In summary
- Pixelcraft Studios, the company behind Cryptocurrency game Aavegotchi, is creating a “members-only” Ethereum layer-3 gaming network called Geist, built with Arbitrum and Base scaling technology.
- The decision is due to fears that “industrial farming” will prevent real players from enjoying cryptocurrency games.
- Pixelcraft Studios’ new Geist gaming network will require a monthly membership fee to claim rewards, though anyone can play games on the network for free.
Pixelcraft Studios, the company behind cryptocurrency game Aavegotchi, is creating a “members-only” Ethereum layer-3 gaming network called Geist, built using scaling technology from both Arbitrum and Base. The move comes as the company fears that “factory farming” will be a problem that prevents real players from enjoying cryptocurrency games.
“A lot of crypto games are about farming,” Pixelcraft Studios CEO and founder Coder Dan told Decrypt, “and there’s nothing wrong with a farmer.”
“But the problem is that these are factory farms,” he continued. “These are not family farms. These are industrial combination farms that are there for one purpose, and that is to extract as much value from the protocol as they can.”
This year, tons of games have incentivized players to play with the promise of a future airdrop. Especially, tap-to-earn games like Hamster Kombat have taken over the crypto gaming space on the messaging app Telegram. Many of these games seem to embrace farmers, incentivizing players to engage from multiple angles, including watching YouTube videos to find secret codes. But the premise dates back to long before Telegram games.
“It didn’t start like that, it started with play-to-earn,” explained programmer Dan. “Over time, since the start of GameFi in 2021, I think farmers have simply become more skilled at this game.”
Play-to-earn games like Axie Infinity were popular during the last bull cycle of 2021, racking up billions of dollars in NFT sales. But Axie’s economy famously crashed as the excitement began to fade. This model has been tweaked, rebranded, and repackaged in the form of play-to-earn-airdrops campaigns, but Coder Dan believes players have simply become more adept at gaming the system.
“If you’re just trying to do a big event and get a lot of attention and boost your numbers, it can work,” he told Decrypt, “We have a different game we’re trying to play. We’re trying to create a sustainable GameFi ecosystem.”
That’s why Pixelcraft Studios’ new Geist gaming network is set to require a monthly membership fee to claim rewards, though anyone can play games on the network for free. This fee isn’t set yet, but Coder Dan gave a potential range between $9 and $19.
With this, members can earn badges, level up their player profiles, open loot boxes, earn a share of market fees through staking, and participate in airdrop campaigns. An airdrop campaign is in the works for Aavegotchi’s metaverse game Gotchiverse, with plans for the campaign to extend to other games on the Geist network.
“I think the token gifting game is a fun mechanic. The problem is that it’s become so automated that it’s almost become a joke,” programmer Dan told Decrypt. “With this new primitive, if you want to call it that, of the members-only Blockchain, I think we could breathe new life into the token gifting mechanism.”
But a members-only network isn’t designed to solely benefit the game studio behind it. Dan believes that by reducing the amount of fake activity, they will ultimately increase the potential rewards for legitimate players.
“I think it can be summed up as: There will be more rewards for a smaller group of users,” Dan told Decrypt.
To start, only Aavegotchi NFT holders will receive an invitation and a companion to become members of the network. Additionally, Pixelcraft will be giving out a select number of invitations to partner communities, games, and influencers with the incentive that if they add paying members, they will receive more invitations.
All games on the network will be centered around the Aavegotchi IP, or at least briefly include it; even third-party developers are being told they must include Aavegotchi in some way. By doing this, Geist aims to become one of the first places where true interoperability can exist.
“With Aavegotchi, a lot of people own the assets, and these developers are building games around the assets,” Dan said of the game’s existing NFTs. “We’re kind of the tip of the spear in this movement of being able to share your assets across different games and trying to reinvigorate that movement.”
Geist is targeting a release towards the end of September or October, with four games created by Pixelcraft Studios available at launch. Another four are planned for launch or “very soon,” it added.
Edited by Andrew Hayward
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