A comprehensive guide to the popular blockchain game - BIG TIME

Preface

Driven by the previous bull market, GameFi, a new field, emerged with projects like Axie and StepN, introducing diverse gameplay and concepts. GameFi not only significantly lowers the entry barrier to Web3 but also caters to users’ daily entertainment needs. This attracts more participants and opens a wide “gateway of traffic” for Web3.

It’s undeniable that many outstanding GameFi projects generated substantial wealth in the past bull market. From the end of 2021 to the beginning of 2022, GameFi hit its peak. StepN initiated the X-to-Earn trend, but its decline was inevitable after the removal of Chinese users. The boom of GameFi gradually faded. At present, the total GameFi market value has decreased by over 95%, and the overall market conditions have not improved. Unlike public chain and NFT projects, recovering GameFi projects seems more challenging. GameFi urgently needs a “new star” to alter this situation.

Big Time’s Background Story

An accidental wormhole appeared on Earth, causing temporal and spatial disorder, with monsters running rampant. Survivors gathered at the edge of time and space in a refuge called “Big Time’s End.”

To save time, Evermore Academy took the first step, summoning heroes called by scientist Albert Einstein to fight for the universe’s stability and solve the crisis it faces.

In Big Time, players are time travelers summoned to the edge of the universe. Multiple players will join forces to eliminate monsters in places like ancient Egypt and the American West. Future game versions will reveal more storyline content. By using multi-dimensional storytelling, the game allows players to travel through different eras to complete missions.

As an RPG game, Big Time utilizes multiple timelines for storytelling. Game characters will travel through the river of time and engage in conversations with historical figures from different civilizations. By juxtaposing different timelines, the background story becomes more immersive and expansive.

Big Time Overview

Big Time was founded in April 2021 and is an MMORPG with a time-traveling theme. It is built on the Ethereum blockchain and boasts a top-notch team and industry-leading financing. The game combines elements from popular titles such as World of Warcraft, Diablo, and time-traveling adventures.

Big Time combines fast-paced combat and time-traveling adventures, allowing players to explore ancient mysteries and future civilizations while battling through history. The game supports up to 6-player teams, where players can fight alongside warriors of different classes. In the process of battles and defeating enemies, players can collect rare loot, decorations, and tokens. The game is still in the beta testing phase, but it has already established the foundation of an RPG game and has built a sustainable economic mechanism.

Introduction to the Big Time Team

The Big Time team is known for having a star-studded lineup among all blockchain games. Most team members have extensive industry experience in the traditional gaming industry and have worked for major companies.

Ari Meilich, CEO: Former co-founder and CEO of Decentraland, worked as a market research analyst at Charles River Ventures, a Silicon Valley venture capital fund, and founded a big data company called Benchrise, where he served as CEO. He has extensive experience in venture capital and data analysis.

Matt Tonks, CTO: Matt has 18 years of experience in the gaming industry, worked as a software engineer at Electronic Arts, a senior AI programmer at Epic Games, and the CTO of Drifter Entertainment. He also co-founded the well-known game company BitMonster.

Thor Alexander, CPO: Former Vice President of Product at Decentraland, with over 25 years of experience in the traditional gaming industry.

Martin Sweitzer, CMO: Co-founder of BitMonster, with over 20 years of game development experience, having worked for multiple game companies.

Ken Harsha, Chief Animator and Creative Director: Involved in works from Disney, DreamWorks, Warner Bros, and provided art direction for well-known games like the Call of Duty series. He has over 31 years of experience in feature animation, TV animation, and game production.

Based on the team’s resumes, they have professional game development experience and have participated in the design and development of many top games, including League of Legends, Fortnite, God of War, Call of Duty, and Overwatch.

Financing Status of Big Time

In May 2021, Big Time Studios completed a $21 million Series A financing round. It was led by FBG Capital, with participation from North Island Ventures, Digital Currency Group, DFG, OKEx Blockdream Ventures, Alameda Research, Circle Financial, and Sound Ventures, created by Ashton Kutcher.

In March 2022, Big Time completed two sales of core virtual asset Space NFT, generating a total revenue of $70 million. Major game guilds worldwide have made purchases, such as YGG, Merit Circle, Avocado Guild, BlackPool, Polkastarter, YGG Sea, ReadyPlayerDAO, and 3D Gamers Guild DAO.

In December 2022, Big Time completed its third NFT sale, releasing 4,500 functional NFT blind boxes, which sold out within 5 minutes.

Analysis of Big Time’s Economic Model

Big Time adopts an economy based on game skins. In traditional free skin economies like League of Legends, Fortnite, or Valorant, game studios sell skins directly to players. However, in Big Time, players can participate in the skin economy by acquiring space and functional NFTs. These functional NFTs, such as furnaces, armories, and time guardians, serve as places for skin production on the virtual land represented by space in Big Time.

Source：https://wiki.bigtime.gg/big-time-economy/economy-overview

The $TIME token is the main cryptocurrency driving the development of the Big Time economy.

The $TIME token has the following main functions:

1. Used to refine or create and upgrade armor/weapon skin fragments in the furnace and armory to make and upgrade skin NFTs
2. Consumed when accelerating the production speed of Function 1
3. Consumed when accessing advanced dungeons

The total supply of $TIME tokens is 5 billion, which is theoretically generated within the game through gameplay, rather than being issued into the game. There is no reserved amount for the team or distribution to investors (except for a small amount of airdrop for early players).

There are three specific ways to obtain $TIME tokens:

1. Randomly drop damaged hourglasses in personal spaces, which can be equipped to produce $TIME tokens. The damaged hourglass is a one-time-use item that disappears when the countdown ends.
2. Spend time crystals in functional NFT time guardians to create and equip hourglasses. Hourglasses can be obtained randomly in dungeons when performing actions such as killing enemies, completing quests, or finishing dungeons.
3. Purchase on the market or receive airdrops from the team to obtain already produced $TIME tokens.

The supply and demand dynamics of $TIME token depend on the number of players. $TIME is a cryptocurrency that serves as the foundation for the game economy. Due to the limited supply of hourglass items, only a fixed number of players can possess them at any given time, regardless of the total number of active players. As a result, the production of $TIME tokens is restricted. In the game, all regular gameplay actions require players to spend $TIME tokens, which theoretically have no maximum limit.

Source：https://wiki.bigtime.gg/big-time-economy/economy-overview

As the producer of the $TIME token in the game, players are required to invest resources, with the main direct costs being time hourglasses and time crystals. The price of time crystals is fixed in US dollars, while the price of time hourglasses fluctuates based on market supply and demand. This mechanism ensures that the supply of $TIME tokens will be controlled by the cost of player investment, thereby maintaining the stability of the game economy. Additionally, the fluctuation in the price of time hourglasses also means that the output of $TIME tokens is influenced by market activity and player demand, increasing the flexibility of the game economy. The production mechanism of $TIME tokens ensures that, in most cases, the token supply will align with the allocation of in-game resources. This helps maintain the stability and adaptability of the game’s economic model, providing players with a more immersive gaming experience.

Overall, Big Time’s economic mechanism is well-designed, and able to inject flexibility into the in-game economic cycle while maintaining stability. However, this also places higher demands on players to devise resource allocation strategies, as they need to invest resources to find their own game positioning, which will bring players a deeper level of game engagement.

Big Time’s Pros and Cons

Pros

1. Token distribution method: Apart from airdrops to early players, Big Time does not have any reserved tokens for the team or token distribution to investors.
2. Game production quality: Compared to blockchain games like Axie Infinity, Big Time has greatly improved its playability and game quality. With a well-equipped development team, Big Time presents a AAA-level quality. The difference between Big Time and Axie Infinity lies in the fact that web games are too rigid in supporting future gameplay expansions.
3. Game economic mechanism: Big Time’s game economic mechanism is cleverly designed, ensuring that the in-game economic cycle has some elasticity on a stable foundation. It also ensures that players with different game positions can have a rich gaming experience.
4. Lower entry barrier for players: The gameplay mechanics of Big Time determine that the final players will mainly be free players, meaning that players can experience the game without purchasing NFTs.

Cons

1. Game economic mechanism: The $TIME tokens in Big Time can only be obtained through normal gameplay within the game, which often requires players to have a high level of game participation. There is no strong consumption scenario designed for the tokens.

2. Game rules: The game rules are customized by the team, and they have the ability to change or adjust the rules based on the current situation. However, these changes can potentially harm player interests. For instance, the team recently adjusted the token output rate, which has led to a longer break-even period for gold-farming players. As of October 23, the daily token output is now less than 1/10 of what it was on the first day of the game’s launch.
   
   Source：https://dune.com/wuhuzai/dollarbigtime

3. High game configuration requirements: Currently, the main player group of Big Time is the WEB3 community. According to the Big Time official website, the minimum computer configuration for the game is a GTX 1060 graphics card and at least 50GB of hard disk space, which is a high requirement for traditional blockchain game players.

4. High capital threshold for gold farmers: From the official introduction of the game, players who want to engage in gold farming need to purchase various NFTs and items, and the prices of NFTs and items are market-driven, which creates a certain threshold for players who want to participate in gold farming.

The Potential of Big Time from an Industry Perspective

According to the DappRadar Q3 blockchain game report, there were an average of 786,766 unique active wallets in the blockchain game sector per day in Q3 2023, a 12% increase from the previous quarter. In Q3 2023, Web3 game projects received $600 million in funding, bringing the total investment for 2023 to $2.3 billion. Although this accounts for only 30% of the funding from the previous year, it cannot ignore the current market stage in the crypto field.

Source：https://dappradar.com

From the financing trend of this year (as shown in the following figure), it can be seen that venture capitalists have confidence in the future of the Gamefi sector.

Source：https://dappradar.com/

From various industry data, it can be seen that the core players of blockchain games have not experienced significant attrition. Although the funding amount in the blockchain game sector has declined significantly over the past year, the number of active blockchain games has not shown a significant decrease and even continues to rise slowly. This means that the entire sector is still maintaining growth and development, and it still has some resilience in the bear market.

From the daily changes in the number of Big Time token holders, although the strict KYC process imposed by the game’s official website makes it difficult for the number of withdrawals to grow, it still maintains a steady upward trend. Currently, the strong growth in the number of holders has slowed down compared to the early stages of the tournament. Once the overall cryptocurrency market recovers, the blockchain gaming market will revive, and Big Time will become a shining star in the blockchain gaming industry.

Source：https://dune.com/queries/3096347/5165903

Conclusion

Big Time embodies the qualities that a new generation of blockchain games should have. Compared to previous blockchain games, it has significantly improved in production quality and playability. In terms of game production, Big Time draws inspiration from mature MMORPGs in terms of character and growth design, enriching players’ gaming experience. From the perspective of game economic mechanisms, Big Time ensures stability in the in-game economic system while providing a richer gaming experience for both free and paying players. In terms of actual gameplay experience, Big Time has a vast background story and the game’s plot can unfold in multiple universes and timelines, showing considerable playability. Furthermore, it will continue to iterate on gameplay and plot in the future.

However, blockchain games have always followed a cycle of buying NFTs, completing tasks, and obtaining tokens. This cycle makes the game too financialized, weakening its entertainment value and making players overly focused on the token acquisition, leading to the so-called “dig, withdraw, sell” phenomenon. Unfortunately, Big Time cannot escape from this cycle. Additionally, BIGTIME only provides ways to acquire tokens and does not design strong token consumption scenarios.

However, MMORPG-type games inherently have a longer game lifespan and have higher scalability compared to blockchain games like Axie Infinity. With the excellent operation and development capabilities of the team, BIGTIME is still worth looking forward to. With the release of the game’s public beta version and future gameplay updates, BIGTIME will lead the trend of a new generation of blockchain games.