The Ten Key Principles of Web3 Game Design: Ensuring Long-term Sustainability in the Chain Gaming Industry

The long-term operation of blockchain games has always been the biggest challenge for the industry. How to seamlessly integrate the value carriers of blockchain games (game equipment and coins) into the game mechanism is a major test. Yiyue Venture Capital provides ten design principles for long-term operation of Web3 Games.

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Ten Principles for Web3 Game Design
Choose a long-lasting and low-threshold positioning.
Interactivity replaces single-player mode.
Single-player design: not suitable for token economy.
Interactive design: active in-game economy.
Functional design replaces numerical design.
Numerical design: uniform experience.
Functional design: composability increases demand.
Flexible currency policy.
Relax capital controls.
Fixed exchange rate.
Flexible currency policy.
Designing games combined with Web3, if it can be operated in the long term, the value operation of the game can be cleverly supported by in-game consumption. This should be the design goal of all Web3 games, but most projects have failed so far.

Yiyue Venture Capital proposes ten suggestions on how to improve the product life cycle of Web3 games, including:
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Choose a long-lasting and low-threshold positioning: low entry threshold and long lifespan of gameplay.
Interactivity replaces single-player mode: replace independent gameplay with player interaction and resource exchange.
Functional design replaces numerical design: functional design enhances the value of various items.
Consumables replace durables: turn game progress into consumables, and durables can also be graded.
Maximize the circulation of consumables: reduce anxiety about consumable destruction.
Optimize the on-chain and off-chain market mechanisms: differentiate tax strategies for different markets.
Flexible currency policy: open, unregulated currency policies denominated in US dollars, etc.
Private sector replaces official sector: the game’s internal system should gradually reduce the importance of the official sector.
Diversification of asset types: comprehensive use of basic raw materials, core durables, and homogeneous tokens, blurring the direct cost calculation of resource output.

This article will focus on several key points and provide a comprehensive introduction. Please read the full article.

Ten Principles for Supporting Token Economy in Web3 Games
If a game needs to be operated in the long term, it requires a continuous influx of new players and high playability. Therefore, the choice of game positioning mainly has two aspects:
Game lifespan: including game content and playability.
Entry threshold: including difficulty of understanding and hardware costs.
If both of these points can be met at the same time, the game’s operation will generally be more successful. For example, Minecraft, League of Legends, etc., these types of positioning are more suitable for building Web3 games that can be operated in the long term.

Game positioning should consider game lifespan and threshold
From the game mechanism, try to replace single-player behavior with interaction, deliberately create scenarios and needs that require player interaction, and absorb and digest individual output. This will help promote player transactions.

In traditional designs, in most cases, player values ​​inflate along with game progress and resource acquisition, and the constant pursuit of higher values ​​can bring pleasure to players. However, this process cannot be reversed.

In single-player design, players can achieve the main gameplay goal of personal development during the game process and do not need to rely on the output of other players. The acquisition of game items comes from the game process itself (official), not from other players.

For example, in the official broadcast of Elden Ring, there are ten maps in total. Players can explore and obtain map fragments to unlock new areas. There is no resource scarcity between game cycles, and it belongs to personal progress, one-way upward, and lacks market dependence.

However, Web3 games need exchanges to support value economy. In order to strengthen the resource dependence relationship, different game cycles can be established, and the construction of different resources can be designed for this purpose, limiting the universality of different constructions, and increasing the professionalism and marginal cost of each game cycle.

Different game cycles have different outputs, which serve as the rigid demand of other game cycles, incorporating resource circulation into one of the gameplay methods, strengthening reliance on the market, and players cannot play the game without trading. This achieves an organic and active market economy and eliminates early content inflation.

For example, in Death Stranding’s Cairo Network, it can be designed for multiple players to collaborate to deliver different resources to unlock the network in the area, encouraging resource exchange and jointly promoting game progress.

The design of in-game items should focus on horizontally expanding diverse functions rather than vertically stacking numerical values.

Through the horizontal diversification of functions, players’ desire for exploration and creativity can be stimulated, promoting economic activity, and the gap is difficult to quantify.

Designs that revolve around numerical growth as the core of player experience will lead to a pursuit of uniformity and undifferentiated experiences, weak replayability, and a sense of achievement can only be obtained by continuously increasing numerical values, rather than reducing them.

Numerical design with clear and explicit values ​​makes it easy for the pricing system to become uniform, and the lack of reuse of basic resources can easily lead to redundancy and reduce economic activity.

And players tend to prefer to permanently own the item system in which the overall value keeps rising, rather than allowing them to be consumed.

Functional design treats value carriers as composable tools. After players understand the functions and characteristics of the tools, they can continuously try new combinations and pursue new experiences rather than numerical growth. For example, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Minecraft.

Basics components with strong composability, diverse functions, and overlapping effects should have a high demand for both new and old players. The value is non-explicit and more ambiguous, and different pricing systems can be constructed to enhance economic activity.

Functional carriers with diverse functions but uniform variance in numerical value are also more suitable for continuous consumption rather than permanent existence.

In the past, some GameFi projects set economic controls, such as lock-up periods for withdrawals or restrictions on using in-game tokens to participate in the game. However, these practices have been proven to have many disadvantages and are not recommended.

Strict capital controls will make it no different from Web2 games. Not restricting the circulation of goods will make the market more active.

Strict capital controls will inevitably cause runs and panic. Regulating resource release and continuously consuming durable goods are more appropriate.

Ordinary users do not hedge, which means they need to bear the risk of token price fluctuations while playing games.

Floating exchange rates will make users anxious.

Floating exchange rates will further promote speculative behavior and change user profiles.

Therefore, stable currency exchange rates are more advantageous than disadvantages. Floating exchange rates and speculative effects should be applied to commodities rather than currencies.

The real economy is oriented towards investment returns and is more sensitive to monetary policy. However, games are entertainment activities and demand comes from the pursuit of happiness. The flexibility of monetary policy should be very low.

However, even so, resource regulation should closely follow market changes to prevent future risks caused by economic overheating. Monetary policy should not be completely independent but should have flexibility.

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