Portal Fantasy Deep Dive
Do we gotta catch 'em all?
I write about web3 economics, mostly related to gaming. Follow me on Twitter @nghtshft_eth or subscribe here:
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of The Kingdom sold 10 million copies worldwide in its first three days; Pokémon is one of the top-selling video game franchises of all time. Now the team behind Portal Fantasy is trying to recreate the magic in web3.
Overview
Portal Fantasy is a pixel RPG game. The game gives a strong feel of nostalgia with game mechanics and graphics reminiscent of old-school Zelda and Pokémon games.
Portal Fantasy is playable as two roles: Heroes and Architects.
As Heroes, players play in PvE mode – explore maps, complete quests, capture and level up Porbles (creatures in the game universe). The team targets to generate 100 hours of game time in this mode. Hero PvP battle is one of the most requested features in the community and will be launched early in ranked and casual modes.
The Architect role represents the UGC layer of Portal Fantasy. As Architects, players can use the game’s map-editor to create fully customizable maps for Heroes to play.
Roadmap
Portal Fantasy is currently in closed beta on the Avalanche and Polygon testnets. It is playable on browser, with mobile (web, iOS and Android) and Steam available in the future. The team plans to launch Hero PvE and PvP modes in 2H’23 and Architect mode in 2024.
On May 30, 2023, the team held its first NFT mint event. Participants were able to free mint a Beta Pass for access to the closed beta, with a chance to claim one of 40 Shiny Porbles.
Team & Partners
The Portal Fantasy team is made up of a mix of web2 and web3-native talents. Kasei, the team’s lead, has been fully immersed in web3 since 2015, starting off as an algo-trader. The rest of the team boasts experiences from gaming and media giants like Nintendo, Disney and Ubisoft.
The project is backed by investors such as Makers Fund, Hashed, Blizzard Fud, W3GG (fka. YGG SEA), Ava Labs, Polygon and Game7.
Economy
Portal Fantasy has a straightforward economy design including an off-chain currency (ORB), one class of gameplay NFTs (Porbles) and some game items. There’s also a layer of collectible NFTs (cosmetics, pets, mementos) that does not interfere with gameplay.
This simple design makes it easier for the team to regulate the sources and sinks. This is especially important for web3 games, since trading behavior introduces an extra layer of complication and there are fewer success cases to look to than with traditional web2 games.
As the game advances, the economic design can be refined and expanded with each step of the release roadmap. Initially, the economy is limited to Hero PvE mode. Eventually, it can encompass PvP, Architect UGC mode and other expansions.
List of game assets and currencies:
The high-level value flow diagram below helps with analyzing the initial economy design, which is mainly related to the Hero PvE economic loop:
Revenue model
The game developer generates revenue via marketplace fees from player trading. There are several hard currency sinks, including recovering Mana (stamina for exploring maps), speeding up Porble recovery, conducting/resetting Porble fusion progression. Additionally, there will be collectible/cosmetic NFT sales, either through one-off sale events or battle passes.
The team’s interests are aligned with the game’s success. Porbles, the primary game asset, are minted for free. The team’s goal is to increase the game’s GDP by creating organic demand for Porbles and driving a healthy trading economy. The hard currency sinks are mostly used to negate time sinks and are not pay-to-win. (Fusion requires a fee but the pay-to-win impact is low.)
ORB
The ORB value flow is a closed loop between the game developer and players (illustrated by the red arrows). The game developer rewards ORB to players who engage with the game; players then spend their ORB to buy game items, such as Capture Scrolls that are necessary for capturing Porbles.
This makes balancing ORB faucets and sinks more straightforward. ORB rewards should be distributed more heavily to players who capture Porbles. In terms of gameplay, the team should also focus on boosting the Porble capture game loop to drive demand for ORB-denominated Capture Scrolls.
Transaction Currency
Peer-to-peer trading is transacted in L1 native currencies – AVAX for Avalanche and MATIC for Polygon. This is a great design choice as both tokens have deep liquidity and lower volatility as compared to a game-specific token, two crucial qualities for a medium of exchange token. Additionally, a credit card is also accepted for web2 players.
Hard Currency
Portal Fantasy initially intended to have a utility token (PFT), but replaced it with the transaction currency (AVAX/MATIC/fiat) in the latest design update.
This is, in my opinion, the right decision. It is also consistent with the team’s phased approach to expand the game economy. Managing a utility token is complicated and commands immense attention that can otherwise be spent on the game/NFT economies, especially at the project’s early stage.
Moreover, with only PvE launched and PvP coming soon, it will be a challenge to generate sufficient utility for a utility token. As the project expands, it may make sense to reconsider launching PFT. For example, PFT can be an integral part of the UGC economy when Architect mode is launched.
Porbles
Porbles are spawned and captured in gameplay, typically growing linearly with total play time. Conversely, the sink mechanics may be insufficient to scale Porble supply downwards if/when the player base is flat or declining.
The only Porble sink comes from fusion, where one or more Porbles is burned to level up a single “prime” Porble. In the short term, this can be effective in reducing the total supply of Porbles.
In the long term, however, fusion shifts the supply towards higher-level Porbles. Without other sink mechanics, the economy can face an abundance of scarcity, where an oversupply of high-level Porbles will lead to low perceived value, with even lower value for low-level Porbles.
The next section explores potential economic control levers to manage Porbles sustainably.
NFT Economic Control Levers
It is virtually impossible to create a perfectly balanced game economy from day 1. However, game developers can design economic control levers to adjust in response to player feedback and data.
We introduce a framework below for designing economic control levers for NFTs:
Supply – Sources
Supply-side levers influence the circulating supply of NFTs in a game economy. Sources, which control NFT creation, can be broadly categorized into primary markets and asset production.
Portal Fantasy predominantly utilizes primary markets to spawn and distribute Porbles (for free) in maps for players to battle and capture. The team adjusts the daily spawn rate and NFT quantity/quality in order to scale with game traction. The composition of Porble species will also be gamified over time to optimize player engagement and retention.
Asset production is a game loop where players produce game assets that are not typically obtainable via primary markets. This loop is often paired with an x-to-1 sink mechanism, which requires players to burn duplicated or lower-tier items to craft or upgrade to higher-tier assets.
In Portal Fantasy, there is one such game loop to upgrade a Porble’s “Innate Talent” by fusing and burning identical Porbles.
The team should consider integrating more asset production loops, such as evolution, as the primary source of more coveted Porbles. A player-crafted economy that focuses on asset production creates higher affinity attached to the NFTs (see Demand section) and fosters a more vibrant GDP-centric economy. To achieve this, game developers should limit primary markets to lower-tier assets or crafting resources.
Moreover, with more steps built into the path of acquisition, the team will have additional levers to regulate the source flow, including production recipe and costs, fusion success rate and output quality.
Supply – Sinks
Sinks are economic levers that control the removal of NFTs from the game economy. Many web3 games have effective sources to scale up NFT supply as the player base grows, yet often lack sufficient sinks to scale down supply as growth plateaus.
As Kiefer Zhang stated, a sustainable game economy should persist even when user growth is flat. This requires robust sink mechanisms.
Burn mechanics are the most popular sinks among web3 games. This includes x-to-1 fusion/upgrade, Gacha redraw, recouping materials, and burning in exchange for rewards or access.
In Portal Fantasy, x-to-1 fusion is the main sink for Porbles. As mentioned earlier, this is a decent sink in the short term. One way to extend the effectiveness of x-to-1 fusion is by increasing the burn requirement. For example, if Porbles of the same level (“Innate Talent” or “IT”) are required to level up a prime Porble (e.g. leveling up a level 3 Porble requires burning other level 3 Porbles), the burn quantity (implied amount of level 1 Porbles) required to acquire high level Porbles increases exponentially.
To avoid abundance of scarcity, the team should consider designs that determine asset lifespan and degradation. This can be through deterioration over time/usage or perma-loss mechanisms from gameplay.
For example, Porbles can become less effective after defeats and eventually die of old age. Players may be given the option to restore them by spending in-game currency, with the cost increasing each time it is done.
Perma-loss can occur when a player loses a battle, where there is a probability of destruction of their Porbles. This mechanism can be included in the upcoming PvP game mode to create a genuine sense of risk and enhance players’ emotional attachment. As Richard Kim stated, PvP destruction is the ultimate sink for sustainable in-game economies.
In a recent design update, Portal Fantasy added a feature that allows players to reset their Porbles’ TD/IT stats for a fee. It establishes a targeted sink for high level Porbles, while simultaneously expanding the fusion sink’s capacity via re-progression.
Demand
Demand-side levers influence how players perceive the value of NFTs within a game economy, which can be driven by utility or affinity.
Utility is the value derived from project features or advantages. In Portal Fantasy, utility increases when Porbles are used for battle. Designs such as levels, stats, and elements also contribute to the idiosyncratic utility of each Porble.
NFT utility can be augmented further with various project accesses. For example, Architect NFT gives its holders access to Portal Fantasy’s UGC/Architect mode. Down the line, the team can introduce PvE maps or PvP tournaments with ownership of specific Porble species as entry requirements.
Affinity is the value derived from emotional payoffs to a player. It can be more powerful than utility. For instance, Porbles have a retro pixel art style that invokes nostalgic feelings. Achieving and collecting the full Porble catalog adds an extra layer of appeal for the achiever/collector player type.
Another way to create affinity is to design a more intricate path of acquisition for an NFT (e.g. through a complex asset production loop), which can increase players’ emotional attachment to it.
In Portal Fantasy’s recent design update, the team introduced a new stat, Majesty, for Porbles. Reaching max level 5 gives the Porble a shiny skin, although the process of leveling up requires ingredients collected in different game loops and at exponentially increasing quantities. This is a great example of adding affinity to an NFT by introducing unique aesthetics and a multi-faceted path of acquisition.
In general, game developers need to provide players with fun gaming experiences for them to find either utility or affinity in the game assets. With that as foundation, game developers can deploy second-degree discrimination strategies (using utility or affinity instead of price) to stratify player demand across different game assets. Furthermore, game developers can leverage the evolving game meta to create mismatched demands across game assets and players to stimulate a healthy trading economy.
Transferability
Transferability is a new dimension of economic control levers, which has not been extensively explored in traditional web2 gaming.
Game developers have the option to open or close parts of the game economy for P2P trading. For example, Portal Fantasy may restrict trading to leveled-up Porbles, sectioning off the enjoyment of exploring maps and capturing Porbles from the instant gratification of the secondary market.
Web3 games interested in a GDP-centric economy should make taxation (trading fee) a major revenue source. Game developers should find a tax rate that effectively monetizes the game without exploiting or suppressing players. Additionally, they can experiment with dynamically adjusting the tax rate based on player trading volume or in-game achievements to drive new player behavior.
Trading flow can also be managed through incentives or penalties on transacted goods. For example, asset synergy between Porbles that amplify each other’s power may incentivize players to trade. Alternatively, progression reset can act as a trading penalty and prompt players to engage in the progression game loop.
Final Thoughts
Portal Fantasy offers a nostalgic art style and classic gaming experience, boosted by blockchain-powered peer-to-peer trading and UGC layers. Its straightforward economy design provides a low-risk foundation with potential for gradual expansion as the game grows.
The team is frequently incorporating more economic control levers and refining them to allow for effective adjustments of the NFT economy. They have built a real-time analytics system and tracking models to quickly react to ever changing player behaviors. Through all these, the team has been and must remain transparent and communicate regularly to ensure the community is informed and aligned.
Additional Reading
Docs | Portal Fantasy
Types of Virtual items | Building the Metaverse
Disclaimer: This content is for informational purposes only. It is not a recommendation to purchase tokens or any other assets. Any investments made in the projects or assets mentioned below are done so at your own risk. This is not financial advice. Game7 has a financial investment in Portal Fantasy.