Victoria d’Este
Revealed: August 23, 2024 at 9:23 am Up to date: August 23, 2024 at 9:23 am
Edited and fact-checked:
August 23, 2024 at 9:23 am
In Transient
Weiwei Geng, CEO of Unite, discusses the platform’s modern method to Web3 gaming, specializing in sustainability, scalability, and consumer expertise, bridging the hole between Web2 and Web3.
On this interview, now we have a dialogue with Weiwei Geng, the CEO of Unite, a Web3 cell gaming platform. With a wealthy background in each conventional gaming and blockchain know-how, Weiwei shares insights on Unite’s modern method to addressing key challenges within the Web3 gaming area. From sustainability and scalability to consumer expertise, Unite is paving the way in which for a brand new period of cell gaming that bridges the hole between Web2 and Web3.
Are you able to share your journey to Web3?
Earlier than Unite, I used to be concerned in a number of Web3 tasks. I used to be one of many co-founders of a challenge known as Rally Protocol, which is a creator economic system platform. I used to be additionally concerned in an NFT challenge known as Kung Fu Beasts, the place I had the chance to work with some prime celebrities from Asia.
Previous to that, I spent a number of time within the sport trade, constructing cell video games since 2010. I used to be working at an organization known as Kabam, the place I led the event of a number of top-grossing cell video games, together with Hobbit: Kingdoms of the Center Earth and Marvel Contest of Champions for the Asian market. After Kabam was acquired for round $1 billion in 2017, a few of the core workforce members and I began an esports group known as Gen.G, with workplaces in Korea, the US, and China.
My journey into Web3 began in the course of the early days at Gen.G once we have been attempting to innovate on easy methods to supply worth for our esports followers and gamers. We explored the thought of designing and constructing esports participant playing cards, just like baseball playing cards, that gamers might purchase, gather, and commerce. For the reason that esports viewers is predominantly younger and digital, we thought it could be an incredible match to construct these on blockchain, utilizing ERC-721 tokens, even earlier than the time period “NFT” turned mainstream.
What’s the Unite platform, and what was its essential function or aim in being created?
Unite is a Web3 cell sport Layer 3 resolution constructed on the BASE blockchain. The aim of this challenge is to handle a few of the elementary issues confronted by Web3 video games, notably on cell, which we imagine is the biggest attainable alternative for us to deal with.
The core workforce has intensive expertise in constructing profitable cell video games within the Web2 period, and we imagine we will deliver a number of that transferable data to the Web3 area. By incorporating what now we have realized over the previous 5 to 6 years, we goal to construct a strong Layer 3 blockchain resolution that addresses the important thing challenges confronted by Web3 cell sport builders and gamers.
How does Unite’s Layer 3 blockchain resolution tackle the challenges of Web3 cell sport improvement and participant expertise in comparison with L1 and L2 blockchains?
We’re attempting to handle three essential challenges with our Layer 3 resolution. The primary is sustainability. Many Web3 video games have adopted a “play-to-earn” mannequin, which has allowed gamers to extract extra worth from the video games or platforms than they create. This inevitably results in an unsustainable economic system that crashes throughout bearish cycles.
We imagine Web3 video games have to shift to a paradigm the place they construct actual video games that mainstream avid gamers wish to play and are prepared to pay for, both via advertisements or in-app purchases. Our Unite Layer 3 and SDK goal to allow builders to construct worthwhile, mass-market cell video games that may generate billions in income to help a sustainable token economic system.
The second problem is scalability. We discovered that present Layer 1 and Layer 2 options merely can’t help the hundreds of thousands of each day lively customers (DAUs) that profitable cell video games can appeal to. Our Layer 3 resolution, constructed throughout the BASE ecosystem, is designed to scale and deal with hundreds of thousands, even tens of hundreds of thousands, of transactions and DAUs.
The third space we’re specializing in is the mass-market participant expertise. Earlier Web3 video games have required gamers to undergo an onboarding course of, connecting wallets and studying about crypto ideas. We’re aiming to supply a frictionless expertise the place gamers can simply load up the sport and begin taking part in, with out having to fret concerning the underlying blockchain operations. The pockets creation, token administration, and on-chain actions might be hidden from the participant, whereas they’ll nonetheless benefit from the earnings and rewards from the worth they create within the sport.
How do you see the general state of Web3 gaming proper now?
Trying on the completely different iterations or generations of Web3 gaming, from CryptoKitties to Axie Infinity and past, I feel an increasing number of persons are realizing that there must be a optimistic exterior worth enter into the system. You may’t simply print tokens out of skinny air, as that’s not a sustainable enterprise mannequin.
Many video games are nonetheless working in that trend, however there’s a rising recognition that video games must be positively sustainable and capable of climate each bull and bear cycles. A deflationary token economic system can also be turning into an necessary consideration.
Moreover, I’m seeing extra video games striving to supply a participant expertise that’s just like the pleasing Web2 video games that mainstream customers are accustomed to. So the important thing areas of focus appear to be sustainability and playability, which can also be the place we’re focusing our efforts at Unite.
How can builders leverage your particular options and capabilities of their tasks?
The primary and most simple side is the pockets creation and token operation. We’ve wrapped this layer of complexity away from the builders, to allow them to concentrate on constructing the video games themselves, whereas we deal with the pockets creation and token administration behind the scenes.
Secondly, we’ve developed compatibility with numerous cell sport improvement frameworks, together with React Native, Unity, Cocos, native iOS and Android (Java and Kotlin), in addition to Flutter. This enables present sport builders to make use of the frameworks they’re already accustomed to, with out having to fret about our particular necessities.
The third side is the motivation mechanism. We’ve been constructing and experimenting with several types of reward and incentive designs, and we’ve templatized essentially the most profitable ones. When builders migrate their video games to our ecosystem, they’ll merely decide the reward templates which have confirmed efficient and regulate the parameters to swimsuit their wants. Our workforce has a number of expertise with designing efficient incentive packages, and we’ll proceed to innovate and templatize these options.
What about cross-chain interoperability? Do you assume it’s necessary in Web3 gaming?
For now, we’ll be specializing in constructing our personal ecosystem and dealing carefully with the BASE blockchain. Many different tasks have approached cross-chain compatibility by merely creating a brand new token on a distinct chain, however I don’t see a number of actual worth in that method.
In our roadmap, cross-chain interoperability is just not a near-term consideration. Our precedence is to first exhibit the effectiveness and power of the three key areas I discussed earlier – sustainability, scalability, and mass-market participant expertise. We wish to get these fundamentals proper earlier than exploring integrations with different chains.
In the end, the actual worth has to return from components like higher consumer expertise, improved sustainability, or entry to a bigger consumer base. Merely supporting a number of chains is a big funding, so we’ll be very considerate and deliberate in our method to cross-chain interoperability.
How does Unite’s Pockets SDK present a frictionless onboarding expertise for cell sport gamers?
Certain, the important thing side of our pockets SDK is that we generate a self-custody pockets for the customers and securely retailer the mnemonic phrases on their telephones. Nonetheless, the gamers don’t must know or work together with these mnemonic phrases initially.
This enables the customers to begin taking part in the sport and incomes rewards with out going via the everyday onboarding technique of establishing a blockchain pockets, understanding transaction signing, and coping with charges. All of those blockchain-related complexities are hidden from the participant.
We additionally make the most of Relayer applied sciences to additional simplify the method of withdrawing tokens and accessing the earned rewards. From the participant’s perspective, it’s similar to a seamless Web2 expertise, with the underlying blockchain transactions taking place behind the scenes.
Moreover, now we have what we name a “commencement course of” for gamers. As soon as they’ve collected a specific amount of rewards or stake within the sport, say $20 value of worth, we’ll set off a tutorial to coach them on easy methods to correctly extract these values on-chain. However till then, they’ll proceed to benefit from the sport and earn rewards in a conventional Web2 trend, with the choice to money out via present playing cards or different means we offer.
If a developer needs to have their sport on the blockchain, do they should construct it from scratch on the blockchain, or can they migrate an present sport?
We have now already efficiently built-in two video games onto our UniteChain testnet – Board Button and Mother’s Kitchen. These instances exhibit that builders can migrate their present video games to our Web3 ecosystem relatively than having to construct from scratch on the blockchain.
Each of those video games initially struggled with the onboarding course of and the continuing prices of gasoline charges. By integrating with our SDK options and migrating to the UniteChain, they have been capable of restore a easy, frictionless participant onboarding expertise and not have to fret about excessive gasoline charges.
As an alternative of getting to create their very own customized infrastructure for wallets and different blockchain-related performance, these builders have been capable of leverage the options we’ve already developed at Unite. This allowed them to considerably cut back their improvement prices and time-to-launch, whereas additionally enhancing long-term participant retention and enabling extra incomes alternatives for his or her video games.
What are the important thing milestones and anticipated timelines in Unite’s roadmap for the event and deployment of the Layer 3 blockchain mainnet?
We imagine Unite’s largest alternative is to create the world’s largest decentralized cell sport ecosystem. Our aim is to win the Web3 mass-market cell video games after which develop into different gaming verticals.
We’ve determined to begin with cell informal video games as a result of it’s a market with a world participant base and probably billions in income. Video games like Royal Match have already generated over $3 billion in lifetime income, which demonstrates the large scale of this chance.
We’re beginning with informal video games as a result of the gameplay is comparatively straightforward to iterate and innovate in comparison with heavier genres like hardcore video games or platformers. As we exhibit repeatable success with our improvements, it’s going to develop into simpler to maneuver into different gaming verticals, each on cell and past.
As soon as we will show the effectiveness of our options within the informal cell sport area, we imagine it is going to be comparatively simple to adapt our ecosystem and mannequin to mid-core and hardcore video games. The basics, such because the participant base, monetization fashions, and consumer acquisition, could differ barely, however the core ideas we’re establishing will nonetheless apply.
Our roadmap is targeted on creating the world’s largest decentralized cell sport ecosystem, and we’re wanting to set the benchmark for the remainder of the trade as the way forward for Web3 gaming unfolds.
How can older gamers, like our mother and father, who’re accustomed to Fb video games, be efficiently onboarded to Web3 video games?
Completely, I imagine onboarding older demographics to Web3 video games needs to be a key aim for all builders on this area. In truth, we’ve already had success on this space with our present video games, Board Button and Mother’s Kitchen.
The demographics of our gamers vary from youngsters to 40- and 50-year-olds, each female and male. We’ve designed our video games to supply two methods for gamers to earn rewards – the Web3 manner, the place they’ll earn on-chain cryptocurrency, and the extra conventional Web2 manner, the place they’ll redeem their earnings for present playing cards from common manufacturers like 7-Eleven, Apple, and Amazon.
This enables the non-Web3 savvy gamers to take pleasure in the advantages of incomes rewards with out having to know the underlying blockchain know-how. The consumer interface is stored easy and easy, to allow them to simply money out their rewards as present playing cards.
On the similar time, for these gamers who’re excited by studying about Web3, now we have a “commencement course of” that introduces them to the ideas of wallets, tokens, and on-chain transactions, as soon as they’ve collected a sure stage of rewards.
So, sure, I imagine it’s very a lot attainable to onboard older demographics to Web3 video games, so long as the expertise is designed with their wants and familiarity in thoughts. Our aim is to make Web3 gaming accessible and useful for everybody, no matter their technical background.
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About The Writer
Victoria is a author on quite a lot of know-how subjects together with Web3.0, AI and cryptocurrencies. Her intensive expertise permits her to jot down insightful articles for the broader viewers.
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Victoria d’Este
Victoria is a author on quite a lot of know-how subjects together with Web3.0, AI and cryptocurrencies. Her intensive expertise permits her to jot down insightful articles for the broader viewers.
