Can 2020 become a self-certified year for blockchain games?

We have selected 5 new games to reveal some trends in the development of blockchain games.

Written by: Li Hua

After experiencing the rounds of being hailed and questioned, 2020 may be the year when blockchain games return.

Return has two meanings. First, after being considered a false proposition and silent for a long time, a batch of blockchain games will be launched this year. Many of them are flagship products of mainstream blockchain game companies. For example, a one-stop shop Enjin Platform, a blockchain game development platform, has just launched the Ethereum mainnet, and Decentraland, a decentralized simulation reality platform, will be launched on the 20th.

The second meaning is that the gameplay of blockchain games is moving closer to traditional games, adding blockchain based on playability, not the other way around. There is no shortage of the most popular game types on the Internet among the new blockchain games.

In this article, we have selected 5 representative games that will be introduced to the market in 2020. If the production level of these games can reach the standard of traditional games, we can observe through comparison whether the road to blockchain games is feasible: Can blockchain bring meaningful improvements to games? Are these improvements enough to attract ordinary players to choose blockchain games?

The further question is whether the game can become an important scenario for the block chain technology to break the game, and whether the block chain technology can make the game enter a new era.

1. Lightnite: Online multiplayer battle royale game

* Development team: Satoshi's Games

 The team focuses on the development of LApp games on the Lightning Network. Most of its games are blockchain versions of retro arcade games. Simple and addictive, as well as adding economic incentives for playing games are the characteristics of its games.

* Blockchain

 Realize small, real-time payments based on the Lightning Network.

* Game

 Will the acquisition of real assets through game skills make playing games a real profession? Will it bring a new industry model for the game industry? Online multiplayer battle royale is the most popular game genre in recent years. "Lightnite" is such a game. It can be considered the Lightning Network version of "Fortnite".

Unlike traditional battle royale games, what “drops” is equipment. In Lightnite, bitcoin is dropped: when the player shoots someone else, he will get bitcoin, and when the player is shot by someone else, he will lose bitcoin. In addition, players can also pick up items from dead players and find items in the game, which can be exchanged for Bitcoin. The player's bitcoin balance will be updated in real time every time he shoots or finds a valuable item.

Lightnite is built on top of the Lightning Network, which makes it possible to make small, real-time payments in Bitcoin required in the game. Its development team Satoshi's Games believes that Lightnite is also an experiment on the Bitcoin micropayment function, and its success may lead to more Bitcoin adoption.

The game supports single player mode and team mode. Once development is completed, it will be released on mainstream game platforms including Steam and PlayStation. Just like Fortnite, Lightnite is also a freemium game. Anyone can create an account to join the game, and the team's income comes from the sale of character customization services, such as skins. This is actually a profitable way: Fortnite's revenue in 2019 was $1.8 billion, and it continues to occupy the world's most profitable game.

Another interesting thing is that if Lightnite can be successful, it will likely trigger thinking about the traditional game industry model, because it means that professional players or e-sports teams no longer need to rely on sponsors, they can get directly by playing games income.

Official website:

2. Taurion: real-time strategy game

* Development team: XAYA

 XAYA is a blockchain specially built for games. What it is doing is to make the game completely on the chain, so that the game no longer needs a centralized server. XAYA has issued token CHI.

* Blockchain

 The blockchain is used as a server to realize decentralized online games; the blockchain mining mechanism is introduced, and the game is mining; the trophies are NFT assets.

* Game

 When NFT assets make the loot in real-time strategy real assets, will it make the game more realistic and challenging? Which makes the game more attractive? "Taurion" is the flagship product of the blockchain game platform XAYA. It is a real-time strategy game and is similar to the classic game "Dune II" in many aspects. The main place of the story is the planet Taurion, which is also a desert planet with harsh conditions but with special resources.

Players need to establish bases and mining fields on the planet. Mining can obtain ore resources, which can be used to develop bases, manufacture weapons and aircraft, and mining can also obtain some cultural relics, which can be sold in the prop market. Strategically, players can gain resources by attacking others, or they can focus on trade to increase assets. There are three major factions in the game, and different factions have different attributes. Players can choose one to join, develop, defend and fight together with their alliance.

Unlike traditional strategy games, Taurion is also a sandbox game. Just like in the real world, land resources are limited and unique. Players explore and occupy land, and maintain their own or their own faction's dominance over the land, and the planet will be truly changed due to the player's behavior on the land.

Taurion is also classified as a Human Mining type. Human Mining is a term of XAYA, which means that players can obtain valuable Tokens by playing games. In layman's terms, it means: playing games is mining. Andrew Colosimo, one of the founders of XAYA, believes that Human Mining is a Token distribution method that corresponds to mining machine mining. It is also an important reason why blockchain games are competitive: players can get real rewards from playing games, which will allow They are more engaged and continue to improve their skills.

Official website:

 Expansion recommendation: "Tycoon Touch", a playground simulation game launched by the veteran game publisher Atari.

3. Age of Rust: a first-person adventure game

* Development team: SpacePirate Games

 The American team was founded in 2016. The founder Chris Loverme is a former NASA engineer and a game consultant for Microsoft Studios, 505 Games and some independent game studios. He has extensive experience in the field of games and blockchain.

* Blockchain

 Based on agreements and smart contracts, the common use of game assets is realized.

* Game

 Assets such as game characters and props can be used across games. Will it bring new game development methods? Will it bring new game forms, such as the existence of an integrated game world that has been opened up? "Age of Rust" is a wasteland-style first-person adventure game. The game setting is similar to the traditional games "Fire Watcher" and "Alien: Isolation". Judging from the released trailers, the game has good visual effects.

Players will find themselves in a chaotic and dark overhead universe, and need to explore various locations in the vast world, find clues and treasures from abandoned space stations, mysterious caves, hidden bases, etc., and solve puzzles. In addition to helping players to explore the next step, these puzzles also include 20 BTC mainline puzzle solving rewards, ENJ prop assets and other digital asset rewards.

The game was developed by the SpacePirate Games studio and was first released in 2016. However, it was a text adventure game at the time. In order to improve the game experience, the upcoming game will be a 3D version that combines puzzle understanding and combat missions. Players can complete tasks alone, or team up with other players to share clues and help each other.

It is worth noting that the game is developed based on the Enjin token standard and is a member of the Enjin Multiverse (Multiverse), which means that it can share assets in the game with other games in the ecosystem, and use characters, Weapons, items, etc. Age of Rust also has a close cooperation relationship with another upcoming blockbuster game "Neon District". There may also be cross-game use of assets at that time. Neon District is a cyberpunk-style PRG game.

Official website:

 Extended recommendation: "Ethernal", inspired by "MUD".

4. F1 DeltaTime: Sports Game

* Development team: Animoca Brands

 A mobile game development company based in Hong Kong, has the agency rights to develop mobile games for many cartoon characters including Doraemon and Garfield. Entering the blockchain field frequently, investing in Dapper Labs; reaching a cooperation agreement with Metaverse; acquiring "The Sandbox" developer Pixowl to develop the blockchain version of the game.

* Blockchain

 NFT collection.

* Game

 The combination of sports games and NFT collections integrates personal hobbies, game skills, and investment. Does it have greater appeal to players and fans? "F1 DeltaTime" is a professional racing game developed by F1 and Animoca Brands. It can be considered a combination of traditional racing games and NFT collections.

There are two main types of racing cars, one is a limited edition vehicle. The F1 official racing car and the national commemorative racing car currently on sale through auction are of this type. They have high comprehensive attributes and some special attributes. For example, when the "Chinese version of the 2019 Qinglong" car races at the Shanghai International Circuit, all its performance Will get an extra boost.

The other is assembled cars. Players can buy boxes or parts from the market and combine them to make their own racing cars. These parts include engines, tires, body components, etc. Each part is an independent NFT, and players can sell or replace them at any time. For different tournaments, these parts/NFTs also have different properties.

After paying the registration fee, players can participate in the competition, and if they win, they will be rewarded with generous tokens. This kind of reward is different from the virtual points in traditional racing games. It is a valuable token. Players can trade them, or use them to buy NFT parts or racing cars.

For F1 DeltaTime, perhaps the most important thing is to balance the impact of racing performance and racing technology on the race. If the proportion of racing performance is too large, it will affect the playability of the game, making this game a NFT collection. Issuer. The importance of paid props to games is a problem that all blockchain game developers will face. For example, Age of Rust has made it clear that having props will not affect players' puzzle solving.

The last thing that needs to be mentioned briefly is that F1 DeltaTime has also added Staking gameplay. Players can mortgage NFT racing cars to obtain Token income. The rarer the racing cars, the more Tokens generated by mortgage.

Official website:

 Extended recommendations: "Battle Racer", an arcade racing game in the world of Decentraland; "NBA Top Shot", a collection game jointly launched by the NBA and Dapper Labs.

5. The Sandbox: Sandbox game

* Development team: Pixowl

 A world-renowned game company that has developed classic games such as "The Sandbox", "Peanuts: Snoopy's Town Tale", "Garfield: Survival of Fattest", and was acquired by Animoca Brands in 2018.

* Blockchain

 Record and accumulate the value created by players in the game world.

* Game

 As "Ready Player One" revealed, the sandbox game itself is our grand vision for the future digital world, and will the blockchain help create this virtual living space with more vitality? Sandbox games are one of the most promising types of blockchain games, but if they return to the game itself, it has not yet been tested: the high-profile "Decentraland" was released publicly on February 20, and "The Sandbox" "The sale of land has just started. The Sandbox is the blockchain version of Pixowl's classic sandbox game "The Sandbox".

The most noteworthy thing in The Sandbox is the VoxEdit editor, through which game users can create 3D objects and bring these objects into the game. Due to the introduction of blockchain technology, user-generated content is issued in the form of NFTs. They are users' 3D assets and can be traded in markets including OpenSea.

3D objects are also the basis for more creation in The Sandbox: users or game developers can use them to develop their own games, or even their own universe. Judging from the current information, 36 blockchain companies including MakerDAO, My Crypto Heroes, and Cryptokitties have settled in the Sandbox and become members of this universe. The Sandbox is not only a game, but also a place for games.

For this type of UGC (User Generated Content)-driven game, user motivation is the most critical issue, and NFTization of content seems to be a more reasonable incentive method close to the real world. This may be a sandbox game The reason for the high hopes of blockchain players. In order to motivate users to create, The Sandbox also launched a $2 million creator fund to encourage players to make objects and games.

Sandbox games have strong asset attributes, and the focus is on land ownership. There are two types of land in The Sandbox: one is privately owned by players, including land and manor, each piece of land is 96m×96m, enough to build a business place; the other is jointly owned by multiple players and needs to be formulated The rules of governance, this is a type of land that has never been seen in other sandbox games.

Official website:

 Extended recommendation: "Cryptovoxels", a voxel style (corresponding to the pixel style of a two-dimensional space) sandbox game, with a free temperament of a landless land.

Blockchain games: Start again. A survey report by BlockchainGamer.biz in the second half of 2019 shows that more than 60% of the respondents believe that the main obstacle to mainstream adoption of blockchain games is still the quality of the game; more than 40% Respondents believe that the advantage of using blockchain in games is that it can realize the ownership and free transactions of items. Another 20% of respondents believe that it is its ability to make players earn money and it brings the game economic system design. The possibility of coming.

It is the first departure of blockchain games that exposes the above problems and also shows the above advantages. Based on these experiences, blockchain games are about to start again.

This time, not only the blockchain industry is watching, but traditional games and game-related industries are also closely watching, including companies such as game giant Ubisoft and chip manufacturing giant AMD.

The gaming industry is optimistic about the application of blockchain technology in games, but they still need a proof. 2020 may be a crucial year for blockchain games to prove themselves.