Foreword
In the dull crypto market on the eve of the interest rate cut, TON is one of the few public chains that has allowed people to continue Fomo for several months. It is a social platform with 900 million users, tens of millions of GameFi users, dozens of times increase in Notcoin, a huge number of users to be developed, and the most friendly migration platform for mini-programs. However, the views of all parties on TON seem to be parallel.
● Some VCs only watch but do not invest, while some VCs join studios to jointly operate projects.
● Some CEXs adopt a light operation strategy in Tg, and some CEXs develop mini-programs to attract traffic.
● Web2 mini-program and mini-game developers continue to pour in, while Web3 developers, especially the top public chain developers, may be watching.
In fact, the main reason for people's Fomo is that the TON ecosystem has the GameFi project with the influence of expanding the circle. Tens of millions of users are very attractive to the project party, so this issue will observe the hot GameFi track of the TON ecosystem.
Inventory of the gameplay and economic model of the top GameFi
NotCoin
The main gameplay of Notcoin is to earn coins by clicking on the mobile phone screen. It adopts the Tap to Earn mechanism, which has attracted a large number of users to enter Web3. Since its launch on January 1, 2024, Notcoin has become one of the most popular and most user-intensive channels on Telegram. The community is extremely popular, with more than 30 million participants, more than 6 million Telegram groups, and an average daily active user peak of more than 5 million.
Gameplay
Players can access the Notcoin game through the Telegram app. The basic operation of the game is to click on the coins on the screen to accumulate Notcoin, as follows:
● Earn coins: Every time you click on the coins that appear on the screen, you will earn coins. Occasionally, a rocket icon will appear to speed up the upgrade process, providing a temporary speed-up effect.
● Energy mechanism: Clicking operations are limited by the energy bar, and each click consumes energy. Energy is gradually restored when the player pauses the operation, which increases the strategy because the player needs to manage energy use to optimize the efficiency of clicking.
● Buffs and upgrades: Players can obtain or purchase buffs through in-game operations, which can temporarily increase the efficiency of clicking or speed up the recovery of energy. This includes full energy recovery, acceleration, and multiple clicks.
● Social and promotional mechanisms: Notcoin encourages players to share the game with friends through invitation links, which can increase the amount of Notcoin players earn. In addition, achieving certain achievements or joining specific groups can also get additional rewards.
● Leagues: There are five levels of leagues in the game: bronze, silver, gold, platinum and diamond. When a certain score threshold is reached, players will automatically be promoted to higher leagues and receive rewards. League points are different from the total gold coin balance and only count the number of clicks.
● Earn tasks: For each task completed, players will earn Notcoin. Users need to subscribe to encrypted channels, test websites, games, etc. Some tasks may only take time, while others require at least 7 TON in the Telegram wallet.
Token Economic Model:
Maximum token supply: 102,719,221,714 NOT, initial circulation supply: 102,719,221,714 NOT (full circulation)
Notcoin distributes the vast majority of tokens to the community, which mines through Tap to Earn, with a total of more than 78%, project development accounting for only 5%, and no investor share.
Image source:Alfred
Notcoin is a GameFi model created by multiple stakeholders, with strong MEME attributes and strong capital operation. The early white paper was a blank page, which was also a unique MEME element that the team intentionally created.
Pixelverse
Pixelverse is a game ecosystem and entertainment company with a cyberpunk background. The project received US$5.5 million in financing on June 12, 2022, and its main investors include well-known investment institutions such as Delphi Ventures, Merit Circle, Mechanism Capital and Foresight Ventures. Currently, Pixelverse has more than 15 million registered users and more than 5 million daily active users.
How to play (TG version):
● Basic gameplay:After entering the Telegram mini-game PixelTap, click Launch to enter the game page. The number of gold coins held is displayed in the upper left corner of the main page, and the number of tokens that can be collected daily is displayed on the right. Gold coins can be collected once every 8 hours, and up to three times a day.
● Invitation system:Invite friends with Telegram premium members to receive 10,000 gold coins and 3 times the welcome bonus. Permanently receive 5% of the bonus of the invitee, and an additional 3% bonus earned by the second-level downline within 3 days.The weekly invitation ranking list is ranked according to the number of referrals invited in a week. The higher the ranking, the more rewards you get.
● Battle system: You can see the robot pet on the battle page. The pet has three attributes: battery (energy value), lightning (energy charging speed) and strength (attack power). Upgrading the pet can improve the attribute and combat power. Each upgrade increases the value by 5 points randomly, and the gold coins required for upgrading gradually increase. In PVP battles, quickly click on the circle to deduct the opponent's health. When the guessing session appears, choose the attack or defense part. After winning, you will get gold coins.
● Reward system: Answer questions every day and place the pet according to the answer to get rewards. The more consecutive sign-in days, the more rewards you will get. Complete challenge tasks (such as inviting friends) and social tasks (such as retweeting and liking tweets) to get gold coins.
Currently, the mainstream GameFi projects on TON all use the Telegram premium membership system to judge the quality of invited users, because invitations are an important part of fission and account for most of the distribution of tokens and other rewards. With the help of the Tg membership system, users with paying potential can be more accurately rewarded, but if the proportion of non-premium members is too high, it will also reduce the fairness and incentive effect of the game. After all, the cost of registering a Telegram account is extremely low.
Token economic model: Total supply of tokens: 5 billion
● Used for in-game transactions, production and combat.
● With a deflation mechanism
● PIXFI will become the main token for transactions on Pixelchain, acting as a gas token.
● Integrate with Pixelverse SDK to help game development and expansion.
40% of the total amount of PIXFI tokens will be used for user market and user expansion, which is a reasonable allocation for projects with infrastructure planning (Pixelchain). However, at the time of writing this article, the PIXFI token fell 24% in 24 hours, and the rationality of the token economic model should also be paid attention to.
Catizen
Catizen is a casual idle cat chain game based on the TON ecosystem, developed by the Pluto Studio team, and is the first game on its GameFi platform. This game combines leisure and entertainment with innovative gameplay. Through the "PLAY-TO-AIRDROP" mode, players can enjoy the game while searching for tokens in the cat universe.
Gameplay:
● In the game, players fill the grid in the game by purchasing low-level cats (spending corresponding gold coins by clicking "Generate") or waiting for airdrops (one every few tens of seconds).
● Two cats of the same level can be combined into a higher-level cat. This method can increase the level of the cat and increase the number of cat coins (Vkitty coins) it produces.
● Players can participate in staking mining with high-level cats to further increase their income and participation.
In-game assets:
● Cats: Starting from the lowest level, players can upgrade the level of cats through synthesis, up to level 450.
● Vkitty coin: The currency produced by cats, the output rate is proportional to the level and number of cats, and can also be obtained through fishing.
● Fish coin: Can be used in the feed to buy cats, go fishing, get the maximum amount of airdrops for dogs, ducks and frogs, participate in staking, etc. Fish coins can be purchased with US dollars in the store or obtained through in-game activities (such as fishing).
Token Economic Model:
Catizen announced on July 15 that it will provide 1% of the strategic allocation of tokens to player users, which means that its airdrop share will be increased to 43% to give back to the community's support during the Catizen Vibe - Heal the World event.
Catizen is similar to Pixelverse, covering the "junk time" of casual players and attracting users who like to accumulate gameplay. After its token is listed, the incentive sustainability of the economic system can be observed. Because most of its users are Web2 users, the time cost is relatively low, and the economic value return requirements are also low, user retention is not expected to fluctuate significantly.
Hamster Kombat
Hamster Kombat is a management simulation game from Tap2Earn that is simple to operate. Daily tasks include clicking on hamsters to earn coins and collecting cards for mining. In Russia, the game became popular due to videos made by KOLs on TikTok, attracting a large number of Web2 users. According to reports, it has now reached more than 100 million users. In addition, Hamster Kombat's YouTube channel reached 10 million followers in just 7 days. The number of followers on Twitter is close to 10 million, and the number of followers on the official Telegram channel exceeds 40 million. It is reported that Hamster Kombat will release a token in July, and the token name is HMSTR.
Get Game Points
● Each tap earns one basic point, and the basic energy value is 1500. After the energy is exhausted, you need to wait for automatic recovery. There are 6 opportunities for instant "recovery" every day, and each use must be separated by 60 minutes.
Improvement function:
● Multitap function: Each tap earns more points.
● Energy Limit function: Increase energy capacity.
● Passive income mechanism: Increase passive income every hour by purchasing or upgrading cards. Passive income is only valid within three hours after the player exits the game. If the timeout period expires, the player needs to re-enter the game to continue mining.
● Players can get a large number of points rewards by synthesizing cards. The synthesis rules are updated every day to encourage community interaction and cooperation.
● For each friend invited, ordinary Telegram users can earn 2,000 points, Telegram Premium users can earn 25,000 points, and the invitee will also earn the same number of points. When the invitee reaches a certain level, the inviter can unlock additional rewards.
Hamster Kombat's token economic model has not yet been announced.
Conclusion
The chain game on TON is easy to play, the economic system is direct and effective, and the communication efficiency is high. The success of Notcoin itself is not replicable, but the result of the joint efforts of multiple parties. Tg, TON, and CEX only let developers see that this can be successful, but developers must also realize whether they have the necessary resources and evaluate their own strength. If they lack the necessary resources, blindly imitating the head projects will only waste time, energy and development resources. As a large number of project parties pour into the TON game track, if there is no reasonable expectation and healthy development, the end of the battle will also happen in the near future.
Currently, the game token economic system of the TON ecosystem mainly follows the operating logic of the MEME token for the following reasons:
● It is impossible to accurately evaluate the economic value of user interaction behavior. Tap 2 Earn does not have the quantifiability and fairness of Stake 2 Earn and other methods
● The user's time cost is relatively low, and the contribution to the interactive economic value that can be made is limited. The sustainability of the economic system remains to be seen
● The closed loop of the economic model is not easy to achieve, that is, the tokens are not easy to be fairly distributed according to the user's initial economic contribution and the play-to-earn system
Of course, the above is also the characteristic of the GameFi project, entertainment first.
GameFi projects in the TON ecosystem generally reserve token shares for KOLs. If there is targeted cooperation and investment, it can more actively connect with user groups with high consumption potential, but more complex and active game logic should also be integrated into subsequent game upgrades.
The current common means to stimulate in-game consumption is to increase the points acquisition multiplier, but it raises the performance expectations of tokens and places high demands on the capital operation capabilities of the project party. Since TON ecological game projects have stronger MEME attributes, at least a mild or even bullish crypto market atmosphere is needed to facilitate TGE in order to further market making, which is also the reason why most GameFi tokens have been postponed in the near future.
Finally, for traffic demanders, the number of game users has yet to be verified. As GameFi connects to a wider range of Web2 users, the economic attributes of users are also decreasing, and traffic costs should be priced with a new logic. From an investor's perspective, it is not easy to regard GameFi tokens as market blue chips, but rather as a MEME token.