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Insight and Thinking
RTS and Blockchain Gaming
Background
Takeaway from his video and our convo
b. With some extrapolation based on ladder plays, we could expect some over 2M MAU in 2022, a truly astonishing number for a game that’s over 12 yrs old.
2. Similar to our instinct, we would expect a 80-20 law of SC2 players: 20% are hardcore players in the ladder system, and the rest are enjoying Arcade and (original or customized) campaign. This is from a 8000-response survey GGG pooled to a gaming community
3. Success of previous RTS lies in three core pillar
a. Engine: pathing of units, control, grouping, queuing, collision box, etc. Note, not all “bad engine” creates “bad experience”, as the Dragoon Pathing, Mutalisk attack-and-move move in Starcraft 1 was actually an iconic thing that established some elitism among pro-players. However, these things must not significantly impact user experience (e.g. expensive and cool units stool and couldn’t move due to collision box)
b. Spectacle: battle effect, magic, nuke, building, sound, CG, etc. Professional SC2 competition is very entertaining due to its spectacular visual experience. With improved CG technology, there were once a statement popular in the community, “Blizzard should make a movie”! See
c. Dev Tool: This not only allows officials to push out new map, mode, arcade games fasher, but it also allows the commuinty to engage in UGC, which is the key to many early game’s success: CS 1.6, Warcraft (DOTA was born out of this), SC2, Minecraft. This, if you want to use the word metaverse, is the core building block for people to build the fantasy they are imagining and co-living it with people. In fact, properly used Dev Tool is the key to UGC: refer to Douyin, Bilibili, and more mainstream media company. By lowering the bar to participate, a richer in/outgame dynamics will be created. Community creators will transform your RTS game to a moba, tower defense, mmorpg, hero arena, mario party, cat and mouse, unit spawning, tug of war, card game, mafia, etc
4. 【My thinking】It is in fact that community joins the creation of an IP because of something, if they could. SCII was the best in cinamatic at the time, and even until now. The animation and CG and stuff hugely attracted new players into this game. Once they realize there are super cool designs like Colossus, thor, battlecruiser, baneling, infestor —- all are splendid unit design with cool arts, they stay for this Sci-Fi journey.
Looking ahead to Blockchain Gaming
P2E has offered a new incentive paradigm shift for users to engage in a gaming journey. Trade-able in-game assets, powered by the blockchain technology, promised a more economically benefiting infrastructure for the future of gaming. However, we must also recognize the short-hand at the current moment.
Axie Infinity was great, but it was just p2e and, before Ronin, more like a ponzi. I recognize most of the players nowdays talk about it in monetary term, but not truly appreciating the characters and the stories behind them. Many more web3 entertainment studio/project emerged, including something like , who features mass participation in deciding the proceed of its story, but consequential to their genre selection or general technological hindrance, community engagement couldn’t be reached to a deeper sense and only stayed at some shallow surface. I believe this kind of lack in infrastructure /design could never support the revolution of gamefi: from p2e to play-for-fun-then-earn. The cultural value within the setting/storyline is just simply inconsequential in comparison to the p2e value at the current stage, despite everyone’s talking about this bright future.
Note, this analysis stems from the pov of RTS gaming. Some games, like League, are meant to have a closed in-game experience loop, where the designer decides the proceed. Games like this (which is a trait modern games also share, like Genshin Impact, Kantai Collection, Uma Usume, Azur Lane, etc) are indeed more suitable for money making, because RTS are known for its difficulty to make continuous revenue from users, whereas Genshin is literally swimming in money. However, blockchain is here to completely change and define how the future of game economic model looks through tokenomics, so game developers maybe should really focus on the above mentioned topics: good engine, good art, and adequate tool for truely valuable UGC, to really drive GameFi home to its holy grail.
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