Staking is definitely one of the hottest concepts in blockchain industry this year. People in the industry have different opinions on how to understand Staking and whether to participate in it or not. However, under the new trend, mining pools, wallets, exchanges, public blockchains and others are racing to get involved and create new possibilities. Just imagine how the blockchain game will spark when it meets Staking.

Today, Wizard, Founder of CardMaker, was invited to participate in an exclusive interview with Media Lianyuyu. As an indie game developer, Wizard often has unique ideas on the game itself and the way it plays. With the accurate grasp of the industry, he and his team have witnessed and accompanied the outbreak and growth of blockchain game industry all the way. Now, stable operation for over 6months makes the team introduce Staking to the game, giving every user the right to experience the game for free.

Q1 Lianyuyu: Hi, nice to meet you. Let’s introduce about CardMaker first.

Wizard: Hi, nice to meet you. CardMaker is a interdisciplinary indie games which won Best Game Award & Most Popular Award in the first NEO Blockchain Development Competition 2018 and is the first batch of ecology partners with Cocos-BCX, and is repeatedly reported by DappReview.

The game itself is a mixture of classic card strategy and Roguelike gameplay with characteristics such as UGC, token economy and DeFi.

Its original mining mode, multi-town sharing economy system, gameplay and finance system bring high user loyalty.

In the game, we set up the cross-chain trading system of ETH (Cake Town) , NEO (Nature Town), etc. Among these towns, data is independent, token is unified and trade exchanges with different features. As development of the multilateral trading system, the gameplay will also be greatly enhanced.

In addition to gameplay, CardMaker also broadly defines the creation system of NFT asset: Card and Maker. Card will be used as storage standard of NFT asset through all assets deduction of the upper layer, enabling users to bring asset to all different games.

The game is bilingual in Chinese and English.

At present, the game has a high completion, which should be considered as a rare project in industry. Even in the conventional game field, we can directly access to TapTap and Steam. We are also looking for good partners.

We are currently working on the development of UGC (user-generated content), and are currently working with others game producers, like Last Trip before, which is a good mode.

Q2 Lianyuyu: Just now you mentioned that NFT assets are transferred in different games. Now it is linked with Last Trip. Are you considering doing some interaction with other games?

Wizard: Yes, we’ve been looking for conventional games to connect with. This is actually a very mature group. We will even expand the game in the future.

Card and Maker will be two completely separate systems in the future. Card mainly focuses on blockchain as an asset, while Maker managers the game.

Q3 Lianyuyu: the game has been running steadily for half a year. How many users has CardMaker accumulated so far? How about its volume?

Wizard: It seems to be true that there are more than 2,000 real users, but we don’t have the econnoisseur (one who insists on the highest quality at the lowest price).

So far, the generated data of our cards has reached 80,000+ pieces, and the peak of the total amount of assets traded is about 5–8million CAKE every 24 hours (CAKE is the in-game token). Compared with the current blockchain game market, it should be small.

Q4 Lianyuyu: Is CAKE on the exchange?

Wizard: No, but there are about 20 exchanges looking for IXO.

It is complicated to think about this matter, mainly because it is of no use. What we hope is the real traffic, or even the value of users, otherwise it will bring huge counter-biting effect. However, after considering that this field is more and more mature, we will step into the corresponding process.

At present, CAKE can be exchanged through Bancor, so there is no problem in this aspect.

Q5 Lianyuyu: During this period, what new thoughts and insights do you and team have on the industry, crypto games and users?

Wizard: Too much! It’s hard to imagine without going deep into this area.

A producer friend of the conventional game asked me last week, how is the crypto game industry, and I thought about it then I said, “Roguelike”. Then he was amused and said good example.

The simple summary is to avoid mistakes, because there is not much room for trial and error.

But here are some good things I’ve seen:

First is that some gamblers’ minds are beginning to fade;

Second, the quality of the game began to generate a form, rather than a naked capital world;

Third is the cocktail effect, many people clam down, so now is the best time;

Fourth, there are still many project teams willing to stick together and explore, trying to broaden the field.

Q6 Lianyuyu: Recently, CardMaker has added some new gameplay to the game, introducing the mode of Staking in NEO Nature Town, which allows users to experience the game for free. Could you introduce a little bit?

Wizard: Staking is an event and a beginning. For more details, please check:

https://blog.cardmaker.io/blog/gg20190815_3/

The whole process above is simply summarized as：

Free game experience -> staking to get package (more and more expensive) -> mining bonus (additional prize) -> unlock -> get more NEO.

Presale Staking

It should be added that our game is free and open to experience. Even if you don’t get any packages, you can play for free, and you can mine for free, but users who participate in the event will have a higher rate of return.

Q7 Lianyuyu: From the perspective of Cake Town users, will this new game hurt their interests?

Wizard: Nature Town and Cake Town are two sets of distributed servers in CardMaker system. The pattern between the two towns is as follows:

Data independence: town A cannot move the account data to town B;

Unified token: total amount of CAKE remains the same, but output is shared;

Own characteristics: own resources and blueprint for card making;

Trade: the two towns can trade with each other through the magic carriage.

Therefore, it will not daWizard the interests and user can select their favorite town (or public blockchain).

Q8 Lianyuyu: Besides staking and mining, does the team have any other designs or ideas about Staking System?

Wizard: Our definition of Staking is mainly attracting traffic. CardMaker’s token economy system can resist the financial effect of a certain scale.

Q9: Do you think Staking will attract more ordinary users?

Wizard: Yes, that’s the move from “consumption purchase” to “no principal damage”.

We allow users to obtain packages that need to be purchased in other crypto games by staking token here. After a certain period, the token can be unlocked automatically instead of requiring users to consume, which is a way that does not harm the principal of users.

We often see a large number of players in various crypto game groups mention that they can’t sell the packages they bought, and some players even start to curse some platforms, wallets and so on, sometimes damaging the reputation of their own platforms and channels.

By the way, our packages are given to players even after they unlock token, so you can take away more without spending anything at all.Personally, I think this is a very positive model. Users don’t need to use principal to try and make mistakes, and only pay when they agree with you.

Most game in blockchain industry do presale with old slogans like “assets rights”, “making money” and “win-win”, I believe that everyone can see these in the group. However, staking for developers is absolutely good. We can open this field together, establish a field with different ideas. For example, a few years ago, the H5 game was open the door of traffic, which is our ultimate goal, so that we can survive together.

Q10 Lianyuyu: According to you, staking gives users a free experience and allows them to choose whether or not to pay for the game, right?

Wizard: Yes, it is close, but the difference is that staking can be done for free without the need for any financial behavior.

Q11 Lianyuyu: Have you changed the source of profit?

Wizard: Yes, players only buy when they want. If they don’t, we give them money.

Q12 Lianyuyu: For most crypto players, there may be a trade-off between mobility and profitability. Simply put, if you can’t guarantee that the income of props and cards better than the current income of staking tokens, this game will not be sustainable.

Wizard: Let me answer with a micro view to this question:

First of all, the flow ofannualized rate of return of NEO is 2.37% (3 months ago), which means that when a player Staking a 10 NEO package, lock for 180 days, he just need to get 0.12 NEO, but package content has beyond this value.

W arm up event:

https://blog.cardmaker.io/blog/gg20190801_3/

I have made it clear on several occasions that this trip to Nature Town is not for the purpose of making money, but for the purpose of trying to broaden the field. LOL

Q13 Lianyuyu: Is there a locking time?

Wizard: Yes, between 180 and 365 days, you can accelerate up to 200% by raising the Level in game which called experience cycle in conventional game.

During the event, a friend overseas asked us, “if you send us NEO, who lose NEO?” Our overseas operations laughed and said of course we lose it.

The good news is that we lose a few hundred NEO at most, because the pool is deflationary (so it’s up to the user how much they can mine). As for whether users can be converted into users who are willing to make efforts for the game within this deadline, that is another effort that we should try.

Q14 Lianyuyu: Besides this gameplay, have you thought of any other incentive measures that can make users deeply involved?

Wizard: As for other incentives, CardMaker itself is an incentive system for token economy. Input and output are direct.

Q15 Lianyuyu: Song Yang, producer of TonArts, thinks that Staking Game can achieve a win-win policy between public blockchain, game developers and players. How do you think about that?

Wizard: I agree with this three-way win-win policy.

Players can staking, participate for free, obtain assets, enjoy the game and value-added services; Developers can gain profits through DeFi. The project can help the public blockchain and maintain the ecology .

There’s nothing wrong with logic, but to be honest, the concept misses the point, which is who’s the loser.

I think it’s worth talking about who are the losers. The losers are people who own NEO but don’t participate in any behavior. Think about estate, right?

Q16 Lianyuyu: You wants to attract traffic through it, but in fact there are many reasons fail a game, do you think this mode will really bring something new?

Wizard: The high cost is a huge factor for the development of crypto game, such as wallet, cryptocurrency, if you let conventional users to understand the concept of wallet and try to buy a cryptocurrency, they have to install at least two apps, record a private key, register two accounts, copy and paste the address twice, and transfer twice. In iOS system, it is more difficult, where you have to sign the app.

It would be more practical to think that Staking just to open a way and reduce the cost of entry. However, this space is very large. When more and more users realize that they can play crypto games for free, the communication will be changed.

Q17 Lianyuyu: Some people think that Staking Game has too strong in finance characteristic and is not a Game. How do you feel about that?

Wizard: First of all, the game must be fun. But there are a lot of definitions of fun, I think the finance characteristic has not a direct logical relationship with the game.

Many games have developed strong finance characteristic, such as the Age of Discovery, DNF, HayDay.

Many people regard finance as a monster, just because they are unfamiliar with it. In fact, financial behavior is the most common behavior in people’s life, and the game is just a carrier. As long as it generates transactions, it is a financial behavior.

Finance characteristic is just a tool. Some people use it for vicious speculation, and some people use it to bring convenience to human beings.

Q18 Lianyuyu: As an ecology founder, what is NEO’s attitude towards this new game?

Wizard: NEO has a clear attitude: No gambling! And we don’t know how to make a gambling game.

Therefore, you will find that development of NEO is stale, and the state is very clear. Gradually, some influential and powerful teams have gathered here, which is what a structured public blockchain should do. As an ecology participant, I am also honored to work with such a team.

Besides, if you are familiar with NEO, it is not difficult to find that NEO is actually the earliest public blockchain of Staking. Besides, IOST, which specializes in Staking, also has a great thinking.

Q19 Lianyuyu: Frankly speaking, the current development state of crypto games is far from expected. Although more and more developers have realized the essence of crypto games and the importance of gameplay, not much has changed. What do you think is the root cause of the slow development of crypto games?

Wizard: OK, this may define what expectations should be.

For example, does it mean to break out and stand on the world with the hype effect? I don’t seem to know any industry that has been built on hype in history. Every area of excellence has gone through the peaks and valleys of the technology curve and then gradually grew.

The impact of blockchain on the game is more about the transformation of thinking level, such as the influence of data relations on the game system, the transformation of operation mode, changes of the game’s economy system.

Q20 Lianyuyu: In your opinion, what should be the focus of the whole industry to really promote the development?

Wizard: Blockchain and smart contracts don’t make the game any more interesting. However, from the economy structure, games can produce “physical effects”, making the life cycle of games infinitely long and the fun infinitely large.

I don’t think I can judge the whole industry, what we are doing is a small thing. We are just a small explorer in the industry.

Q21 Lianyuyu: What plans and events will you and your team have next?

Wizard: One is that we’re going to go enter conventional game field and find the right partner. Recently I’ve been looking for a suitable releasing partner on Steam.

The other is that CardMaker will perform a “major operation”. As mentioned earlier, CardMaker will enlarge the whole system and structure, but divide the structure in the system more accurately.CardMaker is a clever game with good content.

I can probably list a few nouns here, but it’s too complicated to expand. CardNFT, Maker1, Maker2, CardSwap, some of the concepts people who are familiar with the industry will understand, I’m not going to explain here.

Our planning team is already in the works and you should see it soon.

Website: https://www.cardmaker.io

Twitter: https://twitter.com/cardmakerio

Telegram: https://t.me/CardMaker

Discord: https://discord.gg/tNjgXUW