GameFi or full chain?Interpret the Web3 landing method of trading card games

Article: @BuidlerDAO

Author: @Caesar @全息研究小组

Orchestration: @Lexi

🎮 After the rise of GameFi, the entertainment nature of games seems to have been dissolved, and people seem to be willing to spend time on Web3 games because they can make money, not because Web3 games are fun or have some unique native experience. Admittedly, due to the limitations of technology, the high-frequency interaction and immediacy of the game cannot be guaranteed.

But this does not prevent us from thinking about what games can be used as a traditional game paradigm that is more suitable for entering Web3 at this stage? Card games may be one of them, and the Trading Card Game itself can focus on playability, and transfer the economic attributes of GameFi to the trading market of in-game derivatives, and the playability and economic attributes of games can be combined and complement each other.

The article was known 👀 earlier

1. What is TCG?

1.1TCG common characteristics

1.2 Round Structure

1.3 Issuance Operations

2. Splinterlands 与 Skhyweaver

2.1 Basic Information

2.2 Developments

2.3Splinterlands 与 Skhyweaver

2.3.1 Tokens

2.3.2 Play-to-Earn

2.3.3 Miscellaneous

2.4 Causes of Developmental Differences

3. Web3 TCG Game Design Requires Thinking Propositions

3.1 How to reasonably regulate the economic sustainability of NFTs?

3.2 如何权衡平衡 Play-to-Earn？

3.3 How do you balance free and paid players?

3.4 Do we need a full-chain TCG?

4. Summary

1. What is TCG

First of all, what is TCG? TCG stands for Trading Card Game. As the name suggests, this type of game is based on collecting cards, and players need to buy randomly packaged booster packs, collect cards, and then flexibly use different cards to build a set of cards that match the rules according to their own strategy.

Since each person’s deck is different, so is the order in which cards are drawn in each round, and the endless variations arise. Whether it is the process of preparing or playing the game, players need to constantly use their brains to think. Generally speaking, these cards have a certain value, and players can trade and exchange their cards with each other.

! [GameFi or Full Chain?Interpreting the Web3 Landing Method of Trading Card Games] (https://img-cdn.gateio.im/webp-social/moments-69a80767fe-5d09ff45d2-dd1a6f-cd5cc0.webp)

Magic: The Gathering

! [GameFi or Full Chain?Interpreting the Web3 Landing Method of Trading Card Games] (https://img-cdn.gateio.im/webp-social/moments-69a80767fe-5c32542f4d-dd1a6f-cd5cc0.webp)

Cards in Splinterlands

! [GameFi or Full Chain?Interpreting the Web3 Landing Method of Trading Card Games] (https://img-cdn.gateio.im/webp-social/moments-69a80767fe-e2da824998-dd1a6f-cd5cc0.webp)

Cards in Skyweaver

1.1 TCG Common Features

! [GameFi or Full Chain?Interpreting the Web3 Landing Method of Trading Card Games] (https://img-cdn.gateio.im/webp-social/moments-69a80767fe-6763f633d8-dd1a6f-cd5cc0.webp)

Splinterlands cards state the name of the card, the amount of mana required to use the card, the character’s stamina/speed/toughness and health, rarity, the level of the card, the experience of the card, and the special abilities of the card.

a. Each card will have text on it that describes the rules and conditions of use and effects of those cards.

b. Players are required to have a deck of cards, and players need to pick a certain number of cards from thousands of cards to cooperate with each other to win the game, which provides a lot of openness and variety to the game. To lower the barrier to entry for newcomers, most TCGs offer pre-constructed decks, but players need to increase the strength of their hands to achieve victory with their own understanding.

c. There are certain conditions required to use any card, such as the amount of mana required to use the card for Splinterlands mentioned above.

d. The basic rule of the game is to use one’s own resources wisely, produce a certain effect, and achieve the winning conditions required by the game.

Regardless of the game, the rules are played in turns, and the rounds follow a certain structure.

1.2 Round Architecture

Round start/reset phase - Make all cards new turn, most TCGs have the same design, although some of them have unique designs that are different.

Card Draw - Draw a card from a deck to become a hand, and a new card can mean a new effect.

Use – Use the cards in your hand to influence the game using the effects written on the cards.

Conflict/Combat - Fight with available resources, and generally winning the conflict is the main means of winning the game.

End of Round – Generally speaking, at this stage, the effects of the cards played in the turn cease and players are asked to discard any extra cards in their hand to control their cards to a certain number.

1.3 Issuance and Operation

Players need to purchase cards from the game publisher in order to play. This is mainly done by purchasing “booster packs”, which contain a certain number of random cards. Most games will have a “Starter Pack”, which contains a complete set of beginner decks designed to educate novice players about the rules.

Cards can play different roles in the game, so in order to prevent the proliferation of powerful cards, basically all game publishers use rarity to control the proportion of cards of various strengths. Three-way division is a more common way to divide into “commons”, “uncommons”, and “rares”. In the case of Magic, for example, a booster pack contains 15 cards, including one rare, three uncommons, and all the others are commons.

In order to make the cards have a certain added value, game publishers will print special cards, which are more traditional methods of “foil”. These specially printed cards are beautiful and highly collectible.

In the case of Yu-Gi-Oh (a card game based on the Japanese anime of the same name), it has a worldwide audience and has been translated into multiple languages, resulting in a huge market for card trading and collectibles, with more than 22 billion Yu-Gi-Oh cards in circulation, many of which are worth thousands of dollars, with the most collectible cards even reaching $9 million.

Next, I will take two projects with different design focuses, Splinterlands and Skyweaver, as examples, to analyze the reasons behind the different development situations of the two projects, and talk about the present and future of on-chain TCG.

2. Splinterlands 与 Skyweaver

2.1 Basic Information

! [GameFi or Full Chain?Interpreting the Web3 Landing Method of Trading Card Games] (https://img-cdn.gateio.im/webp-social/moments-69a80767fe-325cbeaa47-dd1a6f-cd5cc0.webp)

2.2 Development

! [GameFi or Full Chain?Interpreting the Web3 Landing Method of Trading Card Games] (https://img-cdn.gateio.im/webp-social/moments-69a80767fe-7a8fe8882e-dd1a6f-cd5cc0.webp)

Due to the lack of Skyweaver data on various data analysis platforms after 2022, if we look at the game data in mid-2022, the closest point in time, we can see that the number of users and transactions of Splinterlands far exceeds that of Skyweaver, and is in a relatively stable situation. Since July 2021, Splinterlands has seen unprecedented growth and gradually entered a period of stability with the popularity of TCG games, while Skyweaver has not broken through the Ice Age after two or three years of testing.

! [GameFi or Full Chain?Interpreting the Web3 Landing Method of Trading Card Games] (https://img-cdn.gateio.im/webp-social/moments-69a80767fe-fbed3e9e54-dd1a6f-cd5cc0.webp)

It can be seen that as of April 12, 2022, Splinterlands has ranked first many times with more than 350,000 daily active users, leaving the second, third and even Axie Infinity far behind.

In a similar environment, why do two TCGs with similar core gameplay have such different developments?

2.3 Core Differences Between Splinterlands and Skyweaver

2.3.1 Tokens

Splinterlands issued its own token after raising money in July 2021, establishing a dual-currency model of $DEC and $SPS.

$DEC is the in-game currency, currently priced at $0.00076335, which is mainly used to purchase various card packs, land, items, personal rankings, etc., which can be obtained through various missions and official events in the game, or purchased on the trading platform. $DEC can be used to withdraw transactions, or to purchase items and rental cards, which can be used to increase the victory rate of the match, get more battle rewards, and scarce cards. Scarce cards can be traded on the NFT marketplace for profit.

$SPS is a governance token, with a current market price of $0.01717423, which is mainly used for community governance voting, game rewards, obtaining staking rewards, and more. Holders stake $SPS participate in voting and can decide on any adjustments to the project, including Splinterlands-sponsored tournament schedules, settings, and prizes, updates to card balances, quest, season, and leaderboard rewards, battle settings (time limits, mana caps, rulesets, inactive shards, etc.), and $DEC inflation pools.

Skyweaver, on the other hand, does not issue coins and uses the stablecoin USDC as the in-game currency.

2.3.2 Play-to-Earn

In Splinterlands, players can participate in the game for as little as $10. Compared with similar games, Play-to-Earn has a relatively low threshold for playing, and there are simple and diverse ways to earn income.

Daily Missions: Daily missions are refreshed every 24 hours according to the time they were first completed, and different levels of daily missions reward different numbers of boxes, and there may be $DEC in the boxes, and there is also a chance to open cards of various levels.

Match Win Reward: The winner of each match will be rewarded with $DEC tokens, which is currently priced at 0.00076335U, and the DEC reward will increase as the player level increases.

Card Pack: The card pack is similar to a blind box, each card pack has cards of different values, and what can be opened depends on luck, but according to the historical income, the average income value of the card pack is greater than the sale amount. In the daily missions, the potions that have a chance to be obtained can increase the probability of opening the Legendary and Gold cards in the card pack.

Guild Rewards: Participating in guilds can earn some exclusive rewards, but guild building and battles require members to have a certain level.

Card Trading: Different cards have different supply and demand, and each card has a different trade value.

Card Rental: Cards can be rented out for a short period of time, and the renter can use the cards to increase the winning rate of the game.

Tournament Prizes: The entry fees paid by all players to participate in the tournament form a prize pool, and different prizes will be awarded according to the final results.

Seasonal Rewards: Seasonal rewards also increase with different levels. In addition to the score, the Season Reward also takes into account the corresponding value of the card held, which is measured in the game by the Power value. In order to earn stable seasonal rewards, many people may consider holding high-value cards in their hands, a bit like the model of staking card NFTs to earn yield.

Airdrop: Distributed according to the player’s game contribution (mainly the weight of the in-game assets on the chain) and the amount of SPS staken.

Skyweaver’s Play-to-Earn gameplay is different, with a free-to-play ranked mode and a paid Conquest mode. The game’s revenue is mainly Gold Card and Silver Card NFT.

Silver NFTs: Earned through weekly leaderboard rewards in Ranked Mode (the higher you rank, the more Silver Cards you earn), or by winning Conquest Mode matches. The Silver Card is a tradable version of the base card and can be used to pay for Conquest tickets.

Gold NFT: Loot Edition cards, created and earned by winning all three matches in Conquest mode, in limited supply. Each week there will be 8 different gold cards to choose from, and once the week is over, these 8 gold cards cannot be won again, after which you can only get them from other players on the store.

2.3.3 Other

• Downlands

In addition to NFTIZING cards, elements such as land auctions, NFT card trading, and card synthesis have been added to increase the liquidity of cards and land, and players can trade or sell game assets to other players. The greater imagination of Splinterlands also lies in the land-based metaverse world, which supports players to create guilds, build castles, and create a broader metaverse space. Splinterlands has a clear roadmap that presents the various plans for the future.

! [GameFi or Full Chain?Interpreting the Web3 Landing Method of Trading Card Games] (https://img-cdn.gateio.im/webp-social/moments-69a80767fe-447e7491f4-dd1a6f-cd5cc0.webp)

• Skyweaver

Unlike Splinterlands, Skyweaver doesn’t have a particularly clear roadmap, and the game’s balance is poorly done compared to Splinterlands. In the middle of this year, project team Horizon directly stated that the current focus is to help more games, apps, and brands enter web3, and the team said that they will announce more partnerships, from games to map technology, to loyalty rewards programs, to token experiences that different companies and brands are building. This may indicate that Horizon won’t put too much effort into Skyweaver in the future, causing players to lose confidence in the project in general.

2.4 Causes of Developmental Disparities

Both games thrive on the GameFi boom, and playability and financial gain are at opposite ends of the same scale.

Splinterlands has a more diverse way to play with income, it is a more efficient gold mining mode with a certain degree of playability, which is closer to the design of early GameFi, the game’s dual-token model is also designed more to serve economic attributes, and the airdrop and open governance rights of SPS have brought low-cost tap water marketing and very sticky early participants in the community, making Splinterlands’ popularity advanced layer by layer and became a smash hit. The roadmap announced by Splinterlands is not only clear, but also has a land-based metaverse world, which is close to the popular narrative of the time, bringing higher discussion and participation.

The gameplay of Skyweaver is relatively monotonous, and there is no special means to drain traffic in the cold start stage, the small number of players leads to the game’s matching time being extended, and the efficiency of earning income is lowered, and the NFT market of cards has no pulling behavior, when the playability is not enough to cover the inefficient gold mode, the TCG game itself has a high learning cost and time cost, and with the help of market sentiment, the player’s patience is exhausted, and at the same time, Skyweaver The project team did not give a clear and imaginative roadmap, which further led to the decline of community voices and the continuous loss of users.

The reasons behind the differences in the development of Splinterlands and Skyweaver can be summarized in four aspects:

In this environment, in order to get more traffic and users, and attract more people’s attention, economic incentives are necessary, but the trade-off between playability and playability needs to be considered;

Community culture and creator economy: Players’ user feedback on the game, the culture and atmosphere within the community, and the content of UGC are important for the operation and development of the game, and the impact of high-stickiness early participants on the project is far-reaching.

Operational issues: A clear route plan and a long-term community atmosphere can bring higher user retention and activity, reduce user churn, not to mention the current hot spots, at least a clear, reasonable, planned, and step-by-step implementation situation;

Industrialization of games: Whether the learning cost and time cost of the game are reasonably estimated and measured is related to how to balance the reward and cost, which requires systematic and precipitated industrial design and experienced game planners.

3. Web3 TCG game design is a proposition that needs to be thought about

3.1 How to reasonably regulate the economic sustainability of NFTs?

The mindset of most game NFT holders in Web3 Games is similar to that of NFT investors, hoping that game NFTs will be scarce in order to maintain their original price or even bring higher value. Game NFTs can be used as a scarcity reward, assume the function of a value carrier and an investment means, and circulate in the market, but this needs to be based on the premise that the game is fun, and what is essentially needed is the richness of the game’s development. The contradiction between the two can lead to pittangle between the community and developers, leading to governance issues. If communities can build with a long-termism and abundance mentality, ecological prosperity will bring a virtuous flywheel of value.

In the case of LOOT, the development of LOOT derivatives and related protocols, although the price of LOOT NFTs initially fell to half of their original price, later captured far more value than expected. Before the community develops and builds independently, game developers can control the inflation rate of NFTs through appropriate mechanisms to ensure the balance and consistency of the interests of early participants and latecomers, and also enable developers to adjust their own development and construction routes.

For now. Seasons, or limited-time game cycles, are one of the more viable sustainability mechanics. Dark Forest and Dookey Dash are also open for a limited time to control the scale of rewards, that is, the inflation rate of NFTs. In Web2, this mechanism is embodied in the seasonal iteration of “retreating” through different gameplay and deck strengths, combined with world views and backstories. For new players, they can participate in the game at a reasonable learning cost, while for old players, they will be compensated for the new season for retention. The interests of early and new participants can only be strengthened when the interests of early and new participants are harmonized.

Another well-being economic design that has been practiced in practice is to control the supply through the release and burning of tokens and NFTs. The seasonal rewards offered by Splinterlands and Skyweaver’s ability to burn silver cards in exchange for the Conquest Pass actually create a reasonable economic cycle on a small scale.

3.2 How do you balance the two ends of Play-to-Earn?

Web3 Games have also used GameFi and P2E to attract a lot of market attention and user adoption, but there are many GameFi gameplay methods that are not fundamentally different from DeFi mining, and they obtain continuous Earning by purchasing NFTs as production tools. In other words, most of the early GameFi was a fun money-making mechanism with Fi as the core, rather than a game-based game. Of course, there is no gameplay that can achieve mass adoption and focus on the unique experience of Web3 on the Web3 game track, and if you judge it purely by traditional “fun” games, the gameplay and development of many games will take a long time to precipitate.

From the perspective of playability, TCG has both vertical and horizontal expansion means. Taking Hearthstone as an example, the variation of the season brings the difference in the design of the vertical card mechanism, the race and its characteristics, and the difference in the horizontal ladder, arena, war chess and other gameplay brought about by the expansion of the gameplay, which can provide different but rich playability experiences for different types of players.

From the perspective of Fi, due to the plate-based capital pool provided by GameFi in the early days, users have become accustomed to the efficient gold mining mode of obtaining higher returns with super simple gameplay, and TCG, as a game with high learning costs, needs to think about how to balance the difficulty of gameplay and the benefits obtained:

In terms of the difficulty of Play, there are more learning costs, matchmaking time, and the cost of building decks.

If Earn is a card NFT, the value needs to be divided into two parts: the use value of the building card, and the collectible value depending on the rarity. However, as far as the current NFT market is concerned, it is difficult to define the value of collectibles, which greatly reduces the willingness to collect. As for the use value, it is up to the game developer to weigh the cost of acquisition and the balance of the game.

If Earn rewards the game’s native token, developers need to design the token’s economic model, value capture, and utility, and GameFi’s current solution is to adopt a multi-token model.

From the success of Splinterlands, Fi can be considered in terms of card pack opening (primary market), card rental, and buying and selling (secondary market). Game NFTs are more determined by utility and community culture, with the former being more decisive and tied to the playability of the game. The act of opening a card pack can be seen as the acquisition of basic tools in the game, such as the provision of card packs and potion items in Splinterlands, so that the randomness can increase the player’s sense of value for the rare cards opened in the card pack. There are many ways to play renting and buying, but what remains the same is that cards are considered as a basic production tool for economic rewards.

Of course, in the comparison between Splinterlands and Skyweaver, we can find that in the current Web3 game ecosystem, multiple earn channels and strong Fi attributes are still an indispensable part of users’ participation in games and revitalization of the game ecosystem.

3.3 How do you balance free players and paid players?

For games, in the Web3 world where traffic is scarce, free players need to be taken into account, and they can bring vitality to the early ecosystem of games. This requires two points for game developers to pay attention to:

Although this is conducive to attracting long-term and sticky users with the same interests and hobbies, quickly building a community and endowing them with cultural attributes and strong social relationships, it is not conducive to triggering explosions, bringing a lot of market attention, and compressing the fault tolerance for the subsequent expansion and operation of the game.

Game projects need to be cautious about issuing coins, and some project parties use coins as a marketing tool to cause a crash without the ability to run Ponzi, making the game fall into trouble prematurely.

From the point of view of game attributes, TCG is a relatively “krypton” friendly game, and the cost is more about time than the cost of money. Take the time to unlock the free base cards, and spend time learning and thinking about how to build a powerful deck to win more rewards. As users participate for a longer time, through the exchange and trading of card NFTs, the iteration of the deck gradually forms a “perpetual motion machine”, and the deck can be played with P2E in each season, and at the same time, in the process, the player’s game understanding is also constantly improving, and the possibility of obtaining higher rewards is gradually increasing. In other words, potential, continuous, long-term rewards can be effectively used to motivate players to invest more time costs, and it is even possible to convert free users into light paying users.

Of course, as mentioned above, many players still have a heavy speculative nature at the moment. Some players do not join the game, and are more likely to hold card NFTs as investment or card speculation, some players try to monopolize a certain card NFT to obtain higher returns, and the impetuous atmosphere during the hot period of meme coins is often transmitted to the game community, and everyone seems to want to get quick money. Therefore, for the Web3 game ecosystem, users are a double-edged sword, depending on the developer’s mechanism design and the culture and atmosphere of the community.

3.4 Do we need a full-chain TCG?

GameFi’s TCG, whether it is buying game NFTs to enter the game, or earning card NFTs through the P2E mechanism, is similar to the behavior of TCG buying card packs to draw cards, and the game’s NFT trading is similar to the TCG card trading market in Web2, including the so-called collection level of commons, uncommons, rare cards and foils, which is also very suitable for the rarity mechanism of the NFT market. For example, there are currently more than 22 billion cards circulating in the market, many of which are worth thousands of dollars, with the highest collection value even reaching $9 million (the reason why the price is so high is because this is the champion prize of the first Yu-Gi-Oh competition, and it has to be mentioned here that Web3’s ability to trace the history of ownership may bring great potential to the card collection market). Web3’s more open and transparent NFT marketplace and the collection of secondary transaction fees have given TCG’s card market more space for design, nesting, and development. GameFi + TCG allows developers to give “Fi” to games without deviating from the focus of “Game”, which is a solution to consider before figuring out how Web3 games will be natively experienced and operated. Although the market is increasingly critical and reflective about GameFi, I still think that a game like TCG is still more suitable to be a GameFi game at the moment

Recently, there has been more and more discussion about full-chain games, and many opinions seem to believe that full-chain games are the only solution for on-chain games. In August, Norswap tweeted that 0xFable wanted to make a fully scalable full-chain TCG, and Parallel, a card game supported by Paradigm and Base to develop an on-chain world, also started public testing and put into operation. However, a question worth discussing is, do we really need a full-chain TCG?

! [GameFi or Full Chain?Interpreting the Web3 Landing Method of Trading Card Games] (https://img-cdn.gateio.im/webp-social/moments-69a80767fe-035b45041a-dd1a6f-cd5cc0.webp)

First of all, let’s analyze from the perspective of a full-chain game, which inevitably has to consider the “impossible triangle” of decentralization, security, and scalability. Limited by the performance and storage limitations of the blockchain, the high-frequency interaction of the game, that is, the immediacy, will be greatly affected. However, with the optimization of tickrate by the full-chain game engine, the development of technologies such as Ephemeral Chain, App-specific Precompile, Battle Rollup, and Synchronization mechanism, it will be possible to achieve high-frequency player interaction in the future and push the user experience of on-chain games to a new level, whether it is a traditional MMORPG, SLG, or an open sandbox world with more open and customizable rules, is worth looking forward to, and I am optimistic about the future development of full-chain games.

However, if the performance issues are resolved, there are many more playable gameplay that can be moved on-chain. Taking Dark Forest as an example, all interactions are completed on the chain, and zkp’s technology can help Dark Forest achieve a higher information game, improve the playability of the game, and make up for the lack of high-frequency interaction in the game. If performance issues are resolved and the gaming experience is optimized, a unique Web3 experience is bound to attract a large number of participants and fans. TCG is a small circle game after all, and it does not have the best playable gameplay experience in the Web2 world, so it can be said that such a game has a long way to go to compete with other ways of playing and seek a place for TCG in the small volume of Web3 itself. It’s hard for us to think about the significance of a card game moving the whole game on-chain, especially since card games require a lot of interaction, which undoubtedly increases the cost of players, and this part is difficult to make up for with playability.

Of course, in the game track, there are other influencing factors, such as marketing, world view design, UGC coordination, in the Web3 world where community culture is particularly important, some full-chain TCGs may be able to usher in a temporary heat, but the game mode is fixed, and the overall process cannot be adjusted too much after the game is launched, otherwise it will increase the learning cost of players and lead to user loss. If you want to develop a full-chain TCG, you can’t just have TCGs, but you need a game matrix like Splinterlands’ land and open world, or parallel style with the same world view.

In addition to GameFi and omni-chain gaming, are there any other possibilities for TCG? The core gameplay of the game will be designed and put on the chain, and the rest of the imagination space will be left to the ecological participants to play freely. Similar to playing cards, only the suit, size, material and other designs are made, while the specific gameplay is developed and designed by the players themselves. In the case of Magic, there was no prohibition in the early days of tournaments where cards were torn to maximize the effect of the cards (taking advantage of the physical properties of the cards), known as the Chaos Orb incident, which led to the addition of a “cards must be intact” rule in the game. Players have unlimited imagination, and the combination of UGC and creator economy gives the on-chain TCG more freedom and design space, and we can have countless rooms and countless ways to play under the same card system. In addition to the ownership of game assets, the development trend of my ideal Web3 game should also bring the unity of the identity of players and creators, and the co-construction and common prosperity of games.

Quoting Daniel Alegre, the new CEO of Yuga Labs, he believes that the advantages of Web3 are low marketing costs through a tight community tap water, and giving players real ownership, in his eyes, the gaming experience has a strong similarity with Web3 applications - putting creators and communities in the most important position, making content and entertainment have a strong connection with users.

4. summary

When Web3 and gaming come together, I find it difficult to find the right perspective to look at and think about. Naturally, we bring in a variety of characters, investors, players, creators, developers… But regardless of the identity, it’s important to remember that the core priority of the game is entertainment.

It’s not just the creators of the games that are driving the GameFi boom, but also the participants in the games. In the review and reflection of GameFi, we must also think that at the beginning, we hope that Web3 will bring us ownership of game assets, better virtual experiences, and unprecedented gaming experiences. Gradually, however, acquiring assets in Web3 gaming projects has become the sole purpose for many users to participate in games.

As a player, I don’t just want to see that I can make money by walking, I can make money by sleeping, and I can make money by raising electronic pets, but I also want to see the resonance of the game with me, the visual performance quality of the game screen, the richness of the game’s storyline, and the fact that I devote myself to my characters to experience every battle, every story and every world, so that it can attract players for a long time and have vitality and creativity.