Using a "Web2 mentality" to make Web3 games, Nyan Heroes' GameFi cheats
"Users come to the crypto market to make money, so why don't they choose Web2 games if they want to play games?" is one of the most discussed blockchain game problems, which has also caused many blockchain games to be online before the airdrop and the embarrassing situation that no one cares about the tokens after they are launched.
The solution given by the once popular blockchain game StepN is to rely on operations and marketing to attract as many users as possible into the game ecosystem in the simplest way. The concept of running to make money is easy to understand, which is also the killer to attract Web2 users, prompting users to understand the game ecosystem and blockchain mechanisms on their own. It can be seen that for a blockchain game to succeed, it depends not only on how exquisite the token model design is, but also on whether there are enough users willing to play this game. As for the Web3 characteristics such as game asset ownership and tokenized transactions, they will be naturally instilled in the process of players experiencing the game.
And the best FPS shooting game in this cycle is Nyan Heroes. According to official news, Nyan Heroes announced that Bybit has become the launch partner of its token NYAN TGE, and will be launched on Bybit at 16:00 Beijing time on May 21. In addition, it was stated that the airdrop will be released soon.
Nyan Heroes Game Introduction
Nyan Heroes is a shooting game developed by the Singapore 9 Lives Interactive team (formerly Rude Robot Studios, founded in 2021), telling the story of a cat driving a giant mecha to save the world.
Nyan Heroes is similar to FPS games such as "Overwatch". It requires teamwork and using the power of mecha to defeat the enemy, but Nyan Heroes adds feline parkour action elements, such as wall walking and jumping. Players can highly customize their mechas for combat, and there is also a setting where battle damage turns into a kitten to recuperate, so the community also affectionately calls Nyan Heroes "Cat Mecha".
Nyan Heroes has a rich selection of mechas, a ranking system and titles, and a leaderboard reward setting, all of which seem to be not much different from the traditional 3A shooting game settings. In fact, the creators behind Nyan Heroes are indeed deeply involved in the game industry, with many traditional big game production backgrounds, and have participated in the development of masterpieces such as "Assassin's Creed", "Marvel Avengers", "Destiny", "Ghost Recon", and "Rainbow Six".
On March 14, 9 Lives Interactive completed a $3 million financing led by Mechanism Capital, with participation from Delphi Digital, Sfermion and other institutions. The funds were used to support the global release of Nyan Heroes. Immediately afterwards, Nyan Heroes began the intensive game operation phase.
On March 26, Nyan Heroes launched the Pre-Alpha demo version on the Epic Games Store. Before the demo version was released, Nyan Heroes ranked among the top 10 most popular games on the Epic Games Store wish list and attracted more than 450,000 potential players to register.
In the Pre-Alpha phase that lasted until April 9, Nyan Heroes' data performance was also very impressive. With 1.3 million registered users, more than 200,000 downloads, and more than 45,000 daily active accounts, it is one of the top 30 most played games in the world and the fifth most played wish list game on Epic Games.
Nyan Heroes also set up a play to airdrop setting in the Pre-Alpha stage, where players can participate in the game to get the airdrop opportunity of Nyan Heroes' native token NYAN, but the official said that many players who downloaded the game in this test were non-Web3 players.
Nyan Heroes Token Economy and Airdrop Event Season 2
On April 25, Nyan Heroes announced the token economics of its token NYAN. The maximum supply of tokens is 1 billion, 33.5% of which will be used directly for community incentives, including airdrop season, in-game rewards, competition prize pools, etc., 22% will belong to early investors, 18% will be allocated to the team and consultants, 16.5% will be allocated to ecological development, 7% will belong to strategic investors, and 3% will be used for liquidity and market making. The airdrop shares will all come from the community fund pool and will be fully available at TGE.
The team said that NYAN will exist as a deflationary token, and in the future it will be repurchased and destroyed through market fee income, casting income, and studio income to achieve deflation of tokens. The deflation rate will depend on actual network activities and market transactions.
Nyan Heroes attaches great importance to the loyalty of game participation, which is closely related to the interests of users. 9 Lives Interactive CEO Max Fu said in an interview that Nyan Heroes' airdrops will not only reward the most loyal holders and long-term community members, but also those who just play the game.
"We have stratified different levels of airdrop rewards, some of which are based on skills and others are based on participation and retention." Max Fu said that Nyan Heroes is a skill-based pvp game with a leaderboard mechanism, so the number of airdrop tokens obtained has a lot to do with your game level.
On May 8, Nyan Heroes launched the second season of the ranking competition "Hunt For Catnip". At the beginning, users only need to complete simple social binding tasks to obtain game points. Then, by completing the tasks in the game, on the one hand, you can enjoy the fun of shooting games, and on the other hand, you can increase your game experience and time to get a larger share of the airdrop. For those who want to experience the thrill of FPS games and want to get airdrops at the same time, this is a must-see.
Although it is still in the game testing stage, Nyan Heroes has already clarified the project development roadmap. It has now reached the Pre-Alpha stage. The next steps will be the sale of land, and in the future, NYAN staking and Nyan Heroes closed beta will be launched, as well as the release of Guardian NFT, introducing new characters and elements into the game.
Solana+Web2 big platform, the advantages of Nyan Heroes
After introducing Nyan Heroes's impressive data and token economy, we still need to know why Nyan Heroes deserves so much attention? Behind this is the highlight, that is, there is a strong community guarantee and the support of traditional game platforms.
Backed by Solana, it has a strong community foundation
On May 9, Nyan Heroes announced a partnership with Magic Eden, the Solana ecosystem NFT market, to launch Nyan Heroes open version NFT free mint. Each NFT comes with a unique in-game player icon and a one-time reward for the Nyan Heroes Season 2 "Find Catnip" event. The event will last from May 9 to May 16.
As a top game in the Solana ecosystem, Nyan Heroes has been reposted and supported by the Solana Foundation many times. It is certain that Nyan Heroes will have more ecological resources in the future. It should be noted that the Solana ecosystem not only has very active developer relations, but also token transactions and ecological users are very active, which is very important for game projects.
With the support of mainstream game platforms, it has won the favor of Web2 users
Nyan Heroes is developed using Unreal Engine 5, which is the fifth-generation game engine announced by Epic in 2020. Epic is a traditional mainstream game platform that supports blockchain.
Nyan Heroes officials said that Epic Games is very open when it comes to games with Web3 components. The only requirement is that there is no setting in the game to purchase any Web3 elements directly through the Epic platform, and any purchase or transaction must be a third-party platform or website.
As far as the gaming experience is concerned, as long as there is no direct purchase option, Epic fully accepts games with Web3 components, which is very important for Nyan Heroes to be launched on mainstream gaming platforms in the future, which means there is a greater chance of mainstream recognition and adoption.
According to 9 Lives Interactive data, during the two weeks of the Epic store's operation, Nyan Heroes ranked among the top 30 most popular games, with more than 200,000 users downloading Nyan Heroes, and it was also listed as one of the most popular upcoming games on the "wish list" on the Epic Games Store.
This means that Nyan Heroes has established organic Web2 appeal in the early stages and is the only blockchain 3A game that has received overwhelming positive feedback from traditional players.
In addition, Nyan Heroes has also received support from well-known game platforms such as Razer, Xterio, Immutable, Superverse, NeoTokyo, Elixir, Hyperplay, Saga, and has reached in-depth cooperation with e-sports giants such as G2 Esports, Fnatic and Evil Geniuses. In the future, large-scale e-sports events will be held on the mainstream live broadcast platform Twitch.
As mentioned above, 20% of Nyan Heroes players are Web2 players, and a lot of game content is completed by Web2 content creators, which is inseparable from its cooperation with a large number of traditional game platforms.
In the eyes of the Web3 user group, Nyan Heroes may just be a chain game that can earn gold and airdrops, just like those games in the past. But FPS, as a game type that already has a wide audience base, is more like a unique shooting game with asset ownership attributes in the eyes of Web2 users.
The future of Nyan Heroes, a top chain game born from the "Web2 mentality"
As the official propaganda, Web2 content creators and their audiences love this game, and the reason for this effect is that Nyan Heroes realized from the beginning that Web3 games are not only for Web3 users who know what blockchain is.
When talking about this, Max Fu once said, "Players don't need to have any prior knowledge about Web3 at all. The goal of Nyan Heroes is not necessarily to shove it down their throats and tell them, hey, you know, the game you are playing is a Web3 game."
The idea of Nyan Heroes is that when players trade in the in-game market, they will see some ordinary items and some awakening items (referring to the Web3 concept assets in the game) on the market. They will wonder what that is and why they want to trade awakening items, and the price is so much higher than ordinary items.
At the same time, the game officials will expose these awakening items in the game many times, relying on players' curiosity about the market, desire to make money and other factors to encourage users to further understand and contact the blockchain mechanism.
But the official will not force this to be done. This part is not included in the game's introductory tutorial part. It will only provide a tutorial, and the choice is entirely in the hands of the user. So it's more like a Web2 traditional game with a Web3 component attached, and if players are interested, they will naturally go there.
9 Lives Interactive aims to release a full version of Nyan Heroes on PC early next year. Eventually, players will have the option to customize their gaming experience and trade in-game assets on the marketplace. Max Fu also said that players who don't want to touch NFTs will be able to play "Nyan Heroes" freely without being forced to interact with the blockchain aspects of the game.
The first season of Nyan Heroes' game testing has verified the logic mentioned above, that is, it is completely feasible to use the Web2 mentality to make Web3 games.
"We are a game studio first, and then a blockchain company. We firmly believe that the best way to make Nyan Heroes successful is to provide players with a high-quality gaming experience through careful design and implementation of core game rules and world view construction. This experience will be supported by a player-centric economy, while using blockchain technology to make it sustainable and scalable."
This "web2 mentality" development concept has given Nyan Heroes a unique temperament different from most chain games from the beginning. Many Web3 games have been thinking about how to attract players who understand blockchain from the beginning, because this group of people can become their investors or people who buy their NFT collections.
But what Nyan Heroes wants to do is to allow people like Alice, Bob, or their friends, family, and anyone who wants to play an FPS game to play this game, just like they would pick up any Web 2 game in the Epic Games store or the PlayStation store.
This means that Nyan Heroes must not only do a good job of the blockchain part of the game, protect asset ownership, and be technically compatible, but also ensure that it serves the Web2 game community well. But it is precisely under such challenges that Nyan Heroes is truly expected to become a leader in the new generation of chain games.
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Disclaimer: The content of this article solely reflects the author's opinion and does not represent the platform in any capacity. This article is not intended to serve as a reference for making investment decisions.
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