Written by: Lao Bai
A while ago, I tweeted about my son frantically recharging Robux in Roblox to steal other people's items, marveling at how this game is even more powerful than Genshin Impact's gacha system or Pop Mart's blind boxes—a true god of spending, which resonated with many folks. That post also had the highest traffic recently.
The next day, it suddenly occurred to me—why are there seemingly no "gold farming studios" in Roblox, despite it being such a cash-heavy game? Or even if there are, why do they have almost no impact on the game's lifecycle? Coincidentally, @j0hnwang also dug up his previous article on Roblox, mentioning this very point. I had bookmarked it before and went back to read it again.
John's view is that Roblox treats the economic system as part of the game, while crypto games treat the game as a facade for the economic system. He believes that centralized economic mechanisms help build a more controllable gaming experience.
This makes sense. The lack of fun in Web3 games has been a common criticism, but the current generation of Web3 games has significantly improved in playability, and their economic mechanisms are also very centrally regulated. Yet, the outcome remains unchanged. There must be other reasons.
Then I thought about World of Warcraft and Kaito. On the day X blocked Kaito's API, I made the following comment.
Once Behavior Can Be Scaled, It Will Be Industrialized
From the "Chinese Farmers" in the Web2 era of World of Warcraft, to the scripts and gold farming studios in Web3's X2Earn, and now the inevitable "AI批量起号,多人矩阵嘴撸" (AI mass account creation, multi-account matrix farming) brought by嘴撸 (a term for farming).
So,嘴撸 wasn't ruined by clever retail players or KOLs; it was ruined by the property of "replicability." This isn't just a problem with the Kaito project; it's essentially the ultimate fate of all incentive systems.
So, what is the secret behind World of Warcraft and Roblox? Why can't studios kill them? Why did players complain about inflation and Chinese Farmers when they first appeared on the US servers, but eventually accept it as a fixed part of the game's ecosystem?
There must be something that Web3 games lack, and it's not just centralized economic mechanisms.
First, Let's Talk About World of Warcraft
1. Gold Is Not the "Endgame Value"
Those who have deeply played WOW should know this: in the game, gold has little to do with your status or identity. Your achievements, rankings, reputation, etc.—none of these can be directly bought with gold. When a top-tier item drops in a dungeon, you either roll for it or bid with DKP (Dragon Kill Points) based on contribution. The player who loots it also binds it immediately, so it can't be sold for cash.
So, gold can at most save you some time, but it can't turn you into a core player. Many domestic web games back then were the complete opposite—big spenders could dominate everything with RMB, similar to the current style of Web3 games.
Essentially, in World of Warcraft, all "meaningful things"—top equipment, achievements, titles, dungeon contribution, etc.—cannot be directly purchased with gold. So, although gold farming can be scaled, leading to the industrialization of the first Chinese Farmers, it始终无法主导游戏的核心体验 (could never dominate the core experience of the game). In other words, this "industrialization" was confined to the "peripheral layer" of the game.
2. The Official Approach: "Absorption, Not Confrontation"
After the emergence of gold farming studios, Blizzard made a series of moves that, in hindsight, were very clever:
- First, official control—allowing you to buy gold with real money, but the price is regulated by the system, and there's no free financial exit, turning the underground black market into official currency exchange;
- Second, adding various barriers—such as daily and weekly quests, various cooldown locks... No matter how many accounts or high levels you have, you still have to wait patiently, diluting the advantage of industrialization;
- Third, adding more "meaningful things" that cannot be bought with gold, like guilds, raids, social reputation... This led to the later emergence of gold runs and GKP (Gold Kill Points), but various dungeon first kills were always achieved by top guilds, never by gold runs. So, gold farming in World of Warcraft always remained a "second-class citizen."
As for Roblox, the Logic Is Slightly Different
1. Encouraging Creativity Over Repetitive Labor
If you read the article I referenced in my previous post about Roblox, you'll know that the most profitable activities in Roblox are not repetitive tasks like farming resources, which offer little profit.
The real money is in creating maps, designing gameplay, and operating communities.
These are difficult for studios to scale and replicate. No matter how many resources you farm, you can't farm a gameplay that appeals to kids (though with AI now, this might also become "mass-producible").
2. Closed-Loop Internal Economic System, Restricted Asset Exchange
This is somewhat similar to John's idea. It's quick to buy Robux with a credit card, but converting Robux back to cash isn't as smooth—there are barriers, delays, and exchange rate losses, so arbitrage and搬砖 (a term for grinding/farming for profit) tactics don't work well here.
Moreover, most of the money in Roblox flows to platform fees, the top creators mentioned above, and in-game consumption, forming a closed-loop economic system with little overflow.
Of course, whether it's World of Warcraft or Roblox, being fun and having a large player base are the most important foundations, which is undeniable.
So, What Is the Real Reason Behind the Collective Demise of Web3 Games?
Thinking back, aside from the fun factor, perhaps the initial design intention of链游 (chain games/Web3 games) destined today's outcome.
Almost all链游 allow for "repeatable behavior" + "freely withdrawable assets."
In an era where Web2 gaming systems are already mature, this inevitably turns the final players of链游 into capital + scripts, not humans.
In other words, as long as Play and Earn are linked, this will always be the result.
Whether it's Play 2 Earn, the later improved Move 2 Earn, or Play & Earn, they are all different in name but not in essence.
This is somewhat like an impossible triangle for games. Among being fun, allowing speculators to make money, and enabling studios to scale, you can achieve at most two.
From this perspective, the problem with Web3 games isn't team quality or funding scale; it's that, at the most fundamental genetic level, they cannot be "fun."
Would Putting World of Warcraft on-Chain Work? Would It Be Meaningful?
I remember during the peak of链游 hype, we often fantasized about a scenario: what if World of Warcraft went on-chain?
Not the entire game, but putting WOW's economic system on-chain, including gold, items, mounts, etc., making them freely tradable, freely withdrawable, and financializable.
Now, thinking back, we were very naive. Doing this would注定会被系统毁掉 (destined to be destroyed by the system).
The underlying axioms of World of Warcraft's success:
- Meaning cannot be traded—The most valuable things, top equipment, achievements, titles... are almost all bound, untradeable, non-transferable. These things signify what you have done, not what you own;
- Progress does not equal wealth—Your time investment, operational skills, and team collaboration are your foundation. Gold can at most make you more comfortable; it cannot allow you to跨越阶级 (transcend classes);
- Players are not asset owners but role-players—This equipment was obtained by me through effort / exchanged with DKP, this Boss was a world first kill by our guild, this character is my心血 (labor of love) trained over 10 years... Once this becomes "something I bought, an investment," this character emotionally bound to you downgrades into a skin for an asset account.
If we must talk about going on-chain, the things in World of Warcraft truly worth putting on-chain are these—for example, proof of a Boss's first kill, guild history, timestamps of your achievements, records of witnessing world events... What goes on-chain is not assets and value, but memories and traces.
The greatness of World of Warcraft lies precisely in the fact that its most important things can never be sold.
From this perspective, "链游必须死" (Chain games must die).
And it's not just链游. We once treated blockchain as a hammer, seeing everything as a nail to be struck. Little did we know that too many things in this world根本不需要被「金融化」 (simply do not need to be "financialized"). Their reason for existence is to be experienced, remembered, and told.
