FTX US in-depth research: What makes blockchain games "fun"?

1. Why are games fun?

To judge whether a blockchain game is fun, we must first define a "fun game". But the definitional hurdle is this: Everyone's situation is different, and every gamer is an individual with different needs and motivations . Game designer Nicole Lazzaro, in Why We Play: Four Keys to Players' Emotional Orientation, outlines the four top reasons why people play video games:

1. Inner experience:

We play video games to generate new thoughts and feelings . Forget your troubles and trade boredom for happiness. It feels so good. Think back to those happy times, playing your favorite console game for 8 hours straight on a snowy day, a summer of multiplayer games with friends, or even mindless app games you played while waiting in line. A video game is like a book, a movie, or a TV series, but more interactive than any of these media, it projects your consciousness into another dimension.

2. Challenge and sense of accomplishment:

People also engage in meaningful challenges in video games—chasing higher scores than they have before . Through 100+ hours of RPG (role-playing game) or achieving a top 1000 rank in a specific competitive game, these challenges provide a greater sense of accomplishment than can be gained from outside activities. A good game can provide a sense of challenge that is different from the real or perceived risk that the real world presents.

3. Immersion:

Slightly different from visceral experiences, immersion is full of surprises and mysteries . Part of the reason so many people enjoy gambling as a pastime (most casinos aren't actually that fun) is because gambling has its moments of anticipation and surprise. The dopamine rush we get from each apocalyptic moment in a game plays a big role in determining whether we find the game pleasurable or not.

4. Social experience:

A lot of people play mostly for socializing . In other words, we play video games just to play with friends or family -- not for the games themselves. This kind of gaming motivation has become common among young people, especially since the new crown epidemic has forced many people to stay at home. Because of this play motivation, people put the game itself in the second place, and what is more important is the ability of the game to bring people closer.

To answer "what makes a game fun" in a simpler way: most good games are a great mix of strategy and surprise. Chess is a game of pure strategy, whereas most children's games rely more on surprise . A game of poker is somewhere in between, because not only do players have some control, but unexpected things can happen (the cards you get) while you play. The human brain naturally likes controllable surprises, and games that can well balance individual players and surprises are often the most fun.

2. Blockchain games

Now that we have a general overview of "what makes games fun", let's explore how blockchain technology can make traditional games more fun. I'll start with the "traditional" video game case, and then add blockchain technology to the game to improve it.

Case 1: True Ownership of Digital Assets

NFThas captured the attention of the world because it is one of the best ways to prove ownership of digital assets, while it also reduces and decentralizes the difficulty for people in an ecosystem to buy/sell/trade assets. The technology to enable transactions already exists, but the technology is not the problem, the problem is the interoperability of the market.

Whether through very few legal platforms, or "gray market" transactions outside the game, it is technically possible for people to exchange things for other assets or money in the game, although there are many frictions and risks in the operation. But such deals generally only work within the same gaming ecosystem, for two core reasons.

First, the buyer/trader market is limited to a closed ecosystem for a particular game, rather than an open market that brings together all game assets and allows for swaps. This reduces liquidity. Secondly, although cash can serve as an equivalent in the transaction of items in two different game systems, cash does not have the authenticity and provenance guarantee like assets on the chain, and there is a high risk of fraud.

Examples of traditional games

Fortnite : Millions of people have become interested in collecting game skins in Fortnite, and game skins are also a core driver of Epic’s “free-to-play” game revenue. This is mostly about aesthetics, does not affect the actual game mechanics, and can overcome the player's fear of "play-to-win". For developers, this is also a valid and very important reference factor.

How ownership makes this game better

Fortnite game skins are a form of social expression . In the real world, we wear different clothes on different occasions as an extension of our identity. But we can only wear one piece of clothing at a time, and we still want to throw away or replace the ones we no longer want to wear. This metaphor can be extended to the skin in the Fortnite game. Fancy skin is a kind of state elasticity.

My friend might have a rare skin that I want, I might have what he wants, and maybe we both like and accept trading with each other, but the current system doesn't allow it. In addition to blockchain technology making this skin transaction easier to complete in the future, reducing the friction created by exchanging digital assets will also optimize the gaming experience. For many people, the fun of gaming comes from being social, and in a social environment, "image" is an important part of the player's enjoyment.

Placing higher bets further enhances the gaming experience . Imagine a scenario where the top 10 survivors in a 100-player battle royale match in Fortnite win a rare skin. You and your friend both entered the contest, and she ended up winning the skin you really wanted. Then your friend sent you the skin because she knew how much you wanted that skin. This digital asset represents a small memory of two people, a kindness and a moment of fun. This what-if scenario can't happen yet, but it will happen in the near future!

Case 2: Proof of Achievement:

One of the most overlooked opportunities in blockchain gaming is single-player narrative games . Since the cryptosphere is extremely focused on transactions, most developers are working on MMORPGs (massively multiplayer online role-playing games), FPS (first-person shooter games), and strategy games. These types of games usually have a larger player base and are great for building an economy between players. But that doesn't mean the next game like The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim or Horizon Zero Dawn shouldn't be built on-chain.

A growing trend in the last year has been the use of POAP (Proof of Achievement) . Simply put, it’s a verifiable asset that confirms that someone (or someone who controls a wallet) participated in an activity. Real-world physical equivalents could be conference badges or concert band posters.

This proof provides a natural crossover for gaming . If you search for content related to a specific game on social platforms, you will see countless screenshots and short videos of game content. The reason for this is that people like to show off their achievements in the game . The content may be to defeat a big boss battle , find a good way to complete tasks, or just fun things to do in the game, such as designing the game environment as a set of memes.

Examples of traditional games

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild : Small games like Wordle make it easy for people to share achievements, but a single-player story-driven game gives players hundreds or thousands of moments to show Their victories and hilarious failures along the way. One of my personal favorites is The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, a modern take on the classic adventure game. The game requires you to explore a world, defeat some monsters, and solve maddening puzzles. Gamers today typically share these personal moments by posting screenshots of their Nintendo Switch to social media. The most startling or impressive moments often get viral attention, flickering in and out of ever-growing digital content.

How POAPmakes this game even better

First, when someone shares content from a game, no one can be sure if the post was copied from somewhere else . Most of the time this transfer is legal, but 100% verifiably legal performance helps the game build greater resilience. Like old arcade games and top scorers, this one cannot be faked. The player named "AZZ" who scored 1,069,420 points in Galaga is the best player in the game.

Even more important than verification is putting the proof of achievement of a single-player game on-chain . Being on-chain helps transform a single-player experience into a more competitive gaming experience. Overcoming in-game challenges is a great internal achievement, and sharing this via screenshots expands it into a social achievement. Competitive achievements will be further realized on the blockchain through verifiable proofs.

If your goal is to beat Breath of the Wild faster than anyone else on the planet, a game that tracks, verifies, and publicly displays this data will give players an indisputable way to prove their title. This does not affect any other participants and does not rely on economic incentives. Blockchain can bring pure optionality and added joy to gaming. That being said, it would be all the more exciting to see game publishers giving some of their profits back to the top players who achieved the aforementioned achievements in their games.

Case 3: Game Economy:

The game economy is the largest area of development, investment and analysis for blockchain games . With the release of Diablo II and Runescape in the early 2000s, a mature digital economy has existed for decades. The game economy makes games more immersive, challenging, and adds to the social experience. Blockchain gaming can revolutionize game economics, but it is also the hardest system to incorporate on-chain dynamics. Building a game economy that has nothing to do with "real world" value is already difficult, let alone adding immutability and hard currency to a fictional economy.

Technical, regulatory, and competitive challenges aside, this type of blockchain gaming creates an opportunity for games to create a seamless exchange between currencies such as time, attention, and money. The biggest challenge in analyzing what makes MMORPGs fun is that players have all kinds of different needs. One could argue that while all four of Lazarro's motivations clearly exist in this type of game, "making money" will become an even stronger motivation as demand for digital assets grows. Another friend said to me, "The value created in the game is like actually owning a house instead of renting it. When I actually own a house, I appreciate the time, money and money I put into laying the floors or painting the bedrooms." Satisfied with skills. I spend an inordinate amount of time, money, and energy because this is my house, which is both my expression, my "love" place, and a store of value."

Therefore, the delicate balance that needs to be struck with the on-chain game economy is as follows:

· The game's economic incentives must not compromise the experience of those players who choose not to exchange currency.

· A game economy should reflect the direction/desire of the majority of its community (free players and owners), unless such mandates conflict with the First Law.

· A game should maximize the value of its various economic units, unless such a mechanic conflicts with the First or Second Law.

To emphasize, the above balance cannot be underestimated because it is difficult to establish.

Examples of traditional games

World of Warcraft : Core gamers can get very emotional when certain gameplay elements are nerfed or buffed. This feeling is even stronger when the change involves the entire game economy system. Leaving aside the specific mechanics of how the in-game economy works, the bigger discontent is with who is making the decisions, rather than the reaction to how the economy works. In World of Warcraft, we've seen decades of player anger against Blizzard because the game's economic decisions have always been centralized.

How the blockchain game economy can make this game more interesting

First of all, it should be emphasized that the game should not be designed by the committee. The ideas of game creators are very important and worth preserving, which is the main reason why many sandbox games with too few parameters cannot become popular. Game studios should be responsible for developing characters, stories, and key mechanics. The latter may of course rely heavily on the game economy, and even then, I still think the game's central power should reign supreme. The role of the blockchain should be involved after the start-up of the game economy, and this is where the fun of the game is improved.

Just as Bitcoin is no longer dependent on its original creator, Satoshi Nakamoto, the well-designed game economy in an MMORPG such as World of Warcraft should be less dependent on its original creator. Just as the real world is slowly but surely moving away from the concept of central banks, trustless and player-controlled game economies will inevitably attract the largest player base and maximize gaming fun.

‍As mentioned earlier, these types of games incentivize players in a variety of ways, and players put value into the game in return. Today’s traditional games are an investment of time and attention, tomorrow’s best blockchain games will provide an opportunity for an investment of time, attention, and money, all while carefully balancing the three to ensure one doesn’t overwhelm the other. Not only would such a game be fun, but the act of letting the community play a big role in maintaining the balance would be a new form of fun. Does this all have to be achieved using blockchain technology? Not necessarily, but game studios that choose to use blockchain technology will have a competitive advantage over those that simply ask players to "trust us."

Case 4: Community Ownership and Collaboration

My friend Zeke used to have to drive across Pennsylvania to play tournaments in his beloved fighting game, spending 3-4 hours on the way to win $50. For him it's not about the money, it's about being able to see his friends in the community. Video games have the uncanny ability to bring people together and coordinate them, both online and offline.

Examples of traditional games

‍Super Smash Bros .: There is a special part of the Smash Bros. community worth dissecting. Top players tend to have a preference for specific characters in the game, as each character is very differently balanced and has different strengths and weaknesses. Most players refer to these specific characters as their "main line". In Smash, allying with mainline characters is like being part of a PFP community, like Cryptopunks or Doodles. Players love to show off how good their particular character is, and they love to poke fun at those who choose what they consider to be an inferior character.

How community ownership and collaboration make this game more fun

Because Smash Bros. is a mashup of existing intellectual property owned and monetized by major game publishers, the idea that the community of players will be rewarded for their preference for mainline characters is impossible. For the sake of this idea though, we can assume that Mario, Sonic, Cloud, and Solid Snake are all characters co-owned by different DAOs, similar to the ApeCoin community created for the Boring Ape Club.

A game like Smash relies heavily on careful balance, with no one character being more powerful than the others. This should be left to a central authority, and every good game needs to start with certain rules. At the end of the day, the rules become the game, not the story, characters, community, etc. But we can imagine how interesting it would be if a large group of supporters and owners of mainline characters were qualified to manage and decide other things, such as aesthetics, IP usage. Also, things like bounties for recruiting and training new members for specific characters outside of the game; earnings from tournaments, streaming, and other economic activity driven by players sharing in the popularity of their mainline in Smash; and so on. Of course this is also an assumption, the blockchain integration has absolutely zero impact on the game itself and will only provide benefits to the player.

Case 5: Prize distribution and competition (and gambling)

Humans are wired to gamble, and blockchain technology could make gambling in video games easier. The viability of gambling in video games is not up for debate as it is already widely accepted in most Western societies among other activities. More importantly, how blockchain (as well as traditional) video games can improve game fun and fairness through blockchain technology.

Examples of traditional games

‍‍Rocket League : Rocket League is a fast competitive game between two teams trying to score as many goals as possible. Players can choose "casual" mode, which gives people the option to simply enjoy the game or score for ranking. But for the top players, there is also a major RL tournament with cash prizes for those who win it.

How prize payouts and competition make this game more fun

‍While these modest rewards for players in Rocket League benefit participants and tournament organizers, fans are often left out . One of the main reasons Fantasy Football is so popular in the US is that it makes the spectator sport of football more fun by getting spectators involved in the game, whether it's money play or just bragging rights.

Blockchain technology simplifies and enhances fan engagement in a myriad of ways that can be an element of "fun" added to a core game without compromising the game itself. Oracles can help ensure that in-game activity is authenticated and viewable by all participants, without the need for a referee to verify results. The L2 solution can ensure that fans can place small bets quickly without incurring disproportionate fees, and that tournaments can pay out various digital assets as rewards. Unlike Fantasy Football sports platforms that offer cash rewards to players for successful results, the blockchain-based distribution system can also reward participants with rare NFTs that have utility in the game to provide players with access to online/offline events .

3. Reminders to blockchain game developers

· Over 10,000 new games are released every week on Steam alone. Are these games fun? Most of them aren't really fun, or they're just copies of other successful games. Not all blockchain games are fun because not all games are fun. It's really hard to make games. When someone asks you if blockchain games are really fun, you talk about mechanics, lore, and art, not blockchain. The biggest mistake I see blockchain games make is that their websites show financial incentives and details instead of how the game is played.

Blockchain games don’t need to scale to a player base comparable to traditional games because of their funding sources and players that increase in value over time . A game's "fun factor" shouldn't be measured by the number of players it has. The reason so many traditional video games have huge player numbers is because most of their players don't spend a lot of money on the game. Use or create a game that is more suitable for you to bring players indicators of blockchain technology.

Most people know that financial rewards are a prop, but don't be afraid to use this prop for fear of being criticized as "artificially luring players" . The reality is that traditional games spend a lot of money on user acquisition through ads, referral programs, fan payments, and discounts, they just milk their users in a different way. Ideally, your game is fun enough to attract new players, but don't criticize blockchain games for user acquisition costs. Most free-to-play games will spend 100% of their revenue on marketing in the first few years as they are chasing terminal LTV (customer lifetime value). Redistributing this spending is actually a positive optimization of the industry, putting it in the hands of players rather than advertisers.

Aesthetics and identity are very powerful monetization elements in blockchain games. Creating a game economy is difficult because it can seriously affect the enjoyment of the game. Changing the appearance of something in the game doesn't change how it plays. Fortnite is a free-to-play game, and your studio can do the same, focusing on unique game mechanics that can be enhanced with blockchain, rather than being forced into every crevice of the game.

Go back to the original introduction of this article to make sure you know how to talk about the "fun" of a game. Develop your awareness as a game designer, design small games for fun, play games made by others and examine them with a critical eye, and finally focus on the moments in the game that make you happiest. When someone asks you if a game is actually fun, don't be mean and ask them, "How do you define fun?" Instead, use the appropriate mental model to help them draw a reasonable conclusion.

It's play time!

Author: FTX.US

Original link: https://ftx.us/insights/what-makes-a-blockchain-game-fun

Compile: Deep Tide TechFlow