Web3 gaming
Introduction
These use case has been developed specifically for gaming studios looking to launch Web3 games using Ankr App Chains. The information contained here is not intended to provide strict rules, but rather loose guidelines to help game developers think about where to start constructing their ideal App Chain.
Gaming SDKs
Many App Chains that host Web3 games have utilized Ankr’s gaming SDKs that have been designed for the Unity and Unreal gaming engines. These SDKs make it easy for your game developers to integrate the following capabilities into your App Chain:
- Support Web3 wallets for in-game transactions
- Integrate NFT capabilities like minting, renting, and trading
- Launch and distribute in-game currency as tokens
- Optimize games for Web3 on mobile
- And more!
Dedicated throughput for gaming transactions
Web3 games — depending on their user base of players and popularity — typically require extremely high throughput in order to process a high volume of transactions. With thousands of players interacting with all kinds of tokenized in-game content, it’s not unfeasible for a Web3 game to need to process many millions of transactions per day.
Depending on the level of tokenization you integrate into your game, you may have players performing transactions on your App Chain to customize their avatars, equip new items, purchase in-game assets, trade assets to other players, earn rewards for completing in-game objectives, and so much more.
Of course, some games may not process quite as many transactions until they rise in popularity, it’s best to be prepared for the potential traffic that a successful Web3 game might eventually experience.
Validator nodes: speed vs. decentralization
When it comes to the structure of your App Chain, the main thing to consider with validator nodes is the delicate balance between speed and decentralization. The more validator nodes you have, and the more assets that are staked to them, the more secure your Proof-of-Stake App Chain will become to bad actors and potential attacks. But, conversely, the smaller the pool of validators is, the less overhead you’ll have with the block propagation process and the more quickly and efficiently you’ll be able to process new transactions.
This setup will of course vary depending on your particular needs, including the popularity of your game, but Ankr App Chains have typically launched with at least 5 validator nodes, and the ability to expand the validator node set as time goes on to as many as 20 validator nodes.
Node ownership
Again, this is a topic that will require attention to your individual situation. You can either host your own validator nodes, have Ankr host validator nodes for you, or open up validator node hosting to independent parties in your community — or, realistically, maybe even a mixture of all three of these options.
This will likely depend on your level of Web3 knowledge and experience hosting blockchain nodes. Ankr can provide you with the tools to host your own validator nodes, or can help you with hosting validator nodes to support your App Chain.
Community engagement: governance & staking
We’ve typically seen community governance be really successful with gaming App Chains as a force for driving participation, engagement, and activity toward your game. And, by integrating community governance with your native token, you can also drive trading volume for your token — thereby boosting your chances of successfully getting the token listed on major crypto exchanges. Players who feel like they have a real say in the direction of a game are more likely to actively participate and play it more often.
Similarly, you’ll need to integrate a staking interface for your players and token holders to stake native tokens with validators of your App Chain. Not only does this help improve the security of your chain, but it also drives token holders and trading volume by enabling stakers to earn rewards.