Author: Paul Veradittakit, partner of Pantera Capital; Compiled by: 0xjs@金财经

What is TON?

TON (The Open Network) is a blockchain with Toncoin as the core cryptocurrency, which can handle more than 100,000 transactions per second and is directly integrated into the messaging platform Telegram.

TON allows developers to create applets and games that run directly within Telegram. The apps are accessible via in-app links or bots, allowing the app to be opened with just one click without the need to download software. More than 500 million of the 950 million monthly active Telegram users interact with mini programs every month. For example, TON Wallet is also integrated as one of these applets, allowing for a seamless crypto wallet onboarding experience.

Playing Games on TON

Games are often a tug-of-war between game developers and platforms. Developers want platforms that are easily accessible, easy to distribute, and affordable, while platforms try to build moats around their ecosystems so that users and developers stay within their gated communities while charging everyone exorbitant fees. For example, the Apple App Store charges a 30% fee on all revenue.

With the TON blockchain, however, the incentives for game development can be reversed, as the driver of mutual success between the platform and the game is through the increased use of cryptocurrencies like Toncoin. If more people play games that integrate TON (e.g. through new tokens, NFTs, in-app purchases, airdrops), more players may purchase Toncoin, which may increase its price, benefiting both developers and the platform itself. So the incentive is to share games as widely as possible by making the TON platform and games as inclusive as possible.

There is no cost to develop games on TON, there is active development support, and games are incentivized to help each other grow. In fact, it only takes one click to start creating a game, and Telegram has 950 million monthly active users.

Current games on TON

Many popular games on TON currently adopt the "click to make money" model. Players can obtain rewards such as token airdrops or NFTs through simple and addictive gameplay. Many games are marketed to receive token airdrops. The most popular games currently include Catizen, Notcoin, and Hamster Kombat.

These games themselves are not innovative, but their popularity has exploded, similar to web2 games. One of the first examples of these games was Cookie Clicker, a web2 game where users clicked cookies, which peaked at 1.5 million players in 2013value. Cats & Soup, a game launched in 2022 that allows users to collect cute cats by clicking, was downloaded more than 50 million times globally last year and earned $2.2 million in the fourth quarter of 2023. Most recently, Farm Merge Valley, a game in which users combine farm animals into larger animals, went viral after launching on Discord's new embedded gaming platform.

These games rise and fall quickly because of their association with fashion. Many games only last a maximum of 6 months before their "cool" or "cute" factor wears off. TON is an excellent place to launch these games because it has easy access to Telegram’s 950 million monthly users and the games can incentivize continued use through the token. For example, Catizen owns a $CATI token with a current FDV of >$500 million and has earmarked 34% of all $CATI for airdrops to users. The first 15% has been distributed to early participants in September 2024 (150 million tokens, worth approximately $82,290,000), and the remaining 19% will be used for future airdrops to users who play the game. A demo of the Catizen roadmap is available here.

Catizen’s integration with TON has been very successful; games are shared in Telegram group chats, users are incentivized to keep playing to continue earning airdrops, and the team behind Catizen is able to Get 20% of the total token supply. In fact, the average paying user has a lifetime value of about $35, which is comparable to successful web2 gaming standards.

Catizen is also exploring new ways to grow, such as Launchpad through staking $CATI, yield farming, airdrop collaborative projects, and building games to join its ecosystem.

Leveraging its popularity and existing user base, Catizen is able to promote cooperative play within its own games or promote other games, while also promoting its own token.

Catizen has its own Game Center, which allows games to be published within Catizen's own platform in return for the partnership. For games within Game Center, they offer their own SDK, leveraging their experience to simplify the complex multi-language TON stack and make it suitable for game developers.

Next generation TON games

Tap to earn games are the first games launched on TON, and they must be experimented. Developers on TON now have more experience, better infrastructure, and a better understanding of optimal incentives. But a big problem with these games is that they lose lives very quickly. For example, from August to November this year, Hamster KOmbat lost 259 million players, or 86% of its user base, in less than 3 months. Therefore, the next generation of games funded and built on TON are social, mid-core and DeFi games.

Social Games

Social games are games that integrate shareability as a core mechanism into the game, making full use of Telegram as the basic messaging platform. This may include games that require sharing to progress. For example, Candy Crush Saga was a huge success because it was one of the first games to integrate leaderboards and sharing into the core gaming experience. This feature can be integrated into other types of games.

Midcore Games

Midcore Games (as opposed to hardcore games) have more complex game mechanics and are more attractive to players who want a richer gaming experience. These games are suitable for players to play for longer periods of time, target specific groups of people or regions, and have more flexible profit plans.

Gatto is a typical example. It was originally a click-to-make money game and is now transforming into Midcore. Gatto started out as a pet collecting game, but later introduced a PVE game mode that incorporated replayability into the game.

Gatto PVE game screenshots

Delabs is a game studio that specializes in releasing mid-core games on Telegram and TON game. Telegram Gaming Accelerator (founded by Helika and Notcoin), which funds and advises Telegram games, also prioritizes mid-core games.

DeFi Game

DeFi is the key to the success or failure of the blockchain. As DeFi protocols evolve naturally on top of TON, some game studios may gamify the processes of DeFi, whether in liquidity provision, exchange, yield farming, or other aspects.

Call to Action

There has never been a better time to develop games on TON. Many of the obstacles faced by the original TON games no longer exist; there is now better documentation and technical support, airdrop program design has been improved, there is more data to make decisions, and more investors and incubators are available Support game developers who want to succeed. They have better plans to educate and integrate web2 game developers into TON.

For example, games now understand that they should focus on metrics like retention and revenue per user, and different regions use Telegram in very different ways. Interestingly, Indian users use group chats heavily because Whatsapp has a group chat limit of 1,024 peoplePeople, while Telegram has no limits.

To start building your next TON game studio, check out the resources at the bottom of the article.

Pantera’s TON Commitment:

Pantera made its largest ever investment in TON in May. Pantera actively invests in the Telegram ecosystem.

The following is a list of Pantera’s portfolio companies in the TON gaming space:

Helika: Web3 gaming data analytics, marketing tools and game management infrastructure platform. They also launched the Telegram Gaming Accelerator, a 10-week program designed to help game studios improve their games before launching on TON

Metatheory: Game Studios recently launched on TON Casual game Gimmecat.

Genopets: The popular Solana NFT game studio behind Genopets: Pixelton, a retro PvP combat game in partnership with Genopets

Sources:

Official Support: < /p>

TON Founder Resource Hub

TON Ecosystem

TON Game Manual/Support (TON Gaming Playbook/Support)

Community for early TON Builders

TON Development Kit (TON SDK)

Research:

Helika Ton Report (Helika Ton Report)

TON Blog

Accelerator/Investor:

Telegram Game Accelerator (5000 Fund)

TON Venture Capital

The Open League

TON Foundation Accelerator