On Apr.23, 2020, the Head of PlatON Community and Horseman GO Founder Kai Yu was invited to make a live speech about the development of blockchain game by Wanxiang Fengchao Public lesson.
About Kai Yu:
Kai Yu, the head of PlatON Community, Horseman GO Founder, co-founder and former Editor-in-Chief of Netgamer, China’s first online gaming magazine. As a first-generation game developer in China, Yu’s established track record spans across PC and mobile gaming, in areas of publishing, operation, marketing, and business development of notable first-tier in the country including Lineage, 《兽血沸腾》,《凡人修仙传》, 《扫荡三国》,《超神名将传》, for which he generated a revenue of RMB ¥300 million (US$43.29 million). Yu is also the former President of aigame 100, one of China’s leading game development studios.
Existing Misunderstandings about Blockchain Games
Yu: Infer from the number of blockchain games on the top 3 public blockchains, there are around 350 blockchain games in total, showing the year-on-year decrease. The DAU of top blockchain games is 4500, which can be negligible if compared to the number of existing customers in China’s traditional gaming industry.
In my opinion, there are 4 significant problems in the today’s blockchain games:
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The barrier for customers to play game is unreasonably high, which has a heavy influence in the user experience. This is the basic and also a significant reason that affects the development of blockchain games;
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The gameplay needs to be improved. Player can’t enjoy it due to lack of sense of honor and sense of satisfaction.
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Financial attribute is prior to game. Blockchain games is mainly for speculation, and true game players can’t accept it.
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The development team is not professional enough. Compared to the large and professional development teams in traditional game firms, the blockchain games can’t deliver high-quality gaming experience.
What Should a True Blockchain Game Looks Like?
Yu: 1. Game is not a financial product . In the traditional game industry, user can play a game totally for free. If players dive into a game for the profits, the game is meaningless;
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User experience should be the only purpose to develop a game;
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Games should be full of joy and artistry , we can’t only present players the randomness.
Game: An Art Supporting by High-Tech to Pass the Time
Yu: Be it computer, internet, mobile internet, or blockchain, game keeps in pace with each high-tech. It follows the objective principles of history development. Pastime is the basic feature of game, and fun is the core feature of it. Game is an artwork, and developer should keep in mind that the sense of art shouldn’t be broken by other unnecessary factors.
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Mission : blockchain games help more and more people to learn and accept blockchain.
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Technical Definition : blockchain games should be defined with a good world outlook to help players get involved in it. In Ready Player One, the virtual game world is parallel to the real world. Game must be built with a world outlook.
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De-blockchain : blockchain should serve as an infrastructure for game only.
The traditional internet is info-based transition, while blockchain is trust-based transition, which can help revolutionize the development and operation of game and make game ecosystem fairer and more impartial. With blockchain, the game developers, operators and players are all in equal status.
A Rising of Game Era
Yu: New blockchain game should come out to echo the rising of blockchain, blockchain game industry will enter into a new era.
There are many issues such as security and transparency, in the centralized games of which the data is stored in centralized servers. Blockchain technologies bring in the revolutionary of trust mechanism as well as new trusted architecture, building the trust ecosystem and leading the game industry to the new historical stage.
Under such circumstance, we introduced the whole new game model: Decentralized Autonomous Game (DAG) , of which the governance mechanism is based on code rather than entity. As it utilizes decentralization feature of blockchain, it is more objective, open and secure. It will also grow with the whole community to develop and improve itself with the intelligence and contributions from the whole community ecosystem.
Introduction of Horseman GO
Yu: Both PlatON and Horseman GO are ecosystem projects of LatticeX Foundation. Horseman GO, is a DAG that combines blockchain, horse racing and game. As a DAG, Horseman GO is self-governance and operated by governance mechanism based on code rather than entity. Players will benefit from the development of the game, and the game grows with more and more players get involved in deeply.
With in-game assets such as horses and other core resources put on the blockchain, players are able to safely purchase, trade, and ensure the provenance of these assets which now have real-world value as part of a digital in-game economy. The whole revenue of Horseman GO will come into the central wallet of Jockey Club for rewarding the winners and game ecosystem construction, only a smart part will be reserved for normal operation of game. That is to say, what comes from players will be used for players.