Source | 01 Blockchain
Author | Chen Lishan
In the post-epidemic era, the scale of the global game market continues to expand, and the industry is in a good situation. According to the 2021 Global Game Market Report released by Newzoo, the game market will generate $180.3 billion in total revenue in 2021, an increase of 1.4% over 2020. Newzoo predicts that in 2024, the global gaming market will generate $218.8 billion in revenue, of which mobile games alone will generate $116.4 billion through consumer spending.
One of the hottest topics of 2021, the metacosm has built a grand framework for us to combine virtual and real, and scenarios such as commercial industry, social entertainment and lifestyle can be reconstructed under the new framework. At present, the industrial form of combining virtual and real has not yet been popularized, but the format of combining games and meta-universes has "run" in the forefront. Games in virtual form provide great expandable space and superior experimental scenarios for the development of the metaverse. At present, games have also become the most important form of presentation in the metaverse.
At the same time, the metaverse is also one of the hottest topics in the field of games in 2021. Under the wave of metaversics, a number of game platforms combining metaverses have emerged, and more possibilities have been experimented with games in terms of building virtual spaces, producing game content, and building social platforms. The combination of meta-universe and game industry has begun to appear on a large scale, and the combination of the two will emerge a new development path.
This article will start from the actual case of the combination of the metaverse and the game industry, and explore the combination path of the metaverse and the game industry. At the same time, Zero One Think Tank, 01 Blockchain, Lujiazui Magazine, hengqin digital chain digital finance research institute will jointly launch the "Meta-universe scene application exploration report", the report is currently in the case collection, the report will be released at the first China Digital Technology Investment and Financing Summit in late April 2022, welcome all kinds of exploration enterprises to actively participate.
First, the meta-universe + game industry case study
Case one: Roblox
Background: In March 2021, Roblox was listed on the New York Stock Exchange, igniting the concept of metacosmity with the title of "the first stock in the metacosm". Released in 2006, Roblox is a massively multiplayer online sandbox creation platform that, according to RTrack's estimates, roblox has 226 million monthly active users as of October 2021. Roblox is predominantly young, with 67% of users under the age of 16 and only 14% of Roblox users over the age of 25.
User-generated content
In the traditional game mode, the background is responsible for generating content, and the player explores in the constructed game story. Roblox, on the other hand, does not engage in the production of game content, but provides players with a rich library of materials and powerful editing capabilities to support players in digital content creation. Currently, Roblox has more than 40 million games covering various types of games such as shooting, fighting, survival, racing, etc., and has become the world's largest multiplayer online creative game platform.
Built-in economic system
Roblox created an entire economy. Robux is a token circulating on the platform, and players can use the token to purchase equipment and items for avatars. Game creators and developers can also earn Robux by building games and convert it back into real-world currency. According to Roblox, more than 960,000 developers and creators earned Robux on the platform over the past 12 months as of September 30, 2020. Of those, nearly 250 developers and creators earned $100,000 and more in Robux.
Immersive experiences and community interactions
Immersive experiences require a full player sensory dimension. In this regard, Roblox has optimized cameras specifically for VR, adding the option to switch between first and third person perspectives. In addition, interactivity and instant feedback are also important sources of immersive experiences. Roblox supports multi-platform compatibility, players can play games and create games with players or friends through PCs, mobile devices, Xbox One and VR devices, and in Robloox, you can also use chat, private messages, groups and other functions to communicate with friends at any time.
Case two: Axie Infinity
Background: Released in March 2018, Axie Infinity is an online video game developed by Vietnamese studio Sky Mavis, Axie Infinity is set as a trading and combat game where players collect, breed, breed, fight, and trade creatures known as "Axies" and earn rewards by performing personal and community missions. According to axe Infinity, the platform's monthly revenue increased from $103,000 in January 2021 to $364 million in August of that year, and achieved 1 million daily active users, with a cumulative revenue of more than $600 million.
NFT-based game assets
The "Axies" creatures in the Axie Infinity platform exist in the form of NFTs. The benefit of NFTs is that the assets are not controlled by the company behind the game, the players truly enjoy ownership of the game assets and have the opportunity to profit by changing hands and trading, and the platform also supports the purchase of virtual land in the form of NFTs in the game.
In February 2022, CryptoSlam data showed that the NFT series of crypto metaverse game Axe Infinity was the first to reach $4 billion in sales, which is twice as much as the second-place CryptoPunks. According to CoinMarketCap, the highest price for a single "Axies" to date is 300 ether and is worth nearly $800,000.
"Play-to-earn" mode
Axie Infinity pioneered the concept of "play-to-earn" in the game, and the Axie Infinity platform has two tokens, Smoke Love Potion (SLP) and Axe Infinity Shards (AXS). Players are able to earn rewards in the form of AXS tokens and SLP tokens on the platform by winning battles and tournaments. SLP is a utility token that supports the breeding of digital pets "Axies", and AXS is a governance token that supports players to vote to participate in platform governance. According to the project timeline, Axie Infinity will become a fully decentralized organization based on AXS in 2023.
Interestingly, during the COVID-19 pandemic, a segment of the Filipino people have used playing games as their main source of income. In a Youtube micro-documentary called Play to Eran in May 2021, players in the video revealed that earning an average of more than $300 a month from Axie Infinity is already higher than the local average.
Case 3: Zhongqingbao "Master Brewer"
Background: On January 3, 2022, Li Ruijie, chairman of Zhongqingbao, shared a demo video of the H5 version of his meta-universe concept game "Brewmaster" on his Weibo, and said that before this version, the game had undergone five overthrows, but had "begun to approach" his request. Master Brewery is a cultivation game with a winery as the core, where players can "travel" back 100 years to China and participate in the production game by simulating the real winemaking process.
Connect offline wineries
Zhongqingbao took the lead in proposing the concept of "online brewing and offline wine collection, opening up virtual reality dream linkage", and launched an immersive and interactive virtual winemaking experience with "digital + wine culture". This game will open up the information closed loop between the distillery, liquor, games, and players. Zhongqingbao will cooperate with real-life wineries, and players will not only be able to experience the fun of the winemaking game, but also be able to turn the wine brewed in the game into a physical object.
The final liquor brewed in the game will be sent to the "tasting hall" for sale, so as to obtain actual revenue, and you can also directly take away the liquor you brewed and designed and packaged directly offline. In addition, the winery brand created by the player will also receive digital collection certification, which can not only be obtained through intra-circle auctions, but also can be mapped to the chain and auctioned on a larger platform.
Zhongqingbao Cooperative Distillery: Jinsha Ancient Wine Industry Co., Ltd. of Jinsha County, Guizhou Province
Social play
The gaming platform also offers social features for players. For example, players can click on a character to apply to join a guild, or propose to a friend at the Marriage Registry, or invite a friend to team up. In addition, the game also appeared in the demo of some out-of-game elements, such as real estate management, stall trading, liquor laboratory, office building, etc., the game or will become a platform to accommodate multiple application scenarios.
Case 4: Code "Restart the World"
Background: Similar to Roblox's vision of building a metaverse, Code Qiankun also wants to "restart the world" and create a metaverse. "Restart the World" is based on the interactive physics engine technology system independently developed by Beijing Code Qiankun, which is composed of two parts: a creative platform with a high degree of freedom and a social platform for young people with high participation.
A platform for creativity with a high degree of freedom
Similar to Roblox, Reboot World is also a platform for players to create games. The platform provides an editor for developing games, lowering the threshold for individual developers to make games. According to the official introduction, individual developers only need 6 hours to master the use of the platform, while the time to develop a simple game is only 2 days.
Physics engines help simulate reality
At present, the "restart the world" physics engine technology has obtained dozens of technical patents, with the help of the platform's physical engine technology, the platform can simulate the mechanics of the real world, such as collision, gravity, high-altitude acceleration and fall, vehicle impact and so on. Users can realize the production needs of different creative content without editing the code, such as feeling the real collision effect, and the platform can even be applied to simulation, architecture, computer and other fields.
In addition to the companies listed above, the track of the domestic meta-universe + game has begun to take shape. The projects that have been landed are as follows:
Baidu Letz Dog
Ali Ant Chain "Immortal Sword Meta Universe" (in research)
Baotong Technology "Final Front"
Huawei "Starlight Tower",
Century Huatong "Live Topia"
Mini Play Tech "Mini World"
In addition, game companies such as 37 Interactive Entertainment, MihaYou, NetEase Fuxi, Perfect World, Lilith Games, and Rookie Cloud Games have also revealed their determination to develop a meta-universe strategy, and more meta-universe games will emerge next.
Second, the meta-universe + game industry path preliminary exploration
Games are the closest form to the huge concept of the metaverse, and it is also the most mature field of the metaverse. The game platform created with the concept of metaverse is sought after by players, which also proves the feasibility of combining the game with the metacosm. The following will be based on the actual case of industrial integration, inventory of the development path of the combination of games and metaversics.
1. Create an immersive gaming experience
Immersive experience and interaction are the sensory manifestations of the metacosm and are essential features of the metacosm. Creating an immersive experience in a game platform is also a common effort of game manufacturers and platforms. Augmented reality technologies such as VR/AR can instantly mobilize the player's five senses, giving gamers an immersive sense of substitution, and in the future, the game will move from flat to three-dimensional. However, due to existing technology, augmented reality technology has not yet appeared in games. More common is physics engine technology, where player interactions with virtual space will also be more realistic by writing the rules of the physical world to the game platform.
2. From game as a service to game as a platform
One shift in the metaverse's integration with the game is that the user's relationship with the game will shift. In traditional games, the production rights and ownership of game content essentially belong to the game developer. Relying on technologies such as blockchain and NFT, as well as the concept of virtual-real symbiosis in the metaverse, game creators and players will be symbiotic, and games will also shift from services to platforms.
On the one hand, the game's content production rights will be returned to the user, and the platform supports players to use their imagination to develop and create the game by setting rules and providing code-free tools. This is similar to the way YouTube and Bilibili operate, and when content production is handed back to users, hundreds of millions of content producers will show amazing creativity.
On the other hand, the operation and management of the game is also returned to the user. The common practice is to issue platform governance tokens, so that users can participate in the construction and planning of the game platform through voting, and this decentralized management model will make the game platform belong to every user.
3. Build a game economic system
In his prospectus, Roblox proposes eight key features of the metaverse: Identity, Friends, Immersive, Low Friction, Variety, Anywhere, Economy, and Civility. Among them, economy and civilization have made metaverse games out of the category of traditional games.
Metaverse games come with an economic system. The assets of metaverse games can be represented by NFTs or digital collections, and NFTs issued on the blockchain can be used as credentials for digital assets. Pets, equipment, buildings, and even plots in the game metaverse can be represented in the form of NFTs or digital collections, and asset value can be measured and circulated.
The game's platform token is the medium for measuring and exchanging value within the metaverse, and also supports exchange for other cryptocurrencies or fiat currencies to open up the metaverse and the outside world. In addition, another important role of platform tokens is to give players greater rights. Users participate in platform governance through token voting, and the rules and civilizations in the metaverse can be jointly redefined by players.
4. Enhance the non-gaming experience
The metaverse concept is not limited to games, but encompasses a variety of activities within the physical world. Therefore, in the process of combining the metaverse with the game, the non-game experience will also be integrated into the game itself. Under this trend, activities such as social networking, virtual concerts, virtual shops, etc. will become more common in metaverse games.
The addition of non-game providers will enrich the form of the game metaverse, and the combination path with industry or business will enrich the game ecology, which will bring huge business opportunities to the game in the long run. On the other hand, activities such as social carnivals and virtual concerts further activate the social attributes of the game, and this non-gaming experience will also attract a group of non-gamers to join.
Third, the proposal for the meta-cosmology of the game industry
Although the feasibility of combining games with the metaverse has been preliminarily verified, the metacosmization of the game industry is still in its infancy, and both technology and content need to be further broken through and improved. On the other hand, with the development of the metacosmization of the game industry, intellectual property and copyright, as well as security and privacy issues will become more prominent in the later stages.
The "playability" of games is the basis for the metacosmization of the game industry. Whether the game content is team-generated or user-generated, how to develop or guide the fun of the game is the key to attracting players.
Increase efforts to develop meta-universe technologies. At present, the large-scale development and operation technology of the metaverse is not yet mature, which directly restricts the depth of the combination of the metaverse and the game.
Strengthen content moderation mechanisms to protect intellectual property rights and copyrights. User-generated content under Game as a Platform will involve more complex intellectual property and copyright protection issues, such as the misuse of IP.
Strengthen the security of the meta-universe game community. The virtual identity of the player in the metaverse game may involve identity theft, information harassment and other issues, and the metaverse's huge data tracking capabilities also involve user privacy protection.
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