Blockchain-based games need to spend more time being “fun to play” rather than developing flashy tokens, a blockchain game developer owned by Animoca Brand told Cointelegraph.
Speaking to Cointelegraph on the first day of Tokyo Game Show 2022, Luke Sillay, chief community manager at Australia-based game developer Blowfish Studios, said that far too many blockchain games have focused on in-game rewards and tokens rather than gameplay:
“You can see from a lot of other blockchain games that it’s not actually fun to play. Like, yeah, you have the potential to earn quite a lot of tokens and get a good ROI most of the time. But overall, they’re not fun, right? ”
Sillay said that many of these games in general have simplified game modes built on earning, rather than pure enjoyment, and thus have failed to capture the attention of traditional players so far.
According to data from DappRadar, the most popular blockchain games in terms of active users over the past 30 days are Gameta, Alien Worlds and Solitaire Blitz, with 1,814,000 and 652,760 users respectively. The figures show great interest in the games but pale in comparison to the popular traditional games.
Sillay said games should be “fun to play” and attractive to look at, noting:
“Our kind of thinking is that if play is fun and attractive to look at, people want to play with it.”
Blowfish Studios is an Australian video game developer acquired by Animoca Brands for $6.6 million in July 2021. As part of the acquisition, Animoca has channeled Blowfish from Web2 to Web3, with NFT’s Phantom Galaxies (currently in Beta) game as the company’s main focus.
2022 Tokyo Games Show
When asked what kind of games would work best with non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and play-for-profit (P2E) integration, Sillay highlighted free-to-play giants like Riot’s League of Legends and Epic Games’ Fortnite that already have in-game built-in markets. In which.
He noted that these types of games generally attract die-hard fans because they are fun to play and the experience is constantly updated and improved over time. This leads to people playing for several years and happily spending money to buy products like new character skins.
“Say like League of Legends and Fortnite with your skins and things like that […] If you can play and enjoy something for a really long time, you know, and then leave it, in a year or two, it doesn’t have much to show for it. But if If you do this using the blockchain, you will likely sell all the assets you have earned.
Sillay went on to note that there are some barriers to getting into blockchain games that could hold back some people, and that if the setup process can be ironed out, it could attract new users.
“It’s very hard trying to fully learn about this new technology, create a wallet and so on, and there are a lot of words in blockchain that mean completely different things,” he said.
Sega Kiosk: Tokyo Games Show
Phantom Galaxies is an open-world robotic shooter that is expected to officially launch as early as the fourth quarter of 2022. In-game NFTs have already seen a high level of demand, with more than 517,000 Origin Group owners, according to Open bad. The project also completed a private NFT sale in May that brought in an estimated $19.3 million.
Related: Animoca confirms Temasek-led $110 million round plans new acquisitions
At this point, Phantom Galaxies only require one NFT to get started, making it a relatively straightforward process to get involved.
“So the rest is actually right now basically just like a traditional game,” Sly said.
