Deep Dives
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The Story of Gods Unchained, The Web3 Game Ahead of Its Time
Source: Gods Unchained Download Teardown Slides Enter your email address to receive the presentation of the teardown, and sign up for Naavik Digest. This piece was written by Alexandra Takei at Stanford GSB. Alex has a background in the gaming industry (ex. Blizzard and System Era Softworks) on titles like Overwatch, Hearthstone, Diablo, and Astroneer….
Skin in the Game: Selling Cosmetics in Social Titles
This is Part 1 of a 2-part series covering the selling of cosmetics in social mobile F2P games. Here we provide a quick primer on why you should care about monetizing cosmetics, the various different categories, and the benefits for players and developers. In Part 2 we’ll look at how to nail your cosmetics implementation, production requirements to be aware of, and pitfalls to avoid.
Dark Forest: A Beacon of Light for Blockchain Games
Dark Forest, a fully on-chain massively-multiplayer 4X strategy game, was designed to change the narrative of how blockchains are used. Through zero-knowledge proofs and enabling a new generation of on-chain modding, Dark Forest is innovating in a way many teams should learn from. Let’s dive in.
Axie Infinity (Part 2): Redemption or Ruin?
Introduction Axie Infinity, the former poster child of blockchain gaming and the game that coined the term “Play to Earn,” has fallen on hard times as this “digital nation” reels from a recession prompted by declining player growth and plummeting token values. After the initial troubles began, North Korean hackers stole over half a billion…
Dislyte: Lilith’s Mythology & Music RPG
This deconstruction breaks down Lilith Games’ latest hero collector fantasy RPG. We break down the game design and early metrics in order to answer what makes Dislyte stand out in its genre and how it could surpass AFK Arena.
Assessing Blockchain Gaming’s Environmental Impact — and What Can Be Done About It Today
This essay was written collaboratively between Naavik with BITKRAFT Ventures. BITKRAFT is one of gaming’s top venture firms, investing in notable companies like Epic Games, Manticore, & Yield Guild Games. Maxime Eyraud and Abhimanyu Kumar contributed from Naavik’s side. Source: Business Insider If you follow the crypto space even remotely, you may have seen one…
How to Get Started in Blockchain Gaming
Forte and Naavik are teaming up to provide a stream of deep dives geared toward helping game developers better build, launch, and scale successful and sustainable blockchain games. Today’s essay — designed to help developers know where to begin — is just the start, and is written by none other than Matt Dion. GM, game…
Clash Royale: 2021’s Comeback & 2022’s Struggles
In this essay, we discuss the recent history of Clash Royale — including all that contributed to the game’s 2021 comeback and its 2022 struggles. We also offer some tactical suggestions on where the game can go from here and what game developers can learn from Clash Royale’s imperfections.
Land Value Tax in Online Games and Virtual Worlds: A How-To Guide
This piece was written by Lars Doucet and Dan Cook, and originally distributed on GameDeveloper.com – it has been republished here with approval from the authors. Land Speculation and Why It Sucks If you are designing a multiplayer game with a “digital land economy,” especially one that involves significant investment of time or money by players,…
Hypercasual: Past, Present, Future
In this essay, we discuss evolution of the hypercasual genre. We dig into how the game mechanics have changes over the eras, how the market has grown, how the mix of publishers has shifted, and share some thoughts about the present and future of the genre.
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