Community Contributed Article: The Renas: GameFi Exploring the Metaverse

1. The Renas Introduction

Developed by Thing.Fund, the Renas is based on the Flow blockchain, with the goal of providing gamified co-creating tools for users to build a Metaverse ecosystem themselves. It’s currently at an early stage with some milestones on the roadmap already delivered. Players can perform in-game tasks to get NFTs and take on adventures for harvesting resources. Currently, resources can be used to claim FLOAT NFTs or upgrade tents & towers (under the umbrella of facilities). For more gameplay information, please read its Medium and other articles.

Note: players can randomly generate characters with different properties and traits. Characters will be your core in-game assets (NFTs). As the Renas iterates, these characters will acquire more features, abilities and props. Players can dispatch their characters on adventures in the Renas world and everything that happens during adventure, including the experience, interactions and harvests, will be recorded in their adventure log and become part of their experience (as if a person’s lifetime stories). As characters grow, they become more valuable and unique.

2.Play-to-earn in the Renas

Andre Cronje, co-founder of Yearn.finance once commented: future monetary policies in DeFi projects will become more gamified. Users might stake in-game equipment or assets to gain yields.

Traditional games make money by selling props/equipment, ads or other marketing placements. Game users have to pay to play and get better experience. Of course, their spending is part of operators’ income.

However, P2E( play-to-earn) represents a paradigm shift compared with Web2 games, as users are drawn to P2E games not just for fun, but for real gains. Specifically, P2E games have several features:

1. The tokenomics determine how long the in-game economic ecosystem can last;
2. Scalability determines its upper bound, including scaling out of games themselves (i.e. to expand the in-game economic ecosystem outside the game) and expansion of game players;
3. Playability determines its lower bound. In other words, how many people will be attracted and stay in the game is determined by the pure play part.

▶️If The Renas has two types of tokens:

$CP𝛼 (the native governance token of THiNG.FUND ecosystem)

$CP (in-game token of the Renas that fuels the GameFi)

If $CP has inflation, users should pay attention to:

1. At the early stage with low inflation, simple tweaking of one or a few parameters of the Renas game may cause $CP’s price to quickly go up (the in-game balance will be disrupted). However, this will also draw in large quantities of players within a very short period time, putting the game on a track of fast growth. This allows early players to quickly get their initial investment back, but also sets the course for high inflation.

2. When the game reaches an inflection point at the top, the design of its tokenomics will determine how the fall will pan out.

3. Scalability of the Renas

1. Scalability of the game

Web3 games use tokenomics to build economic systems. Surrounding this, Thing.Fund designed the background saga, character type, character interactions and in-game assets. On such basis, it distributes finite number of NFTs to early participants, supporters and players(with the expectation of token issuance).

Token incentives connect early participants whereas the early distribution model usually determines community’s stickiness and sustainability. (Truly successful games may not be grand saga at the very beginning.)

Probably at some point, some new mechanism comes out and attracts a large loyal following of players, builders and investors. Things start to enter an exponential track since then until it has composability and UGC(user-generated content) contributions. As I was drawn to the Renas by the co-creating model, I surely hope it becomes the Singularity for the game.

2. Scalability of users

For Renas to attract more users, it has to go where most players gather. With the number of blockchain games increasing, DeFi protocols will be invented and integrated with them. Players will go where they can enjoy the highest yields.

Personally, I think the Renas can look at two things:

1. Discord. Players in a Discord server are bound as part of a larger community. They invest their time and money in the project and become naturally tied to the community. Through word of month and social networking, players’ stickiness will improve. Additional features such as factions, events and community sync-up meetings will further expand the player base.
2. Barrier of entry. The Renas, as it is, is a light game. Spontaneous participation combined with incentivized test also flattened the learning curve. What’s more, strategy articles shared by loyal players have further lowered the threshold.

As more players join the Renas, more co-creators will be attracted, contributing to a bigger gaming ecosystem. Personally, I think the primary driver for users’ to co-create is stronger value consensus. Therefore, early incentives are of key importance. Sound tokenomics design is essential to attracting new players, which will bring in more co-creators. More co-creation will further enrich the Renas game world, thus creating a virtuous circle.

4. NFT and token in the Renas might sustain the game

In traditional games, publishers usually open up new servers to stimulate players and sustain the life of a game. All the gains are pocketed by the project developers. At the end of the day, players who can’t afford to spend money or time will choose to leave. With the deflation of player base, the game will approach the end of itself.

It’s certain that NFTs and tokens will co-exist in the Renas. If they are tied to the in-game competition, players will be incentivized to spend their time in exchange for more yields. This will improve users’ stickiness and extend the life of the game

The interactions between Tokens and NFTs in traditional GameFi: tokens are distributed as awards and players might want to convert them into fiat, thus putting pressure on the price of tokens. Therefore, NFTs must exist as a way to deflate such pressure and lock in part of the liquidity. If such interactions are not delicately designed, the Token-NFT structure will break down before the game, causing players to leave.

Therefore, Renas uses game NFTs to attract players until the critical mass while making sure the number of NFTs in circulation is controllable. Later on, the issuance of token will be meshed into the game to form a strong ecosystem. NFTs will absorb part of the tokens players want to sell. A good combination of NFTs and tokens will extend the life of the game while improving its possibilities.

Finally, I call for more players to join the Renas and form a strong co-creating community. Let’s do some exciting brainstorm to explore more fun models for the Renas.