It can be difficult to navigate the world of blockchain gaming. There are many stories of failure or slow death of play-to-earn games (see Axie Infinity). Gaming in Web3 can be an effective gateway to transferring billions of dollars to the blockchain if it’s done correctly. Even though there hasn’t yet been a legitimate AAA blockchain title, it is important to not discount the innovation and progress being made in crypto-native.
Wolf Game is one example of such a success story. Wolf Game’s Genesis collection is one of the most popular and compelling entries in the blockchain gaming industry. It has generated over 26,399 Ethereum in secondary market trading volume as of January 2023. The game’s high-risk-high-reward dynamics are unlike any other project in the NFT space and have drawn in plenty of big-name NFT icons, including Beanie, Gmoney, Gary Vee, and Seedphrase. Wolf Game’s full version will be released in December 2022. This has brought Wolf Game back into the NFT community’s attention. We’ve broken down the game’s unique features and explained why they did so. Let’s dig in.
What is Wolf Game?
Wolf Game’s “woolpaper” is opened in cinematic fashion. “In a quaint area of the metaverse sheep and wolves on the blockchain compete to win a tempting prize WOOL with deadly high stakes.” This play-to-earn title forces players to think strategically, melding NFTs and Defi elements to allow their characters to earn passive income via staking mechanics. This game is very similar to EtherOrcs and Anonymice, which both used game theory in their own way.
Wolf Game’s current version was launched in December 2022. It had been through several iterations including November 2021’s Wolf Game. There were also three spinoff mini-games: Alpha Game, Cave Game and Risky Game. All of these games included or alluded at some aspect of Wolf Game’s current mechanics.
Wolves vs. Sheep
Wolf Game developers had to drop the Genesis collection on November 18, 2021. It contained 10,000 NFTs of Wolves and Sheep, each priced at 0.06942 per piece. This quickly sold out. The game’s probabilistic nature meant that collectors could have a 90% chance of getting a Sheep, and a 10% chance of getting a Wolf.
Wolf Game’s dynamics and premise are simple. Sheep NFTs want a relaxed life, producing WOOL, which is the game’s native token. The Barn is where the sheep make WOOL. Or they can breed. Wolf NFTs can pose a threat to this idyllic lifestyle.
Sheep must travel outside of a Barn in order to collect in-game resources. They also need to spend energy on the journey. However, this comes with the possibility of being looted and taken by wolves. A Wolf will only return to the barn with a small fraction of what they have taken. The outcome of the mini-game between these NFTs will determine how much is stolen from each loot. Wolves can also steal NFTs from sheep players, increasing their collection and their ability to generate WOOL.
Players risk not only losing large amounts of the in game token they have been staking their NFT for, but they also risk losing all their NFTs. The game’s whitepaper states that the ecosystem only requires a minimal amount of time from players and a maximum amount of thought to outsmart their competition.
Wolf Game Communities
This WOOL production, stealing and strategizing takes place against the backdrop of Genesis Lands. Here, players are encouraged to use digital plots (supply capped around 20,000) to gain economic dominance over their opponents. There are 101 communities spread across these pieces of land. The Peak (Community 0) is where Wolves can breed and recharge. When a Wolf Game NFT runs low on energy, it is necessary to recharge. This is a game component that is consumed when the NFT engages with any activity.
The Farm is where most Wolf Game events are held. It’s the land plots that make up the gaming universe, other than the Wolves Peak. Every plot of land yields a different resource depending upon its geography. Pasturelands produce grass, Forests produce wood, Quarries make stone, and Lakes create water. These resources can be used to build many structures, such as Barns (when Sheep breed), Bathhouses where Sheep or Wolves can recharge their energy, and Dens (when Wolves reproduce). These structures can be further upgraded using WOOL.
Wolf Game’s in-game taxing system is one way to encourage participation in its ecosystem. The game allows landowners to collect taxes from other players’ resources, but they will lose those resources if they don’t do so within seven working days.
Wool, Farmers, and Other Wolf Game NFTs
Apart from Land, Sheep, Wolves and Wolves, there are many other Wolf Game NFTs that influence the choices of players in the game. We’ve talked a lot already about WOOL, a fungible ERC-20 token whose availability will be capped to five billion. One way to get the token is to stake a sheep, which produces 10,000 WOOL each day.
A process called shearing allows players to claim their WOOL and not have to stake their NFT. This will allow them to get 80 percent of their accumulated token. The remaining 20% goes to the Wolves tax for not attacking the Barn Sheep. OpenSea also offers a WOOL-related NFT, the Wool Pouch. This unlocks the WOOL within it over time.
Generation 2 Wolf and Sheep are other Wolf Game NTS. These are very similar to Generation 0 (and bred Generation 1 Wolves and Sheep), but they have lower energy and need more frequent recharging. The next step is Farmer NFTs. These can be used to accelerate the Sheep breeding process, and reduce the chance of new-bred Sheep being taken by Wolves. There are Wolf Game Relics (1-of-1 pieces) that tell the game’s history and Wolf Game Merch.
Can Wolf Game survive?
Wolf Game is not an exception. All P2E games have concerns about sustainability. It was not going to be possible to sustain the FOMO that allowed people to make huge gains on their NFT purchases in the Wolf Game ecosystem of late 2021. Despite this, the project’s ability to preserve its assets’ value has been remarkable.
It is fascinating to see the economy of Wolf Game. There isn’t a lot of WOOL on the market because most players will stake their NFTs in order to steal or earn WOOL. There are only 315 NFTs available in the Genesis 0 collection. The floor price is 0.5683 ETH. A slight increase in demand can lead to people buying up the NFTs that are available. This is what happened in November 2021. This creates an incentive to stake to gain WOOL, driving up token’s value, and creating a cycle that increases its value.
Although this may seem a little Ponzi-adjacent at first, the game has many dynamics that actively fight against runaway inflation. For example, low-level Sheep and Wolves can take up to a month just to create a single NFT. In its history, the Wolf Game team has had some major burn events. One was in January 2022, when developers sold off 10 Relics currently trading on OpenSea to make millions of tokens. Another was when 76 million WOOL burned to create Generation 1 NFTs. Wolf Game players have the option to visit the Butcher to get their Sheep for chops (a resource that is used for breeding). Finally, any WOOL spent on the game is either burned to the ground or added to the Community rewards fund.
The future of Wolf Game
Wolf Game is a strong ecosystem. The original NFT collection saw a strong trading volume of 567 Ethereum on OpenSea over the past 30 days, thanks to the latest iteration. It’s also safe to say that the game continues to be popular with Shamdoo selling Wolf NFTs at 100+ ETH and Gmoney dropping 25ETH on Wolf Game land. In addition, the Wolf Game team continues to tweet cryptic messages hinting at future developments. They also show a genuine interest in helping its community.
While the future of blockchain gaming remains uncertain, it is encouraging to see long-term P2E experiments like Wolf Game emerge as serious creative forces in NFT. The game is a fascinating example of how smartly and carefully people can incorporate risk and strategy into the Web3 gaming environment.
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