, no real players will experience these games for consumption.

Therefore, we still have a lot to do, and the full-chain game still has a long way to go.