Recently, an AI game called "The Legend of Shawarma" has surpassed 4 billion views across the internet, captivating countless netizens and players. As the saying goes, "Toiling as a beast of burden during the day at the company, working online to sell shawarma," operating a business in the cyber world is a unique form of light entrepreneurship for this generation of young people.
The core gameplay of "The Legend of Shawarma" is not entirely novel, as you can find numerous similar simulation management games on 4399 games, and the "Papa's" series developed by Flipline Studios also focuses on players operating various virtual restaurants, with nearly a hundred simulation management games.
Surprisingly, this seemingly ordinary 2D game with a rather plain appearance has been hailed by netizens as a "triple-A title": AI image generation, AI music composition, and AI voice acting. Not only did it immediately top the iOS game free chart and surpass 1 million downloads on Google Play, but its Steam rating even reached 9/10, just 1 point behind the genuine triple-A title "Black Myth: Wukong".
Whether the game truly utilized AI in its production is confirmed by the developer's statement on Steam.
Although the statement only explicitly mentions that the main menu image is AI-generated, the "four-fingered" characters and the catchy Chinese theme song in the game are also widely believed by netizens to be the work of AI.
Especially for a low-cost small game like "The Legend of Shawarma," the ability to support 14 languages, which even major game studios often struggle to achieve, is most likely also thanks to the assistance of AI.
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Low-cost, high-return - it can be said that the explosive success of the "triple-A title" "The Legend of Shawarma" is inseparable from AI. Just as everyone is reviewing and analyzing how to replicate the next "hit," the Degame team has already shifted its attention to the possibility of "creating infinite games."
Degame is a well-known comprehensive platform for Web3 game enthusiasts, with over 8,000 game projects, dedicated data rankings, and data analysis, which can help users find the games and communities they want to participate in, and continuously provide a wealth of zero-cost profit and airdrop opportunities. Compared to how AI made "The Legend of Shawarma" a hit, Degame's long-term experience in operating games has allowed them to see another major application of AI in Web3 games, beyond AI-generated content and AI NPCs.
Traditional game development is often limited by fixed assets and pre-set storylines, but large language models, with their powerful generative capabilities and creative potential, have revolutionized these limitations.
Role-playing games developed based on large model technology, such as Google's "Wordcraft," allow players to fundamentally customize their own characters and adventure experiences. This change means that game developers are beginning to leverage the potential of AI to create truly limitless game worlds.
AI can dynamically adjust game content based on player behavior and preferences, creating a "one-of-a-kind" game world for each player. Domestic games like "Yandere AI Cat Girlfriend" and independent developer creations like "Infinite Craft" have demonstrated the immense potential of AI in game innovation, and the openness of Web3 is destined to release this potential even faster.
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An important point about Web3 games is that they require users and platforms to participate in the creation process, rather than having a pre-planned, limited game. In games, we have the concept of Lore, which in traditional games is planned by the game designers and is completely predictable. But through AI models, we can aggregate various inputs and generate unpredictable outputs, giving these games infinite possibilities.
Imagine a future where we can access magical virtual worlds through AR/VR devices, and we can instantly create 2D and 3D items we imagine or cannot imagine through prompts, like casting a magical spell, and truly own them (with data hosted on the blockchain). We can also interact with intelligent AI NPCs in the virtual world and influence the development of the entire game story, all supported by a completely transparent, open-source infrastructure.
In this vision, humanity will unleash limitless creativity.
It is this beautiful vision that drives the Degame team to try using AI to "tell the story" of this Web3 game.
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Storytelling is one of the oldest and most powerful forms of communication. When a story captures our attention and engages us, we are more likely to absorb the information and meaning within it.
Compared to the already very mature AI image generation field, the development of AI-powered game assets, especially 3D assets, is still in a very early stage, which is why the financing amounts for related game projects are still relatively low.
However, it is undeniable that the market size of the gaming industry is far larger than the image market, and AI will also be a very important trend in the future development of games.
Therefore, the Degame team firmly believes that the potential of AI + Web3 games will be enormous, but the path of exploration will inevitably encounter bumps and challenges. It is a journey that requires the participation of not just hundreds, thousands, or tens of thousands, but hundreds of millions of people. And the participants need an open, interesting, and closely connected user environment, which is the original intention behind the establishment of DeGame.
Providing a smooth Web3 application experience for Web2 users is the core growth area of DeGame, and it has thus accumulated a considerable number of stable, real users.
Over the years of operation, Degame has successively established more than 4,000 independent communities around Web3, GameFi, Non-Fungible Tokens, and Layer2, supporting any community and project parties to publish multimedia information, live broadcasts, set tasks, and distribute rewards on the platform.
At the same time, through the AIGC tools and ready-made task/reward/point modules provided by the platform, project parties and communities can also quickly establish connections with the existing active users, stimulate positive social interactions, skip the cold start to complete the viral spread, and gradually cultivate high-value communities that can participate deeply in the game ecosystem in the long term.
On DeGame, it's not just about social and gaming experiences, but also Non-Fungible Tokens, virtual assets, on-chain incentive mechanisms, and revenue sharing - these elements allow every user to become a builder, a force driving the development of the game ecosystem, allowing quality project parties and communities to reduce costs, shorten cycles, simplify operations, and have unprecedented freedom and possibilities.
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Looking back on the past year.
With the emergence of large-scale generative AI models like ChatGPT, AI has expanded from simple automation tools to complex decision-making and prediction systems, becoming an important driving force for the significant progress of contemporary society. AI-based products and applications have also experienced explosive growth, with ChatGPT itself successively launching GPTs, Sora, and other notable products. The performance of AI infrastructure provider Nvidia has consistently exceeded expectations, with its data center business accounting for more than 83% of revenue in the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2024, growing 409% year-over-year, of which 40% is used for large model inference scenarios, indicating a rapid increase in demand for underlying computing power.
Undoubtedly, the collision of AI and Web3 is the hottest topic of the moment, and the market is full of attention and expectations for the two. Setting aside hype and price bubbles, in the long run, can AI + Web3 games create valuable narratives and industries?
Let's work together.
