Zima Red ep 124: Max Weber - Chainmonsters: The Next Gen Web3 Pokemon?
Primer: The monster taming genre of games has exploded since the arrival of Pokemon. In the crypto gaming space, we have Chainmonsters, a game inspired by Pokemon, Minecraft, and Animal Crossing. Join Andrew Steinwold in this Zima Red episode featuring Max Weber, the creator of Chainmonsters.
Background
Game director and CEO of B-Side Games
Currently working on Chainmonsters
Background is in traditional game development
Joined KING Art Games
Left his day job in game development to start his own company
Got into crypto in 2016
Interest In Games
As a child, he watched his father play video games on his PC
Started playing games like Age of Empires
Some games came with editors/modding kits
Got into programming to enhance his modding skills
Was more into game design
To him, gaming is an art form
His Preference Towards Indie Games
There are hundreds of people working on games made by Triple A studios. This limited personal input and creativity is lost
While interning at that studio, he felt it extremely limiting
Decided that he had to create his own studio and hire people with a similar mindset
Minecraft was an indie game that experienced a huge success. It was created by a small team of 5-6 people
Indie game devs were encouraged by Minecraft’s success
“Minecraft exploded and it became the biggest independent game ever created. Like back then it sold like 40 million copies, which was a huge success.”
- Max Weber
Spent 3 years making their first game
Game was released in 2017
Did not make any money as the game was made for charity
Getting Into Crypto
Learned about crypto while he was at the German game studio
After releasing his game in 2017, he was looking for something to do next
Went to explore Ethereum
CryptoKitties came along and it reminded him of Pokemon
Launched his prototype called Gen-0 Chainmonsters in January 2018
Was the first game running in the Unity game engine that was connected to an Ethereum smart contract
Minted 10,000 of them. A few were sold before the entire market crashed
Had to find a new way to continue the development of the project
When Did He Decide To Create Chainmonsters?
Wanted to dive deeper into NFTs and incorporate them into games
In a traditional game, you have a 99:1% ratio of non-spenders to spenders
In the blockchain space, this ratio is more close to 50:50
This drove them to making an NFT game
Did not have much to lose as they had full-time jobs while working on their business
Could shift to full-time development once their business picks up traction
Chainmonsters is heavily inspired by Pokemon
The monster taming genre started to see explosive growth
Lots of opportunity for devs to take on the monster taming genre
B-Side Games is self-funded
Chainmonsters
A MMORPG where you collect creatures, battle and compete against other players in an open world universe
Have a traditional single player experience where you follow a story
Players will be able to see other players running around
Will be able to join guilds, do dungeons or raids, and PvP
Have a crafting mechanic
Just announced a new housing mechanic
The first full island and the first 6 story chapters are available
Environment And Housing
Environment
Game world is set in Ancora
Ancora is a set of 8 different islands
Each island is themed around one element (e.g. fire, ice, water, etc.) and has specific Chainmonsters
Your journey involves visiting all of the islands
Have smaller scale islands that are restricted:
Access is gained through a mysterious ticket they sold through their Kickstarter campaign
The island hosts a legendary Chainmonster that cannot be gotten elsewhere
Each year, the island will be open up for only one week
Housing
Each player gets access to a personal island that they can customize
Besides decorating your island, you can also decorate the interior of your main building/home base on your island
Planning to integrate art NFTs into the game world
Will release player islands with some variations
Will have an NFT sale of legendary islands
Legendary islands can be accessible by the public
Travelling
Primarily through walking
There are teleporters that enable fast travel between locations
Your personal island can be accessed from any location
Crafting System
Used to craft your own furniture
Players can collect resources while travelling
Both resources and blueprints are needed for crafting
Blueprints are obtained through exploring and progressing in the game
There will be events like Chinese New Year, where time-limited blueprints are dropped
Chainmonster Levels
Chainmonsters start at level 1
Need to spend time and resources to upgrade it
Level is locked at level 20
Need to spend gemstones to level it beyond level 20
There will be a global level cap until the next islands are released
Number Of Chainmonsters
Have 20 unique Chainmonsters right now
In the beta phase, only 10 are available
For the main launch, they are planning to upgrade that number to 30
Some Chainmonsters have evolutions
The Game Loop
Completing story quests grants you in-game currency, resources, and materials
The in-game currency can be used to buy capture devices, cosmetics for characters, and consumable items like potions
Players will be able to enter dungeons. Access to dungeons is limited on a weekly basis
Each Chainmonster can equip up to 3 gear items to improve their stats
Gear items can be upgraded using resources
Marketplaces For Chainmonsters
Only available on the Flow blockchain
Have a native Chainmonsters marketplace and other secondary marketplaces
As Chainmonster metadata gets updated after every battle, it would be better to use the native marketplace that reflects these data
Will They Have A Native Token?
No, as they are restricted from a legal perspective
Do not have a use case for a fungible token as well
Grand Vision For Chainmonsters
A free-to-play, multi-platform game
Want to go on consoles
Will be releasing islands a few months after one another to keep players engaged
Partnered with Vivox, a voice chat company, to implement that technology into the game
Major Pain Points Of Building A Web3 Game
Making a game is a huge chunk of work
In the traditional gaming industry, many games are funded by publishers to build the game in secrecy
In Web 3, builders build in the open
Been using the community for testing, sharing alpha builds, etc.
Many game devs think that blockchain is a technical overhead. However, this is not the case for modern blockchains like Flow
Supporters expect regular updates
Once you start dealing with money, security becomes very important
Had to deal with the negative perception of NFTs from traditional gamers
Chainmonsters is not a play-to-earn game
Issues On Play-To-Earn
Read an article on The Verge stating that if you are raising capital not to develop the game itself but to pay your users to play the game, the growth is not going to last
Epic Games has completed another funding round and is partnering with Lego. They are the closest to building the Metaverse
Single Favourite NFT
Bought an artwork by Damien Hirst
His Crystal Chainmonster
Most Controversial Thought
Play-to-earn is a scam
If He Could Improve Something In The Space
OpenSea to implement ways to prevent scammers from uploading other artist’s works
NFT Ecosystem In 3 Years
Epic Games will launch their own Epic Games Metaverse system
People focusing on the positive side of NFTs rather than the negative side
All information presented above is for educational purposes only and should not be taken as investment advice. Summaries are prepared by The Reading Ape. While reasonable efforts are made to provide accurate content, any errors in interpreting and summarizing the source material are ours alone. We disclaim any liability associated with the use of our content.