Written by: Jaleel Jialiu, BlockBeats

Before meeting me, Ozawa had just finished meeting with a client to discuss the sale of the source code of a small game he developed. Compared with last year, Ozawa's mental outlook this time was completely different. He no longer looked depressed, but ambitious, like a teenager who had returned to puberty.

Last year, he confided in me his confusion and helplessness when working on a large-scale blockchain game project. "I have been in the blockchain game industry for three years and have not accomplished anything. This is very different from my ideal when I entered the industry. It may also be a mid-life crisis. I think I am already in my thirties and have not accomplished anything. I feel like a failure."

After more than half a year, he finally got back to his normal state and finished the whole conversation with me with a smile. It is said that many TON chain game production platforms have contacted them recently, wanting to buy their mini-game source code, with the highest bid being $100,000. TON chain is a blockchain project developed by Telegram. Although the Telegram team withdrew from the development of the project halfway, the TON Foundation still took over and continued to develop it. Since the trading BOT last year, TON chain has gradually prospered, and it has also provided more opportunities and possibilities for today's mini-game BOT.

Traditional game developers who have experienced two cold winters have fallen into the trap of blockchain games again

"Jialiu, you may not know that the traditional game industry has entered winter since 2018, but no one realized it at that time." Ozawa has been engaged in game development for nearly 10 years, and first worked in a traditional small and medium-sized game company.

Since the game license issuance policy was implemented in 2018, the number of domestic game licenses issued has continued to decline, and the "pause button" has been pressed twice. Game practitioners can be said to have experienced two cold winters.

"At that time, everyone also said that the higher you stand, the harder you fall. At the end of 2018, Tencent's stock price fell sharply and its market value evaporated by more than US$80 billion." Lao Si, a former Tencent employee, still remembers that time vividly.

"From the third month after the suspension, everyone gradually became pessimistic and negative. The scary thing is that no one knew how long we could last," Ozawa recalled, and showed me his negative circle of friends from that year.

When the suspension first started, no one thought it would last eight months, nor did anyone realize how big an impact it would have, but the dominoes have fallen silently.

The suspension of game licenses in 2018 directly or indirectly caused the gaming industry to lose at least 1,000 new games, and more than 600 gaming companies went bankrupt that year. According to Qichacha data, by the second half of 2021, 14,000 domestic gaming-related companies had been deregistered.

"This impact lasted for many years. The game company I worked for kept laying off employees, and finally couldn't hold on. That was the first time I was unemployed." In 2021, Ozawa also became one of the thousands of game people who were laid off.

"That should have been five or six years ago, but I remember it very clearly. It was the lowest point in my life. I thought that I might not be able to make games in the future, and I cried a lot." He said he cried for two whole weeks, "I cried every day for two weeks. I didn't do anything. I was very anxious and didn't know what to do."

Blockchain games, a refuge for game refugees

In the policy winter, game manufacturers began to explore new ways out. At that time, there were only two ways for all game manufacturers. One way was to make high-quality products.

Faced with restrictions on game licenses and intensified market competition, game companies realize that only by improving product quality and creating high-quality games can they gain a foothold in the market. High-quality games are not only about improving the graphics and gameplay of the game, but also about achieving the ultimate in game design, user experience, content creativity, etc. to meet the high demands of players.

However, for most small and medium-sized manufacturers, it is not an easy road to high-quality products. High-quality products mean that more and better resources need to be concentrated on a few games, which also means that competition in the domestic game market will become more and more fierce.

Therefore, going overseas is the only remaining solution and is also the choice of more manufacturers.

"Maybe it's God giving me a new chance. After being laid off, because of my good English, my previous boss brought me to a game company that has resources to develop overseas markets." Ozawa can continue to make games again.

"Tencent has also done a lot of overseas business, and has devoted a large part of its focus and resources to it, including making overseas versions of games, setting up offices overseas, directly acquiring and investing in overseas game companies, etc." Lao Si analyzed. He believes that because Tencent controls most of the industry resources, Tencent's stock price has returned to a peak in 2021.

It was also during that period that Tencent's M&A transactions set a record, with Timi Studios setting up offices in Los Angeles, Seattle and Montreal, ownership of Riot Games, Funcom and Sharkmob, and holdings ranging from 4% to 84% in companies such as Remedy, Epic Games, Activision Blizzard, Ubisoft, Krafton, Supercell, Frontier Developments, etc.

After three years, the ceiling of blockchain games is still Axie

Unlike "gaming giants" like Tencent, it is not all smooth sailing for small and medium-sized manufacturers to export their games overseas. In terms of channels, promotion, and profit sharing, game manufacturers need to invest a lot of resources, and these resources are exactly what small and medium-sized manufacturers lack.

Even so, some small and medium-sized manufacturers still tried to go overseas. But they suffered a lot and hit many walls. Due to the lack of experience and resources in overseas markets, they encountered many obstacles when entering new markets, such as cultural differences, different laws and regulations, difficulties in localized operations, and other difficulties.

It was also at this time that "chain games" broke the circle.

This concept, which seemed very unfamiliar at the time, not only attracted the attention of many major game companies, but also unexpectedly became a "refuge" for these "homeless" game practitioners.

After two years of accumulation, Axie Infinity, the most popular "chain game" on Ethereum, has exploded since May 2021, with daily revenue growing exponentially. By August, monthly revenue exceeded US$334 million, far exceeding the US$231 million revenue of Honor of Kings in July.

Axie Game Interface

“In fact, Tencent also had plans to make Web3 games at the time, and there were many game companies in China like Zhongqingbao that were working on metaverse concept games,” Lao Si told BlockBeats.

There are many ways to go overseas, but blockchain games may be the best choice at the time. This emerging form of game has attracted a lot of capital investment and allowed some practitioners to continue to develop in the game field.

"It seems that we chose blockchain games at that time, but in fact, blockchain games chose us." In Ozawa's recollection, blockchain games attracted many practitioners who were hit hard by the traditional gaming industry and hoped to be reborn through blockchain games.

"However, three years have passed and nothing has happened. The ceiling of blockchain games is still Axie back then." At the time, it seemed like a choice for rebirth, but now Ozawa's mood is much more complicated. He feels that he has taken a detour for three years.

Most blockchain game players are speculators with strong goals, mainly to make money, lack interest in the game itself, and pay little attention to the long-term development of the game. Therefore, for speculative Web3 players, the initial investment in blockchain games is very high, including time costs and transaction costs. Traditional game players find it difficult to integrate into blockchain games due to the high learning cost.

Given these reasons, it’s not surprising that according to a report by CoinGecko, the average annual failure rate of Web3 games from 2018 to 2023 is as high as 80.8%.

Finally, it’s the turn of blockchain games to “transfer”

Ozawa hasn't opened his circle of friends for more than half a year, because his classmates, relatives and friends are doing better than him, which makes him feel uncomfortable.

"I was thinking, should I have given up making games when I was laid off?" "Large-scale blockchain games are the second pitfall for game developers, and the first pitfall is becoming a game developer." Ozawa said that when he couldn't hold it in any longer, he would drink to vent, but these words were in his mind every time he finished drinking.

When he was laid off five or six years ago, Ozawa was still relatively young, but now it’s different. Now that he has a family, he has a lot to consider. The misunderstanding from his family and the "contempt" from his former colleagues have made his game development situation very difficult.

Unlike when he was abandoned by traditional games and felt anxious and overwhelmed, Xiaoze gained more despair in blockchain games...

Ozawa is not the only one who feels desperate. According to Ozawa, most of the people around him have already left the blockchain game before him, including Tencent, and the rest have only left halfway.

At the beginning of 2022, the hopes and dreams of most blockchain game developers were a world without dominant platforms like Apple or Steam. They envisioned a decentralized world where anonymous community members could influence the development of their favorite games. Of course, this dream was somewhat naive and lacked a solid foundation.

Having the right distribution method is crucial to the success of your game. Developing a great game doesn't guarantee success, you need to find a large number of users who are interested in playing your game and eventually willing to pay for it.

In traditional games in the past, platforms such as Steam and Epic were traffic gold mines for distributing PC and console games, while the App Store and Play Store were traffic gold mines for mobile games.

"It's a good thing that there is no centralized review platform, but from another perspective, blockchain games have never had a suitable platform for users to flock to them." In the past three years, Ozawa has participated in the construction of five or six blockchain game projects, but they were all different from what he had imagined at the beginning. Now, Ozawa has disenchanted blockchain games. He doesn't think that blockchain games can produce a game that people play, at least not in the next five years.

It was not until this year, after he went to Mount Wutai with his family, that Ozawa's miserable life finally began to change.

Because at the beginning of this year, a click game Notcoin on the TON chain became popular.

Notcoin game interface

You can get tokens by simply clicking. It is simple to operate, easy to get started and spreads quickly, which is very suitable for playing in fragmented time. The gameplay of Notcoin is even simpler than Snake. You just need to keep clicking. This low-threshold game design allows users to quickly get started with almost no learning cost.

Notcoin quickly attracted a large number of users after its launch. According to statistics, Notcoin currently has more than 5 million daily active users and a monthly income of more than $300,000. Such achievements have quickly accumulated a large user base in a short period of time, and also allowed Ozawa to see more possibilities.

“It felt like I had been swimming in the sea for a very long time, and just when I was about to run out of strength to continue swimming, the TON chain pulled me ashore.” After meeting some friends who were making games on the TON chain, Ozawa finally discovered that there was a huge business here.

Catizen Game Interface

Starting from Notcoin, more Tap to Earn games were launched, and the gameplay became more diverse. For example, Catizen, the most popular blockchain game project, uses telegram robots to allow players to combine two low-level cats into a higher-level cat, thereby attracting more customers to pet cats and make money.

At the end of June, Catizen announced that its total number of users exceeded 20 million, the total number of daily active players exceeded 250,000, and it has been ranked first in The Open League for three consecutive seasons. The monthly revenue exceeded $500,000. These games are not only simple and easy to understand, but also use fragmented time to operate, which greatly improves user stickiness.

Although everyone knows that the data released by the project itself may be inflated, it is an indisputable fact that there are more and more players and games on TON.

More importantly, chain gamers have finally found their own traffic gold mine. Telegram's user base has also brought a huge potential user base to the TON chain. Compared with WeChat's 1.1 billion active users, Telegram's 900 million users are slightly less. And because of Telegram's globalization and high activity, TON chain games are easier to spread and promote.

Not only small and medium-sized game developers like Xiaoze, the small game market of TON chain has also attracted more traditional game companies, bringing out the domestic small and medium-sized games that had been hidden in the bottom of the box.

Traditional game companies join TON

After working on several Web3 projects, Sunny is now focusing on TON games. She has several small game projects under her management, including a shooting game.

“I talked to various traditional game companies some time ago, and they are all very interested in the various small game markets on the TON chain, including Shanda Games,” Sunny revealed to me.

As we all know, Shanda Games is invested by Tencent. According to Lao Si, one of Shanda’s data centers is mainly engaged in mining.

At the same time, Lao Si also indirectly confirmed what Sunny said, not only Shanda, but also other Web2 game manufacturers such as Bingchuan, Weiyou and Sanqi have already started projects in the TON ecosystem. It can be seen that it is actually very easy for these traditional game manufacturers to join the game, because they have been watching and looking for various opportunities on the edge of the cryptocurrency circle, so it is not surprising that they participate in TON chain games.

"As for Tencent, I think the possibility of directly getting involved is relatively small. Tencent may at most let its subsidiaries or invested companies, such as Shanda, do it." In Lao Si's opinion, Tencent may also allocate some resources to provide support, including resources from manufacturers of WeChat program mini-games.

“If Tencent really wants to do it, no one can do it better than Tencent. But the problem is that if Tencent does it, wouldn’t it just be helping Telegram to attract traffic?” Lao Si believes that supporting Shanda to make TON games is already Tencent’s biggest compromise.

"They are all trying their best to push small games onto the TON chain. For example, those games that were previously abandoned or developed but never made it to the market." Recalling the last cycle, Sunny said that traditional game companies were considering participating in GameFi, but because GameFi's cycle was too long, they did not invest easily.

"But a single company has hundreds or even thousands of these small games, and everyone wants to get in on the action."

Back to what was mentioned at the beginning of the article, the process of obtaining a license for making games in China is very "grueling", and various review processes take a long time to wait, but the TON chain does not have these restrictions, and it is backed by Telegram's 900 million active users, which is a huge traffic gold mine.

"The cycle logic of GameFi, a large web3 platform, cannot run in this round, but small games and mini apps can." Like Ozawa, Sunny also believes that large-scale blockchain games will not have a chance in this round of cycles. "If the main focus is on massive adoption, GameFi is a false proposition. The time has not come yet. Let's wait and see in the next round."

“Blockchain games may have been the best choice at the time, but the time for large-scale blockchain games has not yet arrived. I don’t think it’s anyone’s fault. It’s just the choice of the industry and the market.” Lao Si also revealed to BlockBeats that some large-scale blockchain games that have almost burned through the money they raised are also considering changing their codes, launching a TON mini-game as a warm-up or generating some data and results, so as to raise the next round of funds for large-scale games.

Just make something small, don't try to change the world yet

As more and more people started playing games on the TON chain, Ozawa began to secrete dopamine again and regained his former passion and motivation.

“In the past, everyone wanted to make something big, something great that could change the world, so small games were always discriminated against until NOTCOIN became popular on TON.”

Indeed, the mini-game market looks very simple. In essence, it is to go back to the path that PC games and mobile games have taken, making the categories that have been popular once again. Web3 mini-games are even simpler. They are to go back to the path that WeChat mini-program games have taken, making the games that have been popular in WeChat mini-program games popular again.

TON Game mocked

Although most of the TON games on the market are still lacking in playability, as more and more developers and large companies join in, I believe that we will soon see the former WeChat best-selling games on TON, such as "Xundao Daxian", "King of Salted Fish", "Yanglegeyang", "Happy Candy Crush", "Plants vs. Zombies", "Protect Carrot" and even "Arknights".

“When I sold my first small game last month, I immediately started to frantically call my colleagues and friends who used to work on large-scale blockchain games to confirm that my idea of ​​making games on TON was correct. Now, I am very happy, super happy.”

At this point, Ozawa received a call from his development colleague, who was confirming some code details. Before leaving in a hurry, I said to him, "You are in a completely different state than last year, like you were reborn again."

Ozawa waved his hand and said, "I just stopped pretending. Whether it's the gaming industry or the blockchain industry, you don't have to make big things to be awesome. It's good to make some small things first, so just to hell with huge games."

This article would like to thank all the interviewees who provided information. For privacy protection, the information of some interviewees has been blurred.