The Logic Behind the Explosive Growth of Web3 Games + Public Chains

Introduction:

The continuous evolution of blockchain technology is giving rise to a new era of gaming, where the seamless integration of Web3 games with gaming public chains has become a highly anticipated focus. This report will delve into the close relationship between Web3 games and gaming public chain ecosystems, analyze their remarkable performance in the current bull market, the logic behind their explosion, and their profound impact on gaming public chain ecosystems.

1. Astonishing Rise of Web3 Gaming Public Chains

In the early stages of this bull market, various hot topics emerged one after another. However, which type of tokens experienced the most astonishing growth in the Web3 gaming-related sector? Based on data compiled from mainstream exchanges such as Binance and OKEx, we discovered that the public chain RON-Ronin experienced the highest surge, increasing by over 11 times from its recent low point in October 2023. Similarly, IMX-ImmutableX also demonstrated impressive performance, with an increase of nearly 8 times from its low point in September 2023 to its peak. Leading tokens in other Web3 gaming-related sectors, such as Bigtime, YGG, and Gala, saw increases of around 6-7 times during the same period. Comparatively, among other all-encompassing public chains, Solana stood out with an increase of approximately 11 times, while others such as Avalanche increased by about 7 times, Polygon by about 2.5 times, and Optimism by about 4.5 times. Why have gaming public chains performed so remarkably in this bull market? Why are these gaming public chains, which originated from Web3 gaming, attracting such significant attention and investment in the market?

2. The Big Flywheel of Web3 Gaming + Public Chains

Why are gaming public chains with support from native games booming? When it comes to the underlying foundation, the driving force behind the surge of gaming public chains supported by native games lies in the flywheel described above, mainly consisting of game development teams, players, public chains, and games.

1. Game development teams are dedicated to providing Web3 gamers with superior game products to enhance the gaming experience and create more value for players. Many users experience growth due to the improvement in the gaming experience.
2. Players contribute to the public chain by completing transactions, providing income and liquidity to the public chain, and contributing data and profits to the game, thereby injecting new vitality into the gaming ecosystem. Players’ enthusiasm for Web3 games increases due to the enhanced gaming experience.
3. The scalability of players further promotes the cost sharing of public chains, enabling performance upgrades. Gaming public chains can provide better infrastructure support for games through improved performance, lower costs, and enhanced interactive experiences.
4. Ultimately, games contribute revenue to game development teams through operations and profits, providing better cash flow support and enabling the development of more high-quality game products.

If the entire flywheel can be based on good products and a public chain with acceptable performance, and cooperate with a capable development and operation team, it can start to rotate in a positive direction, spiral upward during the bull market, and become the brightest star in the market.

3. What Kind of Games and Public Chains Can Become Popular?

While there are indeed many game teams developing their own gaming chains and many public chain teams holding high expectations for the Web3 gaming field, not all combinations perform well. Through research, it has been found that for a game and public chain combination to achieve outstanding performance, it needs to meet several key conditions:

• The public chain platform needs to create popular and long-lasting high-traffic products;

• Gaming public chains need to transition to ecosystem platforms with the support of heavyweight products;

• Subsequently, continuous addition of heavyweight products is needed to maintain the vitality of the ecosystem.

To this end, we specifically studied three game + public chain product combinations, namely Axie + Ronin, Gods Unchained + ImmutableX, and an emerging combination Mines of Darania + Chromia.

4. Axie and Ronin

In the past bull market cycle, Axie Infinity became the most dazzling star in the Web3 gaming industry due to its leading position on Ronin. It is not only the cornerstone of the Ronin ecosystem but also the pinnacle of the entire Web3 gaming industry. Looking back at the lengthy research article “Ethereum Development and Upgrade Path by Guatian Academy GameFi Public Chain Research,” Axie was once highlighted as the shining star of the Ethereum ecosystem in the previous bull market cycle. Today, Axie’s brilliant success is the result of Ethereum’s performance bottlenecks and sustained congestion. To overcome this challenge, the Axie team decided to create its own public chain, giving rise to Ronin.

First, let’s introduce Axie, the game. Axie is a collection and battle game based on Ethereum, where players can collect, breed, and trade virtual creatures called Axies to earn tokens. From the launch of Axie Classic in 2019 to the release of the upgraded version Axie Origins in 2022, the game has undergone continuous iteration over 21 seasons. Axie Origins provides players with new adventures and economic experiences, introducing the on-chain upgrade system AXP (Axie Experience Points), allowing players to level up by earning points in Origins. Additionally, the team has launched mini-games such as Homeland and Raylight, enriching the diversity of the entire Axie ecosystem.

The rise of Axie began in the previous bull market, when the market frenzy quickly propelled it to fame, significantly increasing the playability of the game and the enthusiasm of players, leading to a new wave of “Play-to-Earn” (P2E) Web3 gaming craze, and even giving birth to numerous gaming guilds and gold farming studios. During Axie’s peak period, its monthly revenue exceeded $300 million, surpassing even “Honor of Kings” to become the world’s most profitable game.

The Ronin Network is an Ethereum sidechain based on a hybrid consensus mechanism of Delegated Proof of Stake (DPoS) and Proof of Authority (PoA), which can seamlessly integrate Ethereum ecosystem resources, facilitate the transfer of assets with Ethereum, and achieve higher throughput and performance through independent block generation mechanisms and consensus algorithms, while maintaining low latency and transaction fees.

As an Ethereum sidechain based on a hybrid consensus mechanism of Delegated Proof of Stake (DPoS) and Proof of Authority (PoA), the Ronin Network aims to address Ethereum’s long-term congestion and high transaction fees. It is not only compatible with Ethereum ecosystem resources but also achieves higher throughput, lower latency, and lower transaction fees through independent block generation mechanisms and consensus algorithms. The emergence of Ronin provides an important supplement and extension to the Axie ecosystem, solving Ethereum’s bottleneck issues on one hand, and, on the other hand, attracting more high-quality game projects to join. With the successive addition of projects like Apeiron and Pixels, the Ronin ecosystem has evolved from a single-game ecosystem dominated by Axie into a multi-dimensional game ecosystem matrix platform. Especially since 2024, the active wallet count in the Ronin ecosystem has continuously broken records, further driving up the price of the Ronin chain. From another perspective, the millions of players in Axie Infinity provide a solid user base for Ronin. Leveraging Axie’s strong traffic, it can provide robust initial traffic support for other games in the Ronin ecosystem. Coupled with the strong development and operational capabilities of the game team itself, the ecosystem flywheel of game + public chain is accelerating.

5. Gods Unchained and ImmutableX

As the main competitor of established game public chains, ImmutableX (IMX) is undoubtedly the most eye-catching challenger to Ronin. It also adheres to the strategy of comprehensive development. It first successfully developed a hit game, Gods Unchained, and then focused on expanding the public chain ecosystem, attracting many well-known projects to settle in, and providing game developers with a full range of services and providing comprehensive on-chain support for game developers to achieve the ambition of becoming the top chain in the Layer2 gaming field.

Gods Unchained is a card game similar to “Hearthstone”, where players need to select 30 cards to form a team, then go on to defeat monsters, participate in competitions, and win rewards. The key point lies in collecting, trading, and battling cards of different attributes. Cards are divided into three types: minions, spells, and weapons. Minions have attack and health values and can attack on the board according to commands; spells are one-time-use functions that do not remain on the board; weapons are equipped on characters, with attack values and durability, and characters equipped with weapons can perform attacks, consuming 1 point of durability each time. The game is led by the former game director of Magic: The Gathering Arena, focusing on competitive gaming, where players must surpass their opponents strategically by building decks capable of countering various tactics.

Initially, the game was deployed on Ethereum and used NFT to ensure the security of cards. Therefore, Web3 games launched in-depth cooperation with card games, and also triggered a new era in which everything can be “Financed”. However, due to the limitations of the Ethereum network, the game often suffers from transaction delays and high fees during peak periods.、

Immutable X is a Layer 2 (L2) scaling solution developed by the Gods Unchained team for Ethereum. It is based on Validium, StarkWare, and zkEVM technologies, significantly improving the scalability of Ethereum and reducing minting and transaction fees. It achieves speeds of up to 9000 transactions per second, with gas fees almost negligible. Immutable X focuses on the GameFi sector, attracting mainstream gamers by customizing the wallet user experience, providing developers with professional and simple APIs and SDKs to quickly launch new games, and offering a global order book to propagate NFTs to every market in the blockchain network.

According to the Immutable X official website, its ecosystem has over 150 games, with daily transaction volumes and user numbers growing rapidly. In addition to Gods Unchained, Immutable X has also attracted star games such as Guild of Guardians, Metalcore, Illuvium, and Space Nation, greatly driving the overall ecosystem development.

The flourishing development of the Immutable X ecosystem can be seen as a successful market validation and product transformation. Leveraging the team’s strong technical capabilities, entering the gaming track with Validium and StarkWare, solidifying the position of Layer 2 through zkEVM’s legitimacy, and collaborating with mainstream platforms like GameStop to add flagship games and enrich the ecosystem’s content, increase user activity, Immutable X has completely moved away from its reliance on a single game like Gods Unchained. It is rapidly rising to become an essential infrastructure in the Web3 gaming sector.

6. Mines of Dalarnia+Chromia+DAR OpenNetwork

When searching for combinations of Web3 games and blockchains on the market, we came across a product matrix from Europe, which is a mining game called Mines of Dalarnia paired with the Chromia blockchain and the metaverse gateway DAR. We had played the game in its early stages and found it to be well-made with strong gameplay mechanics, but we were unaware that the project team was building a larger ecosystem.

Mines of Dalarnia

Mines of Dalarnia is a space mining adventure game where players dig for rare resources (minerals and gems) to craft new items and equipment for venturing into more dangerous territories. The goal of Dalarnia miners is to become stronger, more efficient, accumulate wealth, face challenges and monsters in the depths, and showcase their skills. In the future, players will become part of a shared multiplayer space and participate in exciting multiplayer competitions. Most of the plots of land (LAND) in the game, used for mining, are owned by players. Each LAND plot is unique, with different resource distributions, and as the game expands, more attributes of each LAND plot will be revealed. Landowners must actively use landscape modification capsules to maintain the attractiveness of their mining plots to miners. Here is the revised economic model cycle diagram:

1. Single player mode:
   There are a variety of tasks, including mining, salvage, MOD robots, etc., and you can get a variety of rewards; at the same time, the game is divided into various seasons, and each season has a different prize pool. At the end of each season, players will receive rewards based on the number of Moon Shards they have collected compared to the total number of Moon Shards collected by all players.
2. Multiplayer mode:
   Space Jump - This multiplayer game is set in space and can be played with up to 5 people from your region in our massive satellite lounge. Space jumping is designed to be a short, fun break where you can relax with other players. Miners are playing a dangerous game outside the satellite: hopping between suspended jet platforms running low on fuel. Platform after platform will plummet into the void below, and miners must jump between platforms to stay afloat.
3. New Card Game: Dalarnia of Legends
   A brand new card game is about to be launched, which is also a very important product in the Dalarnia ecosystem. Using DAR directly as a universal token, there will be more opportunities that cannot be missed.

The token DAR was listed on the Binance exchange by the end of 2021. Subsequently, the game also gained decent exposure during the early stages of the bear market, triggering market FOMO. Everyone rushed to buy DAR tokens to participate in mining and gold farming. However, due to issues with cheating, the output of DAR became imbalanced, leading to a decline in token price and player attrition. Nevertheless, the team persisted in development and operation during the bear market.

During the subsequent bear market, the team not only continued to improve and optimize the “Mines of Dalarnia” game itself, but also completely redesigned the game’s economic system and deeply explored the Web 3.0 game ecosystem to expand its business beyond the game. They deeply realize that the potential contained in the Web 3.0 game ecosystem far exceeds the imagination of a single game. For example, the introduction of NFT and smart contracts makes cross-game asset interoperability possible, and the concept of players and developers jointly shaping the game ecosystem has also increasingly practical significance.

While continuing to develop Mines of Dalarnia, the team began building internal tools and product modules that could be used by other game developers interested in Web 3.0. These tools and modules are integrated into the DAR Open Network gaming ecosystem. In the future, the team will deliver a brand-new, open system characterized by underlying technology and tool support to the community and market, and jointly build an open game ecological network. This is not only a subversion of the existing game model, but also a belief in the development of Web3 games in the future!

Chromia

Chromia is a relational blockchain platform that enables people to easily build decentralized applications in the real world to create a better world. It serves as an independent Layer1 and can also function as Layer2 for Ethereum, offering cheaper and faster development and transactions. This is how Hedget creates financial options markets, and DeFi can collaborate more quickly with Ethereum. Web3 games showcased on the official website include “My Neighbor Alice,” “Mines of Dalarnia,” “Krystopia: Nova’s Journey,” and “Chain of Alliance.” Among them, “My Neighbor Alice” is a Web3 game project named Alice that has already been listed on the Binance exchange. “Mines of Dalarnia” is the aforementioned flagship Web3 game, with its token also listed on the Binance exchange, indicating strong resource capabilities. This is important information worth paying attention to.

It seems that their ambitions extend beyond this.

DAR Open Network

The DAR Open Network aims to create a universe that goes beyond the concept of games. Social interaction, asset exchange, and community governance form the fabric of the new reality of Web 3.0 gaming. Imagine a world where games are seamlessly interconnected. Players are not only participants but also creators, shaping their own experiences.

• Game launchpad
  This is the core of innovation, where new games are not only launched but also incubated. Our next project, Legends of Dalania, is a trading card game (CCG) that blends the art of AI with strategic gameplay and fun, fast pvp sessions. Legends of Dalania aims to make a lasting impact on the virtual card game scene and provide a glimpse into the future of gaming.

• Multiverse
  The DAR Multiverse is a collection of games connected through a central experience called Dalarnia Nexus. It’s a living, breathing, ever-expanding universe where blockchain technology creates a world where all DAR games coexist, enhancing asset value and utility. Key features include:

• Dalania Portal
  This is where game development takes a leap. Aimed at game creators, the portal provides tools for not only making games, but also immersive experiences. It includes innovative features such as social login, player incentive system, NFT market, cross-chain asset bridge, and ZK toolbox for on-chain gaming.

• The evolution of communities and ecosystems
  “We believe in a world where players are not just consumers, but active participants in the gaming world.” This shift toward a community-driven approach is reflected in every aspect of the DAR Open Network.
  1) Community governance: The DAR open network will empower players with decision-making capabilities, allowing them to shape the future of the platform.
  2) Collaborative development: By enabling user-generated content (UGC), we open the door for players to contribute to game development, blurring the lines between creators and users.
  3) Multi-chain support: The DAR open network is launched within the BNB chain ecosystem and will support multiple Layer1 blockchains to provide gamers with a worry-free experience of Web 3.0 games.

Finally, we also discovered their bigger picture: Let’s take a look at the market value of “Mines of Dalarnia”. The current Binance exchange shows that the circulating market value of DAR tokens is US$100 million. In the economic model of DAR Open Network, no new tokens will be issued, and DAR will continue to be used as the ecological token. Therefore, the future value of DAR is expected to be very large. This is to empower the DAR token and give back to early participants in this way, which is enough to show the team’s confidence and persistence in the concept of Web3 ecological construction.

Summary

The golden combination of Web3 games and gaming blockchains, such as Axie and Ronin, Gods Unchained and ImmutableX, has already been validated by the market. Mines of Dalarnia + Chromia + Dalarnia, on the other hand, is playing a larger game, lifting up the three pillars of Web3 gaming: content, infrastructure, and community. These ecosystems are not just games; they represent a new combination system that integrates innovative gameplay from Web3 games, advanced technology from gaming blockchains, and precise predictions and careful planning for the industry’s future. This combination model requires substantial investment, including hiring top talent in blockchain technology, forward-looking market judgment, and complex operational strategies, which goes beyond what small teams and small-scale financing can afford. Therefore, projects choosing this path are not only making a project selection but also endorsing their beliefs and visions: under the heavy asset and large investment model, they are supporting a comprehensive solution and ecosystem centred around Web3 gaming.

We firmly believe that during this Bitcoin bull market cycle, combination models like Web3 games and gaming blockchains, and Web3 games and platforms, will open up broader horizons and unleash greater valuation potential. Only in this broader narrative can projects truly break into the top 20 rankings in the crypto world and become leaders in driving industry development.

Statement:

1. This article originally titled “Web3游戏+公链的产品组合的爆火逻辑by W Labs Brian & 小飞” is reproduced from [Guatian Lab]. All copyrights belong to the original author [Brian & 小飞]. If you have any objection to the reprint, please contact Gate Learn team, the team will handle it as soon as possible.

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