Joony Koo wanted to use his visit to the F2P Campus to share with the teams a few reasons why they should consider making games with blockchain.
For those who don’t know him, Koo is a pioneer of free-to-play monetization in games (in 2010 he released the hit Homerun Battle 3D) and currently works for Block Crafters. And so, during his public talk, he not only reviewed the brief but intense history of mobile games, but also explained the reasons why indie videogame development studios should consider making games with blockchain.
“Today mobile games are very common, but at the beginning they were really arcane,” Koo said. Games grew and evolved at the same pace as phones, and by the time hits like Super Monkey Ball or Angry Birds arrived, it had become clear that the mobile was going to be the next big platform for games.
“The mobile game market has been growing non-stop for the last 20 years. But in the future the growth rate is going to slow down,” Koo stated. “The blockchain games market is really small, but it’s a blue ocean with a lot of potential for game developers.” You need only look at how blockchain-based consumer to consumer (C2C) marketplaces are growing.
How to incorporate blockchain into a videogame
Today there are many ways to use blockchain technology in a video game, from securing special items (either for their scarcity or features) to encouraging trading between players.
A good example can be found in CryptoDozer, which uses blockchain for the dolls that players collect. “The payment conversion rate to DAU in CryptoDozer is 16.9%: 6 times higher than the average mobile game,” commented Koo. “Plus, the game is at the top of the crypto-lists in terms of downloads, players and revenue.”
In addition, blockchain has proven to be a very valuable tool for today’s videogames, as it is able to offer:
- Decentralized asset exchange where virtual items trade.
- Verifiable scarcity of virtual objects and collectibles.
- Fast and secure payment networks.
- Provide a trustless and trackable environment for users.
- Possibility for developers to monetize their creations properly.
- Easy to build and grow communities and its economy.
Joony Koo also shared an example he has been working on in recent months: “I’ve been building Outplay, a competitive tourney system based on blockchain. A tool designed to make tournaments easier for game developers.” A solution that increases game engagement, significantly improves game retention rate, increases customer lifetime value and unlocks alternative in-game revenue streams.
One of the first games to use the Outplay tournament system is World of Mines (iOS, Android). The mechanics are as follows:
- Players join the tour by buying tourney tickets.
- The tour prize pool increases with each tourney ticket purchase.
- Prize pool is cashed out to winners in crypto tokens (ETH or any ERC20).
“This is only an example, but there are a lot of opportunities to discover. There are a lot of excuses to not implement blockchain in games, but there is a big opportunity for those who implement it first,” concluded Joony Koo.