Will Otherside's endgame form be an autonomous world?

Author: Asher Zhang

On October 6, Yuga Labs officially announced its reorganization, focusing almost entirely on the chain game Otherside. In addition to the decline of NFTs, why does Yuga Labs value blockchain games so much? What will the endgame form look like for Otherside? What's the DAW that's been buzzing lately? What are the dilemmas faced by DAW development? Which projects are worth paying attention to?

! [Will Otherside's endgame form be an autonomous world?] ](https://img-cdn.gateio.im/webp-social/moments-69a80767fe-56036678d1-dd1a6f-69ad2a.webp)

What will be the endgame form of Otherside?

The Otherside project is ultimately an MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game) connected to the BAYC ecosystem. The team noted that the game will incorporate MMORPGs and the mechanics of Web3-enabled virtual worlds. It is currently speculated that Otherside will be its own metaverse, offering an interoperable experience, meaning that users will be able to move between metaverses. In this regard, this metaverse will be an open-world game where collectors can own land and interact with different ecosystems and unique creatures that inhabit it.

In July last year, Yuga Labs' metaverse project Otherside made its "First Trip" closed beta debut. In this test, Voyagers can participate in a variety of activities such as moving freely, sending emojis, sprinting, dancing and completing aerial flips, or showcasing their NFT holdings and experiencing new features such as private live streams.

According to previous reports, Yuga Labs has said that it is exploring the features of PFP playability, such as players can enter the game with their own PFP and customize the game character, rather than just using Yuga-based PFPs such as BAYC. This idea can be realized through the Otherside Development Kit (ODK), developed in collaboration with Improbable, which enables creators to build and customize avatars, such as changing the shape, size, face, height, accessories, and motion specifications of the character, among others. At the same time, Yuga Labs plans to provide players with an experience that spans different game genres by setting up different game templates. For complex games that span from mini-games to depths, players can experience the fun of the game at the same time, in a small, intimate space or in a community of 1,000 people created by Otherdeed.

On July 28, 2023, Yuga Labs conducted an Otherside scenario demonstration, inviting 40 "Voyagers" to the Los Angeles studio to showcase its vast new spaces in the metaverse. The campaign is tailored specifically for BAYC holders and features snacks and products from community members who leverage the IP of their own NFT characters in their businesses. While this wasn't an official "trip", during the demo, the selected BAYC holders traversed a huge island built for the experience and were able to provide critical feedback to Yuga Labs in real-time.

On July 31, 2023, Yuga Labs agreed to acquire Roar Studios, a company that blends gaming, social media, and the metaverse. "Roar's dedication to creative content creation and socialization will accelerate our bold vision for the Otherside and Yuga ecosystems on a broader scale," said Daniel Alegre, CEO of Yuga Labs.

! [Will Otherside's endgame form be an autonomous world?] ](https://img-cdn.gateio.im/webp-social/moments-69a80767fe-260d5bd5b4-dd1a6f-69ad2a.webp)

GameFi development path and the latest hot spots

The open-world metaverse that Otherside wants to build in the future can actually be regarded as a DAW in a broad sense, and the real DAW is expected to break through the suppression of Web2 games and become a leader in the blockchain industry.

DAWs (i.e., decentralized Autonomous Worlds) are a full-chain, open-ended, and non-preset gameplay genre; It further expands the game's story by providing a publicly accessible programmable interface that gives players the freedom to create, enhance, and extend the game experience within the boundaries of this digital physical reality. In Web2, the typical representative of the Autonomous World Game (CAW) is Minecraft, in which players do not have a clear ultimate goal of the game, and the game encourages free creation, bringing many new ways to play. The difference between a DAW in Web3 and a CAW in the Web2 world is mainly in the degree of decentralization.

DAWs are still in the early stages of development, and in their short history, OPcraft is most notably worth mentioning. In October 2022, OPcraft, a fully chained 3D Minecraft-themed game created by the Lattice team. In OPCraft, a simple set of rules is developed. Players can only perform four in-game actions, including breaking blocks, crafting blocks, placing blocks, and claiming a 16 x 16 piece of land (becoming the highest diamond staker for that block). In just two weeks of launch, it attracted more than 1,500 participating players and more than 3.5 million on-chain records, and also sparked a variety of user-generated pixel art, individual player-made plugins, and a series of spontaneous competition, gambling, group governance activities, and even some malicious and friendly player behavior.

! [Will Otherside's endgame form be an autonomous world?] ](https://img-cdn.gateio.im/webp-social/moments-69a80767fe-65af797bf3-dd1a6f-69ad2a.webp)

The main technical bottleneck in the development of DAWs

From a technical point of view, to truly implement a DAW, there are several core problems that need to be solved in on-chain games: lack of game development framework, lack of code reusability, and lack of data composability. Among these problems, building a common game engine is crucial, and it is currently the main technical bottleneck.

Compared with Web2 game engines, on-chain game engines pay more attention to the following issues: state synchronization, game security, gas fee efficiency improvement, and maximum composability and interoperability. At present, the most important DWA game engines in the market are: MUD, Dojo, World Engine, and Keystone.

MUD: Built by the Lattice team, MUD is an open-source framework for developing on-chain applications for gaming and beyond. Currently, the majority of on-chain games are built on top of MUD, representing games such as OPCraft, Skystrife, Kamigotchi, etc.

Dojo: Dojo is a game engine and technology stack optimized for autonomous world games on Starknet, Dojo leverages Cairo, making it a powerful choice for developers trying to create complex and transparent gaming experiences on Starknet L2, with the main representative games being: Roll Your Own, Influence.

World Engine: Developed by Argus, World Engine is designed to be a sharded rollup technology stack for supporting and scaling on-chain games.

Keystone: Created by the Curio team, Keystone is a rollup framework built on top of the OP stack to facilitate high-performance on-chain gaming. Specifically for real-time strategy games, such as games like Age of Empires. It will support various data availability (DA) layers, starting with Celestia, whose representative games are: Treaty, among others.

Future development outlook and big V reviews

@BTCdayu: GameFi has always had a difficult point, play or earn? If you play, it is difficult to surpass WEB2 games, what Daqing Brother 2, Celda, God of War 5, The Witcher 3, Chicken, Glory of Kings, etc. If you make money, it is often similar to DeFi, and the output continues to fall. But I'm especially looking forward to a dark-like game on ZK with fog of war, random, and pure brush equipment, and the pixel style is acceptable. The equipment is all NFTs, which are traded directly.

@roger73005305: Many bigwigs say that they are optimistic about the gamefi track recently, and my opinion is different, in fact, I wanted to say it a month ago. My opinion is that the essence of gamefi is still a capital disk, retail investors go to recharge and play gold, and the requirements for the inflow of funds that enter the market after entering the market are very high, and the currency circle is now not only short of money but also lack of people. So when will GameFi break out? I think it's the time when the pie breaks a new high, when there are leeks from outside the circle coming in, there is no shortage of money and people, and someone comes to pick up the plate, so GameFi will rise a hundred times and a thousand times, so wait for the big bull market in 24 or 25 years to take a look. Now the biggest narrative is still the Hong Kong market, staring at the CFX ecological coin, which is stronger than anything else. The PPI is already 50 times, and the market value is only about 12 million, which is still very undervalued.

@lanhubiji: GameFi will gradually fade out as an independent existence, and combining with playable Web3 games is its way out. GameFi and web3 games are two different things, the focus of GameFi is Fi, which is a play-to-earn model, resulting in players becoming counterparties and everyone is at risk; Web3 games are first games, and then they are new era games combined with web3.

@BTW0205: If you solve the fallacy that you can make money by issuing coins, you don't need to seriously research and develop, and DeFi can have better development. The same goes for GameFi.

Summary

In the process of GameFi's development, although many people have the impression that it is more just hype, it has been constantly iterative and progressive. In 2015, the first blockchain card mobile game "Spells of Genesis" was launched, which was the first to open the curtain of blockchain games. In 2017, CryptoKitties combined the "financial attributes" and "NFTs" of blockchain with gameplay, and many NFTs and development mini-games appeared on the market. In 2019-2020, GameFi was first proposed, NFT assets occupied an important position, and the game's graphics and gameplay have been greatly improved. After that, mobile games with Play To Earn and NFTs as the main highlights and attributes appeared, among which Axie Infinity and others are quite representative. However, the speculation and speculation of such games is still serious, and with the decline in the value of the token, its user loss is serious.

Throughout the development process of GameFi, GameFi has slowly integrated financial attributes, NFTs, and token mechanisms into the "blood". With the improvement of blockchain performance and the continuous development of DAWs, the playability of Web3 games will also be greatly improved, and it is expected to compete with Web2 games in the next round of bull market.