Chain games are a very unique track. Fast forward to this year, 2024, if you are like me, a casual chain gamer (meaning you don't focus primarily on following the chain gaming track and instead spend a lot of time actually playing chain games), your impression of chain games may be that they are becoming more refined and enjoyable to play.
In the past, the gold farming mode in the blockchain games we were familiar with was probably:
There is a cost to enter. For example, Wolf Game and StepN, the earlier you enter, the lower the entry cost, and the later you enter, the higher it is.
The value of TOKEN highly depends on its consumption. Or at least it can be said that players care a lot about this.
Based on these two points, there have been countless discussions about the "death spiral" problem.
But in fact, many of the money-making chain game projects this year are no longer in the same mode as before.
Viewing the investment ideas of chain game assets from Pirate Nation
One of the most typical examples is Pirate Nation, where even if you enter the game 1 long month before the Token is issued, you can still earn hundreds of U. Recently, Pirate Nation has also received more attention due to its Non-fungible Token series and the independent market trend of Token $PIRATE.
After the TGE selling pressure, $PIRATE has steadily pumped for the past 1 month
Floor prices for the Non-fungible Token series have also reached new highs
Why can Pirate Nation succeed? There are three main reasons:
The team has a strong background and has received large-scale financing support. The game studio behind it, Proof of Play, announced in September last year that it had completed a $33 million financing round led by Greenoaks Capital and a16z Crypto. CEO Amitt Mahajan was formerly a development engineer at Epic Games, the development director at Zynga, and co-founder of one of Zynga's flagship games, FarmVille (the prototype of 'QQ Farm').
The game's update iteration speed is fast.
Regulation of Token acquisition is well executed.
That being said, coming back to the main theme of this article, where are the opportunities for Light Chain players? From the above Floor Price trend of the Non-fungible Token series, we can see that Pirate Nation's TGE was only in June this year, and its Non-fungible Token series has been hovering around 0.15 ETH for a long month even after announcing a large amount of financing. Buying at that time and holding until now, apart from the $PIRATE shares obtained, has yielded close to 10x returns.
This is the current train of thought for many Non-fungible Token players who are investing in blockchain game Non-fungible Token assets - looking for blockchain projects with large financing and a reliable background team, speculating on the future Token. As long as the team keeps updating frequently and not lying low, when the Token expectations are officially announced, many investors who do not follow the project itself but only follow market news will come in to "boost the market".
The current 'Play 2 Earn' is more like 'Play 2 Airdrop'
Why can Pirate Nation's Non-fungible Tokens still experience a big pump after TGE? Here is a difference between now and the past blockchain games. Previous blockchain games usually had a dual token model, an in-game token with no supply limit and a governance token. The project team had to keep regulating it as the number of players increased rapidly, and in the end, it became uncontrollable. But tokens like Pirate Nation's $PIRATE are in-game tokens with a supply limit. They were uniformly distributed to players as rewards during TGE. Want to go long? Then keep playing the game.
And, Pirate Nation will also do a series of game infrastructures. Now, staking $PIRATE can also earn Proof of Play points. What if they release another Token for the infrastructure in the future? The valuation will definitely be higher than just the chain game project itself. So from this perspective, we can easily think of Blur and Blast. Although Blur is not a chain game, it follows the same pattern - first, there is a mature product (Non-fungible Token market), trading in the market to obtain Tokens, and finally, launch a chain (Blast) to keep users staying in the ecosystem continuously.
Playing games, but Token rewards are not settled immediately, but are left to a certain time for Nodes to distribute collectively. This approach has almost become a trend, so there have been significant changes in investment strategies. Compared to Axie, which involves working with studios and ambushes the NFT assets of the blockchain gaming track, and then adopts a casual but serious approach to experiencing the game as a game itself rather than a gold-farming tool, it is a new path for light-chain gamers to obtain profits in this track.
Last year, the Parallel PFP series could be obtained for free by winning a total of 25 matches using various races, but later the floor price rose above 1 ETH. This year, the first token reward event of The Beacon is obtained by playing games and participating in social tasks. The TGE needs to wait for another half a year, and they also sell the token shares in the form of non-fungible tokens. To obtain the subscription token shares, you still need to play the game. Nevertheless, with a token FDV of approximately 20 million, the subsequent 10,000 non-fungible tokens that can obtain tokens were sold out at a price of 0.115 ETH, and the price of their pet non-fungible tokens also rose due to players' demand.
The mindset of light-chain players: returning from "games" to crypto projects from an observational perspective
So the criteria for judging whether a blockchain game project can make money has also undergone certain changes:
Playability is certainly important, but the quality of the game itself is not the determining factor in whether or not it can make money. The topic of the game quality is the key.
The project itself cannot indiscriminately issue Non-fungible Token assets to dilute the value of the Token. The clearer and more decisive the project's positioning and maintenance of the Non-fungible Token series and the actions to empower this series (Token shares), the better.
It is best to be able to calculate the FDV clearly, and everyone will compare it by themselves. As long as it appears cost-effective compared to the 'PPT project', there will be no shortage of people willing to give it a try.
The least cost-effective operation is when a blockchain game becomes popular and we can see a bunch of people discussing it on any social media before we go gold farming. At this point, it is already difficult for casual blockchain gamers to have substantial income. We can choose not to play blockchain games, but we need to liberate our mindset of observing blockchain game projects from the positioning of 'games' and observe them from the perspective of Crypto projects. Can the financing and team situation of this project attract follow? Can the content presented by this project (gameplay) attract follow? If this project has a TOKEN, does the current valuation have good enough odds in our opinion?
Even now, there are still many chain game projects whose Token activities can be participated in by completing social media tasks. This type of project has been mentioned in my previous article (related reading: 4 projects worth trying with low intensity, 6 projects worth trying with low intensity | E02), among which the Non-fungible Token series of Super Champs, mentioned earlier, has risen by about 50%. (This does not constitute any investment advice, and I will also try my best to explore more long-chain game projects for everyone in the future)
Overall, the current income in the chain game project is to exchange time for space. Compared with the Solana meme Token or BTC ecosystem infrastructure, the chain game is not at the same level in terms of follow-up degree and market focus, but everyone loves Token, so there will be information difference in the chain game assets related to Token. When they are not followed by the market, it is possible to ambush targets with high potential and relatively cheap, and it is possible to continue to hold or participate in the game when the market responds, with the option to attack or defend. In essence, the chain game project is also a Crypto project, so we don't really need to spend a particularly long time playing games. Playing games itself is more like investment research on chain game projects, which can help us judge whether the team is reliable and whether the future can gain enough market attention.
The content is for reference only, not a solicitation or offer. No investment, tax, or legal advice provided. See Disclaimer for more risks disclosure.
Investment Ideas for Current Blockchain Gaming Projects Based on Independent Market Analysis of Pirate Nation - ChainCatcher
Author: Cookie, BlockBeats
Chain games are a very unique track. Fast forward to this year, 2024, if you are like me, a casual chain gamer (meaning you don't focus primarily on following the chain gaming track and instead spend a lot of time actually playing chain games), your impression of chain games may be that they are becoming more refined and enjoyable to play.
In the past, the gold farming mode in the blockchain games we were familiar with was probably:
Based on these two points, there have been countless discussions about the "death spiral" problem.
But in fact, many of the money-making chain game projects this year are no longer in the same mode as before.
Viewing the investment ideas of chain game assets from Pirate Nation
One of the most typical examples is Pirate Nation, where even if you enter the game 1 long month before the Token is issued, you can still earn hundreds of U. Recently, Pirate Nation has also received more attention due to its Non-fungible Token series and the independent market trend of Token $PIRATE.
After the TGE selling pressure, $PIRATE has steadily pumped for the past 1 month
Floor prices for the Non-fungible Token series have also reached new highs
Why can Pirate Nation succeed? There are three main reasons:
That being said, coming back to the main theme of this article, where are the opportunities for Light Chain players? From the above Floor Price trend of the Non-fungible Token series, we can see that Pirate Nation's TGE was only in June this year, and its Non-fungible Token series has been hovering around 0.15 ETH for a long month even after announcing a large amount of financing. Buying at that time and holding until now, apart from the $PIRATE shares obtained, has yielded close to 10x returns.
This is the current train of thought for many Non-fungible Token players who are investing in blockchain game Non-fungible Token assets - looking for blockchain projects with large financing and a reliable background team, speculating on the future Token. As long as the team keeps updating frequently and not lying low, when the Token expectations are officially announced, many investors who do not follow the project itself but only follow market news will come in to "boost the market".
The current 'Play 2 Earn' is more like 'Play 2 Airdrop'
Why can Pirate Nation's Non-fungible Tokens still experience a big pump after TGE? Here is a difference between now and the past blockchain games. Previous blockchain games usually had a dual token model, an in-game token with no supply limit and a governance token. The project team had to keep regulating it as the number of players increased rapidly, and in the end, it became uncontrollable. But tokens like Pirate Nation's $PIRATE are in-game tokens with a supply limit. They were uniformly distributed to players as rewards during TGE. Want to go long? Then keep playing the game.
And, Pirate Nation will also do a series of game infrastructures. Now, staking $PIRATE can also earn Proof of Play points. What if they release another Token for the infrastructure in the future? The valuation will definitely be higher than just the chain game project itself. So from this perspective, we can easily think of Blur and Blast. Although Blur is not a chain game, it follows the same pattern - first, there is a mature product (Non-fungible Token market), trading in the market to obtain Tokens, and finally, launch a chain (Blast) to keep users staying in the ecosystem continuously.
Playing games, but Token rewards are not settled immediately, but are left to a certain time for Nodes to distribute collectively. This approach has almost become a trend, so there have been significant changes in investment strategies. Compared to Axie, which involves working with studios and ambushes the NFT assets of the blockchain gaming track, and then adopts a casual but serious approach to experiencing the game as a game itself rather than a gold-farming tool, it is a new path for light-chain gamers to obtain profits in this track.
Last year, the Parallel PFP series could be obtained for free by winning a total of 25 matches using various races, but later the floor price rose above 1 ETH. This year, the first token reward event of The Beacon is obtained by playing games and participating in social tasks. The TGE needs to wait for another half a year, and they also sell the token shares in the form of non-fungible tokens. To obtain the subscription token shares, you still need to play the game. Nevertheless, with a token FDV of approximately 20 million, the subsequent 10,000 non-fungible tokens that can obtain tokens were sold out at a price of 0.115 ETH, and the price of their pet non-fungible tokens also rose due to players' demand.
The mindset of light-chain players: returning from "games" to crypto projects from an observational perspective
So the criteria for judging whether a blockchain game project can make money has also undergone certain changes:
The least cost-effective operation is when a blockchain game becomes popular and we can see a bunch of people discussing it on any social media before we go gold farming. At this point, it is already difficult for casual blockchain gamers to have substantial income. We can choose not to play blockchain games, but we need to liberate our mindset of observing blockchain game projects from the positioning of 'games' and observe them from the perspective of Crypto projects. Can the financing and team situation of this project attract follow? Can the content presented by this project (gameplay) attract follow? If this project has a TOKEN, does the current valuation have good enough odds in our opinion?
Even now, there are still many chain game projects whose Token activities can be participated in by completing social media tasks. This type of project has been mentioned in my previous article (related reading: 4 projects worth trying with low intensity, 6 projects worth trying with low intensity | E02), among which the Non-fungible Token series of Super Champs, mentioned earlier, has risen by about 50%. (This does not constitute any investment advice, and I will also try my best to explore more long-chain game projects for everyone in the future)
Overall, the current income in the chain game project is to exchange time for space. Compared with the Solana meme Token or BTC ecosystem infrastructure, the chain game is not at the same level in terms of follow-up degree and market focus, but everyone loves Token, so there will be information difference in the chain game assets related to Token. When they are not followed by the market, it is possible to ambush targets with high potential and relatively cheap, and it is possible to continue to hold or participate in the game when the market responds, with the option to attack or defend. In essence, the chain game project is also a Crypto project, so we don't really need to spend a particularly long time playing games. Playing games itself is more like investment research on chain game projects, which can help us judge whether the team is reliable and whether the future can gain enough market attention.