Source: ABCDE
It is not difficult to see from the recent blockchain conferences such as ETHCC that the blockchain industry has once again entered a "narrative winter" (except for the "prosperous" Bitcoin ecosystem), with funds and projects currently mainly focused on infrastructure, including modular public chains, MEV, AA wallets, ZK, etc. However, there is a lack of new growth points in the narrative, especially in the narrative of large-scale user adoption and conversion.
Whether it is V God's statement from years ago that "the first landing scenarios of blockchain will be finance and gaming," or the massive 3 billion players of Web2 and the huge industry market value of 2 trillion dollars, all of these give Web3 Games a great hope to break through the blockchain and become the next growth point in the current stage. Although the first attempts in the past two years, represented by Play (Move) to Earn with Axie and StepN, failed after a brief outbreak due to their overly economic model that emphasized Earn but lacked the Play gaming characteristics, standing on the shoulders of predecessors, hundreds of teams are actively exploring a new generation of "Gamefi 2.0." The billions of dollars in financing for the entire Web3 Game track over the past year also indirectly reflects the favor of developers and capital for this track.
In the past few months, we have seen a strong emphasis on more playability in the 3A RPG-style games, as well as the creation of NFT Free to Own based on NFT, continuous empowerment of NFT+ games, and the addition of a certain degree of gambling and competitive nature in Bet to Earn/Skill to Earn… New creative ideas are emerging endlessly, but fundamentally, the current direction of Web3 Game (or Gamefi 2.0) can be basically divided into two categories:
The first category can be called Web2.5 style. Emphasizing Play & Earn, weakening the Earn component, and increasing the proportion of Play. Unlike the various applications of "chain reform" in 2018, the blockchain carries not only a simple concept of "asset on-chain," but also the culture and story background of the combination of games and blockchain, the Web3 community based on NFT, on-chain and off-chain governance, etc., all of which give Web2.5 style and Web2 Games a different experience.
The second category is the more authentic "pure Web3 Game," Crypto Native, Fully On-chain Game. Now there is a new term, Autonomous World, represented by Dark Forest, OpCraft, Curio, Topology, Influence, etc., which are at the forefront. The narrative of this track is more grand and more blockchain-native, but it is still in the very early stages. To give an inappropriate analogy, it's a bit like Defi in 2018, or ZK in 2020, still needing a few years to iterate and develop.
After laying the groundwork, we finally come to the point: Why should we invest in Matr1x?
Because Matr1x is the project we currently see in the market that has taken the first category of Web2.5 style Game track to the extreme, and there is currently no other project like it.
The reasons are as follows:
Track Selection - Web2 games have been verified for many years
If you are a veteran player with many years of gaming experience, you must have noticed that the release of PUBG (chicken dinner) 5-6 years ago can almost be considered the last non-single-player "phenomenal game." Since then, there has been no major innovation in the gaming industry for many years. As MMORPGs, represented by "World of Warcraft," gradually decline, the two most mature and suitable multiplayer game tracks for the current fast-paced fragmented life are shooting and MOBA.
The shooting category basically includes the CSGO genre (including Valorant) and the PUBG genre (including Call of Duty Warzone and Fortnite), among others.
MOBA is even more familiar to everyone, with DOTA, LOL, and others.
Matr1x has directly chosen this shooting track, which has been fully verified and is extremely mature. The first game directly targets CSGO, and the second game in development is a battle royale type (CSGO recently launched a battle royale mode, which indirectly verifies that shooting games cannot escape the two major modes of team competition and survival). Since it is a Web2.5 game, there is no need to seek innovation like Fully On-chain, so it can directly choose the hottest and most mature shooting track.
There is another more important reason for choosing shooting, which is competition and live streaming. Many viewers who do not play battle royale games like to watch streamers play them on platforms like Huya or Twitch. This shows how important a game with "competitive" and "live-streamable" elements is for traffic. We have always wanted to achieve "Mass Adoption" through Gamefi, and it is likely that non-pay-to-win and sustainable models will be the breakthrough, and the premise of all this is that the type of game is suitable for competition and live streaming, and the quality makes people "love to play" and "love to watch." In August, Matr1x invited a former professional esports player to do a live stream, and the number of viewers reached 110,000.
By the way, in the past few months, the most popular game live streams on Twitch have been Valorant and CSGO.
Game Quality - Equivalent to the top of Web2
Web2.5 emphasizes Play more than Earn. For a game like Axie, which is clearly outdated in Web2, the next generation of Web3 Games should have enough appeal at the "Play" level. Where is the "enough" ceiling? It is naturally the top games in the same track in Web2.
For Matr1x, the upper limit of playability is CSGO and Valorant.
Based on the current internal test videos and feedback from internal test players, Matr1x's first game, Matr1x Fire, is basically on par with Valorant in terms of game visuals, playability, and other aspects. In other words, even if this is not a Web3 game, it has enough competitiveness in the shooting field to attract many players in Web2. Now in the blockchain gaming circle, it is definitely at the ceiling level.
Another very noteworthy point is that CSGO and Valorant do not have mobile versions, leaving many players who want to experience these two games unable to do so. The mobile gaming market is currently three times larger than the PC gaming market, and Matr1x Fire directly seizes this opportunity by developing a mobile version. At the same time, for players who want to experience the game on PC, there will be a dedicated emulator for them to use, which can be said to be very thoughtful.
In the 20-day Alpha test in August, the registered players exceeded 200,000, with over 100,000 downloads, a daily average of 15,000 active players, a peak concurrent online of 4,000, and an average game time of two hours. It is worth emphasizing that there is a considerable number of traditional shooting professionals and semi-professional esports players in the test player group. This data would be very impressive for any Web2 game's test, but in the Web3 context, it is truly outstanding, once again confirming Matr1x's match with the top game quality of Web2.
Gameplay and Culture - Web2 Experience + Web3 Culture
As mentioned before, for Web3 games that focus on the Web2.5 hybrid style, if it is simply Web2 game mechanics + token and NFT asset on-chain, it will be no different from the "chain reform" that emerged in 2018 and will be difficult to sustain in the long run, as evidenced by the failure of Legend 4.
The Web2.5 hybrid style must have exclusive Web3 gameplay and a narrative and culture different from Web2. Matr1x initially faced player doubts during the internal test, with questions like, "Why not just play CSGO or Valorant?"
The answer lies in the culture - just as in this circle, people don't care if you wear a Rolex or a Patek Philippe, but they do care if your avatar is a Punk or a monkey.
Similarly, when the playability is consistent, why not play a game that fully fits our cultural context?
Matr1x has truly put in a lot of effort in terms of gameplay and culture. The entire game's story revolves around a future Earth facing resource depletion in an AI society, where human data sovereignty is monopolized by mega-organizations like Uranus (reminiscent of the first episode of the sixth season of Black Mirror), and the Matr1X Alliance is in a direct conflict with Uranus to reclaim data sovereignty (think of Web3's Read, Write, Own…). The current background novel has already exceeded 100,000 words, and the entire structure is divided into a trilogy with a unified worldview. The first step, CSGO + battle royale mode, takes place on Earth, the second game, a shooting + MMORPG, continues the first-generation storyline on Mars, and the third game is set in the interstellar era, with the game type yet to be determined.
In terms of gameplay, most users under normal circumstances cannot even perceive that this is a Web3 game. During official promotion, Matr1x is positioned as a mobile game version of a CSGO-like game. Only when you want more dazzling characters, cooler gun skins, or want to explore a CSGO-like gun skin market, will you notice these NFT and Market Place elements.
In short, the Play to Earn elements are downplayed throughout the entire game, while the unique features of NFTs such as inheritance and incubation bring a different experience to Web2 players. Currently, in the limited testing phase, the issued NFT 2061 has already accumulated a trading volume of over 7,000 E, with a floor price of 2.1 E, increasing by more than tenfold in just a few months.
An Excellent and "Disruptive" Team
For Web3 projects, the team is crucial, and for breaking through, the requirements for the team are exponentially higher. For the gaming track, the team needs strong game production capabilities, a deep understanding of the gaming market and Web3, and the ability to be "disruptive." Each of the above conditions alone may not be difficult, but when combined, they are extremely rare.
The Matr1x team is one of the few teams we believe meets all of the above conditions. The team has both senior game production experience from major game companies and OGs immersed in blockchain for many years, and they are well aware of the current market's "the good wine needs no bush" principle. A series of combinations have demonstrated their formidable BD and marketing capabilities.
KOL live streaming - as mentioned above;
Community-driven competitive tournaments with a prize pool of 10,000 U;
Game character design - with a cyberpunk style, some characters resemble those from Marvel's Black Widow or CyberPunk games;
- Well-known Coser Cosplay - previously, the highly popular Friend.Tech accurately found the entry point for Twitter KOLs, igniting the trend of SocialFi. Matr1x is also collaborating with some well-known Cosers on Twitter, leaving no stone unturned in terms of both in-crowd and out-of-crowd traffic.
According to the team, as the number of players increases and the game IP becomes more well-known, there are plans to create short videos and even movies. The project itself will also consider emulating the model of Steam and Half-Life, gradually moving towards the route of a Web3 game distribution platform after making Matr1x a hit.
In conclusion, we believe that Matr1x has the potential to become a leader in the Web3 gaming track in the future, playing a truly driving role in breaking through Web3 and Mass Adoption in the next bull market, becoming the next phenomenon-level Gamefi work like Axie/StepN.
About ABCDE
ABCDE is a VC focused on leading top Crypto Builders, co-founded by Huobi Cofounder Du Jun, who has been working in the Crypto industry for over 10 years, and former Internet and Crypto entrepreneur BMAN. The co-founders of ABCDE have built companies with a market value of several billion dollars from scratch in the Crypto industry. Because we are entrepreneurs, we understand entrepreneurs better. We have built an end-to-end ecosystem for ABCDE's Builders, including a listed company (1611.HK), an exchange (Huobi), a SAAS company (ChainUP), media (CoinTime.com), and a developer platform (BeWater.xyz).
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