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Folius Ventures: "Taxation system" business model is more suitable for Web3 games

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By providing ten suggestions for this new business model, and designing a virtual Web3 game to demonstrate its feasibility

Original author: Aiko, Jason (MLC), Folius Ventures

Based on the thoughts and discussions triggered by the previous research report, @MapleLeafCap and I would like to further summarize and share the new knowledge we have learned in the process of exploring "Web3+ games" this year - that is, the tax system is more suitable for The business model of Web3 games. We provide ten recommendations for this new business model and design a virtual Web3 game to demonstrate its feasibility.

In the past six months, we have overturned the plan several times , repeatedly considered the design details, and consulted senior seniors in the game industry, in order to finally deliver satisfactory answers to like-minded seekers.

At the same time, we have also open sourced the design framework, hoping to take this opportunity to learn and discuss with more outstanding developers.

Here, we wholeheartedly offer:

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We think most Web3 The combination with the game is not yet mature, and the only major breakthrough is that the game value carrier can exist and circulate freely outside the country, and developers have also obtained the independent choice to let the world's liquidity price the game value carrier.

Games and Web3 Year round The benefits of bordering on relentless global financial markets are obvious - once valuable items in Web2 could only be priced based on in-game utility, they can now be more fully priced and traded more frequently.

This also means the game Value carriers have higher volatility, higher premiums, and more frequent transactions, making the "taxation system" based on economic volume a more suitable business model for Web3 games, and making the "in-app purchase" business model a thing of the past.

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However, there is a natural conflict between the traditional design idea and the taxation system: the monopoly direct sales of manufacturers and the lack of economic cooperation among players, the lack of marginal cost design and the rapid development of permanent durable goods Redundancy, unable to increase game economic activity and overall taxation.

As mentioned earlier, although we don't have a perfect solution, for those teams who agree with the tax system game framework, we will provide Ten ideas:

Currently Most games face bottlenecks such as strong Matthew effect, high content repetition and insufficient depth, and high learning and participation thresholds. However, the business model of the tax system needs to choose a gameplay that can remain attractive to a wide range of players for a long time, and persist in long-term operations.

At present, most of the game loops serve the individual game progress. Players are self-sufficient, which is more likely to cause the expansion of underlying resources.

We recognize that the game loop and game process are cut from the bottom layer to create just-needed scenes and economic relationships; and add meta-processes at the top layer, To undertake and digest the output of the personal process.

Mainstream games usually adopt numerical design, and regard numerical growth as the core source of fun, but it is very easy to cause unified pricing system and redundant resources In addition, reduce economic activity.

We are more inclined to replace numerical design with functional design, and expand the function horizontally, thus creating low-cost/possible Functional components with strong combination/experience difference can increase the economic activity and enhance the playability experience at the same time.

Traditional game charging methods are extensive, or induce players to limit their value and pay for efficiency. However, in the Web3 tax-extraction game, step-by-step pricing should be carried out according to the player’s game intensity and production time to ensure that casual players have a low entry barrier, heavy players pay for intensity, and productive players have the highest cost and complexity, so as to reduce rent-seeking behavior. resource depreciation.

For durable goods in the game, we tend to Ingeniously transform it into consumables, or differentiate its feel and experience after aging, and use the layering mechanism to maintain a wide range of market demand for a long time, so that the value of durable goods will eventually accumulate rather than be redundant.

In the closed economy of traditional games, the secondary game market is restricted by the government or only auction houses, and the market design is relatively simple and direct.

However, we tend to gamify the process of going up and down the chain, for example, when assets are traded in the chain market, they will randomly mutate, and after returning to the game, they will use the "cleaning" service Instead of royalties, players can also participate in the provision of related props and services.

Economic control should consider maintaining exchange rate stability and free capital circulation, giving up the independence of monetary policy.

Because the cost of games as entertainment should be relatively low, and loose capital controls and stable currency exchange rates are more in line with the interests and preferences of players.

The combination of state-run institutions and private industry chains in the game should be allowed, Reduce direct sales and industrial monopoly of game manufacturers, gradually release private rights to activate the market economy, incorporate value carriers into games in a gamified way, and form an industrial chain with real value to return to players.

By blurring and complicating resource output costs through multiple mixed currency systems, increasing non-linear and mandatory consumption, it not only allows temporary excess profit margins to exist, but also Constantly debug the overall game probability, casting/dismantling equations, and balance to eliminate the long-term "global optimal solution".

In order to deeply analyze the asset design of the tax-extracting web3 game and practice the above theory, we will build a virtual Web3 game framework produced by Folius—let's call it Go for Foliseum! Inspired by great roguelikes like Adventure in the Rain/Dead Cell/The Binding of Isaac and shooters like Borderlands.

More design details please Move Notion

Of course, we still have many unfinished designs, and we look forward to in-depth discussions with designers and entrepreneurs. You are welcome to leave reading comments in open source documents, or enrich Foliseum's design ideas in questionnaires.

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In the process of writing, we deeply realized that the details of game design are complicated, which is not easy. I would like to pay tribute to the creators of Web3 games who continue to expand their boundaries in the fog.

< p>Finally, thanks to @MapleLeafCap for his patient guidance and support, and thanks to all the seniors in the game industry for their valuable opinions on this article. If you have different opinions or better ideas, or want to join in the economic design of Web3 games, please feel free to contact us!