As we’ve seen with many play-to-earn Web3 and NFT games, launching game crypto coins without a proper tokenomics strategy can attract users solely focused on earning rather than enjoying the game itself. And while this may seem exciting at first, it's a recipe for disaster in the long term.
The truth is most Web3 games don't need their game crypto coins. At least not right away.
The team should first focus on creating a good user experience when launching a game. Then, worry about tokenomics and player incentivization.
Here are a few key points to consider before launching your game crypto coin:
Game Mechanics
Make sure your game is intuitive, engaging and offers a variety of exciting challenges for players to strive for. A fun play-to-earn game should provide a high level of replayability, with various game modes to keep retention high. If nobody wants to play your game, there's no point in spending time and money launching a token.
Utility
For a crypto gaming coin to be successful, it must offer clear and compelling benefits to users within the game. This includes enabling in-game transactions and payments, governance rights, staking, or unlockable content.
According to Immutable's Strategy Manager of Tokenomics, Matt Cheung, the utility of a game's crypto coin should always be built around user needs.
"On behalf of the Foundation, the Immutable team supports token design by ensuring it is first and foremost user-centric. Tokens are fundamentally a tool for incentive alignment," he said. "Therefore, with tokens as an incentive, we first focus on the actions that we want to incentivise to grow the game / network and then ensuring that tokens are attractive incentives to users by unlocking utility (e.g., ability to buy/sell packs and forging cards in Gods Unchained). In doing so, the team aims to strike a balance between our sources (outflow of tokens) and sinks (inflow of tokens)."
Balance
A sustainable play-to-earn game needs to be well-balanced and fair. Developers need to design the game to ensure players have a fair and equal chance of earning rewards, regardless of their skill level or the amount of money they are willing to spend on in-game assets or game crypto coins.
An excellent way to experiment with this balance is to first launch a game crypto coin without any Web3 components—monitor how the token is used as in-game currency within the walled ecosystem. Once the right balance is established and the game grows sustainably and organically, developers can mint the token to the blockchain and unlock the Web3 play-to-earn features.
Legal and Compliance
The legal and regulatory environment for Web3 gaming projects is still evolving, and ensuring that your game complies with all relevant laws and regulations is important. Launching a token without thoroughly understanding and addressing these issues wastes precious development resources, and you could face serious legal challenges down the line.
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