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GameFi is switching to Free-to-Play: PocketSpace, Gods Unchained, and more

Crypto West — Sat, 27 Aug 2022 20:06:00 +0000

The bear market pushes GameFi projects to rethink their user retention strategy: as daily token rewards become less attractive, the focus shifts to the long-term value of holding game NFTs and to free-to-play as the best way to attract players.

The fundamental P2E issue exposed by the bear market
When Play-to-Earn (or P2E) crypto games exploded in 2021, many proclaimed them the new iteration of gaming poised to replace ‘outdated’ mobile or desktop games, a bit like Web3 is supposed to supplant Web2.

Indeed (following this logic), why would users continue to play traditional games where they don’t earn anything (and pay for premium features) when they can earn a passive tokenized income in P2E? At the height of the Axie Infinity hype, for example, the top players reportedly earned over $400 a day – much higher than the average wage.

Then, of course, came the big correction that hit Play-to-Earn badly and exposed its greatest flaws. As P2E and metaverse tokens tumbled by 90%, and competition remained high, the ‘passive income’ became so meager that for many it wasn’t worth the time spent clicking anymore.

The classic P2E model works only as long as new players keep joining a game, so that the demand for its token increases faster than the inflationary supply. As soon as the audience’s interest starts waning, the effect of hyperinflation kicks in, and the price tanks, eroding the players’ daily winnings. Axie’s own SLP token is a great example, with a hype peak followed by a long descent towards zero.

What Play-to-Earn should learn from free-to-play mobile games
At this point, it’s time for the P2E industry to stop and take a good look at what makes so-called ‘outdated’ mobile games so successful in the long run – even though they don’t pay any monetary rewards.

For example, in Q2 alone, Candy Crush Saga earned $200 million on Android and iOS, while Rise of Kingdoms grossed almost $170 million to reach a total of $2 billion on iOS alone. And Roblox, a metaverse that is perceived as a competitor to Decentraland and The Sandbox (only without a blockchain token or NFTs) made $68 million in revenue.

Note that all these games are free-to-play (F2P), meaning that users don’t need to pay anything upfront to start enjoying the product and can freely choose to buy extra features later. Moreover, some premium games are switching to the F2P model as it turns out to be more profitable in the long run: for instance, Overwatch is now getting rid of its system of paid loot boxes.

This is in stark contrast to most P2E blockchain games, where you normally have to buy an NFT (or several) to use the game. Take DeFi Kingdoms: at the height of its popularity, a single Hero NFT was worth around $400.

How do F2P games like Candy Crush, My Little Universe, or Honor of Gods manage to attract many times more users than P2E games and make hundreds of millions of dollars? The answer is engaging gameplay that keeps users coming back – something that Play-to-Earn games generally fail to provide. To put this differently, a game that has to pay users to keep them playing has failed at its most basic purpose: being interesting.

Instead of talking about ‘a new era’ in gaming, Play-to-Earn platforms should implement the best practices of free-to-play projects to keep engagement high even during the bear market. This is already happening through a combination of two new trends: F2P blockchain games and P2O, or Play-to-Own.

Why the top GameFi projects are turning to Free-to-Play

NFTs are an immense innovation for gaming and a key source of revenue for the publishers, so it wouldn’t make sense to get rid of them or make them free. Instead, an F2P blockchain project will usually have a section that doesn’t require NFTs and another, more advanced part of the gameplay that does.
For example, Pocket Space – the first real idle arcade in GameFi – features two types of planets in its ‘galaxy’. The so-called Story Planets can be explored and mined for resources for free, while NFT planets feature more advanced resources, quests, and other utility.

Another example is Gods Unchained, which uses a different model: every player is first given a free set of 140 collectible cards that aren’t minted as NFTs. But as players use their free cards to compete in battles, they can eventually obtain real, tradeable NFT cards.

Splinterlands uses yet another approach: you can get a free set of NFT cards and use them in-game, but if you want to be able to sell them in the marketplace, you need to pay $10 for a so-called Summoner’s Spellbook – an upgrade that turns the player into the on-chain owner of their NFT assets.

While the mechanisms differ, the F2P approach as a whole has been very successful so far: free-to-play games like Alien Worlds and Splinterlands head the list of the most popular GameFi dApps.

As for Pocket Space, its two-tier approach to galaxy-building will be piloted very soon as alpha testing is about to start on August 18 and run till August 30. But there is little doubt that it will prove popular, since 4,000 people have already applied for a spot on the waiting list. The gameplay is inspired by My Little Universe, a global hit by Estoty with 400k daily users. In turn, Estoty is a strategic partner of Pocket Space’s publisher, Hexacore – itself a mobile gaming studio whose releases have been downloaded 250 million times.
Hexacore makes some important additions to My Little Universe’s well-tested gameplay, such as the multiplayer and PvP (player vs. player) mode in the Arenaand, of course, NFTs. They are at the center of a new GameFi model known as Play-to-Own.

Play-to-Own: a new paradigm of value generation

Play-to-Earn economies are rarely sustainable, as the best strategy is to sell one’s rewards frequently to take profits, then sell the NFTs themselves after achieving a good ROI and move to the next game. Play-to-Own is the opposite: long-term NFT ownership is what yields the most value, while token rewards play a less important role.

NFT planets in Pocket Space serve as a good example: they belong to the players who buy them (though users can also travel to explore others’ NFT planets) and yield more varied resources, as well as more valuable treasure chests that can be found in the dungeons. Also, NFT owners can benefit from allowing other players to extract resources from their planets.

Note that the resources aren’t tokens that can be sold off but rather substances like wood or stone, which can be used to craft more performant gear to extract even more value from NFT planets and win in PvP battles. This is a combination of a classic idle game (clicking to farm resources) and an arcade (leveling up a character through battles and quests) – a first in GameFi.

If GameFi is to become a real competitor to F2P mobile games, it has to reinvent itself. From Play-to-Earn with its hyperinflation to the long-term utility of Play-to-Own and from high entry costs to free-to-play: these can be the innovations that will fuel the next blockchain gaming rally.

Top 3 Payment Gateways For Cryptocurrency In 2021

Crypto West — Fri, 22 Oct 2021 14:44:02 +0000

To date, the cryptocurrency market is expanding rapidly. That’s why there occurred the necessity to create a strong and secure system of payment transfers that would correspond to all the users’ needs. So the crypto enthusiasts came up with the idea of a crypto payment gateway.

What is a crypto payment gateway?

According to Yahoo Finance, there are approximately 5,392 cryptocurrencies traded right now. Such circulation demands a safe and secure system for transfers that will completely satisfy all the needs of the crypto society. At the moment such a system is represented by crypto payment gateways.

A crypto payment gateway is a platform that gives the opportunity to accept transfers in cryptocurrencies.

These sites make the transfer of digital assets to fiat
automated. Moreover, you can change your Bitcoin or Ripple in a much faster way. Crypto payment gateways provide a lot of tools and options to make the whole process more comfortable for all users.

Benefits of a Crypto Payment Gateway

Transparency and safety, as a result

Such platforms are less vulnerable to frauds and DDoS attacks.

Lower transaction costs

Crypto payment gateways have a low fee compared to the classic banking systems that usually have 2-5% fees.

Up-to-date technology

The crypto sphere is new and constantly developing. That’s why all the innovations that are happening here on a regular basis can be immediately implemented within payment platforms.

Easy registration

Online services don’t require filling in long boring forms. All you need to do is to register your email or other preferable accounts.

PoS (Point-of-Sale) terminal

This innovation is responsible for fast and simple transactions.

All in all, the benefits of crypto payment gateways speak for themselves and make the choice of users quite simple. These platforms can save time and money and provide a high level of security that meets all modern requirements.

How does a Crypto payment gateway work?

There is no big difference between the traditional payment system and the crypto payment gateway working process. In fact, when transferring money through a classical payment system, you deal with credit cards, and the crypto payment gateway accepts only digital wallets. Besides, it doesn’t matter whether you use a single or multi-currency wallet. Any will do. Moreover, cryptocurrency transfers can be processed in a much faster way which is a huge benefit for sure.

The working process of a Crypto payment gateway

The first thing you need to do is to push the Place the Order button. Then your web browser will automatically hide your payment information. This is one of the most important stages of the whole process as it responds for safety and is the basis of the whole transfer system.
Your browser also connects to the merchant’s web server through an SSL connection.
As the cryptocurrencies details of a user are received, merchants send all the data available to the owner or admin of the platform with an encrypted SSL.
The crypto payment gateway then transfers all the data to the payment processor.
The payment processor in his turn gets a request and sends an acknowledgment code that contains exhaustive information about the transaction status.
The crypto payment processor sends the acknowledgment code to the gateway. The last destination is the website or the app.
As soon as the notification is sent, the website or the app (depends on where you’re making the transfer from) shows you a notification that the payment is completed.

As you see, the process has a lot of steps. However, everything’s done quite fast and, which is more important, secure.

Interesting Features of Crypto Payment Gateway Development

The list of important features in the crypto payment gateway development is quite huge. It contains both user and admin’s features which are crucial for everyone willing to launch a successful project and be in the top league in this sphere.

User Features

Initial page
Dashboard
Support submission
Account settings
Transfer safety
KYC verification
Merchants tools
Key generation through API
The button maker templates
HTML fields

Admin features

Security frames
Admin log in functions
Fee payment settings
Merchants API settings
Admin dashboard
Content management system
Support system
View user transfer history
Merchants transfer history

If you take into account all these features, you will be able to create a high-level secure crypto payment gateway. A lot of merchants and businesses will be attracted to your platform immediately.

Top 3 Payment Gateways for Cryptocurrency

There are a lot of great gateways for cryptocurrencies nowadays. But we singled out 3 top ones that accept Bitcoin as well as altcoins.

Coinspaid

CoinsPaid is one of the leading crypto payment gateways among all. It is the first crypto gateway to pass 2 security audits (Kaspersky Labs & 10 Guards).
This gateway allows payments in more than 30 cryptocurrencies into more than 20 fiat currencies. One of its main benefits is 0% fees for cryptocurrency transfers between CoinsPaid crypto wallet user accounts.
CoinsPaid payment gateway is used for 5% of global Bitcoin transactions. Moreover, processing service, Cryptoprocessing.com, is number one in the iGaming transfers. CoinsPaid showed great results with €1.25 billion worth of crypto processed in 2020 and over €2.3 billion already processed this year (August 2021).
All these facts make CoinsPaid one of the most promising and beneficial platforms among all. The number of partner companies is constantly growing, counting more than 700 at the moment.
To date, CoinsPaid is one of the fastest growing payment platforms among all, and the number of huge transfer players cooperating with it is the litmus test of its perspectives.

Main features

Over 9,500,000 crypto transactions (on August 2021)
700+ merchants with 6 mln customers
0% fees for cryptocurrencies transfers
More than 700 companies cooperating
The highest level of security on the market
30 assets available for transfers
Cryptoprocessing.com processing service

Coingate

Coingate is one of the top payment gateways in 2021. It has a huge number of users and a number of unique features it offers to its subscribers. These features make the work on this platform more comfortable. For instance, Coinbase is 2 in 1, as it is both crypto payment gateway and crypto exchange.

Moreover, using Coingate you won’t have to address the merchant so that he would ask for a withdrawal. The currency conversion from crypto into fiat currency happens much easier here. Coinbase charges 1% of transaction fees.
Coingate is compatible with almost all of the popular eCommerce CMS platforms. Italy, Spain, The Netherlands are among the top countries that use this platform.
The disadvantage of this payment gateway platform is that it is allowed in a limited number of countries.

Main features

API integration
No transfer fees
Requesting payments via email invoice
On-the-spot trading and payments
High compatibility with eCommerce CMS platforms

CoinPayments

CoinPayments is also one of the top-notch crypto payment gateways on the list. First of all, it supports a lot of cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin, Ripple, Litecoin, and more (the count goes over 1200). It’s main audience are merchants.

CoinPayments attracts users with the help of low commissions for crypto processing. The merchants’ charge is only 0.50% of a transaction fee.
This crypto payment gateway integrates with almost all the well-known e-Commerce platforms, such as Shopify, OSCommerce, Magento, and WooCommerce.
CoinPayments launched an airdrop with its native CPS crypto coin. This coin has a lot of benefits including a 50% discount on some parameters for users (hosting and transaction fees, rebates on online withdrawal fees).
Moreover, as well as any modern platform, CoinPayments has both Android and IOS apps which is necessary for all the crypto users nowadays. It makes all the processes more comfortable and up-to-date.

Main features

More than 1200 cryptocurrencies on the list
CPS crypto coin with huge benefits
GAP600 support
Plugins for all the popular web carts
Multi coin wallet for all cryptocurrencies
Mobile apps

To date, crypto payment gateways are a promising sphere allowing a lot of freedom for merchants and crypto enthusiasts. The top 3 of these platforms on the list have low fees and comfortable integration for merchants and sellers.