A New National Carnival? A Comprehensive Analysis of the Fusion of Web3 Social and Games

1: What are we discussing when we talk about decentralized social?

1.1) How to understand social interaction

Social interaction is an instinct of humans as social animals. We establish connections and social relationships with others through information transmission, interaction, and material and spiritual exchanges. This process requires a medium to carry the content, the most direct of which is face-to-face communication, but this method is limited by space and time.

1.2) The current social environment

The development of information technology represents a change in human social behavior. From carrier pigeons to the Internet, we have established an efficient social system. Initially, we used social tools mainly to break through the constraints of time and space and to efficiently build social relationships. However, as the number of users increased and the network of relationships gradually expanded, we found it increasingly difficult to disengage.

Every large social platform is like a walled city, controlling our data and behavior. The right to interpret our information no longer belongs to us, yet we find it difficult to take anything away. We have become the nourishment for the platform, but the platform continuously attracts new users.

1.3) Expectations for Decentralization

We hope to have the right of choice and autonomy, to truly own what we "own", to freely disclose what we want to disclose, and to choose what we want to give. This is nearly impossible to achieve in a centralized network.

Blockchain technology enables identity to truly belong to ourselves, free from the control of any central authority. We can navigate between different applications with a single identity without having to give up any assets.

Decentralized social is a new social system based on decentralized identity (DID). Users have asset sovereignty, an open credit system, controllable privacy, and rich identity profiles, allowing them to freely choose where to express their opinions and what permissions to open. All of this cannot be altered or influenced by anyone.

1.4) Current Dilemmas and Bottlenecks

Decentralized social networking faces bottlenecks in "traffic" and "scenarios":

• Traffic Issues: The user habits and stickiness of centralized applications make migration costs very high. The user base of web3 is small, the entry barriers are high, and network effects are difficult to form.

• Scene issue: Most social scenarios have been satisfied by traditional applications. The lack of obvious application scenarios makes it difficult to stimulate users' motivation to actively migrate.

We believe that games will serve as a growth driver to bring a large amount of traffic to web3 social.

II: The Convergence of Decentralized Social and Gaming

The game attracts users by building a brand new worldview. Social interactions are naturally compatible with the gaming scenario, enabling connections that transcend time and space, and living in another world is also an excellent social setting.

There are many examples in traditional online games that validate the combination of social interaction and gaming, such as World of Warcraft. The younger Fortnite further strengthens the social attributes by bringing real-world events into the gaming world.

2.1) GameFi is aimed at the metaverse, with a core focus on interoperability.

Decentralized games aim to solve asset ownership issues with NFTs and Tokens. However, the NFT assets of isolated games will still lose value after the game is discontinued. Therefore, mainstream GameFi projects all target the "metaverse", pursuing strong interoperability of assets and data.

GameFi+DID = GameID

Interoperability requires a universal identity format, namely the game version DID(GameID). It records players' experiences, reputations, assets, and achievements across various games, and social relationships can also be carried into different games. The GameID, along with other identity data, forms a complete DID profile.

With GameID, we can also achieve social interaction outside of games. Decentralized social tools can replace Discord and others, allowing interaction with work partners and gaming friends without switching accounts and platforms.

Three: Current Products of Collision Fusion and Future Possibilities

3.1) Based on user identity and behavior: Gamer Profile

These types of projects aim to capture the key GameID elements, aggregate player game data and visualize it, enrich the DID dimensions, and serve the roles of property declaration, value accumulation, reputation, and skill verification within the GameFi ecosystem.

In the early stages, Profile had little significance for players. In fact, the first audience for GameID was B-end game project parties and guilds. Therefore, such projects often present themselves in a platform form, providing value to users while collaborating with game parties/guilds to obtain data interfaces.

Typical projects include:

a. Carv: Starting from the achievement system, calculating user reputation points, providing social data analysis and INO section.

b. DeQuest: Started from the Quest system, implemented gamification design, providing a smooth user experience, and the creation of Quest content is done meticulously.

c. Arche: Focused on the B-end, equipped with a game listing SDK, showcasing user GameFi return rates, and forming alliances with multiple game guilds.

d. Soulbound: Access to in-game data, allowing anyone to publish a Quest.

e. Lysto: Focuses on player data and has strong web2 game data aggregation capabilities.

3.2) Social Supplement Component of the Game: Cross-Platform Social

This type of project is more oriented towards identity-based social interaction and serves as a social supplement to games, similar to Discord, YY Voice, etc., but with stronger cross-platform capabilities.

Typical projects include:

a. XMTP: A decentralized communication protocol that supports end-to-end encrypted messages.

b. Web3MQ: An all-in-one solution built on XMTP that provides push notifications, chat, and community features.

c. Swapchat: A plugin for cross-platform instant messaging based on addresses.

d. Beoble: Transform social functions into API and SDK, providing modular features.

e. MetaForo: A forum-type project that can embed other applications to create a decentralized discussion area.

3.3) By asset unit: NFT access type games

These types of projects provide a complete game world, allowing players to import NFT assets for use as characters, cleverly leveraging the community network of NFT projects while increasing the utility of NFTs and extending social scenarios.

Typical projects include:

a. Arcade: Land-based NFT project, emphasizing social attributes, allowing friends to interact, and supporting NFT imports.

b. Worldwide Webb: Build MMORPG ecosystem, support importing NFTs as avatars.

c. Big Brawl: Empower PFP NFTs as battle heroes, enabling multi-character combat for NFTs.

3.4) By relationship unit: social mini-games

These projects revolve around existing social relationships and stimulate dissemination through lightweight and fun mini-games. Currently, they primarily rely on web2 social platforms, but new forms may emerge in the future with the development of DID social graphs.

Typical projects include:

a. Mask Extension: A plugin based on Twitter, featuring a built-in game module.

b. Non-Fungible Friend: Mask plugin component, deploys NFTs to Twitter personal homepage as a receptionist.

c. Shil.me: An NFT display project, similar to QQ Space.

3.5) Others: Virtual relationships centered around AI

Use AI technology to expand social connections, such as establishing one-on-one relationships with NPCs or gaining social opportunities based on intelligent virtual pets. DID allows AI to have a complete presentation form, which may become indistinguishable from real people in the future.

Projects worth paying attention to include:

a. rct AI: Provides AI solutions for games, creating a dynamic and intelligent web3 virtual world ecosystem.

b. Mirror World: Building a diverse gaming world with asset interoperability, where NFTs can traverse between different games.

c. GiroGiro: Establish on-chain AI identity for NFTs, empowering interaction and creative abilities.

d. Soularis: Building a virtual society where users coexist with AI avatars, and digital identities and assets are interconnected.

Four: Summary

Many interesting and unique ideas have emerged in the fields of decentralized social and GameFi, colliding at the intersection of the two to create projects with the potential to break out. The combination of gaming and social interaction will be an important scenario to overcome the traffic bottlenecks in the web3 environment. Let us look forward to the emergence of phenomenal applications.