Written by: Haotian
What do you think of the ServerFi concept proposed in a new paper from Yale University? Will it become a new turning point for web3 amid the lack of innovation? After systematically reading this paper, I have extracted some key points and added some thoughts for discussion:
1) Traditional GameFi all claim to be Play to Earn, and usually use two internal and external economies to maintain balance (dual currency model): the internal currency builds a consumption and scarcity system, drives existing users to consume equity tokens in their hands through value-added equity, and reduces potential external selling pressure; the external currency drives the price growth of the currency by continuously introducing external users and funds, thereby promoting the growth of external tokens to drive the increase in internal game activity, and ultimately attracting more external users to participate in the positive spiral of growth.
However, the dual-currency model is essentially a Ponzi structure that relies on new external users to support early players in the short term. Its token economic model will attract a large number of speculators, while real game enthusiasts may be excluded due to the high threshold. Once the players in the market find that there is no higher return expectation for consumption investment one day, the decline entropy of the game will be formed, a large number of old players will quickly exit liquidity, and new players will not have the confidence to continue to enter, thus forming a "death spiral". Axie infinity, Stepn, and even CryptoKitties cannot escape this kind of operating framework and ending.
2) This new paper proposes the concept of SeverFi, which simply means that it allows players to combine in-game assets to ultimately gain future server sovereignty. This new operating framework has three features:
1. Focus on long-term participation and value creation. The server ownership obtained by players is a right that can only be redeemed after the long-term game generates actual benefits. It will attract a group of players who focus on long-term benefits rather than short-term benefits. Therefore, the generation of more high-retention and high-loyalty players will be the root of game growth;
2. Reduce Ponzi structural risks and reduce speculative behavior. Under the ServerFi framework, players are guided to pay more attention to the actual long-term value and operating income of the server, reducing the reliance on new players' capital investment. Therefore, the threshold for new users to participate can be lowered, and then a large number of new users can be converted into server "shareholder" users who truly contribute to the long-term growth of the game. This model will naturally expand the game pool, and at the same time, it will also produce user stratification. Speculative users will gradually be marginalized, and long-term loyal players will become the mainstream. This is consistent with the concept of the traditional game model that relies on loyal krypton gold players to operate;
3. Driven by the decentralized community spirit of web3, it is not difficult to understand that since the ownership of the server is divided, the ownership of the game will be transferred from the platform developers to the players and the community. Therefore, such games need to maintain sufficient transparency to prevent developers from maliciously manipulating the game without the permission of users. At the same time, such games are destined not to have the same explosive growth as Ponzi in the short term, but long-term companionship and continuous operation will bring unexpected gains to loyal players.
In general, the#ServerFipaper conceptually explores the possibility of bringing GameFi out of the Ponzi quagmire, which is a beneficial exploration and progress. We look forward to seeing corresponding phenomenal games coming out in the future.
