Web3 games are not a " black myth " but a "new myth" that is being written.
Written by: NingNing
Recently, Daniel, an investor in "Black Myth: Wukong", put forward a powerful view: "A large number of entrepreneurs in the gaming industry are working on Web3, and those people don't love games." As an analyst who has been paying attention to the Web3 gaming field for a long time, I have to say that Daniel's view is biased, just like some meme coin investors who extremely FUDed VC coins in the middle of this year. It is a kind of sophistry logic of confusing cause and effect played by the old monster Huangmei.
Let’s jump out of the traditional thinking framework and look at the development of Web3 games from a more macro perspective. Web3 games are not entirely a crypto narrative created by VCs. The development of the traditional 3A game industry today does face huge challenges:
Development Costs Tianwenhua: Cyberpunk 2077 cost more than $300 million to develop, Red Dead Redemption 2 cost more than $800 million to develop, and the upcoming Grand Theft Auto 6 cost more than $2 billion to develop. The scary thing is that high development costs are not positively correlated with the success of a game. At the moment, Black Myth: Wukong, which cost $50 million to develop, is selling like crazy, while Overwatch, which cost $800 million to develop, is a dismal failure.
Insufficient motivation for innovation: Various DLC sequels and "skin-changing" games are flooding the market, and real innovation is becoming less and less. The reason for this phenomenon, which is similar to the current situation of American Hollywood blockbusters, is that there is the same underlying logic: after multiple rounds of game-playing, industrial capital reaches a Nash equilibrium between project risk and return rate, and prefers projects with high winning rate + acceptable low return rate.
Player value is difficult to retain: the equipment that you spend hundreds of hours to earn becomes worthless once you leave the game.
Independent developers have a hard time: without the halo of a big company, even the best ideas can hardly stand out. Even if a few independent developers succeed on the Steam platform, they cannot avoid the 30% Steam tax.
Of course, these problems cannot be solved by simply plugging a blockchain into the game. However, the Web3 technology stack does provide us with some new ideas and tools. And Moonveil is using these new stacks to solve old problems.
The Moonveil team is composed of senior experts from top game companies such as Riot Games and Blizzard, who have participated in the development of phenomenal games such as League of Legends and World of Warcraft. I am afraid that their understanding of games is more profound than that of many traditional game developers who claim to be "pure".
So, what exactly is Moonveil’s new stack? In short, they are building a cross-game ecosystem with the following features:
1. Ecosystem interconnection: breaking the isolated game island
Traditional games are like isolated islands. The investment players put into game A is worthless in game B. What Moonveil wants to do is to build bridges:
Cross-game identity system: The achievements you make in World of Warcraft can also have bonuses in other games.
Asset interoperability: The amazing equipment you get in game A may also be used in game B.
Open creation platform: players and developers can freely create content, and this content may be used in multiple games.
In the last cycle, many similar projects were favored by VCs and the community, but in the end, they did not gain much popularity. On the one hand, BD is very hard work, and the coordination cost from the ecosystem and technology is very high. On the other hand, they only solve the problem of traffic, but do not integrate liquidity. Moonveil directly integrates traffic and liquidity from the developer's perspective.
2. Liquidity and value capture: the winning formula for Web3 games
In the crypto world, successful projects often have two characteristics: capturing traffic or capturing liquidity. Moonveil's goal is to achieve both:
Capture traffic: Attract players through high-quality gaming experience and innovative ecology. Moonveil's self-developed game Bushwhack has been tested and promoted in Latin America, especially in Brazil, with very impressive data performance. Moonveil has many more games under development. The platform also has a Telegram mini-program game brand: Moonveil Mini, which converts the massive number of Telegram users.
Grasp liquidity: Let game assets flow freely and create value. Moonveil will provide a one-stop solution for the liquidity and interoperability of game assets through cross-chain operations and aggregated player performance. It is like building a small financial system within the ecosystem, and every investment of players may generate actual value.
3. Reshape the game economy: Become a vertical liquidity distributor
The core challenge currently facing the blockchain ecosystem is liquidity allocation. This problem involves multiple aspects: traffic liquidity, asset liquidity, and resource liquidity. At present, some targeted solutions have emerged in the industry: Restaking is committed to solving the problem of resource liquidity, Omnichain and chain abstraction technology are dealing with asset liquidity, and various Quest platforms are working hard to optimize traffic liquidity.
Moonveil provides a comprehensive solution in the gaming vertical. Instead of providing a single tool, they have built a complete ecosystem that covers the entire process from game development to asset management. In this way, Moonveil provides a comprehensive liquidity solution for the gaming industry and extracts value from it.
4. Technology integration: lowering the development threshold
Moonveil is not just making games, they are building a platform for developers, providing developers with a one-stop Web3 game development solution (including Rollup, wallet, browser, asset issuance standard library,NFT market, shared liquidity pool, deposit and withdrawal channels, etc.), rather than just a pluggable Web3 wallet SDK.
5. Innovative gameplay: the evolution of NFT
In the last bull market, PFP (Profile Picture) NFTs were all the rage. However, these NFTs have limited utility and are mainly used as social media avatars. As the market heat fades, many PFP NFT projects are facing the dilemma of a sharp drop in value.
Now, NFTs for gaming assets are on the rise. These NFTs are not only collectible, but also have actual functions and utility in the game. This shift marks that NFTs are moving in a more practical and sustainable direction.
Moonveil allows players to import existing PFP NFTs into different games and use them as characters, props, or equipment. This approach not only provides new practical value and application scenarios for existing NFT assets, but also enhances interoperability between different games.
6. Game DID: Empowering Game Guilds
In previous market cycles, the concept of game DID (decentralized identity) has been widely discussed. However, these early attempts were mainly developed for the needs of individual players, trying to aggregate and visualize players' game data. This approach ignores a key problem: this information has limited actual value to ordinary players.
Moonveil realizes that the primary audience of game DID is actually B-side game projects and game guilds. These organizations need to use DID to manage and motivate players more effectively.
Therefore, Moonveil's game DID system is designed specifically for game guilds. This system provides guilds with powerful tools to help them better manage members, optimize strategies, and improve operational efficiency.
This approach is more in line with the actual needs of the current Web3 gaming ecosystem. Game guilds play an important role in Web3 games, and they are often the most organized and active groups. Providing powerful tools for guilds may have a positive impact on the entire ecosystem.
7. Ecosystem Construction: Do Dirty Work Personally
When it comes to ecosystem construction, many public chain projects cast a wide net, hoping to naturally grow a hit game from N seed projects. But the reality is often: either the project quality is not good, or the successful projects are disobedient and start their own business. Moonveil's strategy in this regard is to do the dirty work personally.
The Moonveil team is a veteran in game development, with strong product capabilities and self-development capabilities. What does this mean? They don't need to gamble on luck and wait for an excellent project to appear, because they can create high-quality games themselves.
With such a background, Moonveil has greater say and judgment when screening and supporting ecological projects. They know what kind of games can be successful and what kind of teams are worth investing resources in. This is not a layman watching the excitement, but an accurate judgment of an expert.
This model is simply a perfect positive flywheel: Moonveil provides the platform and experience, excellent projects are supported and exposed, players enjoy high-quality gaming experience, and the entire ecosystem continues to grow.
In summary, Moonveil is similar to the recently popular Story Protocol in that they are both commercial protocols that are oriented towards application scenarios and solve real-world problems, rather than empty projects driven by the invention and compilation of various bizarre technical primitives.
The solution provided by Moonveil is essentially to standardize the development, distribution, and trading of Web3 games in their life cycle, making the development of Web3 games as simple and fast as developing meme coins on http://pump.fun , thereby promoting the Cambrian explosion of Web3 games as soon as possible.
The emergence of massive Web3 game Dapp Rollups will alleviate the current imbalance between supply and demand of Ethereum mainnet Blob space. The interoperability requirements between these Rollups will also enhance the value support of chain abstraction projects.
Finally, let’s use Gartner’s emerging technology maturity curve to analyze the development stage of Web3 games. At present, the entire industry may be in the transition stage from the “trough of disillusionment” to the “plateau of production”. Therefore, Moonveil’s strategy is not to chase short-term hot spots, but to prepare for the “plateau of production” in a solid way.
Of course, challenges are real. Technical barriers, user education, regulatory uncertainty... these are challenges that the entire Web3 industry needs to face. But it is these challenges that are the reverse proof of the huge potential of Web3 games.
Back to Daniel's criticism, what I want to say is: people who truly love games choose to embrace Web3 technology precisely because they see the plight of the traditional game industry. They should not bear the original sin of "not loving games", they are the pioneers seeking innovation in the industry paradigm.
Web3 games are not a "black myth", but a "new myth" that is being written. And I'm here for it. Let's wait and see what kind of future this Web3 project created by people who really understand games can bring to games.
