On-chain version of "The Hunger Games": A brief analysis of Uniswap's newly acquired Crypto: The Game

Author: Azuma, Odaily Planet Daily

On the evening of June 10, Beijing time, Uniswap Labs officially announced the completion of its acquisition of the interactive crypto survival game Crypto: The Game (CTG) based on the Base blockchain. The specific amount was not disclosed. The three co-founders of CTG, Dylan Abruscato, Tyler Cagle, and Bryan Lee, will join Uniswap to jointly promote the development of CTG's third season.

In terms of positioning, CTG is a blockchain-based "real-life battle royale" game, which can simply be understood as an on-chain version of "The Hunger Games" or "Squid Game."

In CTG, players need to purchase tickets to obtain limited game participation qualifications (410 participants in the first season, 800 in the second season, and the third season is yet to be determined). The tickets are in the form of NFTs, with an initial sale price of 0.1 ETH, and subsequent free trading is allowed—this means players can indirectly obtain participation qualifications through the secondary market, including those who have been eliminated and wish to "make a comeback."

Once the game starts, players holding NFT tickets will be randomly assigned to one of 10 different tribes, and then the battle royale officially begins.

During the game (with a maximum duration of 10 days to ensure timely completion), all players will participate in daily "immunity challenges" as tribes. The forms of challenges are very diverse (such as arcade games or treasure hunts, etc.), and the tribe with the highest challenge score each day will experience "Safe Night" (i.e., everyone is safe), while other tribes must vote internally to eliminate one player.

When discussing the criteria for voting, a player who has participated in the game stated to UnChained: "When we decide to vote someone out, we consider various factors, such as whether the player's associated X account looks like a bot, how active the player is in team chats, and even whether the player's chosen NFT avatar is likable—one Moonbird NFT holder in my tribe was voted out immediately."

After being eliminated, the player's NFT ticket will also change—transforming from a player identity to a jury identity, to vote for the final winner on the last day of the game's maximum duration. The winner will ultimately take all the funds in the prize pool.

In the past few months, CTG has successfully held two seasons of the game. In the first season, there were 410 players, with a total prize pool of 41 ETH, and the final winner was an anonymous player named MFL; in the second season, there were 800 players, with a total prize pool of 80 ETH, and the final winner was player number 733.

When discussing his winning experience, MFL told Decrypt that he believed most other players were smarter than him. Since he did not form private alliances, he initially expected to be eliminated early, so his attitude towards the game was to "enjoy the competition," such as making some funny memes for other players or writing poems to express his views on the game.

However, the reality was that MFL never received a single elimination vote and ultimately won the grand prize. CTG co-founder Dylan Abruscato stated that MFL's behavior won the favor of other players in the game, proving to be a successful strategy.

In summary, the fun of CTG lies in its excellent combination of competitiveness and human psychology. Additionally, it is very important that CTG will explain the daily real-time game status through an official podcast to fully engage external audience emotions, amplify discussions on social media, and create momentum for the competition.

Returning to Uniswap, as the absolute leader in the DeFi field, Uniswap has previously expanded its business into other non-DeFi areas, such as acquiring the NFT aggregation trading platform Genie and developing its own mobile wallet service, but this is the first time it has directly ventured into the gaming sector (there have been some indirect cooperation cases before).

When discussing this transaction, Uniswap described it as follows: "This year has been very busy for Uniswap. We launched UniswapX, submitted v4, launched the Uniswap wallet, increased support for more chains, and we have more plans. Uniswap's goal has always been simple—to create products that provide the best on-chain experience for users. That’s why we are very excited to welcome CTG to our team."

As for whether Uniswap's entry will affect CTG's game mechanics, Uniswap also explained that fans need not worry; the game mechanics will not change, but there will be some new designs. Specific details cannot be disclosed too much, but it is believed that the third season will be the best one yet.