Yeeha games’ recent launch of the first MMORPG web3 game, Oath of Peak is getting popularity due to its interesting gameplay and game-first approach. To find out more about the positioning of Oath of Peak and the vision behind it, we recently interviewed Grant Zhang, game lead of Oath of Peak. Here are a few interesting questions and responses by Grant Zhang.
Why did you choose the Polygon network for building the Oath of Peak?
Choosing Polygon wasn’t a difficult decision at all. Polygon is able to afford some of the lowest fees out of any chain for its users, and many amazing game developers are already working on Polygon. This provides us with a great environment in the future to build together!
What do you think makes Oath of Peak unique from other web3 games available in the market and who do you think is your close competitor in the gaming industry?
First, the game is completely free to play, and we didn’t really do any pre-launch token and NFT sales because we wanted players to truly experience the game first and know what the tokens and NFTs have to offer before having them buy them.
Second, Oath of Peak is a game first, and GameFi project second. We made sure that the core gameplay and experience were fully there first. Almost the entire $20-million development budget focused on creating the massive open world, all the art, and the game designs and stuff before we implemented blockchain technology to enhance the interactions between players.
We then took these interactions to a new level. About 90% of all the items in the game are generated by players playing through the game. Everything comes from getting gear from monster drops, crafting furniture, and capturing spirit beasts, to getting rewards from Raids and PVP, and so on.
The Oath of Peak team does not sell any of these items. They’re mostly all created and owned by the players. This means that when our players want something, they either have to continue playing the game, or get it by interacting with each other, by selling, buying, trading, haggling, and lending. We took the interactive element that we love so much about MMORPGs, and we upgraded it with blockchain tech to take it to a whole new level.
As for your question about competitors, we have two types:
1. We have healthy competitors, competitors creating amazing projects we want to see succeed, those who we believe will have a strong hand in shaping the future of our space, and contribute to it in a positive way. Even though these guys are a kind of competition due to quality gaming experiences, we also really want to see success as it will push the GameFi industry forward. Some of our favorites so far are Castaways, Frutti Dino, and Treeverse.
2. We have “competitors”, those who are actually not contributing to the space, but are creating incomplete experiences where the emphasis is on earning, rather than on having fun. That’s not what video games are about, and as gamers ourselves, we stand firmly against this practice. We won’t name any names, but these projects tend to stand out in all the wrong ways.
Considering the recent unfortunate events in the crypto industry, Do you feel it will have a longer impact on the growth of the GameFi industry?
Are you referring to all the scams in the space? Or the bear market? Or about these GameFi projects that resemble little more than quick cash grabs?
Let’s unpack this. Scams are rampant in every industry, but especially in infant industries. Scams go where the money is, and since crypto and finance are inextricably linked, that’s where scams are. But keep in mind, scams in crypto does not mean that crypto is a scam.
Sure, we’re in a bear market, but this has little to do with our game. Our game is free to play, and since it was designed with the gameplay experience first, the blockchain elements are completely optional, so you can just play the heck out of it for fun.
Look. Whatever the market conditions are, we’re still building and reiterating. In the end, what we want to have is a game on our hands that people want to play. Doesn’t matter if it’s web2, web3, or even web7, as long as people are having fun playing our game.
Can non-crypto people access and play Oath of Peak easily?
Absolutely. We believe that in the future, all blockchain games will work on the user experience, meaning we’ll have to do a better job of hiding all the complexities and simplifying them. With Oath of Peak, we designed the game so that players don’t need to do anything special just because it’s a blockchain game. They don’t need to own any tokens or NFTs. They don’t need to have a wallet. And they don’t even need to know what blockchain is! They just need to download the game and enjoy it.
We wanted users to enjoy the benefits that blockchain tech had to offer, without having to suffer through its current obstacles. For example, the core game currency is called Shells, and it can be exchanged for PKTK tokens. There was a certain in-game item that I had obtained by playing the game, and it was in such high demand that a player offered me over 2 million Shells for it, which was about 3,000 PKTK tokens at the time.
I didn’t sell it in the game’s market, though, because I wanted to use it myself in the game! I think that factor is something that’s quite different from a lot of P2E games, where most of the players wouldn’t hesitate to exit if they had a chance for some returns. A lot of Oath of Peak players are in the game just to enjoy it. They spend time and money in the game to enjoy different experiences, and they don’t care about the earning side of things.
