Is Chain Game a watershed for traditional games? Read about Steam and Epic's GameFi policies

In the traditional gaming world, platforms and distribution channels are extremely important, and even if a game is made by an independent studio with only a few people, it's easy to get featured on a platform like Steam and get noticed by players once it's picked up by a big publisher.

What about the world of Web3 and blockchain gaming? We've seen a lot of attempts to build Web3 linked gaming platforms, but so far, they're not quite there, either in terms of quality or volume. And it's hard to expect them to evolve quickly any time soon.

Since the original platform is not mature, so today's online games can only piecemeal on Twitter, Youtube and other integrated platforms to promote? The answer is no, because the door is not completely closed on traditional gaming platforms.

Steam's blockchain ban.

On October 15, 2021, Steam, the world's largest video game distribution platform, expanded their listing rules to specify that apps built on blockchains that publish and allow the exchange of cryptocurrencies or NFTS will not be allowed to be published on Steam.

Along with the new rules, Steam has also begun to overhaul existing chains. The first online game to be removed by Steam was Age of Rust, which offered NFT and Bitcoin as in-game rewards. The developers of Age of Rust said on Twitter that they spoke to Steam officials and were given the reason for removing the game because their in-game items have value and Steam does not allow items with real value on its platform.

However, in the Steam Marketplace, a large number of in-game items are priced and traded directly in legal tender.In order to buy these items, players need to top up their Steam account, but they can't transfer any money from their account back to their bank account. Do these in-game items have real value?

In an interview a few months later, Steam co-founder Gabe Newell, known to gamers as "Fat G," explained why Steam chose to ban NFT and cryptocurrencies.

"Blockchain is a great technology, but the current use of blockchain is rude, and 50% of cryptocurrency transactions are fraudulent, which is very bad. Also, the volatility of cryptocurrencies means that people don't know exactly how much value they're paying because most people's salaries aren't calculated in cryptocurrency. One day you pay 99 cents for something, the next day it could be $498, and that's pretty cranky. I don't think cryptocurrency is a good model right now."

Steam may be an iceberg that fills an entire ocean, but it's not the only PC gaming platform out there.

Epic Games  Embrace Web3;

At the same time that Steam was driving blockchain away, its biggest rival, Epic Games, spotted an opportunity.

The Epic Games Store launched in 2018, and to compete with Steam's near-monopoly of the PC gaming market, Epic reduced its percentage of sales on the platform to 12%, with an additional 5% cut for development using Epic Games' Unreal Engine. How much does Steam take? 30%. Epic hopes to entice developers and vendors to put their games on the platform, as well as to acquire exclusive publishing rights.

Epic's craziest move to steal market share from Steam has been to pay tens of millions of dollars directly to developers and then give those games away for free at the rate of one a week, and even more frequently during the holidays. When Steam kicked a game that was more than a genre, with only one element, off its platform, Epic stepped in.

On the same day Steam announced the Web3 ban, Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney took to Twitter directly to welcome games that use blockchain technology, subject to laws, platform terms, and age classification. In particular, he stressed that Epic Games welcomes innovation in technology and finance.

But just a dozen days ago, Tim Sweeney said this: "We're not going to touch NFT because that whole field is currently tangled up in all sorts of tricky scams, interesting decentralized technology foundations, and scams." What is Epic Games' view on blockchain gaming and NFT?

Track or shackle?

While the CEO has said he welcomes blockchain technology, Epic Games has thrown a lot of restrictions at the chain on a more specific level. When Epic Games launched a product using blockchain technology,The following requirements must be complied with:  

1. Epic Games does not allow products using blockchain technology to offer paid goods and services. Products utilizing blockchain technology will not be able to use Epic Games' City payment mechanism for any goods and services, including non-blockchain related transactions of basic game goods and services.

2. No link to blockchain, NFT or cryptocurrency mall is allowed on the Epic Games Mall page.

3. Products using blockchain technology cannot be made available to users in China and South Korea (where blockchain products have been blacklisted).

4. Products shall not facilitate gambling. Products shall not support gambling using traditional currencies or digital currencies that are directly convertible into traditional currencies (i.e., cryptocurrencies, digital currencies or other digital assets cannot be converted into traditional currencies or other cryptocurrencies).

5. Epic Games Store reserves the right to remove products using Blockchain technology from the Store at any time based on market actions (e.g. in response to issues that may negatively affect players).

In addition to that, there's alsoThe following conditions must be met:

1. The Blockchain Rider (and distribution agreement) must be signed.

2. Must be rated in all territories of issue.

3. All relevant blockchain technology laws and regulations in the region where the product is issued shall be complied with.

4. Shall understand and accept 100% responsibility for payment, customer support, fraud detection and refund related to the product.

5. All terms, conditions, risks and other relevant information relating to the use of blockchain technology in the product must be clearly disclosed.

That's not all. Epic also has requirements for store details pages for blockchain games. Additional information is required to be filled in before launching a blockchain game:  

Blockchain /NFT product label.The NFT and blockchain Settings need to be checked "Yes" in the common details when the game is put on the shelf. When checked, an additional blockchain /NFT tag will be displayed on the product page.

FAQ page.Products using blockchain technology must create an additional FAQ page to explain more information to users, inform them about the specific technology being used and the possible impact on consumers. The following questions must be included on the FAQ page:  

1. How does the product use blockchain, NFT, or cryptocurrency?

2. What utility does this bring to the product?

3. Does the product need to connect to an external wallet? Which wallets are supported?

4. Can you use the product without interacting with blockchain, NFT, or cryptocurrencies?

5. What chain does the product use? Does the chain use proof of work or proof of equity?

6. Is there a shopping mall for this product? What can I do with the things I earn (or buy)?

The chain swimmers who ate the crabs.

The additional rules and requirements, while onerous, are not unacceptable to many chains.

On June 6, 2022, online game platform Gala Games announced that it will release its Web3 Grit game on Epic Games. When I read this news, I was excited to see what the first link game on a major gaming platform would look like, but Grit's launch date is still up in the air.

On September 16, 2022, Blankos Block Party became the first blockchain game to hit the Epic Games store.

Blankos Block Party is an open-world multiplayer game in the style of the "Jelly Man" Fall Guys, where players are free to design, build their own levels, and collect and trade NFT, an in-game avatar known as Blankos. Blankok Block Party uses a blockchain that is private to her developer Prompts Games.

Her Blankos Block Party developer Mythical Games is valued at around $1.2 billion and has raised nearly $300 million in total funding from a16z, Binance, Galaxy Digital, WestCap and many other well-known institutions. What does $300 million mean in the traditional gaming world? The record for the most expensive game ever developed is held by Cyberpunk 2077, which also costs $174 million.

But Mythical Games and the Blankos Block Party, backed by inflated funding, are not doing so well. Avatar NFT deals were pretty quiet, and the game itself didn't generate much discussion.

Chainmonsters, originally scheduled to launch on March 6, 2023, is the chain's latest attempt to break into traditional gaming platforms. Chainmonster is a Pokemon style multiplayer online game where players can fight with pets called Chainmons, collect and trade Chainmons in NFT form, and the blockchain service is based on ImmutableX.

However, Chainmonsters, which was due to launch on Epic Games Store, iOS Store, and Google Play at the same time, only successfully launched on Google Play on March 6, even though the game itself was not problematic. Chainmonsters ran into approval issues on both other platforms.

conclusion

Steam has kicked chain Games out of the way, and Epic Games' motivation seems to be to attack Steam rather than blockchain games themselves, but despite these limitations and troubles, the door hasn't been completely closed to chain games on traditional gaming platforms thanks to Epic.

It may take a little longer for chain Games to figure out how to work with a platform like Epic Games and make the most of their resources. The evolution of linked games requires the participation of more and more players. Whether it is for the game itself to attract more users, or for the large-scale adoption of Web3, we hope to see more linked games landing on traditional game platforms in the future.  

欢迎加入律动 BlockBeats 官方社群：

Telegram 订阅群：https://t.me/theblockbeats

Telegram 交流群：https://t.me/BlockBeats_App

Twitter 官方账号：https://twitter.com/BlockBeatsAsia