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I'm working on an in-chain game on ethereum, but before I spend more time on it, I would like to get some feedback first, so the game is about creating a town in a country, mining resources, building an army, and invading other towns, creating town shares, collecting taxes, sell it on the marketplace vs ETH, and more.

as a game designer, I can build it myself and I have friends in case I need it backers, in exchange I get loyalty for me and my backers from the marketplace when users exchange resources.
The question I'm asking is, is it worth building?
Do you play a free game on ethereum by paying only transaction fees knowing that you can sell town shares when you reach a certain level?

The problem when you use Ethereum Network is the transaction fees because even though you have some nice game right there if the gas fees are always increasing you gonna lose more players and they will gonna leave your game just like what happened to the other games out there that failed to update their games to catch their player's suggestions. That's why until today, there was no blockchain game that can compete with some common games out there that are easy to play because most blockchain games don't have any idea to reduce the gas fees once they rise.

Fees are high on the ETH network, if you can do it with other chain or you're able to support it as well with other alternative chains for the sake of cheaper fees then that's much better.

You know real gamers will come out and will appreciate a game like this as long as it's fun. Able to earn some shares or crypto from it is just not gonna work long term so, if the gameplay is fun at the same time there's a worth it reward for everybody, it's worth it for most.

But as I've said, real gamers will come to your game if the concept is amazing and the fees aren't bothering if there's a need to transact.

Yes. People loves a good gaming ecosystem, the only drawback youll face is the transaction fees. Why? Its getting heavier and saturated on the eth network. So if your game got boosted, theres a lot of possibility of increase in fees. You could definitely use other chains that has supported scalability for games. Even though there are lots of options, buildung a game to monetize it on chain are now dropping due to scandals of play to earn last bull run. Well at least make a game first that wull be useful and see how to scale it on money matters.

One problem in ethereum network is the gas fee as other mentioned. You future gamers will suffer heavy gas fee prices and this can be the reason on why would they avoid in playing your game. I personally think that Crypto games still has a chance to shine next bull market but you as a developer should consider the problems that happened last bull market where people suffer from high gas prices, weak tokenomics, unsustainable way to make people way to stay in the game and yeah bad quality game that only attractive if the reward token value is high. You should choose gas friendly blockchains as I guess your game will use a lot of gas fees.

honestly I don't think they are relevant anymore, maybe majority of them even has switched blockchain.
moreover, these games are also revolving around NFT which right now has lost popularity, i'm sure so many of them has actually lost so much valuation, that I doubt there are consistent gamers in their game.

I would be interested to play this. It will be a nice way to kill off time or something to enjoy before hitting bed after a whole day's work. Why did you choose building it on the blockchain is what I'm curious about. Are you also doing this as your side hustle? It's not really an issue but don't release a buggy game.

If you build your games exclusively on the ETH chain, you'll leave a lot of potential players on the table since not all of them use ETH. I personally play several on-chain games from ETH, EOS, TRX, etc., and they have similar problems expanding their user base IMO.

If possible, try thinking about a chain-agnostic solution where users can play using their favorite coins. Moreover, ETH is not the fastest and cheapest chain even after PoS. You'll congest the network and the fees will be high.

Thank you for the feedback guys, keep it coming, please.

The reason I choose to build it on Ethereum is that I tried before with another game built on Polygon which is a well-known blockchain, but in reality, people don't really use it, and the hype is about promoting Polygon, not the projects built on it, and this is why the project died even before started.

Why do I choose to build it on blockchain in the first place?
The game challenge is time and time can be bought from the game, a pay-to-win concept that helps new users to keep up with the first comers, otherwise, it won't be fun to wait to get invaded every minute by users who started before you.

The good thing about these games is the time because in order to keep your town prospering all you need is a few minutes per day to collect resources and upgrade buildings or create new ones, so technically it's one transaction per day that handle all the updates for you. So you are playing by not wasting your time playing  ;)

The fun part is when you start trading resources and shares in the marketplace, it's about predicting other users' productivity, promoting your own town, trading countries' bonds, and of course, getting your town up in the leaderboard.

The game works without the blockchain, but when the money is real, it makes it more fun because the steps you take are well calculated and the town gives you more status than holding a rare NFT or something similar in the crypto space.

I'm going to pitch it to my friends today, which me luck  ;)

when you reach a certain level in the game, you will be able to unlock shares for other users to buy from you, the ETH you get from shares will help you pay the fees to level up more and unlock more shares, so the game is expensive only in the beginning, which is a requirement to show the buyers who paid for your shares that you are serious and won't stop playing after the first shares sold.

We can use the ETH fees as an advantage.

Why not focus on other blockchains that are more user-friendly? There is no desire to pay those high fees on the ETH network. I'm not a programmer, but why not try Polygon, for example. Pretty common blockchain and the commissions are much lower there. For a game where there will be many small transactions, it's not the most suitable blockchain, I think, especially when there will be a hype around cryptocurrencies, as it was with the recent PEPE.

You're right that there are more users with Ethereum but, you'll see that many wouldn't be willing to pay such high fees (gwei). However, you're the developer and you know better of what you're developing and what you believe on it.

I get this concept since I am also a player. This is also like the Axie which is a pay to win game during the craze but the problem on that game was its model wasn't sustainable until we've seen their fall. With the concept that you're aware of and what you're developing, I wish you luck.

OP already tried Polygon as he mentioned in his previous comment.

Understandable but how certain are you that Polygon was the problem? It's true that it has less users compared to Ethereum so there is still the need to promote the chain first over the projects built on it but have you done enough for the game? I mean maybe the concept was different than what you're trying to build now. try to consider this again.

The idea sounds good. I hope you get a good backing for this project.

My experience with polygon was on a high level, the project was big, with a great studio, a demo, and everything, we worked directly with the team, but in the end, they just used us to make the polygon looks good for investors, I don't want to get to the details, because the project is still on hold, we may revive it later on ETH chain, but from experience, polygon is a graveyard for web3 projects.

Yesterday's dinner didn't go as expected, but 2 of 6 people agreed to back me up, is still a win at this stage, the next important step is the prototype on testnet, once it's done, I will create a proper announcement post for the game.

In case you want to get notified when the testnet is live, use this form (mailing list (https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSd9zuXZuPpHQdLu-DTx39EBbEPMMQGAnVf8c16eXSMghXf1Lg/viewform)) to join the mailing list, we won't email you until the testnet is live.

Also, I will be posting progress updates here.

I agree with you concern about "high transaction fees on the Ethereum network". It's true that many blockchain games have faced challenges due to the increasing gas fees, which can deter players from engaging with the game. Example case, if game need some token to play it and users has token token to buy first, this is problem if users buy a littlebit minimum token to play this game, because gas fee ETH is high. I suggestion to research and consider using Arbitrum. For now, Arbitrum solution for Ethereum that aims to reduce transaction fees and improve the network's scalability. You may be able to offer your players a more cost-effective gaming experience while still benefiting from the security and decentralization of the Ethereum network.

Honestly I thought gaming and crypto were meant for each other.  The ability to do micro payments gives the ability for those fractional payments that are needed.  As far as your game no clue.  As a hobby I'd say keep going but unless you can make a really good game I doubt it gets long term traction.

You are building either an on-chain game on Ethereum blockchain or an off-chain game. No in-chain game.

It is not worth building. You must look at your tokenomics, inflation of your token when your game continues to be lively played by gamers. The more gamers play your game, the more inflation of your token will be. How will you control that inflation?

If you can not control inflation, your token will be dumped to hell. Your team will only get money from selling tokens, NFTs and it's the end of your project when token crashes with gamer selling pressure.

I don't, transaction fees are put-off for me on any chain, but Ethereum takes the cake.


Depends on price, and this often depends on popularity of game, or are you saying players can sell town shares for definite price determined by game design?

I don't think you need to avoid polygon due to reasons you said above, people will crowd over the polygon network if you're game is appealing as you say it actually is. It's especially advantageous considering how ETH has enormous fees, so people transitioning to polygon wouldn't feel awkward for your game, they'd probably welcome it even. Looking at it from another side though, high fees won't exactly stop the game from spreading if it's really that good. But ehhh, considering all things, a blockchain with smaller handling fees would be a lot better.

I suggest creating a whole new post altogether. It'd kinda get buried with all the posts here. Maybe even self mod and reserve the first few sections so you can have them all for your updates.

on-chain game  :D, the game has no token or NFTs, we sell nothing, the access to the game is free, and we make money only when players start making money by selling resources to other players, we collect a marketplace fees + part of what players spend to buy extra energy, which is optional for players who want to level up fast, the other part of the energy sales, will be held for future challenges and prizes.

Good idea, I will wait until the testnet is ready, so people can play and share their feedback with us.

the game unlocks 10% of the town shares to be sold at different level checkpoints, so the shares price will keep getting higher depending on how fast the player is leveling up + the prices of the resources changes on the market.
The shares also can be traded on the marketplace later.

If you want to attract many players, your game must have attractive, unique and challenging gameplay. Moreover, it also needs to have a strong community feature to promote the exchange of assets and facilitate players to interact with each other. You also need to ensure that your in-game transactions are transparent and secure to avoid security issues and fraud. Your idea is very interesting and has the potential to grow into a fascinating game on the Ethereum blockchain. Before you start building your game, you should investigate the market thoroughly to ensure that it has a large enough market share and attracts a sufficient number of players. You also need to do in-depth research on the relevant laws and regulations to ensure that your game complies with the regulations.

If you ensure the above factors, then your game can attract the interest of many players and generate income from trading activities. This is a competitive field and if you want to succeed, you need a solid business strategy and a clear growth plan.

If i were you, i would switch the blockchain network from Ethereum to something else to be honest. The transaction costs of Ethereum are just way to high and the switch from PoW to PoS also did not change that sadly. At the moment the gas price is very low for Ethereum standards but still a normal transaction costs 1 - 2,5$ and a swap still costs around 8$. Those values can easily be 10x higher when the ETH network is heavily used again.
I would probably switch to BSC or Arbitrum if i were you. The transaction costs are way way lower and therefore you could attract way more people to try your game.

The relevance and success of a particular in-chain game depends on a variety of factors, including target audience, gameplay mechanics, user experience and market conditions. In order to assess whether it is worth making such a game, it is recommended to consider the following points such as Market Demand, Gameplay and Interaction, Monetization and Sustainability and User Experience and Scalability which ultimately make it attractive and can be adopted by users later.

That's quite a huge blanket that would need to be relevant. Some will stay relevant, some will run out of developer interest or money.
I am guessing godsunchained stay relevant as they keep getting more funding with new card packs. They will get their peaks when they are trending just like pokemon trading cards. At some point everyone is interested, and most of the time it's just die hard fans.

They are however not going to get adopted in similar level that AAA+ games are with their own esports competitions. I wish they would but it would require whole new easier way to use cryptos.

The main thing is that the game is the hype, and all other aspects are just an addition. And the main thing is on such games so that you can earn money. In addition, fee for transactions should be small, which cannot be said now about the Ethereum L1 network.

honestly I think it's not worth building anymore, so few actually looking at these blockchain based games because it's just not interesting anymore.
the reason being, the game itself mostly are just some not so good games and also the economy that it brings also isn't sustaining, more likely designed for just short term.

First of all, I would not recommend you to use the ethereum network, as my friends said. Because the network fees are very high, the number of players and your products will be very expensive. But on the other hand, the ethereum network is also seen as a reliable network for investors. This is because the investment fees are high and fraud is not possible. But if you are not going to start as a professional, I recommend you to start with alternative networks, namely bsc network. Or you can integrate the bsc network with the ethereum network.

What I want to create here is a silly basic game on blockchain, well-optimized, and secure, then we build a basic client that other developers can fork to build their own versions of the game.

As your friend said, the ethereum network is reliable, if you want to create a long-term project, ether is the answer, also the interaction with the contract can be optimized to pay less fees because the game has no ERC20/NFT or swaps, and since the resources can be sold, front-end developers can add a new contract to pay fees in exchange of resources, the possibilities are endless.

I think the real challenge is how the game contract is built, once the contract is in the testing phase, we can determine how the fees impact the game economics and how to deal with it.

More like Clash of Clans, but in Ethereum blockchain.

When NFT is starting to rise, there are many games that have been created on Ethereum at first, and I think that's also the reason why transaction fees of Ethereum went up at that time. Nowadays, in-chain games aren't that popular anymore, thus it doesn't affect the transaction fees of it.

Is it worth building? Maybe if you make a good marketing on your project, but with how NFT games ended, there's a high chance that your game might end up like what most of the games. Even the most popular NFT game which is Axie Infinity isn't been played by that much people anymore for some reasons, but the main is it's not worth their time anymore. Am I playing games base on Ethereum? No I didn't because most of the NFT games I played in the past either has their own blockchain (like Ronin for Axie Infinity), or they've been built in different blockchain (such as Binance Smart Chain, Polygon etc.).

Were they even relevant at some point? I'm not playing any crypto-related games, I can't see the point. I mean, the game must be entertaining. If not all, most of the crypto-related games are not interesting. Yeah, you can make money, but I'd better do more work, sometimes it's even more fun than those games.

In the current market, there are many blockchain games being developed, so your game needs to be different to attract players. Your product can create value for players through gameplay, features, or other benefits. If you can come up with a good product for the players, the increase in value will come to you in time. The problem of producing an array on ETH will have to accept problems and fees as well as transaction speed, especially this problem becomes more serious when users come to the bull market. So it is not necessary to force yourself to join them, because now there are also many solutions across different ecosystems that save costs during development as well as improve usage.

I think Solana is the answer, the speed, the fees, and the community, and this is why most of the games are built on it, let's join them :)

As one can see, Ethereum-based games have become very popular in recent years and are seen as part of a revolution in dapps and the use of technology blockchain.

As Ethereum technology continues to evolve and improve, Ethereum-based games can continue to be relevant and evolving. However, there may be competition and growth of other platforms but Ethereum is considered the most popular dApp development platform, so Ethereum-based games will still be able to continue to grow in 2023. Investing in game projects developed on Ethereum can still be an option worth looking at for those interested in the field. While there are limitations we've seen in terms of transaction speeds and fees on the ETH network, in general, if a game is attractive enough, complaining about this issue will have many solutions.

Absolutely, Ethereum has been acting like a rogue element in the digital financial arena, holding the reins when it comes to transaction costs. It parallels the image of a boisterous child insisting on your snack fund while giving zilch in return. It's certainly an argument worth considering, yet, I surmise it's not the single driving force here. Let's not forget - Ethereum's blockchain stands as one of the most seasoned and thoroughly vetted. It embodies an enticing mix of decentralization, ironclad security, and a congenial habitat for developers.

Moving towards BSC or Arbitrum though, it's akin to trading in a military-grade armored vehicle for a toy car due to its voracious fuel consumption. Indeed, BSC and Arbitrum promise lesser fees, but they can't really compete in the big leagues of security and decentralization. I'm not discrediting their virtues, but we ought to avoid being frugal at the expense of long-term gains.

Hence, prior to taking that bold step, balance the benefits and pitfalls. Ultimately, it's your move and your rulebook. However, bear in mind, low-cost doesn't always equate to superior quality.

Crypto started with BTC, then ETH came out with something new, and since then, I see only clones and complicated projects to use or build on like Solana.

As we know the main problem in the ethereum network is gas costs which are considered expensive, I think it's still more normal with btc fees or even from other networks such as BNB or Polygon.

If you are a future player, it can cost you expensive gas and this could be the reason why they avoid playing your game over the network. I think that Crypto games still have a chance to shine in the next bull market, but you as a developer have to consider the problems that are happening in the market especially this issue regarding the cost of gas.

I think the best solution is to let the player choose the chain, I will build it on Solana and eth, then deploy the same contract on matic, BSC, etc...

I played a free-to-play game before with some profits that were made. It's not entirely under Ethereum but some game developers did it under ERC20 and then just upgraded it to be used in another chain. I could say it was fun at first especially if the game is so amusing that it can take a load of time from their players to just keep on building.
But as it progress and many people are joining it, I saw how the value of the coin being traded declined too. What you earn for the whole day will not make sense anymore, the time and effort spent is not worth the profits. Now they changed it a bit by adding special items that can only be bought in their market in exchange for speeding up the progress of each player. Types of equipment that could be used specifically for each job that needs to be done.

The good part is that they can still enjoy it despite the value going down. I think the worst-case scenario for this type of project is the lack of investors who will buy those premium things or VIPs if it will be available. No money coming in means no money coming out, or lesser. The higher number of free players will also flip the balance which might drop the value of the item that can be sold for Ethereum or other types of coins.

This is something that you should consider as well OP. I understand that the game you're trying to build does not require cash outflow to start but would still take time before players can create valuable items. Time is money as they say so maybe try looking at how you can balance the game. I mean would it still be worth spending an hour playing the game for a few cents? I get it that there will be those who would play it completely for fun but let's face the fact that financial incentives is what drives a lot of gamers.

As others have said, Ethereum has high transaction fees. But it is not the only factor to determine whether it would be patronized by players. Profit potential and tokenomics would be also important. If we would go back with popularity of NFTs these are the common characteristics used on determining whether the game would be good for long term or not, so I think it is not only with the chain being used to run your game. If it would be free to play, I guess it won't be as catchy to the investors.

We saw how F2P games fell because of such trait since tokenomics is more likely to collapse because of abuse on players' end. But if you are that serious try running the game and be open for suggestions and imporvements afterward. People will have different preferences on the conceptualization phase, but start with Beta to see it for yourself.

the thing with these blockchain game are that their economic model so bad it almost like meme coin.
the early birds get the most by consistently generating revenue, meanwhile the late ones are just not gonna get their money back, the economic model unsustaining because the early birds will have the chance of growing their source of income and rewards through compounding investment of getting the in game NFT item and thus raise their chance of earning meanwhile the newcomers will just become a newcomers forever.
that's the reason many people just realized that these blockchain games are massive waste of time, unless the quality is improved and the blockchain game free from its play to earn model, it will never grow.

building cities and attacking other cities, so is the concept like COC ?
I just want to remind you that crypto with a game concept is actually very interesting, but if you don't carry out continuous innovation and without adequate rewards the community will leave. besides that the cost on the ether network is also quite high.