Where is web3 gaming heading - on-chain or mobile? | Skill Tree #25
Where is web3 gaming heading - on-chain or mobile? | Skill Tree #25
Infinite Grid - trustless gaming console for fully onchain games
goal: application-specific blockchain infrastructure specialized for onchain games, not money apps
inspiration: Nintendo creating the Famicom/NES, a personal computer for gaming only, not general use → different design tradeoffs
Requirements of onchain games
vast amount of data to be stored
low latency
hiding information (e.g. fog of war)
less weight on security and compliance vs financial apps
Proposed solution: GRID
combining a trustless ecosystem & subsecond state transitions in centralized battle servers (allowing for fast-paced twitchy gameplay)
battle servers ~ sophisticated state channels/app-specific ZK-VMs
How this works: a centralised server reads game state from an underlying L1, L2 or game-optimised L3, hosts a short “battle” between players, churns out (i) the new game state and (ii) a validity proof of the state transition according to the game’s rules, and posts it back to some settlement layer
aiming to integrate with the rest of the stack, e.g. MUD/Doji for indexing, Unreal/Unity for frontend
comparison
battle servers can also be used to host complex NPCs with logic hidden to the player, while they verifiably follow the game’s rules
open questions
lower composability guarantees in battle servers
settlement delay of battle server writing state on-chain
data availability - battle server could withhold information → slashing, storage proofs
security issues when bridging state between zones → zk bridges
routing challenges when sending players to the right battle server → routing protocol & intent-based architecture optimizing for load balancing & latency
Can Web3 Gaming on Mobile Succeed?
Big potential as the mobile gaming market is the largest by revenue (~50%) and expected to generate $250B in 2030
Gatekeeping and unclear policies by app stores add friction and make releasing web3 games on mobile riskier vs PC.
Learnings from the first web3 mobile games
Thetan Arena
NFTs helped UA: rode the P2E wave, which resulted in outperforming the non-NFT version of the game called Heroes Strike in alll metrics
Stronger on Android vs iOS: downloads & active users 4-6x, revenue 2x
Upland
Android vs iOS: Android 6-7x active users but small differences in revenue
Mir4
Android > iOS: active users & revenue 4-5x
follow-up Mir M underperforming Mir 4, likely because of a market shift away from P2E
NFL Rivals
iOS > Android: active users 3x, revenue 2.5x - likely because of the US focus of american football
General conclusion
web3 components can provide strong marketing angles during bull markets, they won’t sustain interest in bear markets. Not pushing NFT into focus also helps to not get targeted by app stores. One approach could even be to avoid fungible tokens as Apple will enforce stricter policies on anything resembling money
StepN: created a new virtual currency that can be bought as an IAP and used to purchase and mint sneaker NFTs at a 30% markup
to circumvent they gray areas of NFTs unlocking functionality, make anything available as an NFT also somehow obtainable in-game (doesn’t have to be the same quality) e.g. Blast Royale, Axie Infinity Origins
NFL Rivals: NFT marketplace outside of the game
IAPs remain main revenue source