‘Off The Grid’ exposes mainstream audiences to the blockchain game
Gunzilla Games' “Off the Grid” – a free-to-play, third-person, battle royale game – is currently ranked the number 11 free-to-play game on the Epic Games online store and briefly held the number one spot. Immediately after waking up.
The game is still listed as an early access title, but it attracted a lot of attention on the Twitch streaming platform, with 154,440 viewers watching gamers release it on October 11.
Off The Grid's blockchain features are built on GUNZ's Avalanche (AVAX) subnet – a custom-built blockchain ecosystem for players to generate NFTs that represent in-game items such as gear and skins.
Mining these assets as NFTs or other onchain assets allows players to control their in-game assets and secondary markets for in-game assets.
Off the grid. Source: Epic Games
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A sustainable approach to the blockchain game?
Off The Grid is a AAA title – the equivalent of a blockbuster movie for video games – and represents a departure from clicker games or other Web 3 experiences that were essentially first models and video games second.
These blockchain games have drawn criticism from consumers and industry experts, who say these models are unsustainable.
Critics argue that conventional blockchain games use rewards to attract users, who play the games to collect a quick reward and leave quickly after the initial payment is collected – destroying any long-term viability of these games. The most common criticism of the clicker model is that the user is rated too low after the main air drop.
Many industry executives believe that the solution is to create compelling and robust gaming experiences that major players want to play, rather than a primary focus on token models or blockchain mechanisms that service in-game assets.
A recent survey from Olympics, the Blockchain Game Alliance and PlayToern asked more than 1,000 individuals worldwide, and more than 10% of respondents said they had never tried blockchain games – citing the complexity of linking crypto wallets as a major barrier to user onboarding.
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