Big Time is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) built on Ethereum, with an industry-leading team and financing. The game is currently still in the internal beta stage, and it has basically taken the prototype of an MMORPG, and has completed the conceptual construction of the game's sustainable economic mechanism. The game experience is good and has a certain degree of playability, and the current chain game track still maintains a good scale in the current bear market. In the future, after the zero-threshold opening of Big Time, more players will be able to enter. .
Project Overview
Big Time is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) built on Ethereum. The game is still in the internal testing stage. It has basically the prototype of an MMORPG and has completed the conceptual construction of the game's economic mechanism.
From a team perspective, the Big Time team has a solid background in the gaming and encryption fields, and the core members all have experience in developing large-scale games or working in large gaming companies. Compared with the first research report in May 2022, there have been some changes in the core team members of Big Time. Among them, the departure of the product director and game economic model design director may have had a certain impact on the development and delivery of the game. Subsequent work will be taken over by other experts who are deeply involved in the game industry. In addition, because Big Time Studios is a game studio that works completely remotely around the world, it will also have a certain impact on the on-time delivery of games.
In terms of funding, Big Time has raised over US$90 million through primary market financing and NFT sales, which is enough to support the development of a 3A-level game. After the game is launched in the future, the project team can also continue to raise funds through the sale of game resources. Sustainable operations.
From the perspective of the core mechanics of the game, Big Time basically draws on the characters and growth design of mature MMORPGs, but its free job-changing system will further enrich players' gaming experience. But this also puts forward requirements for the game team to adjust the balance, because the lower threshold for changing professions means that if the ability of a certain profession is particularly outstanding, it will squeeze the living space of other professions, thus affecting the playability of the game. sex.
From the perspective of the game's economic mechanism, Big Time's design is very clever, which can ensure that the in-game economic cycle has a certain degree of flexibility on a stable basis, and can also ensure that both free players and paid players can have a richer gaming experience. However, such an economic mechanism also places high demands on players' strategies for allocating resources in the game. Players need to invest certain resources to explore their appropriate positioning in the game.
Judging from the actual game experience, the game already has a certain degree of playability, but more iterations will be needed in the future to improve the game's picture performance and gameplay mechanics.
From the perspective of game threshold, the game's hardware requirements currently do not seem to be high, but players need to meet certain requirements before they can participate in the preseason.
From the perspective of project development, the current operation and development pace of the game is slower than expected, but the game already has a group of core players with high stickiness. In the future, after Big Time opens to zero threshold, more players will likely be welcomed into the game.
From the perspective of the track, since entering the bear market, although the number of players and transaction volume on the chain game track has declined to a certain extent, the core group of chain game players still maintains a high stickiness, and the overall development progress of the track It has not been significantly affected, and a large number of new games are still being developed and operated. Once the overall macro environment picks up, the chain gaming track itself still has room for imagination. At the same time, based on the different types and development stages of the blockchain game track, we believe that games such as Big Time that have some core assets on the blockchain, are rooted in Web2 games, and have sufficient development capabilities and operational experience will have greater development in the future. potential.
1. Basic overview
1.1 Project Introduction
Big Time is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) built on Ethereum. The game is still in the internal testing stage. It has basically the prototype of an MMORPG and has completed the conceptual construction of the game's economic mechanism.
1.2 Basic information
2. Project details
2.1 Team
According to the official website [1], there are currently 38 core members of the Big Time team, and according to LinkedIn disclosure [2], the Big Time team currently has 89 employees, an increase of 22 staff members compared with the first version of the research report in 2022. Since its inception, Big Time has recruited an all-star team composed of game industry veterans from leading game companies such as Epic Games, Blizzard, EA, and Riot. The introduction and corresponding changes of the core members of the team are as follows:
Ari Meilich, CEO, former co-founder and CEO of Decentraland, previously worked as a market research analyst at Silicon Valley venture capital fund Charles River Ventures, and founded the big data company Benchrise as concurrently CEO. He has extensive experience in venture capital and data analysis experience of.
Matt Tonks, CTO, served as the chief programmer of COR Project from 2004.01–2005.05; from 2005.05–2007.10, as a software engineer at Electronic Arts; from 2007.10–2012.7, as a senior artificial intelligence programmer at Epic Games; from 2016.01–2020.08, served as the technical director of Drifter Entertainment; 2012.03- Currently, he serves as the co-founder of BitMonster. Matt Tonks has been working in the gaming field for the past 18 years and has very rich game development experience.
Thor Alexander, CPO, served as the development director of Epic Games from 1999.04 to 2006.12; from 2002.10 to 2005.02, as the founder and editor of MMP Game Development; from 2006.12 to 2008.11, as the product management director of Metaplace, Inc.; from 2008.11 to 2011.12, as the executive producer of Zynga ; From 2012.03 to 2017.08, he served as the founder and CEO of Lucky Puppy, LLC; from 2018.11 to 2020.04, he served as the vice president of product for Decentraland. Thor Alexander is an OG in the traditional game field. He has more than 25 years of experience in game production, has worked on multiple successful game projects, and has rich entrepreneurial experience. There is currently no information on the official website. It is very likely that he has resigned and his job has been taken over by Brian Chu.
Brian Chu, director of product management, entered the gaming industry in 2007 as a developer marketing intern at Salesforce. In 2008, Brian joined Deloitte Consulting as a senior consultant, providing consulting services to many companies in the interactive entertainment, software and mobile information industries. In 2009, Brain joined Zynga and became the lead product manager of the CityVille project. Then in 2012, he served as Vice President of Product for Identified. In 2013, Brain joined Blizzard Entertainment as the director of global brand management, responsible for the global brand marketing strategy, budget and execution of "Heroes of the Storm" and "StarCraft 2". In 2016, Brain served as Product Director at Rocket Games, which was acquired by Penn Interactive Ventures in April 2017. In 2017, Brain served as Director of Product Management at EA, and later joined Epic Games in the same position in 2019. In April 2022, Brain joined Big Time and has served as the head of product management until now.
Michael Migliero, CMO, served as product marketing assistant at Akamai Technologies from 2007–2008; from 2012.12–2018.05, he served as co-founder and CEO of Fractional Media (an advertising services company); from 2015.05–2018.05, he served as DSP director of Machine Zone (MZ).
Ken Harsha, Lead Animator, Creative Director, has over 31 years of experience in feature animation, television animation, and games as art director, production designer, director, writer, story artist, storyboard artist, visual developer Artist, has considerable reputation in the American entertainment industry. Ken Harsha has participated in many works of Disney, DreamWorks, and Warner Bros., and has provided art direction for multiple series of Call of Duty games. In more than 5 years at Electronic Arts, he has served as art director, producer, production designer, and film director. Director, and also managed Treyarch's concept art department for over 8 years.
Daniel Paez is the director of game economic model design. From 2009 to 2015, he served as product manager of VisusTV, industrial engineer of IBM Brasil, account manager of Transcend Information, and business development manager of Gresso Miami. He was mainly responsible for enterprise product work. From 2015 to 2015.06, he served as an Apple SPO expert; from 2015.06 to 2020.12, he served as the pricing manager and publishing intelligence manager of Blizzard Entertainment; from 2020.12 to 2021.08, he served as the senior manager of commercial finance and operations at Activision. In addition, in addition to working at Big Time, Daniel Paez also serves as the game economic model design director of Worldspark Studios. According to LinkedIn information, Daniel resigned in February 2022, and was later replaced by Khaled Alroumi as director of game monetization and economy.
Khaled Alroumi, director of game monetization and economy, entered the game industry in 2010. He has served as a co-founder of several game companies in Kuwait and Dubai and developed the game "Warfront: Battle of Tolia". In 2021, Khaled Alroumi joined the blockchain game Illuvium as a game system and economic designer. In September 2022, Khaled Alroumi joined Big Time and has served as the game monetization and economic director until now.
Aaron Smith, art director, has previously worked at Rogue Entertainment, Nerve Software, Epic Games and other companies. In addition, he is the co-founder and game artist of Bitmonster, Inc. Aaron Smith is an artist who has been engaged in the game industry for more than 20 years, focusing on concept art, 3D character and environment modeling. He has more than 17 years of experience in Unreal Engine and is a senior game industry practitioner.
Martin Sweitzer, Chief Engineer, worked as a software developer for Trilogy from June 1998 to May 2000; worked as a programmer for Sony Online Entertainment from November 2000 to 2001. A veteran game programmer at Games, Epic Games, and Squanch Games, and a co-founder of Bitmonster, Inc. Martin Sweitzer is a senior game industry practitioner with more than 20 years of game development experience.
TJ Stamm, chief designer, started working in the game industry around 2000. He previously held designer positions at Electronic Arts, Infinity Ward and other companies, and has been responsible for multiple game producers, designers, and artists. During his 6 years at Infinity Ward, he was mainly responsible for the weapon design and in-game parameter balancing of the two series of games, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Infinite Warfare.
Cedric Fleury, chief designer, started working in the game industry in 2006 and has served as a level designer for multiple games including Wolfenstein at Threewave, EA and SE. In 2016, Cedric Fleury joined Ubisoft and participated in the development of Farcry 4. He was mainly responsible for the open world environment design of the entire game. Cedric Fleury then served as a senior level designer in multiple projects for WB Game and EA. In May 2022, Cedric Fleury joined Big Time and served as chief designer.
The CEO of the Big Time project is Ari Meilich, who is also the former co-founder and CEO of Decentraland. In addition, most team members have rich industry experience in the traditional game industry and have resumes with major manufacturers. Judging from the resume of the team's lineup, the team has professional game development experience and has participated in the design and development of a number of top games, including: League of Legends, Fortnite, God of War War), Call of Duty and Overwatch, etc. Compared with the first research report in May 2022, Big Time's core team members have not changed much, but the departure of the product director and game economic model design director may have had a certain impact on the development and delivery of the game. Subsequent work will be taken over by other experts who are deeply involved in the game industry. In addition, because Big Time Studios is a game studio that works completely remotely around the world, it will also have a certain impact on game development.
2.2 Funds
2.2.1 Financing part
On May 12, 2021, Big Time Studios announced the completion of US$21 million in financing. The financing will be divided into two parts. The first part of US$10.3 million was led by FBG Capital, North Island Ventures, Digital Currency Group, DFG, OKEx Blockdream Ventures, Alameda Research, LD Capital, YBB Foundation, Circle Financial and Sound Ventures founded by Ashton Kutcher participated in the investment. In addition, Big Time Studio also completed a round of financing of US$11 million, which will be used to invest in game companies willing to use related NFT technology [3].
2.2.2 NFT sales part
In addition to the financing part, Big Time has also obtained very considerable income through multiple in-game NFT prop sales activities. The details are as follows:
1) First sale on Binance NFT Market
On July 22, 2021, Big Time launched NFT Drop for the first time in the Binance NFT market. This event is mainly divided into 4 parts, as shown in Table 2-1 below:
In summary, Big Time’s first sales event on the Binance NFT market was completely sold out [4], with a total value of NFT sold $667,160.
2) Binance NFT Market Sales Part 2
On August 13, 2021, Big Time launched the second round of Binance NFT market sales activities. This activity is mainly divided into 2 parts, as shown in Table 2–2 below:
Table 2–2 Binance NFT market sales Part 2 situation[5]
In summary, the information we have learned shows that the value of NFT sold in Big Time’s second round of Binance NFT market sales activities is approximately $2,905,200.
3) SPACE NFT sales
On December 21, 2021, Big Time started SPACE NFT sales.
Table 2–2 SPACE NFT market sales (December 2021)
SPACE NFT is a component of the personal metaverse in Big Time, which is equivalent to the "land" in other metaverse projects. SPACE NFTs come in a variety of sizes and rarities. The rarer and larger a SPACE is, the more functions it can support.
This is the first sale of SPACE NFT. The team will sell 60,000 SPACE NFT (10% of its total supply). The details are as follows:
Figure 2–1 SPACE NFT sales details[6]
Combining the two tables in Figure 2–1 above, we can calculate that Big Time sold a total of $38,148,000 worth of SPACE NFT in its first SPACE NFT sale.
4) Mysterious gift box sales
Table 2–3 Mystery gift box market sales (February 2022)
On February 17, 2022, Big Time launched a mystery box sale on the Binance NFT market. In this sale, a total of 25,000 mystery boxes will be sold. Each box has a chance to drop 6 different types of animated postcards, and has a smaller probability of dropping a super rare postcard. In addition, the mystery box has a chance of dropping an early access VIP pass.
For this sale, each mystery box is priced at 25 BUSD, with a total value of $625,000.
5) Exalted SPACE sale
Table 2–4 Exalted SPACE NFT market sales
On March 24, 2022, Big Time launched the Exalted SPACE NFT sales event.
Figure 2–2 Exalted SPACE sale details[7]
In this Exalted SPACE sale, Big Time sold a total of 3,000 Exalted SPACE NFT (accounting for 0.5% of the total SPACE NFT volume) and 12,000 Mythic SPACE NFT (accounting for 2% of the total SPACE NFT volume), as shown in the picture above (right ) shown.
Among them, the sales unit price of Mythic SPACE NFT has increased from $36 to $691 compared with the previous SPACE NFT sales event held on December 21, 2021; while for Exalted SPACE NFT, it has increased by $1,066 to $11,381. wait. Such an exaggerated increase has also attracted criticism from some community members, but it still does not hinder the popularity of Big Time.
However, during this Exalted SPACE sale event, the team did not disclose the specific number of large, medium and small size SPACE NFTs sold respectively, so it is difficult for us to calculate how much funds were raised in total for this event.
Comparing the volume and pricing of the previous SPACE NFT sales event, the editor conservatively estimates that if all SPACE NFTs in this event are successfully sold, the team will raise at least US$30 million in funds, for reference only.
6) Open Loot Mystery Gift Box Holiday Sale (Christmas Holiday, Spring Festival Holiday)
Table 2–5 Open Loot mystery gift box holiday sales (Christmas holiday, Spring Festival holiday) market sales
Big Time sold 4,500 and 7,388 mystery gift boxes on Open Loot during its two mystery gift box holiday sales. These gift boxes will include three functional NFTs (Utility Collectibles) that can be used in SPACE: Armory, Furnace and Time Guard, with the proportions of the three being 45%, 45% and 10% respectively. Among them, Time Guard will be used to make Hourglasses components, and Time Hourglass components will be used to generate BIGTIME tokens. The Armory and Furnace will use BIGTIME tokens to create some skin-type NFTs. These skin-type NFTs will be available on Open in the future. Trade on Loot.
Three functional NFTs will be available in the mysterious gift box during each Christmas holiday. Only 2 functional NFTs will be available in the special sale of the mysterious gift box during the Spring Festival holiday. However, the team will use the armory in the mysterious gift box during the Spring Festival holiday. The explosion rate of the furnace and time guard has been adjusted to 33.3%. In addition, the explosion rate of high-rare functional NFTs in the Christmas holiday mystery gift box is also much higher than that of the Spring Festival holiday mystery gift box.
The Christmas holiday mystery gift box will be priced at 49.99 USD, and the Spring Festival holiday mystery gift box will be priced at 39.99 USD. Users can purchase up to 100 mystery gift boxes at one time. The sale of all mystery gift boxes will bring nearly 520,000 US dollars in financial income to the team. .
7) Game Guild Subscription
At present, Big Time has reached cooperative relationships with more than 20 game guilds, including YieldGuild, Merit Circle, Avocado Guild, Loudgg, Neo Tokyo, Black Pool, Polkastarter, YGG Sea, ReadyPlayerDAO, 3D Gamers Guild DAO, etc. [8], and most of the cooperative guilds have There are purchases of corresponding NFT assets in the Big Time game, but most guilds have not yet disclosed the specific amount, so the specific sales in this area are not known yet. In addition, the Web3 community OpenDAO also cooperated with Big Time and purchased SPACE for more than 5 million US dollars.
To sum up, Big Time has conservatively estimated to have earned approximately 72,865,761 USD in revenue from its many NFT sales activities since its inception (incomplete statistics, the actual situation is only a lot more. Previously, there were voices in the community saying that Big Time has participated in many NFT sales activities. The profit was hundreds of millions of dollars, but this news has not been confirmed and is for reference only).
Coupled with the US$21 million in financing previously completed by the team, the current Big Time treasury, regardless of expenditures, totals approximately US$93.87 million. Even considering that Big Time targets AAA game masterpieces, which normally cost tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of dollars in development costs, Big Time’s current financial resources can be said to be quite sufficient at this stage, with enough projects to be launched in the future. It was developed and operated for a long period of time in the early stage.
2.3 Code
Big Time is built on Ethereum and uses Procedurally Generated Goodness [9] to scale off-chain. The general framework is similar to most chain games currently on the market, that is, the game assets are uploaded to the chain and the game subjects are run on off-chain servers. The specific code base is not open source.
2.4 Products
Big Time is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG, Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game) inspired by time travel.
Generally speaking, as a subcategory of RPG games, MMORPG should first meet several core elements of RPG games:
1) Role elements: Players will need to choose to set or play a certain role in the game, and select the abilities and attributes possessed by the character.
2) Interactive elements: Games generally have built-in combat systems, mission systems, NPC systems, map systems, loot systems, and other mechanisms that generate feedback on player behavior.
3) Growth factors: Growth factors are generally the key to RPG games. The growth factors of common RPG games are divided into internal growth mechanisms and external growth mechanisms. Level and skill mechanisms are generally regarded as internal growth mechanisms. Players gain experience points through combat, exploration and other mechanisms, and can improve their abilities without relying on external resources. Equipment, props, etc. are generally regarded as external growth mechanisms. Players can obtain corresponding growth in character abilities by accumulating external resources such as gold coins. An excellent RPG game will strive for a balance between internal growth mechanisms and external growth mechanisms, giving players a smoother gaming experience.
The key point that makes MMORPG different from other types of RPG games is the difference in game experience.
For example, Japanese RPGs will pay more attention to the guidance of the main plot when setting up the game experience. Players are equivalent to playing a certain role in a script set by the game producer. Most games adopt a single-line ending, even if it is a multi-line ending. Generally, there are relatively clear paths to achieve it, and the player's differentiated experience will be supplemented by side plots, but generally speaking, it will not deviate too much from the main line setting of the game itself.
The American PRPG, which was born out of TRPG (Table RPG, such as Dungeons and Dragons), will relatively weaken the influence of the main plot in terms of game experience settings, and add more random elements to emphasize the impact of player behavior on the game. In the process of players playing, American RPG will be able to bring more differentiated experiences to players through the accumulation of interactive elements, allowing players to form their own game memories. The game itself will generally design a multi-line ending as a guide for player behavior. feedback.
Conceptually, MMORPG basically follows the design ideas of American RPG, that is, it places more emphasis on two-way interaction than one-way experience. Generally, there is only a short guiding plot to help players establish a basic world view, and there is not even any setting for the game. The concept of "ending", and the player's main game experience will be based on the interaction with game elements. On this basis, MMORPG will also place more emphasis on the interaction between players, and it can even be said that to some extent it is more like an online social game.
In the following, we will first introduce the world view setting of the game, and then make a certain degree of analysis from the three core elements of the game, the gameplay mechanism, etc.
2.4.1 Big Time game story background [10] [11] [12] [13]
Note: This chapter is an introduction to the background of the game story. It is not the focus. Readers who are not interested can skip it directly.
Every MMORPG game has its own unique game background and story line, and Big Time is no exception. The background of the story of Big Time is that in the future human world, a mysterious force is threatening the balance of the universe. Time is distorted, different eras collide with each other, the time and space of the entire universe is severely damaged, and the survivors are wandering in search of survival. Arriving at the last refuge of the universe - a place called BIGTIME'S END.
However, due to the large influx of survivors from different time and space, the asteroid BIGTIME’S END was quickly overwhelmed. At this time, a solution appeared (seemingly coming out of thin air, perhaps with the support of unknown mysterious forces behind it). A man named Canard Cincade created a company called Paradox Corporate to produce batches of small robots. Clockies are used to maintain the order of the world of time and space, and quickly restore BIGTIME'S END to normal operation.
At the same time, Paradox has also begun selling BIGTIMESHARES, a pocket universe full of infinite possibilities (similar to the VR virtual world in cyberpunk) - whether you want to ride dinosaurs in the American West pioneer era, or fight with robot samurai in the feudal era of Japan When you meet, Paradox can make it happen for you, and a large number of people are flocking to it in order to escape reality. As time passed, the residents of BIGTIME’S END began to discover that these small robots occasionally behaved abnormally or even went berserk, and even began to disrupt residents’ lives. In the same timeline, BIGTIME’S END privately began to hear rumors that Paradox Corporation was the culprit in destroying the peace of the universe. On the one hand, Paradox Company strongly denied the incident, and on the other hand, it launched a large-scale robot model with huge lethality-Guardian XL. Canard Cincade wants to use robots to control the entire world, using large robots for urban patrol work to monitor the operations of the entire city. To this end, an institution dedicated to protecting "time" - Evermore Academy, whose president is one of the smartest scientists in history - Albert Einstein, came forward. , Einstein assembled a group of heroes to solve the crisis facing the universe.
In Big Time, players play the role of a time traveler summoned by Einstein to the end of the universe. In the current version of the game plot, the task that players need to complete is to investigate Paradox Company in depth, figure out Canard Cincade’s intentions, and stop Canard Cincade’s plan. There will be more game plot content as the game version is updated in the future. Unlocked.
As an RPG game, Big Time uses multiple time and space narratives, and the game characters will travel through multiple time and space to achieve certain narrative purposes. Through the interlaced comparison of different time and space, the game content is enriched and has deeper narrative potential.
2.4.2 Roles and growth factors
As an RPG game, the character attributes, professions and other character elements and growth elements in the game are the focus of its game mechanism.
Figure 2–3 Big Time game characters
目前在Big Time游戏中一共有四种角色职业，如上图2–3所示，分别是：
• 时间勇士（Time Warrior）：擅长近距离战斗，适合作为坦克；招牌技能包括旋风斩和无敌怒吼。
• 时空术士（Chronomancer）：远程攻击的法师，能够群体输出；招牌技能包括火球，暴风雪和时间停止。
• 阴影之刃（Shadowblade）：具有高速移动和隐身能力，适合单体输出；招牌技能包括隐身，背刺和炸弹陷阱。
• 量子修补匠（Quantum Fixer）：类似牧师，能够治疗队友，适合作为辅助；招牌技能包括治疗，召唤炮台，回复能量。
Big Time's four professions basically follow the traditional European and American RPG "war, magic, animal husbandry, and assassin" career settings, making it easier for players to quickly adapt to the game mechanics and choose a game style that suits them. Based on the four professions, Big Time also designed a job transfer mechanism. Players can change jobs into different professions by using the "Pocket Watches" props of different professions in the game. In addition, after the v0.26 update, when players reach level 30, they can choose to transfer to two new professions, Techblade and Battlemancer, each with new skills. Combination, in terms of role positioning, the former is a combination of tank and mage, and the latter is a combination of assassin and priest.
From the perspective of growth factors, internal growth mechanisms include upgrades and skill point mechanisms. In Big Time, players can obtain attribute points and skill points every time they level up. Attribute points can improve the basic attributes of the game character. As the basic attributes improve, players can wear weapons and equipment with better attributes. This is similar to the gameplay of traditional RPG games. Skill points include active skills and general talents. Active skills are related to the selected profession, and general talents have nothing to do with the profession and are always effective.
Figure 2–4 Upgrading the points system
The current optional content of the external growth mechanism includes the equipment system and prop system.
Figure 2-5 Equipment and props system
The equipment system currently includes, gears, armor, shields, weapons, jewelry and backpacks. Gear props can be equipped on pocket watches to grant players additional abilities or prop rewards. Weapons are directly equipped by players. There are currently a variety of weapon types available including two-handed axes, one-handed hammers, two-handed hammers, one-handed swords, two-handed swords, double swords, two-handed staffs, etc. The weapons that players can equip are linked to the player's career type and their own level and basic attributes. Weapons can enhance the player's basic attributes, and have a mutually restrained relationship with the defense type of the target. Armor includes five parts: helmet, shoulder armor, breastplate, gloves and leggings. In addition, there are shields and jewelry. These equipment are similar to weapons and can also increase the player's basic attributes. The backpack is an equipment used to store player props. It can provide players with additional inventory slots to place props, thereby assisting players in the game.
The equipment system currently has built-in rarity and skin mechanisms. The higher the rarity of equipment, the higher the attribute bonus limit. The skin system is similar to the fashion mechanism in DNF and can be built by the armory and furnace in SPACE. It itself It will not affect the properties of the equipment. Players can equip the skin they currently own in the collection column above the UI. The above equipment or skins can be obtained by killing monsters, synthesizing, participating in events or characters, and purchasing corresponding gift packages. Skin NFTs can be traded as NFTs on Open Loot. We will explain the more specific equipment forging mechanism in detail in the NFT and SPACE sections.
In terms of the prop system, there are many props in the game. The props that players can use mainly include energy potions, life potions, teammate teleportation potions, town teleportation talismans, and tree of life. It can basically meet the player's needs for replenishing character resources and moving quickly, and can generally be obtained as trophies by killing monsters.
From the perspective of character elements and growth elements, Big Time basically draws on the character and growth design of mature MMORPGs, but its free job-changing system will further enrich players' gaming experience. But this also puts forward requirements for the game team to adjust the balance, because the lower threshold for changing professions means that if the ability of a certain profession is particularly outstanding in the future, it will squeeze the living space of other professions, thus affecting the viability of the game. Playfulness.
2.4.3 Interactive elements
The core gameplay mechanics of the game can be distilled into the interactive elements of the game. At present, interactive objects in the game include plots, maps, scenes, and players. Paying players and free players of the game can basically experience the same game content in terms of characters and growth elements, but among interactive elements, paying players can get a richer game experience.
In the v0.27 version, players will play on a whole map. There are towns, forests, swamps, snowy mountains, towers, dungeons and other elements on the map. Interactive objects include NPCs, monsters, ores, and teleporters. door and other players.
Figure 2–6 BigTime game map [14]
Figure 2–7 Interactive elements
Players can complete item transactions, learn skills, start plots, accept tasks and other interactions by talking to NPCs. Monsters and ores mainly correspond to the combat mechanism and collection mechanism of the game. Players can use the left and right mouse buttons to perform combos or use the number keys to release corresponding skills or props to attack the enemy.
Figure 2–8 Copy Portal
The portal mainly corresponds to the dungeon mechanism of the game. Each dungeon has a maximum limit of 6 people, and a suggested level will be prompted. After forming a team to complete the small tasks of the dungeon, players can enter the final boss room and obtain rich rewards by killing the boss. , the prizes that can be provided by the dungeon in the subsequent official version will include pocket watches, gold coins, time crystals, BIGTIME tokens, equipment, skin fragments, lucky bonus chips, NFT and other items. In addition to the ordinary dungeon portal, there is also a high-reward dungeon called the Glory Portal, which will significantly increase the explosion rate of rare drops in the dungeon. Players need to meet the entry requirements for skin-type NFTs before entering the high-reward dungeon. Entry requirements may include skin NFT type, theme, season, color and other elements, and then pay BIGTIME or time crystal as the admission fee. In addition, players can also use the Lucky Wheel slot to provide additional bonuses for high-reward copies.
The current interaction mechanisms with other players in the game include team formation, player expressions and chat functions. It is expected that functions such as friends and guilds will not be opened until subsequent version updates.
2.4.4 Resource elements
The game's three resource elements, gold coins, Time Crystals and BIGTIME tokens, are also displayed on the left side of the map in the upper right corner of the game's main UI. Gold coins can be lost through game actions such as killing monsters, completing tasks, trading loot, or mining. Fall, used to purchase common equipment and props in the game.
Time crystals are the main in-game currency in the game and are difficult to obtain through normal game channels. Players can basically only buy them from Big Time through Open loot. Time crystals are not chained assets. Once purchased, they are bound to the account and cannot be used later. Trade in the market. Currently, 500 Time Crystals are priced at about $5, and 13,500 Time Crystals are priced at about $100. Time crystals are mainly used to activate various functional NFTs. A certain amount of time crystals need to be paid in the process of using the armory, furnace and time guard. In addition, time crystals can also be used to purchase some auxiliary props, such as additional time hourglass equipment slots or to pay entrance fees to certain Prestige Portals.
BIGTIME token is the most important core asset in the game. It is the last link of the entire game economic mechanism. We will introduce this token in 2.4.7.
In addition to the above three resource elements that can be directly seen on the UI interface, there are four important resource elements related to functional NFTs in the game: Cosmetic Shards, Workshop Mod Chips, Glory Prestige Portal Mod Chips, Cosmetic Scraps. Workshop chips and Glory Portal chips are collectively called Bonus Roll Chips. They are dropped during game activities and are non-chain assets, so they cannot be traded. They are mainly used to redeem functional NFTs and Glory Portal. wheel of fortune.
Figure 2–9 Workshop chip and Honor portal chip
All four will be dropped by killing monsters in the dungeon. Skin fragments are mainly used to synthesize refined skin fragments and then make or upgrade skin-type NFTs in the armory or furnace. Skin fragments are seasonal drops and will be dropped every season. New skin fragments are released and used to synthesize the craftable skin NFT of the current season. The workshop chip is mainly used to redeem functional NFT, and can also be used to purchase the lucky wheel (Bonus Roll) of functional NFT. The Honor Portal chip is mainly used to redeem the lucky wheel of the Honor Portal. In most cases, skin waste needs to be obtained by destroying skin-type NFTs, which are mainly used to exchange for workshop chips and glory portal chips.
2.4.5 NFT
There are two types of NFTs in the game, one is the skin-type NFT we mentioned in the equipment section, and the other is functional NFT. The difference between the two is that skin NFT is a product, while functional NFT is a production tool. The former can increase the user's gaming experience by improving the sound and picture performance of in-game props such as armor and weapons, highlighting the player's status. Players who own skin-type NFT will also have access to exclusive scenes or glory portals to experience exclusive content. qualifications. At the same time, in order to ensure the balance of the game, skin NFT will not affect the original game values of the in-game props. The latter is mainly used to produce skin-type NFT and BIGTIME tokens to maintain the economic cycle in the game.
Skin NFTs are divided into two categories, skin-producible NFTs and skin-non-producible NFTs. The former can be produced through functional NFTs, while the latter can only be randomly dropped in the game. There are currently three types of functional NFT: the furnace, the armory, and the time guard. All three can only be used after being connected to the personal metaverse SPACE. In the furnace and armory, players need to invest certain resources, such as BIGTIME tokens, time crystals and skin fragments, to complete the production and upgrade of skin-type NFTs. Three of the low-rarity craftable skin NFTs will be exchangeable for higher-level craftable skin NFTs, which will become an important part of the season competition in the future.
Time Guard is the most complex functional NFT in the game. It will be used to produce BIGTIME tokens. Players need to first invest time crystals to create a time hourglass, and then equip the time hourglass and use the time crystal to charge it before it can be generated. BIGTIME tokens, and the time hourglass is a consumable resource. When the time hourglass is exhausted, you need to recharge it with time crystals in the time guard to continue to generate BIGTIME tokens.
Players can choose to use the lucky wheel for every activity in functional NFT, including refining, making and upgrading skin-type NFT. The lucky wheel is obtained by redeeming the workshop chip, which can give the action additional bonuses and functions in the form of a lottery. The level of the NFT determines the available slots of the lucky wheel. One action can superimpose multiple different lucky wheel bonus effects. Players can obtain functional NFT experience points for all activities in functional NFT. After the experience value reaches the upgrade standard, time crystals are paid to upgrade the functional NFT. After the upgrade, functional NFT will have higher production efficiency, as well as additional lucky wheel slots and bonus effects.
In addition to the above functions, functional NFT also has different types. Different types of functional NFT have different color classifications and special bonus types. In addition, the type of functional NFT is also linked to its rarity, among which the top three rarity The functional NFTs will all be of type Triumph.
There are currently 10 types of furnaces:
Figure 2–10 Maximum supply of furnaces by type and rarity
The armory currently also has 10 types:
Figure 2–11 Maximum supply of armory by type and rarity
Unlike the Forge and Armory, there are currently only 4 types of Time Wardens:
Figure 2–12 Maximum supply of time guards by type and rarity
In addition to the individual bonuses of each functional NFT, players can also obtain set bonuses based on various types of functional NFTs in SPACE. The rewards of the set bonus are similar to the individual bonuses and can be superimposed. Red Increase the speed of production and refining, blue reduces the BIGTIME consumption during production and refining, and green adds additional lucky wheel slots.
Finally, the official emphasized that all functional NFTs will have a fixed and unchangeable issuance quantity, but in the future, new skin-type NFTs will be launched on a season basis. The maximum number of skin-type NFTs issued in a single season will be at the beginning of the season. Sure.
2.4.6 SPACE
SPACE is an important game content that distinguishes paying players from free players. It is similar to the "land" concept of other metaverses. In the game, players can summon their own metaverse portal on the map by clicking specific buttons, and then enter it. Both free players and paid players can have their own personal metaverse in the game, but only players with SPACE can perform some special operations in the SPACE expansion space.
Figure 2–13 Personal SPACE portal
SPACE目前有四个功能：
1）拓展个人元宇宙。SPACE空间的设计如同积木，每个的SPACE拥有一个入口和多个出口，玩家需要先通过入口来创建个人元宇宙，然后再通过出口去连接其他的SPACE或者功能性NFT（军械库，熔炉和时间守卫），不同大小的SPACE有不同数量的出口。
Figure 2–14 Inside SPACE
2）使用功能性NFT。军械库、熔炉和时间守卫只有在通过SPACE连接的情况下才可使用。
3）放置皮肤类NFT。玩家可以将游戏过程当中获得的皮肤类NFT陈列在个人元宇宙当中，或者做一些个性化的改装。
4）获得破碎的时间沙漏。破碎的时间沙漏能用来一次性生产游戏代币BIGTIME。
5）集成社交功能。玩家将能够邀请其他玩家参观自身的个人元宇宙，并且进行互动。
SPACE is currently only available through purchase. And SPACEs of different sizes and rarities have fixed maximum circulation:
Figure 2–15 Maximum circulation of SPACE of different rarities and sizes
The size of SPACE will affect the number of SPACE exports, that is, it will affect the number of components that SPACE can be connected to.
Except for the rarity of Exalted, SPACE has three sizes, small, medium and large, with 2, 3 and 5 exits respectively. The rarity of Exalted will have one more exit than the SPACE of other rarities.
In addition to affecting the number of exports from SPACE, rarity will also limit the functional NFTs connected to SPACE. High-rarity functional NFTs will only be connected and used on high-rarity SPACE. At the same time, the rarity of SPACE will affect the rarity and drop rate of the Broken Time Hourglass, and the size of SPACE will affect the number of drops from the Broken Time Hourglass, thus affecting the supply of BIGTIME tokens.
In the future, Big Time will also enable the SPACE rental system to allow more players to experience the richer game content provided by SPACE.
2.4.7 Game economic mechanism
The game economic mechanism built by Big Time revolves around BIGTIME tokens.
BIGTIME代币主要有以下几种作用：
1）用于在熔炉和军械库当中对皮肤碎片进行精炼或者制作和升级皮肤类NFT。
2）支付荣耀传送门的入场费。
The number of BIGTIME tokens is 5,000,000,000. Theoretically, they will be generated completely through game actions in the game, rather than entering the game through issuance, and there will be no token sales for investors.
具体的获取方法有以下三种：
1）通过个人元宇宙SPACE随机掉落破损的时间沙漏（Cracked Hourglasses），作为一次性道具，可以装备后生产BIGTIME代币。破损的时间沙漏与时间水晶一样是不上链资产，与玩家账号绑定，无法交易。
2）通过在功能性NFT时间守卫当中花费时间水晶来制作时间沙漏（Hourglasses）并装备，然后继续花费时间水晶来为时间沙漏进行充能进而生产BIGTIME代币。
3）通过市场来购买或者团队空投来获取已经生产出来了的BIGTIME代币。
The generation mechanism of BIGTIME determines that the supply of BIGTIME will be related to the allocation of in-game resources most of the time, which ensures that the economic model of the entire game has a certain degree of stability and flexibility. Because as a BIGTIME producer in the game, the direct resources it needs to invest are mainly time hourglass and time crystal. The price of time crystal is denominated in US dollars and is fixed. The price of time hourglass fluctuates with the market supply and demand. The former This ensures that if the output of BIGTIME is lower than the cost, producers will reduce the token supply, thereby stabilizing the game economy. The latter ensures that BIGTIME's output will have a certain correlation with market activity, that is, the actual needs of players, thereby increasing the flexibility of the game economy.
除了BIGTIME代币以外，能在Open Loot上进行交易的资产还包括皮肤碎片，SPACE NFT，装饰类NFT和功能性NFT，因此在Big Time里参与游戏完整的经济循环还有以下两种路径。
1）打怪，刷副本获得皮肤碎片在市场上进行交易。
2）打怪，刷副本获得不可制作皮肤类NFT以后在市场上进行交易。
The above are two ways for free players to participate in the game's economic cycle. Since the explosion rate of NFT and rare resources in ordinary copies is low, free players need to invest a lot of time and energy, and trading skin fragments will be something that a few free players can actually do. The act of participating in the complete economic cycle of the game. However, since on-chain assets basically do not affect the balance within the game, free players can still experience most of the fun of the game without involving on-chain assets.
For paying players, how to participate in the game's economic cycle is more strategic. In what proportion should we invest resources such as time crystals, BIGTIME tokens and skin fragments, and use SPACE and functional NFT to produce more skin-type NFTs and BIGTIME tokens for trading will become a required course for every paying player. At the same time, the existence of mechanisms such as the Honor Portal can further enrich the gaming experience of paying players and increase their participation in the game.
Generally speaking, Big Time's game economic mechanism is very cleverly designed, which can ensure that the in-game economic cycle has a certain degree of flexibility on a stable basis, and can also ensure that both free players and paid players can have a richer set of games. experience. However, such an economic mechanism also places high demands on players' strategies for allocating resources in the game. Players need to invest certain resources to explore their appropriate positioning in the game.
2.4.8 Airdrop
Big Time officials will conduct airdrops to early game NFT purchasers and early game participants to thank them for their support.
There are two types of airdrops. One is the airdrop of mysterious gift boxes, with a total amount of 153,000. Each gift box contains a functional NFT with different explosion rates according to its rarity. And the more NFTs a user has in their account, the higher the rarity, the higher the value of the corresponding assets or completing more game tasks and copies, the higher the value of the airdrops they can obtain.
另一类是BIGTIME代币的空投，根据Big Time目前的空投计划，总代币空投量将达到总量的2.6%，也就是130,000,000 BIGTIME。在季前赛当中，官方将进行97,500,000 BIGTIME代币的空投并且将剩余的代币用于其他的空投和营销计划，上述空投将在季前赛开始后的前三个月末进行，空投数额将基于每个用户账户内的积分点实时排行榜。用户账户当中的积分点将基于以下行为进行计算：
1）游戏内升级。且玩家到达的等级越高，积分奖励就越高。
2）使用实用类NFT。能够获得积分的行为包括精炼化妆品碎片，制作化妆品，制作沙漏，充能沙漏，拆除破碎的沙漏。
3）参与荣耀传送门。
4）邀请好友，邀请玩家将可以获得被邀请玩家50%的积分作为奖励。
To put it simply, the more players participate in Big Time and the more collectibles they have, the higher the probability of receiving airdrops and the richer prizes they will receive. However, regarding the specific plan for airdrops, the Big Time team may fine-tune the details in the future.
2.4.9 Season Competitions and Rewards
Big Time在公测之后将会按照90天一个赛季来更新大版本。每个大的版本更新将包含以下内容：
1）全新的固定数量的皮肤类NFT，包含可制作和不可制作的皮肤类NFT。
2）新的赛季皮肤碎片与精制皮肤碎片。
3）新的特别活动与游戏内容。
In addition, there will be a skin NFT synthesis competition every season, which is the Musou Challenge. In each season, only one unique skin NFT will appear. Be the first to create a unique skin NFT. Players will win the season competition. According to Big Time's skin rarity mechanism, synthesizing a skin of unparalleled rarity will consume 19,683 skins of ordinary future rarity. Big Time may launch more activities to encourage players or guilds to come. Enter this contest.
2.4.10 Game experience
• Game configuration
Since Big Time is designed to target traditional 3A masterpieces, it requires certain hardware configuration requirements. The current minimum system configuration requirements are as follows:
显卡：GeForce GTX 1060 / Radeon Rx 580 或更高版本
内存：8GB RAM
API接口：DirectX 11 或更高版本
处理器：Intel core i5 4430/ AMD FX 6300
存储空间：23GB
Note: The above specifications may be adjusted based on subsequent game development.
Although Big Time is not yet comparable to 3A games from traditional major manufacturers, from the perspective of blockchain games alone, Big Time is far superior to the shoddy games currently on the market in terms of game graphics, gameplay, sound effects, systems, etc. The chain game can reach the level of a qualified independent game in the traditional game field.
However, in contrast, since Big Time has certain requirements for configuration and requires certain operations, for such games that require a lot of time and energy, it will inevitably limit the participation of some people. Therefore, the core lies in whether the game can successfully break out of the game, that is, whether the game is outstanding, whether the built-in economic incentives and other factors can attract online game players and players in traditional fields to enter.
• Gaming experience
As far as the overall game test results are concerned, the v0.27 version of Big Time already has the prototype of an MMORPG game.
First of all, the gameplay mechanism of the game has been established, but at present, all systems, such as tokens, guilds, etc., have not been fully implemented in the internal beta. They will appear in subsequent updates. Currently, the dungeons and main plot challenges that can be experienced smoothly, The degree of completion basically reaches the standard of normal games.
Secondly, in terms of the sound and picture performance of the game, they are basically above the passing line, and the picture performance is slightly better than expected. However, the overall tone is relatively single and the elements are lacking. After playing for a long time, you will feel tired.
From the perspective of the overall game process, it takes more than 30 hours for players to experience all the elements of the current version. The size of the game itself is medium, but more plot lines and copies are still to be provided in future updates of the game.
• payment system
If players want to purchase NFT assets on Big Time, they only need to log in through a Google account on the official Big Time page, then bind the corresponding mobile phone number or Google authenticator, and finally bind a bank account or add USDC. Purchase, of course, for users who are experienced in on-chain transfers, they can also create a new encrypted wallet and conduct transactions.
Note: Currently, Big Time Marketplace only supports USDC payment, and it is expected that ETH will be used for payment in the future.
Big Time's NFT purchase process is relatively convenient in operation. Players do not need to learn how to use a digital wallet. They only need to log in to a Google account and bind a bank account to make purchases, which greatly reduces the entry barrier for users. It should be noted that on the Big Time NFT trading market Open Loot, you need to complete the corresponding KYC verification before making a large deposit (more than 2,000 US dollars within 24 hours) or any withdrawal operation in the account, and currently a KYC certification can only be bound to one account.
2.5 Technology
2.5.1 Procedural Content Generation [15]
Big Time is built on Ethereum and uses Procedural Content Generation technology to scale off-chain.
Programmed content generation is a method that requires first inputting characteristic parameters and basic materials, and then using a series of customized (or certain random) algorithms to generate game content in large quantities in real time or offline.
随着现下游戏厂商越做越大，工业化的趋势越来越明显，近几年PCG的使用也成为了当下游戏开发商的主流。在游戏生产中，PCG技术主要有以下几个优点[16]：
1）可以大大提高游戏资产的生产速度，降低成本，且出错率低。这对于大型游戏项目外包的控制力优化是非常重要的。
2）PCG产生资源的数量级巨大，可以在玩法上进行大量创新，不断地随机自动生成内容，可以激发游戏设计师的想象力。
3）可以在有限的硬盘空间内实时动态生成无限的新内容，省去硬盘空间占用，并且可以让玩家反复游玩新的自动生成关卡。也可以离线计算，优化游戏性能，让玩家有广阔的空间进行探索。
Currently popular traditional client games, such as "EVE", "Horizon: Zero Dawn", "Red Dead Redemption", "FarCry", "GTA", "Minecraft" and many other games all use PCG's underlying technology to Constructed.
Big Time uses PCG technology to build a grand game world for players, bringing more fun and playability to players, and increasing the exploration cycle of the game.
2.5.2 Vault technology
One of the most groundbreaking components integrated into Big Time is its patented Vault technology.
According to the team, Vault technology can: help users reduce the management of external wallets, self-custody assets and eliminate expensive on-chain transactions. Players can enjoy benefits such as instant transaction settlement without having to set up and manage their own crypto wallet or incur network fees. The way to achieve this goal is mainly because the team stores Big Time's game items in its off-chain Vault custody system.
To simply understand, Big Time uses Vault technology to create a private database.
Big Time stores records of items created or purchased in its own database via Vault. Technically, Big Time does not automatically mint NFTs on the blockchain, where NFTs and regular items can coexist, keeping transactions low. cost. On the other hand, players can transfer assets from off-chain to on-chain at any point in time.
In addition, Big Time CEO Ari Meilich also noted that if enough demand for Big Time materializes, the studio will devise new ways for players to extract their assets and transfer them to any desired blockchain, which will It may mean that Big Time's SPACE in-game NFT is likely to become a cross-chain asset in the near future.
Summarize:
From a team perspective, the Big Time team has a solid background in the gaming and encryption fields, and the core members all have experience in developing large-scale games or working in large gaming companies. However, compared with the first research report in May 2022, there have been some changes in the core team members of Big Time. Among them, the departure of the product director and game economic model design director may have had a certain impact on the development and delivery of the game. , the follow-up work will be taken over by other experts who are deeply involved in the game industry. In addition, because Big Time Studios is a game studio that works completely remotely around the world, it will also have a certain impact on the on-time delivery of games.
In terms of funding, Big Time has raised over US$90 million through primary market financing and NFT sales, which is enough to support the development of a 3A-level game. After the game is launched in the future, the project team can also continue to raise funds through the sale of game resources. Sustainable operations.
From the perspective of the core mechanics of the game, Big Time basically draws on the characters and growth design of mature MMORPGs, but its free job-changing system will further enrich players' gaming experience. But this also puts forward requirements for the game team to adjust the balance, because the lower threshold for changing professions means that if the ability of a certain profession is particularly outstanding, it will squeeze the living space of other professions, thus affecting the playability of the game. sex.
From the perspective of the game's economic mechanism, Big Time's design is very clever, which can ensure that the in-game economic cycle has a certain degree of flexibility on a stable basis, and can also ensure that both free players and paid players can have a richer gaming experience. However, such an economic mechanism also places high demands on players' strategies for allocating resources in the game. Players need to invest certain resources to explore their appropriate positioning in the game.
Judging from the actual game experience, the game already has a certain degree of playability, but more iterations will be needed in the future to improve the game's picture performance and gameplay mechanics.
From the perspective of game threshold, the game's hardware requirements currently do not seem to be high, but players need to meet certain requirements before they can participate in the preseason.
3. Development
3.1 History
Table 3–1 Big Time events
3.2 Current situation
Big Time is currently still in the internal testing stage. As of September 1, 2023, the game has been in internal testing for more than a year. It has been updated to version 0.27 and has been deleted and tested on multiple major versions. However, due to limited testing qualifications, currently The actual number of people online in the game is relatively small, and most servers are relatively idle.
3.2.1 Social media scale
Table 3–2 Big Time Social Media Data
As of October 9, 2023, the Big Time social platform has a larger number of fans and more interactions. The community communicates frequently, and most of the content revolves around game mechanics. Game live broadcast data is good. More than 2,000 anchors have live broadcasted Big Time games, and the live broadcast time exceeded 40,000 hours. It has now surpassed Axie Infinity and became the Web3 with the most live broadcasts by anchors. game, and the total viewing time of the game also exceeded 480,000 hours. It is estimated that there are more than a thousand core fans of the game at this stage, and this number is likely to continue to increase in the future.
3.3 Future
Big Time is still in the internal beta stage, and the development focus of the next few versions of the game will also focus on the development of BIGTIME tokens and the implementation of functional NFTs. In the future, Big Time will update more main storylines to improve the game experience. On October 10, 2023, Big Time plans to launch a pre-season version, by which time it is expected that a large number of new players will enter the game.
Summarize:
From the perspective of project development, the current operation and development pace of the game is slower than expected, but the game already has a group of core players with high stickiness. After the subsequent versions are opened to the public with zero threshold, it is possible that more players will enter the game.
4. Economic Model
Big Time is about to launch the in-game token $BIGTIME. We have integrated the BIGTIME token and the game economic mechanism into the product (Chapter 2), so we will not go into details here.
5. Track
5.1 Current status of the track
After entering 2023, the performance of the overall blockchain game market can only be considered unsatisfactory for those who have high hopes for this track. However, compared with the downturn of the entire blockchain market, the current performance of the blockchain game market is still considered satisfactory. good and still has great development potential in the future.
Figure 5-1 The only active wallet (UAW) and transaction volume on the blockchain game track [18]
Figure 5-2 Number of unique users on the chain game track[19]
According to data from DappRader and Footprint, as of September 25, 2023, the number of unique active wallets (UAW) on the chain gaming circuit in the past year has basically remained at around 800,000. Although compared with the average in Big Time’s first research report The daily number of around 1.2 million has dropped by more than 30%, but overall there has been no significant loss of core players in chain games. Once the market generally recovers, the chain gaming market will have a basis for recovery.
Figure 5-3 Financing volume and amount of financing in the blockchain gaming industry
Figure 5-4 Number of active chain games
Although there has been a significant decline in the amount of financing on the chain game track over the past year or so, we can also find that the number of active chain games has not declined significantly, and is even rising slowly, which means that the entire track is currently It still maintains growth and development, and still has a certain degree of resilience in the bear market.
Overall, whether from the perspective of game or player data, the chain gaming circuit has performed well in the current bear market environment.
5.2 The future of the track
After the first wave of chain games led by StepN and Axie Infinity ended, the current chain game track has fallen into a rather contradictory environment. On the one hand, the market has confirmed the feasibility of the entire chain gaming track, but on the other hand, the market is waiting for the emergence of the next paradigm to guide the track to the next stage.
Currently, many games are being explored in various subdivisions of chain games. There are many ways to classify the blockchain game track. For example, according to the asset category, it can be divided into full-chain games and games with some core assets on the chain. According to the operation method, it can be divided into Web2.5 games and Web3 games. According to the game play mechanism, it can be divided into MOBA, FPS, MMORPG, etc.
目前来看，在主流的几个分类当中，我们认为部分核心资产上链的Web2.5游戏有很大的发展潜力。原因有以下几点：
1）链上性能和可靠性有限，导致全链游戏目前无法满足大多数玩家在游戏当中的交互需求。同时仅有核心资产上链也可以降低游戏运营商的运营成本。
2）由于大多数游戏对于项目方的运营和产品迭代要求较高，因此相比较于纯粹的Web3游戏，Web2.5游戏即以Web2形式运营的Web3游戏能够在游戏运营的效率和成本两端取得平衡，能够保证玩家拥有基本的游戏体验。
3）在第一波链游浪潮结束以后，链游赛道有了明显的发展，游戏开发的投入有了明显上升，玩家对于下一个链游范式本身的期待也有了明显的提高。因此旧有的在机制和画面上接近于小游戏或者页游的链游很难再取得意料之外的成功，玩家和市场期待的是一款真正能够比肩Web2主流游戏的链游大作。
Based on the above points, we are relatively optimistic about games like Big Time that are rooted in Web2 games and have sufficient development capabilities and development experience. In addition, MMORPG, as a game type, often has a more stable user group and longer game life than other types of games. Although this means higher requirements for the project's operation, this It also means that it has greater development potential.
Summarize
From the perspective of the track, since entering the bear market, although the number of players and transaction volume on the chain game track has declined to a certain extent, the core group of chain game players still maintains a high stickiness, and the overall development progress of the track It has not been significantly affected, and a large number of new games are still being developed and operated. Once the overall macro environment picks up, the chain gaming track itself still has room for imagination. At the same time, based on the different types and development stages of the blockchain game track, we believe that games with some core assets like Big Time that are put on the blockchain, are rooted in Web2 games, and have sufficient development capabilities and operational experience will have greater development in the future. potential.
6. Risks
1) Game economic model
Big Time tokens can only be obtained through normal game behavior in the game, which often requires players to have high game participation.
2) Team risk
The game rules are customized by the team, and the team may change/adjust the game rules at any time based on the current status of the game, resulting in damage to the interests of the players.
3) Risk of game bugs
There are still a large number of game bugs in the current game version, some of which may be malignant bugs that affect game assets. Players need to treat them with caution and provide immediate feedback to the project team.