Many people have tried to develop different ways to improve existing Web3 gaming projects, but the long-term effectiveness of these methods is still debatable. Recently, LiveOps has gained more buzz in the gaming community, with an estimated annual revenue of US$618.8 million per year. Let’s understand what it’s all about and how it can improve Web3 game monetization:

What is LiveOps?

LiveOps (Live Operations) refers to the changes made to a game without releasing a totally new version. This approach to game improvement started gaining traction once games shifted to servers instead of being distributed on a read-only medium like a cartridge or CD.

LiveOps has become relevant for many reasons, with the top two being:

Bug fixes — Games often come with glitches and other flaws that can make the experience less satisfactory. LiveOps means players don’t have to wait for a new version of the game to be released. They can give feedback through different channels, and the developers prioritize the most urgent fixes.

Gameplay enhancement — When a new game is launched, many experienced players will go on a binge to see how fast they can finish the game. Once they are done with it, it’s hard for them to come back since there’s nothing more to do. LiveOps can help in adding new gameplay challenges or new ways to play the existing ones.

LiveOps can also help in other ways, including;

Marketing

LiveOps shouldn’t be thought of only in the context of rolling out permanent features. This approach presents the opportunity to do one-off offers that can be quite impactful marketing-wise. For example, during Christmas, developers and designers can give the game a Christmas theme, with decorations in different game scenes.

For quest-based games, Easter would be a great time to run a treasure hunt with special prizes. You can also explore moves like having a fireworks display within the game on New Year’s Eve. Thanks to LiveOps, such occasional efforts won’t need an entire game overhaul.

The ingredients of effective LiveOps

To successfully execute a LiveOps strategy, there are three major aspects to focus on:

Smart Feedback collection

When setting up your game’s architecture, integrating comprehensive feedback tools is essential for LiveOps success. Modern game developers are leveraging sophisticated solutions like Sushidata, which connects to multiple channels where gamers naturally congregate — Discord, Slack, community forums — and uses AI-powered analytics to identify sentiment patterns and recurring issues. This multi-dimensional approach helps prioritize which LiveOps updates will have the greatest impact on player satisfaction and retention, especially crucial for Web3 games where community sentiment directly affects token value.

Strategic implementation of in-game feedback mechanisms still plays a vital role in capturing immediate player reactions. Simple UI features like pop-up prompts with rating scales provide valuable data points at emotionally relevant moments, such as when players complete challenging levels or discover new features. When combined with Sushidata’s broader community insights and AI-generated reports, developers gain a comprehensive view of the player experience without spending countless hours manually scanning forums and social media comments.

Build capacity

One of the trickiest things about LiveOps is that it can distract developers from some long-term tasks, especially when the near-term changes promise immediate returns. Consequently, the gaming project can end up in a scenario where it’s retaining existing players with new small tweaks but not getting many new players.

Therefore, before you embark on a LiveOps strategy, you should ascertain the available resources and determine how you’ll cover any deficit. This is where the blockchain world becomes a great friend for LiveOps aspirants. You can start an open-source program where random developers can pick items from the prioritized improvements list and get to work.

A blockchain even allows you to experiment with different incentivization models. For instance, if you don’t have enough funds and don’t want to dilute your token to pay developers, you can try another approach. Developers can get rewarded with a few tokens once they complete a specific update and then get a percentage of the resultant transaction fee payments.

However, this approach may be hard to execute since you can’t tie every improvement to a specific transaction. Some improvements will collectively spur more activity, so you might have to revise the payment model to ensure fair compensation for everyone.

Testing and iteration

This part is very crucial because of how it influences decision-making on the final improvements to roll out. It starts with determining which features you can test without much player input. This could be something as simple as a new menu style for viewing purchases or accepting a new token or payment method for purchases. It might also be a mere graphics glitch.

However, for gameplay changes, you need actual players. This is where you have to remember that your user base has different kinds of players. Some players may not be interested in testing. Others may be the kind you can incentivize or those who love the game enough to volunteer. Additionally, it’s better to use a mix of players of varying proficiency levels to test certain gameplay changes.

This will help give you a clearer average regarding metrics like difficulty for different game levels. With that sorted, you then have to establish benchmarks. Remember, with LiveOps, you can’t be repeatedly iterating for long periods. At some point, you have to deploy the feature.

This means you need to have a clear system for gauging test success and establishing the minimum a feature should score in a test before you can deploy it.

There are a few other elements you need to tighten up to succeed at LiveOps, such as:

Analytics — LiveOps data exists in three main categories. The first is the data you get about what players would like to have in the game. The second is the data regarding your workflows, such as how fast you complete feature development. The third is the data on how well your feature responded to user demands and the activity it spurred.

A solid analytics team will put all this together and be able to answer questions such as, “What does it cost to retain a player?” or “What does it cost to get a new player?”

Marketing — You need to build hype both before and after new feature rollouts. Without proper marketing, you may not get enough people to test the game, or testing might happen much slower. And without heavy marketing after a feature rollout, only the loyal fans who closely followed everything will know. You might end up in a situation where you’re only retaining but not attracting.

How AppLayer can enhance a LiveOps strategy

Firstly, AppLayer offers an appchain approach where anyone can create a chain dedicated to a specific application. This can help developers working on mini-features for complex games, as these may require separate testing environments for better attention.

However, the major perk of this appchain approach is chain abstraction. Appchains created using AppLayer’s Blockchain Development Kit (BDK) can communicate with each other by default. This is handy when the intended Web3 game improvements involve partnerships with other dApps.

For example, if you want players to be able to borrow funds needed to buy in-game items for proceeding to further stages, you might need to integrate with a borrow-lend platform. AppLayer’s native bridging would make this much easier. This also applies to other efforts like linking in-game NFTs to an NFT marketplace for quick and easy trading.

Remember, AppLayer’s BDK already has contract templates that include customizable NFT token standards and can mint 300,000 NFTs per second.

Secondly, AppLayer’s modular approach enables developers to take existing EVM smart contract pieces and adapt them to their projects with minimal adjustments. This is extremely helpful for non-gameplay improvements. If the menu style or button layout you like is already available elsewhere, you can easily import it and tweak it to your liking.

Thirdly, AppLayer’s stateful precompiles simplify implementing new rules on consensus, gas fees and other fundamental Web3 game governance aspects. Instead of altering the smart contract, you simply tap into a stateful precompile that captures the rule changes you want to institute.

Lastly, AppLayer can process up to 400,000 TPS, which makes it ideal for game builders who want to test new features among a larger sample size.

The key is to understand that LiveOps doesn’t just magically bring in more money through frequent feature updates. In a blockchain context, it taps into a chain’s technical attributes to make it cheaper for the game to exist and grow. AppLayer’s interoperability, speed and customization abilities make it a top candidate for LiveOps strategies, so come monetize your Web3 game on AppLayer.

About AppLayer:

AppLayer is a C++ based Ethereum scaling solution where developers can deploy Solidity smart contracts and C++ programmed stateful pre-compiles as smart contracts. In AppLayer, Solidity smart contracts are 10 times faster than those in Golang-based competing networks, and stateful pre-compiles are 65 times faster.

If you are interested in building with AppLayer please apply for our Testnet Grants Program: http://grants.applayer.com

Website: https://applayer.com/

Documentation: https://docs.applayer.com/testnet

Twitter: https://twitter.com/AppLayerLabs

Discord: https://discord.gg/VMKrxF7vwu

Telegram: https://t.me/AppLayerLabs

Announcements: https://t.me/AppLayer_News

Medium: https://medium.com/@AppLayerLabs

Every crypto market cycle often has a dominant narrative. However, as innovation ramped up, multiple narratives based on new technology popped up over shorter time frames, like a year instead of a four-year Bitcoin-based cycle. We saw this with DeFi and NFTs.

With 2025 underway, it’s crucial to understand which blockchain technology trends will have the most influence on the markets and the broader blockchain space. SocialFi has proved to be a major contender for the top spot, but memecoins and stablecoins are also maintaining a steady buzz. Let’s examine the developments on each side and determine which trend will prevail.

SocialFi

SocialFi merges conventional social media with decentralized finance. As with any other dApp, one of the primary goals is to eliminate central control and ownership. In a social media context, this move would help eliminate censorship. The finance side of SocialFi focuses on enabling content creators and influencers to monetize their work.

Accordingly, SocialFI platforms usually take on the governance structure of a DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization). While SocialFi undoubtedly has a more attractive premise than the typical memecoin, SocialFi dApps are yet to achieve the level of maturity required to deliver their core functions effectively at scale.

Firstly, SocialFI needs to figure out how to handle data volumes like those generated by sites like Facebook and X (formerly Twitter). This may involve experimenting with larger block sizes, warp sync and sharding, among other lean processing approaches.

Secondly, these dApps need to build tools that ordinary social media users can rely on to structure their economies, emulating what existing subscription-based content sites can do. However, this comes with unique challenges.

One is how to prevent users from running fraudulent programs that get people to buy into certain offers but don’t deliver the content or do the influencer work of promoting a product. This would mean having some escrow-type setup where a subscription stays in the middle until the recipient delivers, or else it is returned to the subscriber.

Another issue is how to ensure the DAO voting system balances the protection of freedom of speech and other user concerns. For instance, how does the platform protect users from content that may promote suicide, self-harm, child pornography, human trafficking, etc? And how does the DAO work with relevant authorities to curb terrorist activity on the platform, among other crimes?

Lastly, conventional social media platforms rely on advanced AI and ML algorithms to tailor content feeds to each user’s unique and evolving preferences. SocialFi apps must figure out how to run such complex and resource-intensive algorithms on-chain.

Memecoins

Memecoins have resurged thanks to recent rollouts like TRUMP and FART. There are two notable trends in the memecoin space that point to a strong presence in 2025. The first is memecoins expanding beyond Ethereum, with Solana becoming one of the top memecoin platforms.

Low transaction fees and high speeds have become integral to creating a thriving memecoin market, but launchpad-style applications remain crucial. Solana has benefited from dApps like Pump.fun, a marketplace where anyone can launch a new memecoin and browse other available ones.

The user interface lets you see each coin’s creator, market cap, profile picture and chats/comments associated with it.

The second notable trend in the memecoin space involves memecoin projects trying to be more than just memes. We saw this in the past with Shiba Inu’s Shibarium, Shiboshis and SHIB: The Metaverse. Dogecoin also set up partnerships that made the coin an accepted form of payment by Twitch, Tesla, Microsoft and Gucci.

In 2025, we shall see more memecoins emerge and offer greater utility to capture market share. This could include token swap portals, NFT marketplaces and more.

Stablecoins

Stablecoins have been gaining more traction, with their market cap recently surpassing USD200 billion. Moreover, stablecoins reached a transfer volume of $27.6 trillion by the end of 2024, outshining Visa and MasterCard. The top two stablecoins (USDC and USDT) are now available on 17 blockchains. This shows that stablecoins aren’t just growing in terms of the number of new coins minted but also the number of places where they are accessible.

We’ve also seen new stablecoins emerge, including RLUSD on the Ripple Network, USDA on Cardano and USDR on Ethereum and Solana. In 2025, we could see more stablecoins representing non-USD currencies like the Euro, the Pound Sterling and the Dirham.

On the technology side, more stablecoin projects will try to infuse fiat on/off ramps into their user experience. The main goal here is to support a scenario where someone (say a merchant) is paid in a stablecoin and receives actual fiat in their bank account.

Another notable technical development is Tether’s new integration with Bitcoin via Lightning Labs’ Taproot Assets protocol. Speed- and scalability-oriented innovations will continue, but they may not be front and centre throughout the year.

2025 is the year when stablecoin regulation will gain more attention and possibly become clearer. As this happens, we could see a split in the development direction for stablecoin projects. Inevitably, some regulation suggestions will be inspired by the control a CBDC could give a government. Consequently, other suggestions will be about keeping stablecoins free from government interference.

Therefore, we’ll see innovations such as tax reporting features, tracking and compliance features that neutralize coin mixing functionality and more. On the other hand, we could see some stablecoin projects rolling out more privacy-oriented features and bridges to restricted services.

How does AppLayer complement these blockchain trends?

To understand how AppLayer feeds into the direction these technologies are taking in 2025, let’s first establish the similarities in their courses:

Speed and Scalability

Whether it’s moving money across borders via a stablecoin, minting and trading memecoins or updating SocialFi content feeds, speed is key. Without it, users either miss money-making opportunities or get information too slowly.

Apart from shorter time-to-finality, blockchains will have to accommodate more users at once and be prepared for sudden surges in transaction activity. This could be from people signing up for a social site to try out new challenges and follow trending stories.

Usage spikes could also come from masses fleeing an inflating currency for a stablecoin or a new funny memecoin launching and rallying immediately. Luckily, AppLayer can process up to 400,000 TPS and mint 300,000 NFTs per second, making it ideal for builders seeking fast platforms that don’t crush.

Customizability

As mentioned above, many new memecoins will try to differentiate themselves from others by having intrinsic utility and building relevant dApps in their ecosystems. We’ve also seen that some stablecoins might add different features to accommodate numerous types of users. SocialFi sites will also need DAOs that can operate differently and collaborate with AI/ML algorithms.

This means blockchains with high levels of customizability will shine. Fortunately, AppLayer offers stateful pre-compiles with machine code smart contracts that can be executed on the AppLayer blockchain or an appchain by creating your own chain using our Blockchain Development Kit (BDK). This gives creators the freedom to set custom rules concerning anything, such as the highly customized smart contracts, consensus mechanisms, or gas fees.

Interoperability

We’ve ascertained that stablecoins will try to connect to traditional banking infrastructure for smoother payments while becoming available on multiple blockchains. SocialFi may also have to aggregate news and other content from various corners of the blockchain space. And, memecoins will be dabbling more in token-swapping portals involving cryptocurrencies from multiple chains.

Blockchains must improve at communicating with each other and Web2.0 apps. AppLayer’s chain abstraction will enable all projects made using the BDK to communicate with each other by default, irrespective of the customizations made.

And since AppLayer’s BDK is derived from C++, it’ll be easier to connect many Web2.0 apps to AppLayer.

Wrapping Up

Every stablecoin, memecoin or SocialFi dApp will have its unique needs. More importantly, these needs will evolve at different paces thanks to distinct triggers. That said, blockchains that can blend all the three pillars mentioned above will be the most attractive for dApp builders. Remember, stablecoins, memecoins and SocialFi aren’t isolated.

For instance, people might use memecoins to tip content creators on SocialFi platforms, while stablecoins handle more high-stakes situations, such as payroll and B2B payments. This means blockchains must excel considerably in all these pillars to accommodate the integrations between stablecoins, memecoins and SocialFi. Since AppLayer does well at emulating all the three pillars above, you should come build your future on AppLayer.

About AppLayer:

AppLayer is a C++ based Ethereum scaling solution where developers can deploy Solidity smart contracts and C++ programmed stateful pre-compiles as smart contracts. In AppLayer, Solidity smart contracts are 10 times faster than those in Golang-based competing networks, and stateful pre-compiles are 65 times faster.

If you are interested in building with AppLayer please apply for our Testnet Grants Program: http://grants.applayer.com

Website: https://applayer.com/

Documentation: https://docs.applayer.com/testnet

Twitter: https://twitter.com/AppLayerLabs

Discord: https://discord.gg/VMKrxF7vwu

Telegram: https://t.me/AppLayerLabs

Announcements: https://t.me/AppLayer_News

Medium: https://medium.com/@AppLayerLabs

Gaming applications often demand diverse development tools and techniques due to the different aspects involved. GameFi apps take this even further since there’s an element of decentralization, which may demand trade-offs in performance, security or another aspect.

However, with the advent of stateful precompiles, GameFi developers could soon unlock new ways to make blockchain games more enjoyable and lucrative. In this article, we’ll dissect the core philosophy on which they are built and how it serves GameFi development in particular:

What makes stateful precompiles special?

Stateful precompiles exist as instructions (like mini-smart contracts) for performing specific tasks involving state access and changes. More importantly, they can achieve this through a shorter route compared to the typical EVM smart contract execution process.

Initially, precompiles executed tasks without holding on to data from previous executions, meaning they were limited in referencing or influencing the state. At AppLayer, we’ve pioneered methods for managing interactions between precompiles and the blockchain state. These encompass permission management, memory allocation, storage and activation procedures and more.

Currently, stateful precompiles can perform tasks like administering gas, handling verifiable randomness and minting native tokens of an EVM instance. However, it’s not just about what they can do, but rather the context in which they do it and how contextual changes are reflected in the stateful precompiles.

Firstly, stateful precompiles use less computational resources. Secondly, their functionality resides within the blockchain core (first layer). This means that when they are relevant to different contracts, they can complement multiple contracts’ operations.

This differs from a smart contract built on the chain since others can hardly tap into its functionality. Thirdly, stateful precompiles enable developers to add more functionality to a chain without creating a whole new smart contract.

Here’s why stateful precompiles appeal to GameFi:

Versatile arithmetic-driven game features

Many games have an arithmetic element within them. It could be something simpler, like the total count/points in a player’s hand in a card game and what it means for the opponent. It could be the number of strikes with a specific weapon or power you deliver to an opponent to win the fight. More importantly, the arithmetic component may extend to elements outside gameplay like leaderboards.

This demand for various calculations in different aspects of a game can offer a great opportunity for stateful precompiles to excel. In cases where some computations share a step, like finding an average, you can rely on a stateful precompile to perform that calculation. This is very important if the data needed to find the average is from a state change, like the token balance in a wallet.

It also comes in handy if the answer (the average) affects the blockchain state. This approach can reduce the number of modules developers have to piece together especially when importing/reusing/emulating elements from various pre-existing Web3 games.

Extending randomness use cases

Currently, one of the most important uses of on-chain verifiable randomness is the selection of validators during block creation. However, with this randomness encapsulated in a stateful precompile, it can do much more. Many games need randomness for a certain stage of gameplay. It could be selecting the lucky number in a raffle/lottery game.

Or, it could be for a switch in the patterns in which enemy actors attack a player’s character. Randomness introduces another difficulty component in the game and can make winning even more exciting. Remember, randomness isn’t only crucial in the actual gameplay. It also helps when choosing which players/teams will face each other in various tournament stages.

This can help avoid deliberate efforts by certain participants to fix matches or induce eventualities that unduly influence a tournament stage outcome. And with everything easily verifiable on-chain, such stateful precompiles help give more legitimacy to a game and attract serious investors and other participants like commentators.

Subsidizing transactions

GameFi apps are some of the top transaction-generating applications on blockchains. According to DappRadar, these apps generate around 20 million transactions daily. One player can trigger several transactions within a single gaming session lasting under an hour. This can make Web3 gaming very expensive since it would demand plenty of gas.

But, with stateful precompiles in the mix, GameFi developers can find smart ways to subsidize Web3 gaming while maintaining a thriving game economy. For example, using a feature like the AllowList, developers can create conditions under which player addresses can receive a gas discount on transactions.

A precompile can access the state to check a player’s transaction history and award or deny a discount. This may be based on how often they transact, how recently they’ve transacted or a combination of both.

Enhancing decentralization

Currently, many smart contracts that mint NFTs have limitations on how much rarity they can infuse into a new token. More importantly, some allow developers to unlock limits on NFT collections. For example, the team may have said that a new collection would only have 100 NFTs. However, once it does well, they mint more, devaluing the older ones.

Since stateful precompiles can be used to manage eligibility and permission for various on-chain actions, they can help in this case. For starters, stateful precompiles can control the minting of game NFTs, ensuring that preset collection numbers aren’t exceeded. Secondly, stateful precompiles can log state changes that help add rarity to new NFTs.

For instance, two players might complete a specific game stage at the same time. However, one might be on their second try while the other is on the first try. If both are supposed to get NFT rewards, one NFT can be slightly different based on the number of attempts made before winning.

Thirdly, stateful precompiles can be used to redirect a portion of earnings from newer NFTs in a collection to owners of older ones.

How AppLayer helps GameFi developers harness stateful precompiles

AppLayer provides an appchain approach to development and deployment. This means a GameFi developer can use our Blockchain Development Kit (BDK) to create their chain and try various changes to the appchain’s core without worrying about sharing the chain with other dApps. This means that your experiments with stateful precompiles can happen faster, enabling you to arrive at relevant discoveries sooner.

AppLayer offers chain abstraction, which enables any appchains built with our BDK to communicate with each other by default. This comes in handy when trying out stateful precompiles that reference another chain’s state to complete a cross-chain transaction.

Our support for modular development also helps GameFi developers borrow/transfer knowledge and assets from other EVM smart contracts easily. More importantly, it makes pushing later updates simpler since you don’t always have to overhaul contracts but rather use the equivalent of a soft fork to give the appchain more functionality.

AppLayer can process up to 400,000 TPS and mint 300,000 NFTs per second, making it one of the fastest EVM-friendly chains. Our reliance on C++ development techniques enables developers to surpass EVM computational capabilities. Therefore, even when you add functionality that relies on an elaborate stateful precompile, the execution will still happen quickly.

AppLayer also has templates for creating ERC20 tokens, ERC20 token swappers and ERC721 tokens. When creating stateful precompiles that manage permissions for minting tokens and creating or modifying contracts, you can insert a few code lines to achieve these capabilities.

Currently, many developers struggle to achieve fully on-chain gaming. This makes the fusion of blockchain gaming with DeFi much harder since decentralization aspects residing on-chain have to stay synchronized with gameplay and front-end aspects off-chain. Stateful precompiles offer a way for GameFi developers to establish the intersection of all these aspects (i.e. what modules can they share?).

From here, developers can gradually make the normally off-chain aspects rely more on on-chain modules that harness precompiles. It all comes down to the performance benchmarks required to smoothly deliver certain front-end and gameplay aspects like account management menus.

Developers can start with light components that execute tasks which result in state changes. Eventually, most of the typically off-chain gaming elements, such as those that perform calculations can be moved on-chain. With AppLayer, you can even automate the selection of network participants that provide the computational resources for performing tasks like tallying points and calculating averages.

This means that any modules shared by multiple game aspects can always be supported by the most high-performing devices on the network.

Wrapping Up

Using stateful precompiles comprehensively in gaming requires a platform that decreases the boundaries between blockchain layers and applications. With AppLayer, you can build stateful precompiles that easily talk to different aspects of your game, neighboring dApps and chains with minimal modification, so come build your GameFi app on AppLayer.

About AppLayer:

AppLayer is a C++ based Ethereum scaling solution where developers can deploy Solidity smart contracts and C++ programmed stateful pre-compiles as smart contracts. In AppLayer, Solidity smart contracts are 10 times faster than those in Golang-based competing networks, and stateful pre-compiles are 65 times faster.

If you are interested in building with AppLayer please apply for our Testnet Grants Program: http://grants.applayer.com

Website: https://applayer.com/

Documentation: https://docs.applayer.com/testnet

Twitter: https://twitter.com/AppLayerLabs

Discord: https://discord.gg/VMKrxF7vwu

Telegram: https://t.me/AppLayerLabs

Announcements: https://t.me/AppLayer_News

Medium: https://medium.com/@AppLayerLabs

While stateful precompiles haven’t yet gotten tremendous hype, several issues in blockchain development make them quite relevant. Remember, this technology can be up to 65 times faster than Solidity EVM smart contract execution. In this article, we shall briefly explain the concept of a stateful precompile, explore the benefits and discuss how DeFi developers can harness them:

What are stateful precompiles?

Stateful precompiles are prepackaged sets of instructions embedded within the core blockchain logic with the ability to access and effect state changes. Primarily, they enable developers to take functionality built on top of a blockchain, condense it and have it present in the foundational chain layer by default.

Initially, precompiles moved from one round of a task to the next without holding onto data from previous executions. While this made them super light and fast, it meant they couldn’t perform functions that required them to constantly reference what has already happened.

Luckily, AppLayer pioneered techniques on managing interactions between precompiles and the blockchain’s state. These cover permission management, memory allocation and other aspects including how the precompile is stored and activated. AppLayer not only become the first L1 to give precompiles state access, but also made them a scaling solution solution for high volume super advanced tasks.

This helps make smart contracts leaner, especially in cases where they’d normally house functionality that isn’t unique to the contract’s main use case and can be utilized by other contracts. For example, one contract may be a token swapper while another handles a stablecoin and another manages loans.

All three may need a feature to administer a gas discount on a transaction. A stateful precompile can shine in such a scenario. However, stateful precompiles can do much more and influence various stages of blockchain and dApp development.

Why stateful precompiles appeal to DeFi

It’s no secret that on many EVM chains, the level of complexity (e.g. the number of steps involved in a transaction) affects the amount of gas you pay for a single transaction. For example, sending ETH from one address to another is quite cheap but swapping USDT to DAI may require more gas. This significantly hampers DeFi development since more complex financial transactions inevitably become more costly even if the core objective is simple.

In this case, stateful precompiles can execute conditional gas discounts. These may be administered depending on criteria such as the number of recipient addresses, previous transactions of the same kind and gas expenditure history.

DeFi involves multiple currencies and currency pools, which often means more smart contracts within this space. This can leave a chain bloated when more updates are made as new contract version deployments. The multi-currency reality also comes with another concern.

Typically, to use a new coin in your wallet in a swap, you sign a transaction authorizing a DEX, borrow/lend platform or some other DeFi app to interact with the coin. This makes transactions more expensive while also lengthening the swap process.

Regarding contract bloat, DeFi developers can identify the more basic logic components of new updates and condense them into a stateful precompile. Therefore, instead of creating a new contract for a DeFi app, they can encapsulate that functionality in a chain improvement proposal.

As for the token activation step, DeFi developers can use a stateful precompile to maintain a list of tokens on the chain. This component gets updated whenever a new token is minted, making the token eligible for use by any address interacting with DeFi apps on that chain.

Certain aspects of DeFi involve very time-sensitive transactions because of price fluctuations, which creates a greater need for shorter time-to-finality. This is harder to achieve if a smart contract has a lot of logic to go through before completing a transaction.

Stateful precompiles can help reduce the number of inter-contract calls performed during a transaction, enabling a shorter time-to-finality.

Another pressing issue in the DeFi space is the execution of cross-chain transactions. With many EVM chains having limited communication functionality with each other, many developers try to package it in a dApp called a bridge. Unfortunately, this approach increases the number of steps in a cross-chain transaction. It can also slow down the entire process and introduce new vulnerabilities.

With stateful precompiles, you can access fellow EVM chain states and keep track of token balances in different locations. This helps reduce the number of checks a DeFi app contract makes before completing a cross-chain token swap.

How AppLayer helps DeFi developers harness stateful precompiles

Firstly, AppLayer offers a Blockchain Development Kit (BDK) derived from C++ with provisions for importing Solidity EVM contract code. This means developers can easily extract modules from existing DeFi smart contracts, deconstruct them and put that functionality in a stateful precompile.

AppLayer has templates for creating ERC20 tokens, ERC20 token swappers and ERC721 tokens. This makes it easier to link new creations with imported functionality and fuse everything with the blockchain’s core. More importantly, the C++ origins mean that our BDK will enable you to explore capabilities beyond what the EVM can handle.

Secondly, AppLayer provides an appchain approach, meaning you can have an entire chain dedicated to your DeFi app. This reduces the likelihood of a stateful precompile’s performance gains being diminished since your dApp has a whole 400,000 TPS chain to itself. Additionally, you don’t have to worry about other dApp builders having differing development philosophies.

Thirdly, AppLayer offers chain abstraction, enabling all appchains built with our BDK to communicate with each other by default. This means that when you create a stateful precompile that involves other chains, you don’t have to write cross-chain communication commands from scratch. You can stick to the lines specifying the information to write, send, read or retrieve for the respective task.

Additional DeFi possibilities with stateful precompiles

Developers who utilize AppLayer’s stateful precompile capabilities can achieve deeper relationships between network validators and the DeFi apps they support. For instance, a developer can set up a feature that channels a portion of new validator rewards into a DEX or borrow/lend pool at no cost. This can encourage validators to contribute to liquidity pools and mitigate capital flight from your ecosystem.

Occasionally, financial service providers like currency exchanges might run promotions offering discounts on margin trading and other activities. These often have terms and conditions attached, such as trading a minimum of X currency points. In such cases, a DeFi app needs on-chain verifiable randomness to administer the discounts.

Using a stateful precompile, you can institute a process that shows the winner was picked only from eligible candidates and was randomly selected from that group. This helps instil more confidence in your DeFi app.

Stateful precompiles can also be helpful in scenarios where you need to set permissions. For example, in traditional finance, some providers may offer certain services to clients who meet a specified minimum credit score or insurance score. Such approaches may extend to other aspects like common stock vs. voting shares, accredited investor status, and more.

If you’re a DeFi builder aiming to offer services contingent on these conditions, stateful precompiles offer the AllowList feature. This will enable you to curate and continuously update a list of users who can perform certain actions on-chain. Moreover, this feature goes beyond managing eligibility, serving as a security measure that can block malicious actors from triggering unauthorized contract calls.

In scenarios where a chain houses more than one application, a stateful precompile can help disburse a percentage of the fees from a DEX swap or another service to the dApp builders. This can encourage DeFi developers to contribute to dApp projects in a manner that increases usage in a bid to earn more.

For DEXs in particular, order books have become more in-demand when executing trades via their automated market makers (AMM). This approach involves linking two parties on either end of the trade (buyer and seller). Theoretically, the introduction of the orderbook as an intermediary can create at least one extra step.

However, with stateful precompiles, you can program the DEX appchain to only levy gas on the order submission. A precompile match an order to the person who can fulfil it and be modified to buy from multiple parties at an average price equal to the buyer’s stipulated price.

Considerations when utilizing stateful precompiles

Firstly, to maximize stateful precompiles, you should ascertain why you’re using them. Is it to achieve more resource-efficient execution and boost performance, or are you pursuing other user experience capabilities like permissions, randomizing, subsidizing, disbursements, tracking and cataloguing, etc?

Secondly, you need to decide whether the stateful precompile will serve a specific smart contract use case or be applicable across various contracts. This influences how you write the precompile, especially the variables it watches and reacts to.

Thirdly, you need to know whether the stateful precompile you intend to use intersects with cross-chain scenarios. This could mean it’s built for something to do with inter-chain communication, or its execution and results can be affected by the presence or absence of particular inter-chain interaction capabilities. Knowing this will help you avoid situations where the precompile fails because it isn’t supported by the elements it’s attempting to interact with.

Lastly, you should pay extra attention to how the stateful precompile interacts with the blockchain’s state. Does the mode of operation leave room for conflicting/unsynchronized records? Is there a mechanism to address this and ensure ultimate synchrony? Are there vague descriptions or logical loopholes that could leave unauthorized actors with permission? State access remains a highly sensitive facet of blockchain security, so endeavor to keep things tight.

Wrapping Up

Considering DeFi is largely about handling money, incorporating stateful precompiles should come with rigorous testing. These precompiles also stand a greater chance of success if they are complemented by functionality like native interchain communication. Luckily, you can find all this in AppLayer’s BDK, so come incorporate stateful precompiles into your DeFi project on AppLayer.

About AppLayer:

AppLayer is a C++ based Ethereum scaling solution where developers can deploy Solidity smart contracts and C++ programmed stateful pre-compiles as smart contracts. In AppLayer, Solidity smart contracts are 10 times faster than those in Golang-based competing networks, and stateful pre-compiles are 65 times faster.

If you are interested in building with AppLayer please apply for our Testnet Grants Program: http://grants.applayer.com

Website: https://applayer.com/

Documentation: https://docs.applayer.com/testnet

Twitter: https://twitter.com/AppLayerLabs

Discord: https://discord.gg/VMKrxF7vwu

Telegram: https://t.me/AppLayerLabs

Announcements: https://t.me/AppLayer_News

Medium: https://medium.com/@AppLayerLabs

The current state of blockchain technology has builders to offer various kinds of Web3 games to the masses. Additionally, Web3 game project success isn’t unique to high-end games with top-notch graphics and complex gameplay (games like Laugh Out Loud (LOL) have reached 1.29 million UAW).

As decentralization champions push for more fully on-chain games at a time when most chains can’t easily handle a AAA game, what can Web3 game builders learn from the currently successful blockchain games?

Well, one great lesson lies in how to use segmentation to your advantage. To understand how this works, let’s start by identifying the most common Web3 game audiences:

Simple games

These games aren’t necessarily easy to play. They just happen to have a leaner, more straightforward layout with minimal elements. A good example is a card game. The core objectives are evident, the gameplay backdrop doesn’t change much, and most of the fun is in developing a winning strategy.

Which cards do you hold onto or release? Who do you go against? How do you manage your funds? These games are less resource-intensive while still offering many possibilities. This makes them ideal for Web3 game builders who want their games playable on various devices. Such games also enable builders to study the impact of different game rules at a low cost.

How long can people remain playing before they get a reward? How significant does the reward have to be? Are side quests/missions/matches relevant, or do players stick to the main competition? You can get answers to all these questions and many more and apply the deductions to more elaborate games later.

Open-world and role-playing games

This broad category encompasses games with a virtual world the player can explore as the main character or another character. They often have multi-faceted storylines that can lead you into distinct corners of the game’s universe.

While these games are more resource-intensive (especially due to the broad graphical possibilities), they create unique opportunities for Web3 builders. For starters, they make the incorporation of collectables more engaging. Developers can hide a variety of unique NFTs in various locations in the virtual worlds and create secret portals or random actions that unlock them.

This can make the game more fun since the path to obtaining valuables is not very straightforward and involves a bit of luck, contributing to the rarity feature. However, beginner-level developers and smaller companies may shy away from such games due to the complexity of designing virtual worlds and programming numerous possible actions and reactions by game characters.

Nonetheless, this issue has an upside in that developers can start with more basic graphics and gameplay and gradually improve them. Additionally, a virtual universe creates more opportunities for tech-savvy players to produce designs for costumes, buildings, vehicles, etc.

Many players might come because they want to leave their mark on the game. User-created designs could also serve as another revenue stream for players. They get to earn while improving the game. Since there’s a two-way benefit, this model can help a Web3 game escape the trap of offering earnings it can’t sustain.

MMO-style games

Massive Multiplayer Online games have one major advantage. They maximize players’ desire to socialize, subsequently building a community that increases the hype around your Web3 game. Admittedly, accommodating multiple players competing with each other can be daunting for Web3 game builders.

However, this model enables you to start on a small scale. For instance, you may have a league with a single leaderboard and a limit on the number of players who can compete with each other at any time. From here, you can extend the limit on players or introduce subsidiary leaderboards (e.g. most knockouts, most clean sheets, etc.).

This helps diversify the reasons players stay in the game since some will pursue overall points/wins while others focus more on specific statistics like overtakes in a race. Another beauty of MMO-style games is that some modules, such as those that tally points and award scores, may be transferable with a few tweaks.

This means you can build a car racing game and transfer some elements to a bike racing game or even a football game. Moreover, because of the statistical aspect of some MMO games, people can easily develop investment strategies around them.

On-chain arcades

In the Web3 context, game arcades are particularly advantageous because of the management and ecosystem possibilities they present. For example, an arcade can bundle games together and make utility tokens transferable. So, if you excel in one game, you can use some of those points or monetary rewards in another game.

Secondly, smaller or newer games get to tap into the user bases of other established games. Remember, a game arcade can also make it easier for players who like a specific genre to explore several options within that genre instead of conducting multiple searches elsewhere.

Thirdly, an on-chain arcade can easily incorporate front ends for other dApps that complement Web3 games, such as DeFi apps. Say you earn a unique NFT in one game. You can quickly borrow against it and get tokens to enter another game without exiting the arcade. More importantly, arcade creators can infuse discounts and other promotions on swaps to encourage players to try out different games.

The management capabilities can extend to creating dashboards that show players how much time and money they’ve invested in each game compared to the returns. Such supplementary capabilities can make an on-chain arcade even more useful to investment-savvy players. If such functionality appeals to you, the upcoming AppLayer Arcade at games.applayer.com could broaden the user experience and distribution possibilities for your game.

Experimental games

These games don’t follow typical game rules. On the positive side, you can turn nearly anything into a game. It could be predicting news headlines, finding typos in a public article, etc. This can eliminate the pressure and comparisons related to being in a specific genre.

On the downside, being very experimental can leave your Web3 game lacking a clear identity. Players may struggle to find a mood or scenario to associate it with. This could eventually leave it as one of those games people try and like but never return to frequently.

That said, builders can take a mildly experimental approach by blending different characteristics of the game types above. For example, a simple card game can evolve into a fighting game going from 2D to 3D while maintaining the NFT game character approach with rarity attributes included. A single-player, role-playing game can also be upgraded to include MMO capabilities where multiple players tackle a mission together or oppose each other.

Accordingly, when building a Web3 game, it’s important to envision it in both its simplest and most complex forms. It’s also crucial to avoid constraining yourself regarding tokenomics since games with only one way to generate revenue can be hard to sustain. Lastly, you might have to accept that your game needs to exist in different forms.

If your storylines, gameplay and tokenomics are on point, your game will have an audience, whether its graphics are AAA-level or more like card games. This means you can have a leaner version of the game available for low-end devices and an advanced version for high-end ones.

Remember, experimentation is all about possibilities. You can go as far as creating new ways to use hardware controllers or creating games that combine missions in different games. With the right incentives and weighting systems for award players, you might put out a hit.

How AppLayer enables fully on-chain gaming across various segments

AppLayer’s chain abstraction enables you to run different applications or app modules on separate, dedicated appchains that innately communicate with each other. For starters, this encourages the creation of arcades since games can reside on different appchains and be available through one portal on a specific chain.

Secondly, AppLayer’s Blockchain Development Kit (BDK) enables you to build EVM-friendly gaming applications with modular execution in mind. Composability and interoperability enable you to reuse modules for functions like tallying points in different games. This speeds up development while encouraging builders to source more solutions on-chain.

Such modules might also extend to chatrooms and live streaming of gaming sessions, which are features you can offer to different player segments.

Conclusion

Understanding the unique and intersecting needs of different player segments is one thing. Applying that knowledge consistently and successfully is another. You’ll need the underlying infrastructure to support the transfer of ideas and their resultant assets from one project to another. AppLayer’s appchains can talk to each other smoothly and run just about anything built with our BDK or similar EVM-oriented tools, so come build a fully on-chain game on AppLayer.

About AppLayer:

AppLayer is a C++ based Ethereum scaling solution where developers can deploy Solidity smart contracts and C++ programmed stateful pre-compiles as smart contracts. In AppLayer, Solidity smart contracts are 10 times faster than those in Golang-based competing networks, and stateful pre-compiles are 65 times faster.

If you are interested in building with AppLayer please apply for our Testnet Grants Program: https://forms.gle/YYs6B11ynxQZKPok8

Website: https://applayer.com/

Documentation: https://docs.applayer.com/testnet

Twitter: https://twitter.com/AppLayerLabs

Discord: https://discord.gg/VMKrxF7vwu

Telegram: https://t.me/AppLayerLabs

Announcements: https://t.me/AppLayer_News

Medium: https://medium.com/@AppLayerLabs

Github: https://github.com/applayerlabs

So, you have a brilliant game idea, you’ve developed it well, testing brought good feedback and you’re live. But, you’re stuck when it comes to adoption? In this article, we will discuss how to ensure you get your Web3 game out to as many of the right people as possible quickly.

Before we dive deep into strategies, let’s first establish the distribution avenues available for Web3 games:

Online game marketplaces

Marketplaces like Steam are ideal if your Web3 game’s interface is packaged as a downloadable. For starters, you get to tap into one of the largest customer bases for PC games (about 75% of the US PC game market, 80% in the EU and 132 million monthly active users). Secondly, your game is distributed on all the major PC operating systems (Windows, MacOS and Linux) and streamable on iOS and Android via the Steam Link app.

Thirdly, if you’re trying to monetize the entire Web3 game or just certain aspects, you won’t have to worry too much about setting up the required infrastructure and fighting piracy. However, one of the standout qualities of a platform like Steam is the game management features.

Users can maintain a virtual library that enables them to play their games smoothly across multiple devices, set automatic or manual updates, configure installations to different storages, re-arrange queued downloads and more.

They can also check reviews, get custom recommendations and join communities to interact with other players virtually. This attribute can create new marketing approaches since you can capitalize on user-generated content and recommendation engines with personalization capabilities.

Mobile app stores

While game marketplaces have made a name for themselves, there are still many people who prioritize mobile app stores when looking for new games and other apps to try out. This is because brands like the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store have built tremendous trust and legitimacy as places with secure apps.

Many mobile users fear installing an app that’s not from their OS’s store because it can compromise your device.

Therefore, if you want your Web3 game to be viewed as secure and relevant, getting it on a mobile app store is crucial. And let’s forget, Apple and Google alone can expose you to billions of smartphone users, so the rigorous vetting procedures are worth it.

Wallet app marketplaces

When using crypto wallet apps like TrustWallet, users can go to the “Discover” tab and find many apps, staking offers, news posts and more. This library of sorts caters to undecided users. As the name says, you can quickly look around and try different things.

Such an avenue is perfect for Web3 game distribution because users are only a few finger-taps away from connecting their wallet to your game dApp and trying out your game. Additionally, you can have posts talking about your game and the latest developments or offers associated with it.

It’s also a smart way to tap into other dApps’ user bases. For instance, if people use a specific NFT marketplace or DeFi app a lot, having a few intersecting features can get your game placed next to them. This could make those dApps’ users consider your game as another place to find rare NFTs, earn from staking, etc.

Direct-to-consumer websites

This distribution model is ideal for Web3 game projects trying to build a comprehensive brand image. For example, by having your website designed with the same graphics as those in the game, you can make prospective players feel like they’ve already been immersed in a whole new world the minute they reach your landing page.

It’s also the perfect approach for gaming projects incorporating elements like referral programs built around their native/utility tokens. The same goes for projects hoping to attract more developers, financiers, marketers and other talents.

You can put the game’s leaderboard on the site, stream social media interactions about the game, display photos and videos from physical events, behind-the-scenes documentation about major development milestones, etc.

For instance, imagine the top players in your game show up to a physical event dressed as their respective NFTs, share their experiences and live stream a competition on your site. A well-organized presentation of such information can help tell a more endearing story about your Web3 game project and draw more people in. The D2C model helps you do it all in one place.

Social media platforms

The main appeal regarding Web3 game distribution via a social media platform is the potential to build massive organic hype. In-game achievements can quickly become trending topics and remain relevant, especially when monetary earnings are involved.

Who reached level 10 first? Who will win a certain 2-player or 2-team face-off? Who’s NFT discovery/purchase has appreciated the most/been sold for a fortune? These discussions could spur remarkable adoption with minimal paid advertising.

Mobile OS native apps

Admittedly, many people don’t like some apps pre-installed on their phones. These are often dismissed as bloatware and quickly deleted where possible. However, many of these apps make it into the marketing content, reviews, and other stories about these phones before and after release.

That said, brokering a deal with a company that has cornered a niche segment or region of the market to have your Web3 game pre-installed on their devices can help you get it where it wouldn’t typically reach. For example, if a specific phone is marketed as very blockchain-friendly or the most powerful gaming phone, your high-end Web3 game can help put this to the test and add to the story in a relevant way.

It’s also an opportunity to explore innovative ideas like having phone owners rent out unused computational resources to the game’s appchain for a reward.

Arcades

While many consider arcades obsolete, they offer an opportunity to tap into nostalgic players who are on the blockchain trend but want to reminisce about early gaming experiences. You can go as far as infusing retro graphics into your game.

More importantly, arcades can give Web3 gamers the coveted tactile feel and incorporate elements like AR, VR, laser tag, and more. For people who quickly get tired of being in front of a screen at a desk, this can be a much-welcome option. Arcades are also a gateway into typical physical activities like distributing merchandise, meeting other players and more.

Another benefit of arcades is that they turn the gaming experience into a buffet of sorts, enabling gamers to rotate between different games easily. Say you’re more interested in capitalizing on this variety aspect rather than the physical/offline aspect of arcades. You can benefit from developments such as the partnership between AppLayer and Send Arcade, which will deliver the APPL Arcade, a home to numerous web-based games.

Tips worth considering when crafting distribution strategies

• While it may seem important to try and be everywhere, especially in this era of successful multi-chain games, it’s not always the right approach. It’s more important to have your Web3 game available where you’re most likely to find people who are into that genre.

It is also vital to choose avenues that can consistently meet your game’s computational demands. It’d be a total waste if all on-chain resources function properly while the off-chain elements, like the web front end and game servers underperform.

• Focus on distribution strategies where there’s a two-way benefit. For example, there might be two platforms with large user bases, but one is trying to break into the Web3 world. Maybe they want to introduce crypto payments for games.

If your on-chain modules can swap various tokens and facilitate NFT purchases, try adapting them to other payment scenarios like subscriptions or licenses for typical Web2 games. The platform benefits through simplified crypto payments and tapping into previously hard-to-reach blockchain gamers.

Additionally, with your game listed on their platform, you can get leads to come to it if other games have a label on their payments page saying, “Powered by <your game>”

• Build with distribution in mind. If you know you want your game to be popular on mobile, pay attention to how graphics and other user interface menus display on smaller screens. Find ways to make your game light enough to run smoothly on mid-range smartphones.

If you want to incorporate physical and social strategies in your distribution, leave room for connecting hardware, including controllers, headsets and more. Ensure you also have community-oriented features like chatting.

• Pay attention to emerging brands and those seeking a revival. Rather than sticking to Android and iOS, you can run tests on other smartphone operating systems from Asia and elsewhere.
• Keep an eye on compliance when you offer fully on-chain games. The intricacy of data privacy laws could make it harder for you to distribute your game in certain jurisdictions.
• Foster partnerships with DEXs and CEXs. Crypto exchanges are still one of the most common places where people learn about new coins/tokens, staking offers, copy trading and trading bots, P2P markets, derivatives, wallet integrations, blockchain projects and possibilities in general.

Accordingly, do more than get your Web3 game’s tokens listed on popular exchanges. Find out whether they have intermediary infrastructure that can put your staking offers in the mix and portals that can direct people to your NFTs, among other capabilities.

For exchanges that have their chains, figure out how to incorporate them as transaction routes connected to your game. An enthusiast may buy your game’s utility tokens or NFTs but find it cheaper to withdraw them using other chain routes offered by that exchange.

This could help reduce the chances of the user leaving them in an exchange wallet for speculation and instead entice them to participate in the game.

How AppLayer can help with Web3 game distribution

Firstly, AppLayer enables you to bring all game assets on-chain with a dedicated appchain and provision additional resources on-demand. More importantly, selecting the most high-performing network participants to rely on can be done automatically.

Coupled with our chain abstraction capabilities, this fully on-chain approach enables you to easily connect your game to other native appchains and EVM-friendly blockchains beyond our ecosystem.

Secondly, AppLayer enables you to compartmentalize game elements through the appchain approach. This means you can easily make aspects like the NFT marketplace or token swapper more accessible to non-gaming users elsewhere. Consequently, you might draw more attention to your game through its other capabilities.

Conclusion

Successful Web3 game distribution strategies benefit from a certain level of independence. You need to be able to present your game the way you want it to be perceived, which can be harder when sharing various resources with other dApps.

However, to distribute a Web3 game successfully, you may also need to tap into pre-established resources in both the Web2 and Web3 world. This is one of the only ways to tap into market segments you can’t easily attract through ads leading to an isolated platform.

AppLayer’s appchain approach excels at giving you the best of both worlds; a Web3 game with its own identity and strong links to other relevant apps, so, come build your Web3 game on AppLayer.

About AppLayer:

AppLayer is a C++ based Ethereum scaling solution where developers can deploy Solidity smart contracts and C++ programmed stateful pre-compiles as smart contracts. In AppLayer, Solidity smart contracts are 10 times faster than those in Golang-based competing networks, and stateful pre-compiles are 65 times faster.

If you are interested in building with AppLayer please apply for our Testnet Grants Program: https://forms.gle/YYs6B11ynxQZKPok8

Website: https://applayer.com/

Documentation: https://docs.applayer.com/testnet

Twitter: https://twitter.com/AppLayerLabs

Discord: https://discord.gg/VMKrxF7vwu

Telegram: https://t.me/AppLayerLabs

Announcements: https://t.me/AppLayer_News

Medium: https://medium.com/@AppLayerLabs

Github: https://github.com/applayerlabs

Typical fundraising for tech projects happens with a fiat currency whose value is already clear. However, many blockchain projects use their utility/native token to secure funds, labor, and other resources they can’t readily pay for in cash.

In fact, in the Web3 gaming landscape, an online casino project once managed to raise USD 320 million from a token offering. And while we are going to discuss what makes this approach problematic, let’s first understand what made it popular in the first place:

Accessibility

Because the project’s utility token exists on a public blockchain, it becomes easier for nearly anyone with an internet connection to get it. They may buy it from a DEX by exchanging other tokens for it. The token can also find its way onto international CEX listings if it passes the vetting processes.

This differs from conventional tech unicorns that may only be accessible to accredited investors or financiers in closely guarded networks. When ordinary retail investors hear about these opportunities, it’s usually a little late.

Affordability

Unlike many ordinary fundraising rounds where prospective buyers must be ready to buy shares in bulk, a token allows people to buy whatever little portions they can afford. This helps create a fairer market while enabling people to explore investment strategies that involve diversification.

Transparency

In traditional fundraising models, not everyone is privy to the full details of deals other investors made with the project owners. It is possible to invest unaware that some people have priority/special status regarding the distribution of initial revenue.

With the token approach, it’s easier to know the allocations, the lock-up periods, the total and circulating supply, and probably even the rate of inflation/dilution. This can help potential investors plan better and manage risk more effectively.

Democracy

Unlike many Web2 projects where shares come in different tiers, with some lacking voting power on project direction, tokens can further democratize investment. Anyone with some tokens can stake a few to vote on various proposals anonymously, which can help keep project development on the right path.

What is the downside of using utility tokens for fundraising?

Regulatory ambiguity

Sometimes, it’s a bit unclear whether a token issued qualifies as a security, a commodity, or some other kind of financial instrument. Moreover, various changes to the technology and governance modes can change the status of the token over time.

This makes it hard for many institutional investors to commit to projects using their utility tokens for fundraising.

Limited utility

While many utility tokens have some functions, such as buying NFT game characters, they often struggle to be useful beyond one or a few cases. This means most people decide to speculate on them, causing massive volatility, which affects their reliability as a medium of exchange within the project’s ecosystem.

Skewed development

When project owners know that big funders might dump their tokens to get any profit available as soon as the lock-up period ends, they could succumb to that pressure. This would mean that throughout the period, they prioritize moves and developments that can keep the larger token holders interested once the lock-up period ends.

While this isn’t always bad, these token price-based developments could stunt other possible functionalities. Moreover, these moves can deter newcomers because even though the token price is rising, the token remains at risk of being outpaced by competitor projects feature-wise.

So, what is the way forward?

Package game licenses as NFTs

One of the main reasons games suffer when their utility tokens are used for fundraising is that gamers may not have any other way to gain from the tokens apart from selling them. The play-to-earn rewards may be low when adoption is still in a slower early stage.

By selling game licenses packaged as NFTs, game creators enable gamers to have another revenue stream. For example, aspiring players who don’t have enough tokens or don’t want to play that often can temporarily use other players’ licenses, with a portion of what they pay going to the license owner.

Additionally, by selling game licenses as NFTs, you can attach other perks to them, such as vouchers for merchandise or other in-game valuables like power packs, costumes, and design features. This can help create unique categories of licenses that people are less likely to want to sell straight away.

These unique NFTs can also draw in extra revenue, which can be directed to marketing and other development efforts. For instance, if someone’s game license comes with a branded T-shirt and cap, these can help spread the word. Any leftover funds from manufacturing can go to developing subsidiary virtual worlds where those license holders can engage in unique competitions.

Focus on gamer-oriented launchpads

When formulating token distribution strategies, prioritize launchpads and other platforms frequented by gamers. This increases the likelihood of getting your utility tokens to those more interested in playing rather than speculating on the game.

You might also obtain deeper insights into what gamers are looking for. On a game-leaning launchpad, you can see which game genres get more token buyers, which gameplay philosophies are most coveted and which production approach (e.g. multichain) gets more traction.

Moreover, by relying on such launchpads, you can further align fundraising with building by linking a funding goal to a specific milestone. This reduces the chances of having too many coins in supply before the things they are to be used for or spent on are complete.

Many people sell prematurely because the project is still several stages behind in development or adoption. However, if they buy tokens based on only one promise about the nearest development or adoption goal, they might stick around. They may be less disillusioned by comparing how much ground there is to cover vs. how many tokens have already been sold in fundraisers.

Use gameplay and game features for token distribution

Instead of outright selling tokens to raise funds, Web3 game project owners can create mini-gamification strategies even before the full game is out. Those who participate in these small competitions get to earn tokens. More importantly, their participation can produce special status on the blockchain once the game launches.

For example, interested parties can engage in a face-off to decide which game characters will have special powers once the game starts. It can even be a group quest where different teams/in-game tribes devise strategies to get an assortment of special powers that’ll help in later stages.

These powers can come with special NFTs or fungible tokens. That way, token holders may keep their tokens since they’ll be useful in later gaming stages. Project owners can further introduce a social aspect to this activity. This can involve referral rewards for people who invite others to play, those who share about the game on social platforms, etc.

This way, everyone who gets their hands on tokens feels more interested in seeing the game thrive so they can benefit more.

Build investment platforms within the game

This approach is more about tackling capital flight. Admittedly, not everyone will have the patience and excitement to participate in early game stages or stick around for all other developments. However, someone else with a stronger belief in the game’s future may want to hold more tokens but doesn’t have enough time to earn all of them through gameplay.

Accordingly, builders can create a marketplace within the game where people can set up trading accounts and make competitive offers for other holders’ tokens. Both buyers and sellers can be required to meet certain game participation benchmarks to execute such trades. This can help preserve the value of work done within the game instead of leaving it at the mercy of less informed speculators outside the ecosystem.

Builders can also switch from selling tokens to selling profiles. Here, an investor instead buys a package that enables them to participate in the game meaningfully. This can include a team owner mode, where the investor invites interested players lacking funds to join their team. As the team wins more, the players earn, and a portion goes to the investor/team owner.

Support external assets and protocols

Web3 game builders can make an effort to enable the use of external tokens within their ecosystem in limited scenarios. This can help the game grow and gain attention from people on other chains, eventually increasing liquidity. They can also put a small levy on transactions made with foreign tokens to draw in more revenue and encourage people to use the project’s utility token to save.

This effort can also encourage the swapping of tokens within the ecosystem through a game-provided swap function. Therefore, even when holders of foreign tokens aren’t using them directly for payments or staking within the game, they exchange them for the utility token internally at a small fee.

Gamers holding utility tokens can deposit some into this swap pool to provide liquidity. This means buyers don’t always have to look for the token in places like CEXs, where it’s more susceptible to shorting, wash trading, and other potentially harmful market moves. Deposits from gamers who already hold tokens can also help slow down the dilution of the token supply.

Support for external protocols can also come in the form of NFTs or special fungible tokens representing ownership of a game profile. Say a game participant has a high-performing profile, earning frequently from individual gameplay wins or team victories. They can mint an NFT representing this entity (similar to a profit-generating company), then borrow against it by depositing it in a borrow/lend pool outside the game.

They can use the loan for other activities or bring it back into the game’s ecosystem to build more profiles/teams. Alternatively, they can use fungible tokens representing profile ownership as debt instruments. The team owner sells the tokens, and those who hold them are entitled to a portion of the team’s wins.

Such efforts can encourage individuals and institutions outside the game’s ecosystem to view its internal elements as lucrative entities and invest in them. It can also pave the way for opportunities like external entities renting advertising space within the gaming world. For instance, they can sponsor one-off mini-tournaments or recurring leagues within the game, with some money going to token-holding players and team owners involved in those competitions.

How AppLayer can address the fundraising vs. building dilemma

As shown above, some Web3 game economy-building strategies require adding non-gaming functions to a game. These may include token-swapping platforms, social platforms, investment marketplaces for deals like profile purchases, etc.

AppLayer’s appchain approach enables Web3 game builders to create dedicated chains for each unique service or related set of services, enabling high performance for each feature due to less competition for computational resources. More importantly, AppLayer’s chain abstraction opens new opportunities for greater cross-project utility.

Firstly, it makes it easier for parties like team owners to stake NFTs in borrow /lend pools elsewhere or trade fungible tokens for funds from outsiders. The Web3 game will have substantial default communication capabilities with any other chain built from the same Blockchain Development Kit (BDK) used to create the game.

Secondly, other projects that need services like token swaps, social platforms, and investment marketplaces won’t have to build these functionalities from scratch into their projects. They can plug into the appchains already hosting these features for your game and part with a small fee to use them.

For example, other games with totally different gameplay can also have single and team profiles tradable by listing them on your game’s marketplace. The same goes for their utility tokens, which can be listed on your game’s token swap interface. Moreover, AppLayer can process up to 400,000 TPS and mint 300,000 NFTs per second. This makes it the ideal platform for Web3 game builders looking to scale rapidly while maintaining a great user experience.

Conclusion

Balancing fundraising with building a Web3 game economy is about give-and-take. Some policies may deter certain people while attracting others. Additionally, it will occasionally require restrictions in some facets of the game while needing openness and relationships with other projects in other scenarios.

Thankfully, AppLayer offers enough customization capabilities to connect with other builders while still operating independently and uniquely where necessary, so come build your Web3 game on AppLayer.

About AppLayer:

AppLayer is a C++ based Ethereum scaling solution where developers can deploy Solidity smart contracts and C++ programmed stateful pre-compiles as smart contracts. In AppLayer, Solidity smart contracts are 10 times faster than those in Golang-based competing networks, and stateful pre-compiles are 65 times faster.

If you are interested in building with AppLayer please apply for our Testnet Grants Program: https://forms.gle/YYs6B11ynxQZKPok8

Website: https://applayer.com/

Documentation: https://docs.applayer.com/testnet

Twitter: https://twitter.com/AppLayerLabs

Discord: https://discord.gg/VMKrxF7vwu

Telegram: https://t.me/AppLayerLabs

Announcements: https://t.me/AppLayer_News

Medium: https://medium.com/@AppLayerLabs

Github: https://github.com/applayerlabs

Now and then, a new Web3 game pops up on the scene and makes waves. However, shortly after, the game seems to be nowhere, with no one talking about it and very few people playing it. In all fairness, this isn’t always a bad thing, especially since it can happen for several reasons.

But in some cases, it’s not just a periodic dip in hype before the next milestone on the roadmap is completed. It may turn out to be the start of the death of the game. In fact, as of December 2023, about 2,127 games had failed in the previous five years, which is about 75.5% of the 2,817 games launched in that period. That said, let’s try to understand the hallmarks of a successful Web3 game launch:

Security and reliability

While this sounds like a no-brainer, it’s an often-overlooked aspect of a game launch. As a gaming project nears its launch and the hype grows, it’s likely to complete some smart contract audits and even indicate those badges on its website.

Many forget that completed audits aren’t always an outright green flag. Oftentimes, they unearth issues that could potentially cause problems and notify the team about them. However, teams often make pragmatic but sometimes negligent decisions to meet deadlines and secure more funding.

Considering the launch is the time when the team may have a lot on their plate, it’s possible for some vulnerabilities to slip through and get etched into the blockchain. You may also have scenarios where other secrets, like API keys, are poorly handled, leaving room for unauthorized account access.

And if the team happens to be stringent and avoids all that, they may not adequately prepare for the multitude of people waiting to try out the game. Consequently, various aspects of the game may lag or crash, leaving people frustrated, disappointed, and possibly anxious about any tokens spent.

Accordingly, a successful game launch is one where things simply work. Button clicks swiftly take you to where you’re going, graphics are displayed clearly, and value is successfully transferred with accurate reflections/receipts for all actions performed.

Sign-ups and purchases

Not every interested person will want to play the game straight away. The launch could land at a time when people have many other important things to do. However, actions like sign-ups and NFT game character purchases indicate considerable interest in playing the game.

So, Web3 game creators should optimize their front ends for such conversions and incentivize newcomers with discounts and other bonuses where possible. That said, it’s important to have systems that will weed out any bot-driven activity.

Queries and feedback

Though many game features might be quite straightforward, people might face challenges or be curious about other game elements. If many people contact your support team about these issues, it could indicate that they are interested enough to want to continue participating. If this doesn’t happen, then maybe you’re doing nearly everything right, but it could also mean that players didn’t find the game that interesting.

Moreover, queries and feedback give you accurate first-hand insights regarding the most captivating elements of the game and what players hope to get soon. This can help you make beneficial pivots in your development program and further accelerate the game’s growth.

DAU-Transaction Volume Ratio

For nearly any Web3 project, the number of daily active users remains an important metric for gauging success. Transaction volume can also hint at the resources people deploy into gameplay regularly.

However, it’s wise not to look at these metrics in isolation. Web3 game creators should compare these metrics and how they evolve. More importantly, they should divide daily active users into new and returning players. From here, they should establish the transaction volume associated with new players and that attached to returning players.

Firstly, this will show whether people spend less as they play more or whether they sink more resources into building their profiles, staking, collecting items, and more. Secondly, it will show whether the later game stages lack enticing features that induce spending.

Thirdly, it will help creators get closer to establishing a lifetime value for the average player. They’ll eventually know better how much one player can contribute to the game’s economy over a month or a year. This helps them determine how aggressive they should be with player acquisition and how much they should balance it with development oriented toward player retention.

Builder interest

When measuring game launch success, many people only look at it from the user side. They often forget that, unlike Web2 game projects that usually have big budgets, many Web3 games are largely developed through a lower-budget open-source approach.

From developers to business leaders, many Web3 projects can attract various contributions based on their vision and how they impact users. When a project launches successfully, some people will want to examine the back-end technical decisions that brought the success. They also want to point out areas where there’s room for improvement.

Accordingly, we can say that a Web3 game launch is fairly successful if developers and other talents flock to the project’s GitHub, knowledge base, and other assets, platforms, and portals to contribute. This is one of the cheapest and fastest ways to discover flaws, make improvements, and foster partnerships and other kinds of collaborations.

Social activity

Many Web3 games launch with options for players to share information about their gaming activity on social media platforms, and some may even have native chat rooms. Nonetheless, you should give players a good reason to talk about your game.

For instance, one player may share that they’ve purchased a specific NFT game character because it’s rare and has an amazing visual design. Another player may share a gameplay milestone they’ve achieved, such as being the first person to reach a specific level.

That said, if your game launch garners many posts from players on social platforms, this may signify that you’ve managed to infuse elements people care about. More importantly, it may indicate that you’ve done well at drawing special attention to those elements and events in a way that makes people want to talk about them.

Remember, all these posts offer free press for your game. This can help improve new player acquisition and attract more investors since they see plenty of organic activity in and around the game. Ultimately, some funds that would otherwise go to paid advertising and other marketing efforts can go to feature development, bug bounties, special giveaways, and more.

Social activity is also a goldmine for qualitative research. It can complement all the statistical reports by showing you how people feel about the game outside of the ability to earn from it. This is particularly important when improving visual design, motion graphics, and sonic elements.

How AppLayer can increase the chances of Web3 game launch success

AppLayer’s Blockchain Development Kit (BDK) allows builders to use stateful precompiles to infuse game incentives into rules in the blockchain’s core. This can help reduce the complexities of creating more elaborate smart contracts to accommodate this logic.

Consequently, development happens faster, enabling creators to launch with all the minimum desired features. They’ll also have an easier time updating the game dApp with minimal smart contract bloat on the appchain.

AppLayer can process up to 400,000 TPS and mint 300,000 NFTs per second, making it the ideal platform for game creators seeking reliability. You can also bring more gaming assets on-chain and have computational resources automatically provisioned for them based on the most high-performing nodes in the network. This makes our platform great for game launches that prioritize reliability.

AppLayer also boasts massive composability, meaning other builders who take an interest in the game can easily transfer EVM knowledge and assets to your game project and vice versa. This helps when you’re testing a few cross-chain features or trying to get the game onto multiple chains.

You can take BDK-built modules and run them on other chains’ testnets to see how much more work is needed. And with AppLayer’s internal and external bridging capabilities in place, you can also learn more about how well your game features interact with protocols on other chains.

Conclusion

Ultimately, success can be hard to gauge during or shortly after a Web3 game launch. Some games start slow and gain traction, while others start high and then fizzle out. With AppLayer, you and many others can comfortably add new game components thanks to our C++-oriented development tools, so come build your Web3 game on AppLayer.

About AppLayer:

AppLayer is a C++ based Ethereum scaling solution where developers can deploy Solidity smart contracts and C++ programmed stateful pre-compiles as smart contracts. In AppLayer, Solidity smart contracts are 10 times faster than those in Golang-based competing networks, and stateful pre-compiles are 65 times faster.

If you are interested in building with AppLayer please apply for our Testnet Grants Program: https://forms.gle/YYs6B11ynxQZKPok8

Website: https://applayer.com/

Documentation: https://docs.applayer.com/testnet

Twitter: https://twitter.com/AppLayerLabs

Discord: https://discord.gg/VMKrxF7vwu

Telegram: https://t.me/AppLayerLabs

Announcements: https://t.me/AppLayer_News

Medium: https://medium.com/@AppLayerLabs

Github: https://github.com/applayerlabs

NFT technology has undoubtedly underpinned most successful Web3 games. Primarily, it has enabled ownership of in-game assets and the transfer of their value, sometimes beyond the game’s ecosystem. However, this has also attracted investors whose interest in these assets is purely speculative. While NFT trading has spurred attention and growth, it has also brought challenges.

How NFT trading interferes with reward-based mechanics

Lower participation

Players sometimes will look at the hard work in completing a game stage to earn an NFT for the next phase and feel reluctant. Instead, they’ll wait for someone else to finish and try to buy the NFT from them so they can use it for the next stage.

With fewer people participating in preliminary stages, there’s less for participants to earn. Additionally, game creators obtain less data about the effectiveness of the game theory they applied. This leaves them less informed when trying to improve gameplay for various stages.

Increased barrier to entry

As more people speculate on the NFTs earned in games, their prices can soar, making them more expensive for beginners. This draws more attention to the rewards as some prospective players lose interest since they’d be paying a lot to start while not sure they can recoup it in game rewards.

One particular Axie Infinity NFT sold for as much as USD1.1 million, while another from the CryptoKitties game sold for USD1.3 million. Such frenzies would also affect cheaper, entry-level NFTs, making them unreachable for many aspiring players.

Reduced staking

If more people believe they can get more from their in-game NFTs by trading them on a marketplace, they are less likely to stake them within the game’s ecosystem for rewards. This means that value absorbed into or created within the game’s ecosystem quickly leaves the ecosystem.

With less value locked in the project, it becomes easier to manipulate the value of whatever stays within the game’s ecosystem. In cases where the game is running on a blockchain dedicated to it or a couple of games with cross-project tokens, risk increases. An attack on one game can easily affect the economics of other games.

How can game creators solve these issues?

Fortunately, many solutions to these problems lie within the same technology that’s already in use. The only challenge is how to tweak it to support those new strategies. Ultimately, the goal is to tie each unit of player effort within the game to some kind of value. More importantly, this value has to be exclusive to those actions, such that those who didn’t participate can’t just buy it.

This can be done in several ways, including:

Ancillary gameplay

Many games have gameplay stages with one mission. However, it’s not uncommon to have side quests where players can earn extra points and valuables before or after completing a stage’s mission. Side quests can help make players more likely to seek additional value from deploying their NFTs within the game instead of rushing to NFT marketplaces to trade.

Side quests can be simple, like spray-painting a mural at a certain location within that game stage or building structures. Such side missions can also improve the game from the visual side. You can also introduce schemes where players continuously earn from these design changes if they hold onto the NFT characters they used to make them. Additionally, you can enable other players on side quests to bid for an opportunity to modify or replace these changes.

Sponsorship programs

In many conventional gaming competitions, some of the most talented players lack the resources to enter new tournaments or advance to other stages. Blockchain games can create a type of marketplace where both players and investors post their profiles and desires. When either side finds a suitable match, a sponsorship deal is signed on the blockchain, and gameplay resumes.

This can help make speculative investors more interested in how the game works and how they can earn from within its ecosystem. Such opportunities can eventually become more lucrative than speculation on NFT prices on the open market. They also help players who lack resources for advancement since they stay in the game instead of selling the little they’ve earned.

Team-based gameplay

Web3 game creators can focus more on developing game stages that require players to participate in sizable teams to earn rewards. This makes players keep tabs on each other (who has what kind of NFT, etc.), pushing them to interact and hold on to their valuables for group earnings.

Developers can also experiment with periodic group-based tournaments that require unique combinations of NFT characters for eligibility. For instance, say you have three types of NFTs (A, B, and C), and type B has been leaving the gaming ecosystem and getting traded a lot. You can create a competition where a team needs 2 As, 3 Cs, and 5 Bs for a mission. This can change depending on the NFT flight trends.

Cross-project partnerships

Say your game has famous NFT characters that are attracting speculative trading. If you’re at the limit of the enticing gameplay options you can offer within a specific period, a partnership can help. For example, another project may have fashion NFTs, allowing people to create different clothes.

You can develop a long-running competition where owners of NFT characters in your game can dress them up in different combinations of clothes and new designs from the fashion NFT project. Then, they can have a runway-style event where people pay to see the designs for the first time, and the winners earn prizes. Beyond that, the winners can keep their characters dressed in those designs when playing the game, as part of an affiliate marketing program.

The further their NFT character advances into the game, draws attention to their wear, and drives traffic to the fashion NFT project, the more the owner earns in royalties or commission from the corresponding fashion NFTs.

Testing programs

Game creators can also create room for more rewards by attaching testing privileges to some NFTs. Furthermore, players who offer valuable feedback implemented into subsequent game stages can earn from those changes or additions as they spur more participation.

Wallet-specific rewards

One way to promote participation in the game is by tying specific rewards to wallets instead of NFTs. Similar to how airdrops work, these rewards would only be available to people whose wallets engaged in the early stages of gameplay. This would incentivize more people to play the game and even participate in voting proposals supporting such long-term value-addition strategies.

How AppLayer can help Web3 game creators fortify reward-based mechanisms

Firstly, AppLayer offers a Blockchain Development Kit (BDK) where builders can rely on stateful precompiles. These instructions pre-embedded in the blockchain’s core make it easier to administer efforts like wallet-specific rewards. You can easily set up transaction steps that check for address activity before sending rewards.

Secondly, AppLayer can achieve speeds of up to 400,000 TPS and support 300,000 NFT mints per second. This makes the platform ideal for cross-project partnerships where multiple users are going to be minting several NFTs at the same time. You’re less likely to have congestion and slow-downs.

Thirdly, AppLayer provides an appchain approach to Web3 game development and deployment. This makes it easier to compartmentalize different aspects, such as the social platforms and marketplaces where sponsorship deals and multiplayer teams are made. The same goes for creating an environment dedicated to game testing.

What makes this appchain feature even more formidable is the chain abstraction. This allows all the appchains to communicate with each other by default since they are cut from the same cloth. How does this help? Say you’re an investor browsing through player profiles on the sponsorship marketplace on one appchain.

If their social activity in building tournament-winning teams is on another appchain and their testing activity is elsewhere, you don’t have to worry. You can select conditions like “must be a tester” or “must have participated in team play” in the sponsorship marketplace’s smart contract front end. Once you add the amount you’re willing to invest and whether you’re open to investing as part of a consortium, you can lean back.

The sponsorship marketplace’s appchain will communicate with the other appchains to identify candidates that meet these conditions and others stipulated, such as the type of games played, total wins, and hours spent playing. With token-table-like mechanisms and other systems that keep track of changes in address balances across appchains, you’ll always have the latest record.

You can then choose your preferred candidate from the final shortlist or let the smart contract pick the best candidate based on the conditions you entered. Such chain abstraction capabilities can also help when administering side quest rewards and auctions attached to the game scenery design mentioned above.

Wrapping Up

Protecting reward-based gaming mechanisms from NFT trading is a balancing act. You want to restrict capital flight from the gaming ecosystem without necessarily curtailing the freedoms of NFT use. This involves creating new incentives and allowing NFTs to move freely while still steering them back to your ecosystem. AppLayer offers special tools for creating NFTs with varying capabilities and building underlying platforms that support this versatility, so come build your NFT game on AppLayer.

About AppLayer:

AppLayer is a C++ based Ethereum scaling solution where developers can deploy Solidity smart contracts and C++ programmed stateful pre-compiles as smart contracts. In AppLayer, Solidity smart contracts are 10 times faster than those in Golang-based competing networks, and stateful pre-compiles are 65 times faster.

If you are interested in building with AppLayer please apply for our Testnet Grants Program: https://forms.gle/YYs6B11ynxQZKPok8

Website: https://applayer.com/

Documentation: https://docs.applayer.com/testnet

Twitter: https://twitter.com/AppLayerLabs

Discord: https://discord.gg/VMKrxF7vwu

Telegram: https://t.me/AppLayerLabs

Announcements: https://t.me/AppLayer_News

Medium: https://medium.com/@AppLayerLabs

Github: https://github.com/applayerlabs

Fully on-chain gaming has made massive strides recently, with titles like Dark Forest receiving over 10,000 players shortly after debuting. However, many still believe that fully on-chain gaming isn’t ready to support AAA games and other high-end games. This is usually because of factors such as:

· Limited processing power on the blockchain (the platform may support plenty of dApps, making it difficult to run gameplay smoothly).

· Difficulty in converting existing Web2 games into machine code that the blockchain can understand since many blockchains use less popular languages and execution models.

· Lack of efficient ways to update the game once its code is deployed on-chain and becomes immutable.

Consequently, many of these gaming projects have Web3 elements like paying for entry-level NFT characters, while other gameplay elements (like registering a win) run on an off-chain server. This creates a scenario where changes pertinent to each other happen in different places.

Why is this a problem?

This setup is problematic because there are considerable chances of the two networks (the blockchain and the game server network) falling out of sync. Synchronization breakdowns can start from either side. For instance:

· An off-chain game server can lose its internet connection, suffer a DDoS attack, or face another physical issue like overheating, which throttles performance or triggers a safety shutdown.

· On-chain nodes can face overloads as several dApps generate multiple transactions concurrently, causing a delay in updating the blockchain state.

Consequences of synchronization issues between off-chain game servers and the blockchain

· A player may complete a game stage but fail to receive the rewards in time to purchase NFT characters needed for another game stage or subsidiary competition.

· A player may purchase new NFT characters/items to use in a game stage only to find that they aren’t yet reflected in the game.

How are fully on-chain gaming setups meant to address synchronization issues?

For starters, fully on-chain setups run with no single device entirely in charge of updating gameplay changes or changes in other aspects like token balances. This means that unless the entire blockchain is down, there’s always a node or nodes running the game.

Secondly, a fully on-chain setup should shorten the distance traveled by data on a network from the time it’s provided up until it triggers a change.

Thirdly, a fully on-chain setup should make it easier to have the entirety of the game running on a set of devices with similar performance in terms of latency, RAM, CPU, etc.

How are appchains supposed to enhance fully on-chain gaming?

Firstly, appchains should help distribute the load put on the network by the game. They enable builders to split the underlying network into smaller networks, each optimized for different purposes. More importantly, they are supposed to do this while ensuring that these sub-networks can communicate smoothly with each other.

Secondly, appchains should increase security by enabling developers to institute additional verification steps for certain sub-networks. This can also be done based on transaction types, such that transactions that move funds have extra protections while others have ordinary protections. Additionally, appchains can help establish varying privacy models, enabling players to benefit from smart contract transparency while concealing sensitive strategy plays.

Thirdly, appchains can help developers harmonize coding and execution standards when creating, deploying, and updating games. These can range from where machine code is stored within the network to how data is retrieved and handled during various tasks.

How can builders effectively run game servers on a blockchain network?

Game creators should set up appchains that rely on specialized hardware with much higher specifications for storing data, processing graphics, and performing other resource-intensive gaming tasks. Game builders can further expand the resource pool by identifying resources that can be called upon on demand.

This will involve establishing the amount of work typically off-chain game servers do during peak time. Then, creators can rely on monitoring tools to anticipate demand spikes and respond promptly by having the gaming software assign tasks to nodes on standby.

From here, they have to adapt the operating environment on these machines to what’s on other appchains’ machines that run other game elements. This may involve selecting one primary programming language or relying on a set of languages that are very related or derivatives of the same language. This would simplify efforts like streamlining the interactions between smart contracts that govern gameplay and those that perform other tasks like swapping native tokens for NFT game characters.

Regarding actual gameplay, creators can segment the game such that players only interact with what’s needed at any given time (graphics, audio, motion combinations, etc.).

How can AppLayer assist in bringing games fully on-chain?

Firstly, AppLayer offers precompiles that allow executing instructions without having to house them in full smart contracts. Precompiles can help reduce the number of resources required to bring certain gameplay actions on-chain, with responses to specific gaming actions being stored in the blockchain’s core as default functions.

More specifically, AppLayerC++ stateful precompiles can execute up to 65 times faster than leading EVM networks. This massively boosts an appchain’s ability to execute complex gameplay actions for multiple players simultaneously.

Secondly, AppLayer offers chain abstraction allowing efficient communication between various appchains. This is ideal for games whose assets will be distributed across multiple appchains. In the context of modular execution, this native communication helps during updates. Game creators can easily try out new features on separate appchains and even take them live on those platforms without spending much time linking these platforms.

Thirdly, AppLayer can process up to 400,000 TPS and perform 300,000 NFT mints per second. This is great for game creators whose ideas involve the rapid creation of NFT characters/items in various stages of gameplay.

Other AppLayer features that improve blockchain gaming

For developers who are in different phases of offering blockchain games, AppLayer can extend gaming possibilities in numerous ways:

· AppLayer can provide instant verified randomness, which is important for gaming challenges that require unpredictable outcomes. When gameplay is run on a centralized server, any noticeable patterns in what should be a random process can sow mistrust.

In some cases, people have claimed that digitized betting and other casino-style games are pre-programmed to allow certain outcomes a given number of times. On a blockchain, it’s possible to understand exactly how randomness is achieved. Nonetheless, the process is still tamper-proof.

· AppLayer supports low- to no-code development, which makes it ideal for game creators with limited coding knowledge. They can rely on natively integrated plugins for popular gaming engines, which helps speed development.

Additionally, AppLayer’s Blockchain Development Kit is founded on C++, making it friendly for many game developers. This BDK also has provisions for importing smart contracts from EVM platforms, along with modules from other related languages.

· AppLayer allows you to significantly customize your appchain, paving the way for gasless transactions. Considering that sourcing computational power and other resources on demand can make gaming expensive for players, it’s important to find more cost-effective ways to run games on-chain.

With gasless transactions, you can identify actions that meet certain conditions and subsidize them. You can also administer them based on the activity associated with different players as a way of rewarding active participants.

Wrapping Up

Fully on-chain gaming remains a challenging feat even when it’s already making gains. Creators may need to start with simple, low-end graphics games with minimal permutations. This will enable them to understand what it takes to have gameplay fully handled by a smart contract.

It will also help them establish how well they can fuse these contracts with those that handle other Web3 functions. Admittedly, this is better done on a single chain to understand the limitations of one chain. Subsequently, they can explore multi-chain setups by relying on appchain standards.

This could open their eyes to opportunities for minimizing computational load during communication.

Game creators will also have to partner with other specialists in fields like networking and data management. These will help with solutions in the realm of compression, leaner security mechanisms, and more.

Fortunately, this is where AppLayer shines. Our platform isn’t built with only gaming in mind. It has been built while considering how gaming benefits from other applications and vice versa, so come build your fully on-chain game on AppLayer.

About AppLayer:

AppLayer is a C++ based Ethereum scaling solution where developers can deploy Solidity smart contracts and C++ programmed stateful pre-compiles as smart contracts. In AppLayer, Solidity smart contracts are 10 times faster than those in Golang-based competing networks, and stateful pre-compiles are 65 times faster.

If you are interested in building with AppLayer please apply for our Testnet Grants Program: https://forms.gle/YYs6B11ynxQZKPok8

Website: https://applayer.com/

Documentation: https://docs.applayer.com/testnet

Twitter: https://twitter.com/AppLayerLabs

Discord: https://discord.gg/VMKrxF7vwu

Telegram: https://t.me/AppLayerLabs

Announcements: https://t.me/AppLayer_News

Medium: https://medium.com/@AppLayerLabs

Github: https://github.com/applayerlabs