1 min read

Don't go multi-chain

Blockchain games often decide to go multi-chain (moreso than other kinds of dApps from what I've seen). In other words, they support smart contracts/tokens/NFTs on multiple different blockchains. Typically, the intention is to give players more options. They can connect to the game with different wallets, pay to play with different tokens, and trade their earned assets in different markets.

Before going down this road, it's important to understand your own motivations. If your game was originally launched on one chain and daily active players has started to plateau, this could be because you've reached the majority of potential users on that blockchain. Expanding to multiple chains allows you to tap into more potential players. You can think of this like translating your website into multiple languages. At a certain point, your business growth slows among English speaking users, but you can tap into new demographics by supporting new languages.

If you're reaching for multi-chain to solve your growth issues, you probably have an underlying accessibility issue in your dApp. Solving this root issue will remove the need to support multiple chains (and smart contracts, and coding languages, and bridges, etc.).

The issue is that your players have to be blockchain users before they can start playing. They need a wallet, the blockchain's gas tokens, and possibly some of your game's NFTs before they can play.

Instead of investing in multi-chain, you should:

  • build a custodial account system
  • cover gas fees for your players (or use an alternative fee system like Koinos)
  • offer free starter NFTs so players can experience the game before buying
  • support credit card payments

Don't go after another chain. Go after all the gamers that aren't already using blockchain.

-Luke

P.S. Multi-chain introduces massive complexity (read: cost) for relatively little benefit. If your motivation is different from something I've stated here, hit reply and let's talk about it.