It’s been awhile since we published an Einstein Series article, will be sharing with everyone more insights in the crypto space.

It’s been over a year since I first came across this word: GameFi. Back then, Axie Infinity was the only project in the space, and they had barely gained any traction with their cute little Axies. They only took off in early 2021, where it was a strong bull market, fueled by cheap money.

It almost feels like I’ve known the word “GameFi” for a decade. That’s because I hear of this word so often, now that I’m in this space. And yet, in a space where innovation is constantly taking place, recent GameFi developments have been slow and less innovative. This is made worse by the flooding of older mobile games onto the blockchain, where developers seek quick cash grabs from investors and players. We all know how this is going to end — with the majority of the players losing their original investment.

We already have DeFi 2.0 (bonding) transitioning to DeFi 3.0 and Staking 2.0 (Liquid Staking). So you may be wondering, when is it time for GameFi 2.0?

The current bear market poses the perfect opportunity for us to be developing a GameFi 2.0. And that’s what we are working on right now⚡ !

• What is GameFi?*** 🎮 & Overview of GameFi 🤔***

• General Forecast of GameFi Landscape*** 📈***

• What makes Traditional Games better than the GameFi Projects we see today?*** 🧐***

• Biggest Issues with GameFi Today*** 😖***

• Issues with Traditional Games*** 🤨***

• How Blockchain is Revolutionizing Traditional Games*** 🌐***

• Future of GameFi*** 🚀***

• How StarryNift is building this future..*** ✨***

Let’s get back to the basics.

The term GameFi (term originated from DeFi) is simply put together based on the words “Game” and “Fi” — short for “Finance”.

Current GameFi products put together gamified and financial elements into its package, to be marketed and sold to investors, in exchange for an opportunity to make some profits.

Most GameFi projects have cool looking graphics and NFTs. But most of these projects lack originality, gameplay, and a sustainable economy.

Here is a brief breakdown of the current ratio:

Here is what I’ll like to see:

Finance will still have a role to play in GameFi and other gaming-related crypto projects as crypto is very much like stocks, where individuals see these as investment vehicles.

As the number of Web3 users continues to grow over the next few years, we’ll expect individual players to want to be able to own and trade their in-game assets. We’ll also expect the biggest game developers to gradually turn towards the blockchain space. Some will succeed and some will fail. While the earliest Web3 developers (like us) may not have the resources to compete with them in terms of game development, we definitely have plentiful experiences in terms of community engagement and co-creation, which is the spirit of decentralization in Web3. We offer players the experience they desire — to be able to create and own digital assets, customize them as they deem fit, socialize with others and more.

And we’ll certainly expect the emphasis on the “Finance” part of GameFi to decrease by quite a fair bit. Just think about it this way.. Most people who have invested in any crypto tokens related to GameFi projects have lost money at some point due to unsustainable tokenomics, leading to ponzi schemes with insane Annual Percentage Rates (APRs).

Well, the basis to building a strong community is largely about the game itself. Is the game fun? Does the game engage its users? If the project is focused around enabling players to earn lots and lots of money (tokens), we can see how this is gonna end — with newer players becoming bag holders while older players offload and earn as much as they can while the project is still building momentum. This dream to buy a lamborghini overnight will most certainly turn into a nightmare for many.

Based on these considerations, we can see that GameFi projects will be adopting a strategy focusing on the “Gaming” aspect much more than the “Finance” aspect in the coming months and years.

In fact, the play-to-earn model that is popular among GameFi projects that we see today isn’t really a new concept. Today we’ll be diving into the models of some successful games which have a long standing history (been around for over a decade) and yet, still boast a strong player base. What’s interesting about these games is that while the game does not explicitly market itself as one that allows players to “play-to-earn”, it is in fact possible for players to earn a living by playing these games.

These popular and successful games that I’m referring to are Maplestory, Runescape and World of Warcraft (WoW).

Maplestory, Runescape and WoW have around 200,000, 470,000 and over 1,100,000 active players per day according to MMO Populations, making them some of the longest standing games with a large active player base.

These traditional games consistently push new updates on a monthly basis and continue to create new and refreshing content for players. Hence, they have managed to build a huge and loyal player base.

I would say the biggest strength that these traditional games have over GameFi projects is the amount of rich content within the game itself, which provides players with a variety of challenges, gameplay and endless customization with built-in social elements.

“To put into perspective, the game itself has so much content that I can find myself playing for over 10 hours each day and still be able to find new things to do and explore.”

The grind never ends because of how tough it is to reach the “end-game” without spending. And even if you spend, you’ll have to spend a tonne of fiat money (we’re talking at least a five digit sum!!!) to be able to afford end-game equipment, which can only be obtained through battles with the toughest bosses. And even then, having the strongest equipment does not always guarantee victory as players will have to coordinate and cooperate with other players to bring down these insane bosses, making these games fun, engaging and challenging with friends and family members.

And that’s exactly the reason why the economic model of these games have been so successful.

Two distinct types of players exist within the player base which help in the sustainability of the model.

They are your 1) Spenders and 2) Earners.

Spenders are described as players who spend within the game or on the game itself. They are the biggest supporters of the game as they typically purchase in-game items (usually cosmetics) from the game itself, which translates to profits for the gaming company.

These players typically can afford to spend because they usually have a full-time job with some disposable income. They spend on the game to improve their overall gameplay experience, such as through purchasing in-game cosmetic items, or in-game equipment and items to strengthen their character so that they can take on tougher challenges.

Most of these players have no intention to earn any fiat currency from playing the game but find it as a form of investment in exchange for entertainment and stress relief from work. By spending on the game, they can significantly save on the time spent on grinding for equipment, items or in-game currency to have a more wholesome gaming experience.

Earners are described as players who usually spend time on the game to grind equipment, items and in-game currency in exchange for fiat currency. Earners play an important role in the game’s economy as it provides spenders with a more efficient way to get to their goal within the game through spending.

Spenders may not have the time to grind in the game or may not enjoy the process of grinding for gears and in-game currency. Hence, earners provide this option for spenders to do so.

Successful earners usually have a great understanding of the game and typically find the most efficient way to grind out these in-game equipment, items and currencies so that they can maximize their profits.

The GameFi projects that we know of today tend to market themselves as a “Play-to-Earn” platform rather than a gaming platform. This creates an imbalance in the gaming economy, as players who are attracted to these projects are only interested in earning an income or getting rich quickly through chasing insane APRs which are totally unsustainable.

As almost all GameFi projects require an initial investment, players typically fork out some fiat currency initially to invest in and purchase NFTs and tokens to participate in the game. With the mindset of only earning through the game and taking the shortest route to get a return on their investment (ROI), the gaming project loses its value as whatever tokens that were earned from the game would be dumped on the market.

Here’s the problem. As described above, what makes an economy sustainable is having a balance between the number of spenders and number of earners. With every single player only interested in earning through the platform, the value of the assets and tokens of the platform will gradually be drained off its value and converted to fiat currency. This is made worse when projects onboard Gaming Guilds with players who are only interested in earning but have no other means to contribute to the growth of the project (such as bringing in new spenders).

Without sufficient spenders to keep up with the earners trying to cash out the tokens they have earned, we see a spiraling decline of the token prices, causing the project to die off quickly as players cut their losses.

There just isn’t much to do in the GameFi projects we see today. I would describe most of them to be a “click of a button to roll a dice and try your luck at winning some tokens”. Hence, there is no reason for anyone to spend, even if they wanted to.

I would go as far as to say that these aren’t even games. By the definition of games, they’re supposed to be fun, interactive and entertaining at least, and none of those elements exist. In fact this is made worse as “investing” in these projects and subsequently, making a loss, often leave players feeling bitter, driving the project sentiment into the ground.

Let’s be honest, there is no fun and players barely need any strategy to participate in the game. There are no challenges to get to the top, other than throwing a large sum of fiat money. There are no social elements as well. And perhaps that’s the reason why people view these investments as “pure speculation”.

Many GameFi projects lack originality. This is a more recent issue that I’ve observed from GameFi projects lately. Many game developers are reusing assets from the games they developed previously and porting them over to the blockchain (we’re talking about mobile games), without much changes to the game’s economy. Just because they took the simpler route of recycling previous games and putting it on the blockchain, this does not make it a Web3 game, which focuses on decentralization. The community should have the power to decide how they want these games to be developed.

And this pretty much sums up in a nutshell as to why 99% of GameFi projects cannot survive for even a year and even if they do, the value of their tokens may have gone down as much as 99%.

On a side note, we’re pleased to say we have survived over a year at StarryNift and we continue to develop and bring you better experiences, especially with the recent launch of our metaverse. We will launch our tokens when we’re confident in both our economy and community.

The most common way for players to earn money in games like Runescape, WoW and Maplestory is through farming gold and mesos (a term for gold in Maplestory). Players can spend time killing mobs to gain these resources, which have plenty of use cases and functionality within the game, making them valuable. Subsequently, players can then sell these equipment, gold and mesos in exchange for fiat money through third-party platforms, middlemen or meet-ups.

However, this process of selling equipment, gold and mesos through third-party platforms or middlemen places some risk on the players themselves. Some platforms and middlemen may not be trustworthy and hence, players may find themselves falling prey to scams.

Some players may prefer to meet-up with other players in their local area to transact securely. An example of this is that players can purchase Maplestory Mesos from Carousell (a platform for P2P transactions). However, this is also inefficient as players would have to spend precious time meeting up to deal or transact securely.

The above issues creates the problem of liquidity and transparency, whereby equipment, gold and mesos cannot be easily, efficiently and securely sold on the market in exchange for fiat currency, even when there is substantial demand for them. Additionally, with so many buy/sell platforms and options available for both buyers and sellers, they may not be able to get the best buy or sell prices due to a lack of transparency. This will affect their ability to get the best deals.

On the blockchain, each transaction is secured by cryptography. Additionally, transactions are usually fast on scalable and efficient blockchains like Binance Smart Chain, Polygon and Fantom. This makes it extremely easy for players to perform quick and secure transactions on the blockchain, enabling in-game and on-chain assets (NFTs) to be more liquid than ever.

Besides that, the advertising revenue model whereby gaming companies give players an option to watch advertisements in exchange for some rewards (especially common in mobile games) isn’t something new. The biggest advantage of Web3 and GameFi projects is that this model can easily be integrated to provide advertisement spaces and generate revenue. However, for this to work in favor of the project, they would need to have a large user base so that their partners can reach out to a wide audience.

Well, if you want people to spend and invest in your project, give people a reason to. It’s that simple. Give players more reason to spend for collection, entertainment, customization and new experiences. Offer players an immersive and challenging experience because that’s the reason they’ll come back for more and spend to progress further.

We believe that moving forward, GameFi projects will no longer market themselves as solely play-to-earn because of how unsustainable the model is. In fact, projects will encourage spending within the game’s ecosystem, while providing some avenue for players to earn. However, we’ll expect these “earning” avenues to be more challenging for players, which means players will either have to be very skillful, or spend lots of time in the game to earn these exciting rewards.

We expect projects to have a more holistic planning to deliver a fully sustainable economy that is more realistic. This means promoting the game to attract players who are:

1) Willing to spend fiat currency on in-game assets or currency and;

2) Willing to spend time (or skills) earning in-game currency and assets in exchange for fiat currency.

With many players gradually transitioning from Web2 and Web3, both of these options will be available to all players. Players can decide if they enjoy the game before proceeding to connect their wallets and to create a new account. This will provide full access to players without a crypto wallet (however, players would still have to connect their wallet if they would like to transact on the blockchain).

Gaming is just an element of any imaginary world. By having an immersive and inclusive metaverse, players would have more things to do and more reasons to return. This demonstrates the importance for projects to have an openworld for players to explore, Software Development Kit (SDK) tools to enable building and customization, social functions for players to interact with one another and more!

I have seen some GameFi projects adopting a referral system to encourage players to spend within the game. However, most of these systems lack complexity, making this system look like a straight-up Ponzi scheme.

What will change this?

Add complex layers of referral system. Reward players with a variety of rewards that is not limited to only crypto. Give players exclusive rewards that allow them to customize and differentiate themselves from the masses. Give players who are interested in earning from the game a chance to do so by offering attractive rewards(e.g: tradable exclusive NFTs) for bringing in new spenders.

And of course, offer them more reasons to refer their friends to play (such as organizing team-based gameplay and events).

AAA game developers would be joining the Web3 space very soon (or they may already have started), creating a huge competition. This means that we can soon expect some really impressive games to be built on the blockchain.

The foundation of successful GameFi projects moving forward is building and developing together with the community and gaining trust. In fact, while we do not have a large community at StarryNift, plenty of our members have been loyal because they have seen our constant development over the past year, where we evolved from just a GameFi to currently, a MetaFi. They are willing to support the project and continue to support us even till today. We are proud to have strong believers in the project and we think that’s what every project will need. We continue to take in feedback and suggestions from the community and develop our project in-hand with them.

Compared to traditional games, one thing is for sure..

“It’s better now.. You’ll have the option to sell any of the assets you own efficiently and securely. Thanks to the blockchain.”

We already have an open marketplace where players can buy or sell their NFTs. Besides that, Starryverse is fully accessible to both Web2 and Web3 players. Web2 players can access our metaverse as a guest to give it a try and should they enjoy this experience, they can always create a new wallet and connect them to our page to gain access to all our features.

In Starryverse, players are encouraged to let loose, be their true selves and live their best lives.

Players can enjoy the game and fulfill their hearts’ desires. They can create new identities, rock any style they like (freestyle NPC customization), pick up new hobbies (dancing and sports game), showcase their talents (art and music creation), find heart-warming companionship (NPC development) and basically, be anyone they wish to be. All these, while expressing creativity and getting rewarded.

Our features are constantly being improved on and subjected to changes along the way with contributions from the community.

Very soon, we’ll be offering players a chance to purchase their own space in Starryverse. Players will gain access to a variety of new features to develop and customize their space and to have a more entertaining experience within Starryverse. This will also grant players the option to earn in exchange for time spent within the game and players can reinvest their earnings to progress further or to trade for exclusive collectibles and much more!

Our ultimate goal at StarryNift is to provide players with an enjoyable and unforgettable experience. And we’re building this.. One step at a time.

If you have read up till here, WELL DONE! I hope this has been an enjoyable read for you.. Be sure to stay tuned to our social media for more updates and Einstein Series to come.

Interested in a topic related to our project and want me to cover more about it? Feel free to reach out to me or us!

Article written by: Yang, Regional Director (SEA) @ StarryNift (Twitter)

Yang is a passionate crypto investor and writer. With over 10 years of writing and blogging experiences, and 4 years of experiences following the crypto space, he intends to give back to the community by sharing insightful experiences and knowledge that he has acquired over the years.

About StarryNift (Starryverse)

A real world re-imagined, to bring you the best possible experience that you’ll ever have in any virtual space. Play, Create, Socialize, Earn, while fully immersing yourself in the untold stories of Starryverse. Welcome to the future~

Website | Twitter | Telegram | Discord

It’s been awhile since we published an Einstein Series article, will be sharing with everyone more insights in the crypto space.

It’s been over a year since I first came across this word: GameFi. Back then, Axie Infinity was the only project in the space, and they had barely gained any traction with their cute little Axies. They only took off in early 2021, where it was a strong bull market, fueled by cheap money.

It almost feels like I’ve known the word “GameFi” for a decade. That’s because I hear of this word so often, now that I’m in this space. And yet, in a space where innovation is constantly taking place, recent GameFi developments have been slow and less innovative. This is made worse by the flooding of older mobile games onto the blockchain, where developers seek quick cash grabs from investors and players. We all know how this is going to end — with the majority of the players losing their original investment.

We already have DeFi 2.0 (bonding) transitioning to DeFi 3.0 and Staking 2.0 (Liquid Staking). So you may be wondering, when is it time for GameFi 2.0?

The current bear market poses the perfect opportunity for us to be developing a GameFi 2.0. And that’s what we are working on right now⚡ !

• What is GameFi?*** 🎮 & Overview of GameFi 🤔***

• General Forecast of GameFi Landscape*** 📈***

• What makes Traditional Games better than the GameFi Projects we see today?*** 🧐***

• Biggest Issues with GameFi Today*** 😖***

• Issues with Traditional Games*** 🤨***

• How Blockchain is Revolutionizing Traditional Games*** 🌐***

• Future of GameFi*** 🚀***

• How StarryNift is building this future..*** ✨***

Let’s get back to the basics.

The term GameFi (term originated from DeFi) is simply put together based on the words “Game” and “Fi” — short for “Finance”.

Current GameFi products put together gamified and financial elements into its package, to be marketed and sold to investors, in exchange for an opportunity to make some profits.

Most GameFi projects have cool looking graphics and NFTs. But most of these projects lack originality, gameplay, and a sustainable economy.

Here is a brief breakdown of the current ratio:

Here is what I’ll like to see:

Finance will still have a role to play in GameFi and other gaming-related crypto projects as crypto is very much like stocks, where individuals see these as investment vehicles.

As the number of Web3 users continues to grow over the next few years, we’ll expect individual players to want to be able to own and trade their in-game assets. We’ll also expect the biggest game developers to gradually turn towards the blockchain space. Some will succeed and some will fail. While the earliest Web3 developers (like us) may not have the resources to compete with them in terms of game development, we definitely have plentiful experiences in terms of community engagement and co-creation, which is the spirit of decentralization in Web3. We offer players the experience they desire — to be able to create and own digital assets, customize them as they deem fit, socialize with others and more.

And we’ll certainly expect the emphasis on the “Finance” part of GameFi to decrease by quite a fair bit. Just think about it this way.. Most people who have invested in any crypto tokens related to GameFi projects have lost money at some point due to unsustainable tokenomics, leading to ponzi schemes with insane Annual Percentage Rates (APRs).

Well, the basis to building a strong community is largely about the game itself. Is the game fun? Does the game engage its users? If the project is focused around enabling players to earn lots and lots of money (tokens), we can see how this is gonna end — with newer players becoming bag holders while older players offload and earn as much as they can while the project is still building momentum. This dream to buy a lamborghini overnight will most certainly turn into a nightmare for many.

Based on these considerations, we can see that GameFi projects will be adopting a strategy focusing on the “Gaming” aspect much more than the “Finance” aspect in the coming months and years.

In fact, the play-to-earn model that is popular among GameFi projects that we see today isn’t really a new concept. Today we’ll be diving into the models of some successful games which have a long standing history (been around for over a decade) and yet, still boast a strong player base. What’s interesting about these games is that while the game does not explicitly market itself as one that allows players to “play-to-earn”, it is in fact possible for players to earn a living by playing these games.

These popular and successful games that I’m referring to are Maplestory, Runescape and World of Warcraft (WoW).

Maplestory, Runescape and WoW have around 200,000, 470,000 and over 1,100,000 active players per day according to MMO Populations, making them some of the longest standing games with a large active player base.

These traditional games consistently push new updates on a monthly basis and continue to create new and refreshing content for players. Hence, they have managed to build a huge and loyal player base.

I would say the biggest strength that these traditional games have over GameFi projects is the amount of rich content within the game itself, which provides players with a variety of challenges, gameplay and endless customization with built-in social elements.

“To put into perspective, the game itself has so much content that I can find myself playing for over 10 hours each day and still be able to find new things to do and explore.”

The grind never ends because of how tough it is to reach the “end-game” without spending. And even if you spend, you’ll have to spend a tonne of fiat money (we’re talking at least a five digit sum!!!) to be able to afford end-game equipment, which can only be obtained through battles with the toughest bosses. And even then, having the strongest equipment does not always guarantee victory as players will have to coordinate and cooperate with other players to bring down these insane bosses, making these games fun, engaging and challenging with friends and family members.

And that’s exactly the reason why the economic model of these games have been so successful.

Two distinct types of players exist within the player base which help in the sustainability of the model.

They are your 1) Spenders and 2) Earners.

Spenders are described as players who spend within the game or on the game itself. They are the biggest supporters of the game as they typically purchase in-game items (usually cosmetics) from the game itself, which translates to profits for the gaming company.

These players typically can afford to spend because they usually have a full-time job with some disposable income. They spend on the game to improve their overall gameplay experience, such as through purchasing in-game cosmetic items, or in-game equipment and items to strengthen their character so that they can take on tougher challenges.

Most of these players have no intention to earn any fiat currency from playing the game but find it as a form of investment in exchange for entertainment and stress relief from work. By spending on the game, they can significantly save on the time spent on grinding for equipment, items or in-game currency to have a more wholesome gaming experience.

Earners are described as players who usually spend time on the game to grind equipment, items and in-game currency in exchange for fiat currency. Earners play an important role in the game’s economy as it provides spenders with a more efficient way to get to their goal within the game through spending.

Spenders may not have the time to grind in the game or may not enjoy the process of grinding for gears and in-game currency. Hence, earners provide this option for spenders to do so.

Successful earners usually have a great understanding of the game and typically find the most efficient way to grind out these in-game equipment, items and currencies so that they can maximize their profits.

The GameFi projects that we know of today tend to market themselves as a “Play-to-Earn” platform rather than a gaming platform. This creates an imbalance in the gaming economy, as players who are attracted to these projects are only interested in earning an income or getting rich quickly through chasing insane APRs which are totally unsustainable.

As almost all GameFi projects require an initial investment, players typically fork out some fiat currency initially to invest in and purchase NFTs and tokens to participate in the game. With the mindset of only earning through the game and taking the shortest route to get a return on their investment (ROI), the gaming project loses its value as whatever tokens that were earned from the game would be dumped on the market.

Here’s the problem. As described above, what makes an economy sustainable is having a balance between the number of spenders and number of earners. With every single player only interested in earning through the platform, the value of the assets and tokens of the platform will gradually be drained off its value and converted to fiat currency. This is made worse when projects onboard Gaming Guilds with players who are only interested in earning but have no other means to contribute to the growth of the project (such as bringing in new spenders).

Without sufficient spenders to keep up with the earners trying to cash out the tokens they have earned, we see a spiraling decline of the token prices, causing the project to die off quickly as players cut their losses.

There just isn’t much to do in the GameFi projects we see today. I would describe most of them to be a “click of a button to roll a dice and try your luck at winning some tokens”. Hence, there is no reason for anyone to spend, even if they wanted to.

I would go as far as to say that these aren’t even games. By the definition of games, they’re supposed to be fun, interactive and entertaining at least, and none of those elements exist. In fact this is made worse as “investing” in these projects and subsequently, making a loss, often leave players feeling bitter, driving the project sentiment into the ground.

Let’s be honest, there is no fun and players barely need any strategy to participate in the game. There are no challenges to get to the top, other than throwing a large sum of fiat money. There are no social elements as well. And perhaps that’s the reason why people view these investments as “pure speculation”.

Many GameFi projects lack originality. This is a more recent issue that I’ve observed from GameFi projects lately. Many game developers are reusing assets from the games they developed previously and porting them over to the blockchain (we’re talking about mobile games), without much changes to the game’s economy. Just because they took the simpler route of recycling previous games and putting it on the blockchain, this does not make it a Web3 game, which focuses on decentralization. The community should have the power to decide how they want these games to be developed.

And this pretty much sums up in a nutshell as to why 99% of GameFi projects cannot survive for even a year and even if they do, the value of their tokens may have gone down as much as 99%.

On a side note, we’re pleased to say we have survived over a year at StarryNift and we continue to develop and bring you better experiences, especially with the recent launch of our metaverse. We will launch our tokens when we’re confident in both our economy and community.

The most common way for players to earn money in games like Runescape, WoW and Maplestory is through farming gold and mesos (a term for gold in Maplestory). Players can spend time killing mobs to gain these resources, which have plenty of use cases and functionality within the game, making them valuable. Subsequently, players can then sell these equipment, gold and mesos in exchange for fiat money through third-party platforms, middlemen or meet-ups.

However, this process of selling equipment, gold and mesos through third-party platforms or middlemen places some risk on the players themselves. Some platforms and middlemen may not be trustworthy and hence, players may find themselves falling prey to scams.

Some players may prefer to meet-up with other players in their local area to transact securely. An example of this is that players can purchase Maplestory Mesos from Carousell (a platform for P2P transactions). However, this is also inefficient as players would have to spend precious time meeting up to deal or transact securely.

The above issues creates the problem of liquidity and transparency, whereby equipment, gold and mesos cannot be easily, efficiently and securely sold on the market in exchange for fiat currency, even when there is substantial demand for them. Additionally, with so many buy/sell platforms and options available for both buyers and sellers, they may not be able to get the best buy or sell prices due to a lack of transparency. This will affect their ability to get the best deals.

On the blockchain, each transaction is secured by cryptography. Additionally, transactions are usually fast on scalable and efficient blockchains like Binance Smart Chain, Polygon and Fantom. This makes it extremely easy for players to perform quick and secure transactions on the blockchain, enabling in-game and on-chain assets (NFTs) to be more liquid than ever.

Besides that, the advertising revenue model whereby gaming companies give players an option to watch advertisements in exchange for some rewards (especially common in mobile games) isn’t something new. The biggest advantage of Web3 and GameFi projects is that this model can easily be integrated to provide advertisement spaces and generate revenue. However, for this to work in favor of the project, they would need to have a large user base so that their partners can reach out to a wide audience.

Well, if you want people to spend and invest in your project, give people a reason to. It’s that simple. Give players more reason to spend for collection, entertainment, customization and new experiences. Offer players an immersive and challenging experience because that’s the reason they’ll come back for more and spend to progress further.

We believe that moving forward, GameFi projects will no longer market themselves as solely play-to-earn because of how unsustainable the model is. In fact, projects will encourage spending within the game’s ecosystem, while providing some avenue for players to earn. However, we’ll expect these “earning” avenues to be more challenging for players, which means players will either have to be very skillful, or spend lots of time in the game to earn these exciting rewards.

We expect projects to have a more holistic planning to deliver a fully sustainable economy that is more realistic. This means promoting the game to attract players who are:

1) Willing to spend fiat currency on in-game assets or currency and;

2) Willing to spend time (or skills) earning in-game currency and assets in exchange for fiat currency.

With many players gradually transitioning from Web2 and Web3, both of these options will be available to all players. Players can decide if they enjoy the game before proceeding to connect their wallets and to create a new account. This will provide full access to players without a crypto wallet (however, players would still have to connect their wallet if they would like to transact on the blockchain).

Gaming is just an element of any imaginary world. By having an immersive and inclusive metaverse, players would have more things to do and more reasons to return. This demonstrates the importance for projects to have an openworld for players to explore, Software Development Kit (SDK) tools to enable building and customization, social functions for players to interact with one another and more!

I have seen some GameFi projects adopting a referral system to encourage players to spend within the game. However, most of these systems lack complexity, making this system look like a straight-up Ponzi scheme.

What will change this?

Add complex layers of referral system. Reward players with a variety of rewards that is not limited to only crypto. Give players exclusive rewards that allow them to customize and differentiate themselves from the masses. Give players who are interested in earning from the game a chance to do so by offering attractive rewards(e.g: tradable exclusive NFTs) for bringing in new spenders.

And of course, offer them more reasons to refer their friends to play (such as organizing team-based gameplay and events).

AAA game developers would be joining the Web3 space very soon (or they may already have started), creating a huge competition. This means that we can soon expect some really impressive games to be built on the blockchain.

The foundation of successful GameFi projects moving forward is building and developing together with the community and gaining trust. In fact, while we do not have a large community at StarryNift, plenty of our members have been loyal because they have seen our constant development over the past year, where we evolved from just a GameFi to currently, a MetaFi. They are willing to support the project and continue to support us even till today. We are proud to have strong believers in the project and we think that’s what every project will need. We continue to take in feedback and suggestions from the community and develop our project in-hand with them.

Compared to traditional games, one thing is for sure..

“It’s better now.. You’ll have the option to sell any of the assets you own efficiently and securely. Thanks to the blockchain.”

We already have an open marketplace where players can buy or sell their NFTs. Besides that, Starryverse is fully accessible to both Web2 and Web3 players. Web2 players can access our metaverse as a guest to give it a try and should they enjoy this experience, they can always create a new wallet and connect them to our page to gain access to all our features.

In Starryverse, players are encouraged to let loose, be their true selves and live their best lives.

Players can enjoy the game and fulfill their hearts’ desires. They can create new identities, rock any style they like (freestyle NPC customization), pick up new hobbies (dancing and sports game), showcase their talents (art and music creation), find heart-warming companionship (NPC development) and basically, be anyone they wish to be. All these, while expressing creativity and getting rewarded.

Our features are constantly being improved on and subjected to changes along the way with contributions from the community.

Very soon, we’ll be offering players a chance to purchase their own space in Starryverse. Players will gain access to a variety of new features to develop and customize their space and to have a more entertaining experience within Starryverse. This will also grant players the option to earn in exchange for time spent within the game and players can reinvest their earnings to progress further or to trade for exclusive collectibles and much more!

Our ultimate goal at StarryNift is to provide players with an enjoyable and unforgettable experience. And we’re building this.. One step at a time.

If you have read up till here, WELL DONE! I hope this has been an enjoyable read for you.. Be sure to stay tuned to our social media for more updates and Einstein Series to come.

Interested in a topic related to our project and want me to cover more about it? Feel free to reach out to me or us!

Article written by: Yang, Regional Director (SEA) @ StarryNift (Twitter)

Yang is a passionate crypto investor and writer. With over 10 years of writing and blogging experiences, and 4 years of experiences following the crypto space, he intends to give back to the community by sharing insightful experiences and knowledge that he has acquired over the years.

About StarryNift (Starryverse)

A real world re-imagined, to bring you the best possible experience that you’ll ever have in any virtual space. Play, Create, Socialize, Earn, while fully immersing yourself in the untold stories of Starryverse. Welcome to the future~

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