In the last article, we talked about the gaming industry and it’s revolution in terms of ingame economy and trade, we also discussed what it takes to be a good game. In part 2, lets dive deep into the greatest MMORPG game so far, WorldofWarcraft, to discover how player catagorize themselves and explore the organic ecosystem within the game that was breeded by gamers.
As we mentioned on part 1, a great in-game economy system represents a well-balanced scale between “earn” and “play”. The “earn” nature can only be well-implemented under the scenario that the game itself is fun to play. But is “earn” only limited to “monetary value/dollar value”? Not necessarily. With “fun to play” in place beyond all other characteristics of a game, gamers are naturally drawn by the game itself, which induces a abstract concept of “earn”: Earning in a game can either be “wallet satisfactory” or “spirit satisfactory”. Matter of fact, majority of the gamers in a ever-lasting game benefit more from the spiritual value than the monetary value.
Passion lives, margin only diminishes.
According to many observations, WoW gamers can be catagorized as follow:
This organic catagories of gamer were self-evolved as the game progress over time.
Play for fun: This type of player usually does not play for a specific purpose, they are driven by the game itself and usually focus more on the participation rather than any significant benefit
Play for Uber: This type of players heavily rely on the spiritual satisfaction along the game-play. Many of them enjoy the sense of thrill brought by the game and love feeling superior among the vast players. They also possess high demand either in rare items/weapon, or respectful achievement like “1st conqueror of the latest dungeon”.
Play for Gold: This type of players exist in the game solely for profits, they are usually a small group of professional “P2E” player or a studio. They are the so called “gold dealer” in the game. If you played a MMORPG Online game before, they will be the people that is selling you the game tokens, rare weapons with the best properties, or rare materials to forge your own lengendary weapon.
“As a industry incubator”
For me, a good game/project needs to be subjected to the following pre-conditions:
P12 platform will live to potentially serve these purpose. It is here to provide guidance, to represent platform level support (either in funding or advising), to protect great game in the web3 space from falling apart, and to connect everything.
Looking at the reality now regarding the web3 gamefi space, the overwhelming concept of profit-driven is consuming the creativity. People no longer look at the product itself, but rather focus heavily on the profitability. It’s wicked, derailed.
P12 will one day be the resource hub, a decentralized community with everything you need in regards to gaming and developing.
Lets look at some historical events in the web2 gaming space.
1991 - Blizzard Entertainment was founded in Irvine, CA
1997 - Ultima Online released by Origin System
1999 - EverQuest released by Sony Entertainment
2003 - Steam was launched by Valve
2004 - WorldofWarcraft released by Blizzard
Steam now have 50064 different games available in their platform
You see, platform exist to help the industry to move forward. This is invevitable to have a platform in the web3 gaming space to determine the right or wrong, to carry the consequence brought by mistake and move forward, to evolve with the industry itself and make web3 gaming possible.
“In the grand cosmos, we are all dusts, insignificant beings craving for purpose. We can not predict the future of web3 gaming space, but riding along with P12, is a fun and exciting experience with endless possibilities. Together, we shall prevail.”
Credit: Discord member @Leeloe, @wanngthegang