According to BlockBeats, the development costs of the next wave of blockchain-inspired GameFi projects are reaching seven to eight figures, requiring significant time for production before launch. The Chief Operating Officer of Korean game studio Seraph, Yezi, revealed that their project's development cost exceeded $10 million. She made this statement during an interview with Cointelegraph about the company's upcoming Arbitrum dark fantasy ARPG, Seraph: In the Darkness. Initially, the project was self-funded and developed, but they recently started their first open financing, which has been completed and will be officially announced soon.
Yezi believes that Web3 blockchain games have more advantages than Web2 games. She stated that Web3 games encourage greater co-creation and promotion among players. The interaction between Web2 and Web3 players creates a unique chemical reaction, activating market transactions and attracting more participants.
However, the COO also emphasized the necessity for new GameFi projects to provide a better gaming experience and quality token economics. She stated that gamers are no longer satisfied with simple profit calculation models like Axies Infinity and StepN. As Yezi explained, Seraph: In the Darkness recently launched a preseason release, which saw significant participation: 'Over 60,000 players participated, of which more than 30,000 owned advanced game characters, and over 10,000 users made purchases. During this testing phase, we achieved $3 million in fiat income, and we were able to allocate over $1 million for token repurchase according to our white paper terms.'
During this testing phase, they successfully guided traditional users to make payments and transactions in the Web3 field, especially thanks to the live promotion of veteran players. They plan to launch the game later this year, offering a basic free version and a paid version for players who wish to participate in trading and monetization.
Currently, the landing price of NFT equipment is 0.2ETH, and the entry fee for the in-game trading market is $50. Yezi stated that Seraph Studio currently has no plans to release any other games. However, their internally developed hosted wallet, ActPass, will soon become a game asset issuance platform and launch more quality games through investment or cooperation.
Last month, Cointelegraph reported that Web2 players spent hundreds or even thousands of dollars on in-game purchases, which should have belonged to them permanently, but often ended up with nothing. On the other hand, the operability of the blockchain has at least partially solved this problem, allowing players to buy, sell, and own their immutable in-game assets.