Game Design Ideas from Web3 - Apr 22

29th April 2022 - By David Amor

I see web3 as a paradigm shift for games. And while I’m not the only one who thinks so, there aren’t many of us who have also spent more than 30 years making games professionally!

Why are experienced game developers so sceptical? Partly because the benefits are less obvious and, let’s be honest, often over-hyped. It’s also hard to keep up. The world of blockchain moves incredibly fast, and few people are good at explaining what it actually adds to game design.

So why do I think this is a shift in magnitude similar to 3D, online multiplayer, or free-to-play mobile? Here’s a couple of ideas that caught my attention early on…

Interoperability

A fundamental difference between web2 and web3 games is that in web3 games the ownership of game assets is recorded on the blockchain, rather than being recorded in a closed centralised database owned by the game maker. It allows players to buy and sell assets. It also allows other games to see what game assets a player owns.

Interoperability is the idea of using one game’s assets in another game. The second game doesn’t have to be made by the same person and the first person doesn’t even need to be asked. In practice I don’t think this means a gun in Game 1 can be used in Game 2, but the idea can be used in a more creative way.

Anyone playing Game 1 can now choose how they prefer to progress, by playing more of Game 1 or by completing levels in Game 2.

Game 1 is an Idle Mining game; Game 2 is a Tower Defence game. Game 2 decides that a method of powering the towers is by using the iridium from the mining game; Game 1 decides that a method of doubling the idle-returns is by accepting stars that have been won by completing levels in Game 2. Anyone playing Game 1 can now choose how they prefer to progress, by playing more of Game 1 or by completing levels in Game 2. The two games become joined until one or the other decides to cut the cord. It creates a richer game because there are now multiple game loops and multiple options for players. This example describes a game pair but there’s no reason why 20 games couldn’t interoperate with each other.

Aside from being an interesting idea for game mechanics it’s also a great user acquisition tool, allowing players who have invested in one game to use that investment in another game.

Our game, The Crypt, uses interoperability. We take the Loot NFT (which we’ve played no part in) as a game piece. We also take the output from other Loot games into The Crypt. By using a combination of these, players can progress through the game. The NFTs won in our game can, in turn, be used in other people’s games.

Composability

Most blockchain games keep only their game assets on-chain. It’s a good use case but misses some opportunities that building game logic on-chain affords. By putting game logic on-chain, others are free to permissionlessly build on top of the game.

An obvious first step is bots. Because the game logic is on-chain then code is free to interact with game logic without using the game interface. Bots get a bad reputation but it’s possible to design a game that expects bots to show up. In our first game we’ve already had a battle between humans and bots and it’s been fun for those involved.

Bots get a bad reputation but it’s possible to design a game that expects bots to show up.

After bots comes some more interesting ideas. Anyone could write a dashboard to track the price of resources in a game, they could build a marketplace for game assets, they could create a DAO that pools the resources of a guild and puts them to optimised use. They could decide to forfeit the game-makers game client and build a mobile version, which (rights permitting) they’d be free to sell on the App Store. Justin Glibert calls this being client agnostic.

Beyond that is territory-unknown. If the game rules are stored on chain then other game-makers could build their own games on top, in much the same way that DOTA was built on top of Warcraft3 while adhering to the underlying game rules. With a tokenised economy, a treasury controlled by a DAO and smart contracts, these new games could be encouraged via grants and incentivised using a token-split business model.

The best example of composability in games is Dark Forest, which has seen a lot of emergent gameplay by encouraging builders to build on top.

Permissionlessness

One of my favourite games is Starcraft 2. If I wanted to make a game in the Starcraft universe I’d have to know who to call at Blizzard, be reputable enough for them to pick up the phone, sign an NDA, have a number of timezone unfriendly meetings, then if everything went well engage a bunch of lawyers to create a commercial agreement. After that, I’d need to spend time making sure we were adhering to art bibles and staying in line with canon. If the game is directly connected with Starcraft 2 then I’d be having an ongoing conversation between CTOs discussing the nature of the API specification and encouraging them not to change it.

No one needs to ask anyone’s permission.

Web3 cuts through all of this since NFTs and smart contracts can be used permissionlessly. No one needs to ask anyone’s permission. This affects game design by allowing builders to create an organic cinematic universe around a game, particularly if the original work is Creative Commons Zero (CC0), which is becoming the de facto choice for web3 projects. It feels that the tight control seen in web2 is making way for community-influenced projects in web3.

Incentivised Player Behaviour

In 2007 Youtube introduced their partner program, which split ad revenue 50/50 between Youtube and popular content creators. The result was content creators falling over themselves trying to create videos that would appeal to viewers who were looking to be entertained. It created a perfect symbiosis between consumers, content creators and Youtube itself. The financial motivation proved to be jet fuel for Youtube and it left Vimeo and others in the dust. I see the same thing happening in games.

I’d certainly prefer to give money to the players than to spend it on performance marketing

Having tokens flow through a treasury and then out to players according to set criteria gives game designers an opportunity to incentivise the behaviour they want to see. That could be players creating content for other players, entertaining them, managing them, doing donkey work, community work or whatever the game-maker thinks might be valuable. I hope this idea can extend to marketing where players are motivated to do things that bring in more engaged players - I’d certainly prefer to give money to the players than to spend it on performance marketing.

Governance as Metagame

When revenue is made from a web3 game, rather than heading to the game-maker’s bank account it generally lands in a game’s treasury. From there some is distributed to the game maker, some to the players, some to the community, some to the liquidity pool providers etc. The distribution of those tokens is usually organised (in part) by people who hold the game’s governance tokens.

A web3 game treasury is more than a dull administrative function, I think it should also be considered as part of the game. Some ‘players’ will likely hold tokens because they get to play ‘sim game-maker’ and work with the development team in order to help manage the long term sustainability of the game and decide which community projects get funding. Perhaps they don’t ever play the actual game itself.

Asymmetric Gameplay

When I play Elden Ring I’m playing through a sequence of set pieces. I’m on a player journey that has been carefully curated by the game-maker. When I play Zelda I’m free to veer off the path but ultimately I need to work my way through the dungeons in order to reach Ganondorf.

Game designers that lean in to this have the opportunity to build games that cater to a much wider set of player types.

Web3 games allow many different ways for players to play. Some player’s game experience will be grinding, upgrading and selling to players unwilling to spend the time. Some will never touch the game and instead invest in a game’s token as if it were a share in a company. Some will become quasi-developer, organising the DAO and making decisions on behalf of the treasury. Some will look for arbitrage opportunities inside the game. Some will spend big, collect NFTs and become the leader of an in-game guild.

I recognise that many existing games try to offer different roles for different players, but web3 facilitates asymmetrical roles inside and outside the game by default. Game designers that lean in to this have the opportunity to build games that cater to a much wider set of player types.

Permanence

Smart contracts live on blockchains which can be immutable or upgradable. When a game lives on-chain in immutable smart contracts then the game logic is set in stone forever, the ongoing computational and storage costs paid for in gas fees by whoever wants to use it. When the keys to upgrade the contract are burned then the decentralisation provides permanence beyond the whim of the creator. The game becomes immortal.

This doesn’t create a new game mechanic per se, but it changes the motivation of games-makers, confident to build around a central piece of game logic, safe in the knowledge that the game logic will never change or disappear.

Play and Earn (Own?)

I’ve put this one at the end of the list since it probably causes as many problems as it solves. That said, the ability for players to earn has introduced a new set of gamers for whom earning pocket money from playing a game is gameplay of its own kind. I wouldn’t underestimate the sense of community created by players trading tips on how to make some money, perhaps not unlike the engaged audience you might find in a coupon trading forum.

I used to ask whether Axie players were there to have fun or make money, but I’m starting to think that the question is full of first-world western bias. I’d guess that a large proportion of the play-and-earn audience are having a great time whether we consider that ‘gameplay’ or not.

The Unknown

I’ve worked in blockchain games for about a year now and the majority of the game design ideas afforded by blockchain have become apparent in the last six months.

Ten years ago when I moved from console development to mobile free-to-play I made the mistake of assuming that I should move my PlayStation games to mobile, but looking back the shared DNA between console and mobile was way less than I first imagined. The majority of blockchain games to date have been created by adapting web2 games, which result in web2.5 games. The genre defining games of web3 have yet to be built.