At the end of February, Sui and Aptos, the twins of the new public chains, had a war of words. Sui's CTO pointed out on social media that Aptos suppressed Sui and its ecosystem developers and restricted them from participating in related conferences and activities. Behind the verbal battle, it actually reflects that the new public chains are eager to gain users and attention through differentiation and competitive advantages.
For Sui, this competitive focus may be on Web3 games.
On March 8, Mysten Labs, the developer behind Sui, reached a cooperation with Tencent Cloud, one of the important cooperation directions of which is Gamefi. In the $15 million financing completed by Mysten Labs in November last year, the lead investor came from the Korean game giant NCSoft, and the purpose of raising funds also included making Sui the infrastructure for Web3 games.
The narrative of Web3 games has been silent for a long time. When the funding and infrastructure are in place, the market is also looking forward to whether killer game applications can be truly born on Sui. In this context, Abyss World, a game that has been repeatedly exposed in the traditional game circle, has recently become famous.
Well-known gaming media such as IGN and Famitsu have reported on it, and on the mainstream gaming platform Steam, the number of players who wish to pre-order the game through the "wishlist" function has exceeded 70,000. At the same time, the actual game trial video released so far also shows a high degree of completion and a quality close to 3A.
This situation is not common for Web3 games. After all, most games in the circle are still thinking about how to "break the circle", while Abyss World is more like a flower blooming inside the wall and fragrant outside the wall. It has received a lot of attention from outside the circle before the game is released. More importantly, Mysten Labs recently announced its partnership with Abyss World and confirmed that the game content will be built on Sui Chain.
For a public chain to stand out, it often needs the support of phenomenal applications. As the first 3A game that Mystenlabs participated in, can Abyss World become Sui's trump card to catch up? What are the outstanding features of its game design and economic model, and what space can users currently participate in? If you are also paying attention to the opportunities of new public chains and game tracks, I hope the following analysis will be helpful to you.
Real game, maybe there is really a play?
According to the official definition of Abyss World, the type of the game itself is "open world ARPG".
This means that players will personally "explore" the world and "operate" the characters, which will become the highlight. From the public information and the information revealed to us by the team, Abyss World is more like an open world game that combines the style of "Elden Ring", the action elements of the Monster Hunter series, and the gameplay is more like Genshin Impact.
Words and pictures cannot fully describe the sensory experience brought by Abyss World. Interested readers are recommended to watch the official demo video in person. In the actual trial process, the game is easily reminiscent of traditional action games - dark fantasy style scene design, emphasis on operation and fighting, and both difficulty and excitement.
But if we want to simply define Abyss World, we think a more appropriate yet simpler summary is: "real game".
"Real" means that it is more like a game that is made with high standards, complete, and has entertainment value, with a mature game world view, operation feedback mechanism, and exploration experience. These elements are considered commonplace in traditional games, but they are rare in the world of Crypto.
One reason is cost considerations. Building such works requires a lot of time and resources. Another reason is that the actual gameplay of such games does not seem to have much in common with "financial attributes."
Common blockchain games are essentially DeFi in the form of games - games are just a means, and the goal is to gain profits from financial assets through games. In other words, it is a "mining program" with clear rules and not much entertainment space. This is very popular, but it does not mean it is healthy and sustainable.
In the content currently shown by Abyss World, the game itself is the purpose - to gain pleasure and satisfaction in playing, which is closer to the interactive experience created by the game.
It is more player-oriented, but is this model feasible in Web3?
When we discuss how Web3 games can break out of the circle and attract more users, we often think from the inside out: first gain recognition from users in the circle, and then gradually expand to a wider audience. However, games like Abyss World clearly show an "outside-in" path.
The product is first aimed at mainstream gamers, providing an equivalent gaming experience, and then makes mainstream users aware of the benefits of Web3 games, gradually guiding them to discover that owning a game can actually create economic opportunities while playing.
This development path is a test of the quality of the game, and it also places higher demands on the developer's control of the rhythm, especially whether they can guide users to interact with crypto assets at the appropriate time during the game.
Judging from the quality of the current game, Abyss World performs well. So the next question we are curious about is, what is the specific gameplay design of the game? And how will it guide players to get in touch with crypto assets?
Play first, assets second
The actual demo currently released by Abyss World is more of a traditional game experience, and does not seem to reveal more integration points with Web3; but as a game developed based on Sui, it must also involve the part of interacting with Web3 assets.
To understand this part, it is necessary to understand the overall game design first.
The game world of Abyss World adopts a fictional design. Players will explore a world called "Nordinia", which also constitutes the first type of gameplay of the game: PVE.
Players can explore the world alone or in a team, fight enemies to gain in-game points/currency, equipment, and props, etc., and then use the above resources to improve their abilities to continue more exploration.
At the same time, a resource called "Hero Soul" can also be collected in PVE. It has different types and abilities. Players can train and cultivate it to unlock the second mode of play: PVP.
It is worth mentioning that in player battles, the above-mentioned "hero souls" have their own AI algorithms and are capable of independently responding to combat situations. What players have to do is to reasonably deploy troops according to the ability values and attributes of the souls, and then the hero souls will automatically fight according to the AI decision.
In the above two types of gameplay, we can clearly see the demand for resources: the player's equipment needs to be upgraded, and the hero's soul also needs to be strengthened, which naturally leads to the way to link the game with Web3 assets: PGC (Player Generated Content).
Players can forge and upgrade the equipment and hero souls obtained in the game in the "Mint Factory" to further obtain better ability values and attributes to enhance the gaming experience. According to the current design, these forged equipment/hero souls will appear in the form of NFTs, and players need to consume the on-chain/off-chain currency obtained in the game to cast them.
Although the game has not fully demonstrated these functions at present, considering the cooperation with Sui, we expect that the NFT asset minting, trading, and ownership update in the game will be handled on the chain, and the Sui Move language will be used to better create dynamic NFTs; at the same time, due to the high performance and low latency characteristics of the Sui chain, high-frequency transactions involving equipment props in the game can be well taken over.
In addition, an NFT trading market will be pre-set in the game, where players can sell the minted NFTs to make a profit, or they can choose to keep the NFTs for new play and adventure.
According to the Abyss World development team, players will not be directly exposed to the above modules at the beginning. In the design of the entire game, this exposure is gradual: the initial experience of playing is not much different from other Web2 games. After a certain amount of playing time, level and sufficient understanding, the unique game levels in the game will lead to unlocking content related to asset casting/trading.
Such a design means stratification - after ensuring that players experience sufficient game content, they are segmented at a certain critical point: players who want to play casually can maintain the status quo to experience the original content of the game; players who want to further experience the assets can choose to mint more NFT props according to the guidance to get more opportunities to win the competition.
At the same time, we also learned that the token rewards in the game will not be given directly to players who spend a lot of time doing simple tasks, but will be given to teams that complete special tasks in the PVE section, or individuals who are on the leaderboard, and those who win the PVP arena season.
The game orientation of Abyss World can be clearly seen from the incentive mechanism: those who want to "play better" are incentivized through Web3 assets, and the asset utility serves "better play".
When all asset designs are designed to serve the game content, the act of acquiring assets becomes a "supplementary means" to experience the game content, rather than a direct purpose. Of course, there are professional gold farmers in any game ecosystem, and this group is inevitable. However, the overall orientation of the game encourages the experience of content, which is conducive to avoiding a simple and clear "dig, withdraw and sell" cycle, and does not allow financial attributes to erode the game itself.
Therefore, the quality of the game content and the frequency of updates have become the deciding factor in whether Abyss World can retain players for a long time.
Honest Adventures and Applause
In a recent Q&A session for the community, Metagame Industries, the developer behind Abyss World, admitted that the current development cost of the game is around 3 million US dollars. In the traditional PC and console game field, the investment amount may be just a small amount; but for a Web3 game, spending 3 million US dollars on the core system and experience of the game is not a small amount, and it is more like an honest adventure.
Independent game developers often do not have the financial resources and trial and error costs of well-known large game companies. The production of high-quality games is more like the model of the film industry, with large and intensive investments in the early stage and subsequent box office sales to recover costs.
According to Metagame, it took the team nearly three years from 2020 to complete the construction of the game's core combat system and system infrastructure, and they also raised funds for development during the process. But in Web3, all results are unknown. Instead of choosing a skinned chain game that is easier to imitate, they invested money to make a game, which itself is somewhat risky.
Fortunately, the market recognized and responded. On January 3, the game received support from the Microsoft for Startups project, which enabled it to obtain Microsoft cloud usage quotas, OpenAI services, technical support, and business development resources. This is a professional complement to the game's AI combat mode and the cloud gaming mode that lowers the hardware threshold for players.
At the same time, Abyss World has also been favored by gaming giants such as AMD, EPIC GAMES and Microsoft. Abyss World, along with 3A masterpieces such as "God of War", has also received AMD's FSR2.0 technology support for enhancing the gaming experience. It is reported that the official cooperation with Microsoft will also be announced in the near future.
On the one hand, the resource support from technology and gaming industry giants has given game developers more confidence, but more importantly, it reflects the industry's recognition of the exploration of high-quality Web3 games.
In addition to external recognition, Metagame Industries team members also revealed to us that the reason why independent game developers choose to build Web3 games is that the model of the traditional game industry is that 3A game publishers provide developers with financial support to complete a game and grab most of the profits. In this model, the developer is at the top of the food chain and decides what kind of games can be supported. Unless the development team controls an IP work with super high traffic, it may not create huge profits.
However, since the game is a top-down designed system, centered around the development team and maintaining a balanced relationship with everyone (players, investors), it can ensure more long-term and stable development.
The economic design in Web3 can be seen as a link to connect investors, development teams, and players. If the tokens in the game have good utility design, investors (and those with financial demands) will not directly affect the economic balance in the game, players will have a better experience of the game itself, and the team can focus more on the development of game content.
Obviously, Abyss World is making this attempt to change the distribution logic and participant relationship of traditional games. When companies in the industry gradually recognize the game, the next question is: how to better get users to participate and recognize it?
NFT is ready to go, with functions and rights bound to each other
In the Web3 gameplay, NFT is a key option to attract users to participate in the project early. Abyss World will start selling the first batch of Genesis NFT Gazer series on March 23.
The first batch of this series has a total of 2,100 pieces, divided into 4 levels of rarity, consisting of various hero styles in the game. Players can mint them on the Abyss World official website in the near future. At the same time, the Discord community still has the opportunity to obtain whitelist tasks.
From the project introduction, we can see that these NFTs are not just small pictures, but are tied to the rights and functions in the game: players holding NFTs can share potential income in the game, get more rare props and skins, and get the game's internal test qualification first. Using traditional games as an analogy, this type of NFT is more like a monthly card or VIP in the game, and the income generated by holding it is all contained in the value of the game itself.
In addition, due to the in-depth cooperation with Mysten Labs, in addition to being bound to Abyss World's game native token AWT, NFT also has the right to be bound to Sui token airdrops, making it the current leading project in the Sui ecosystem.
When the game itself has certain qualities, the popularity of NFT depends on whether players want to experience the game, and participants in the secondary market will naturally gamble on the fair value of this "advanced game ticket". We believe that the subsequent operation and expectation management of the game will be the key to the success of the NFT.
From "heavy" to "light", hard power drives the long-term development of games
Whether it is based on the value spillover brought by Sui's expected cooperation or the quality currently demonstrated by the game itself, we believe that Abyss World has the potential to become a representative work of Web3 games.
At the same time, in addition to the quality of the game, the AI automatic battle gameplay revealed in the design also gives a certain amount of imagination. What we see today is a hero battle based on the game's own IP. In the future, with more unified standards and asset interoperability, we may expect NFT characters from other ecosystems to join in the battle. If a "metaverse brawl" game mode can be established, it will contain more business models in terms of topicality and entertainment.
Looking at the present, according to the current roadmap, the game will officially start public beta in the third quarter of this year. During this period, it will also test whether the project team can reasonably manage expectations, release more game-related content and expand the ways for players to participate in order to maintain the popularity of the game.
In addition to hype and marketing, the quality of the game itself is still a hard power and the foundation for the long-term development of Web3 games. We are more in favor of the approach of driving games with technology, attracting more users and partners through the hard power of games, and then expanding derivative gameplay such as peripherals, NFTs, fan creations and competitions, from "heavy" to "light" to reach every possible opportunity point in the Web3 world.
Abyss World’s own journey may have just begun, but a new paradigm of Web3 gaming is worth trying for more people.
