Why did gold farming studios sustain World of Warcraft but "kill" all Web3 games?

Author: Lao Bai, Consultant at Amber Group & Former Partner at ABCDE

A while ago, I tweeted about my son spending a fortune on Roblox, buying Roblox items and stealing other players' items. I remarked that this game is way more awesome than Genshin Impact's gacha system or Pop Mart's blind boxes, truly a god of pay-to-win. That resonated with many of my friends, and that post was one of my most popular recently.

The next day, it suddenly occurred to me – why does Roblox, such a pay-to-win game, seem to lack "gold farming studios"? Or rather, even if they exist, why do they have almost no impact on the game's lifespan? Just a couple of days ago, @j0hnwang also unearthed an article he wrote about Roblox that touched on this issue, which I had previously saved and reread.

John's view is that Roblox treats the economic system as part of the game, while crypto games use the game as a facade for the economic system. He believes that centralized economic mechanisms help create a more controllable gaming experience.

That makes sense. The lack of fun in Web3 games was a common complaint before, but this round of Web3 games has actually seen a significant improvement in playability, and the economic mechanisms are highly centralized. Yet, the results are the same. There must be some other reason.

Then I thought of World of Warcraft and Kaito. A while ago, on the day X blocked the Kaito API, I said the following...

"Once a behavior can be scaled up, it will inevitably be industrialized."

From the "Chinese Farmers" of Web2 World of Warcraft to the scripts and gold farming studios of Web3 X2Earn, the current trend of "talking and grinding" inevitably leads to "AI mass account creation and multi-person matrix talking and grinding."

So, the problem with verbal manipulation wasn't caused by clever retail investors or KOLs, but by the very nature of 'replicability.' This isn't just a problem with Kaito; it's essentially the ultimate fate of all incentive systems.

So what is the secret of World of Warcraft and Roblox? Why can't the gold farmers be killed? Why did the gold inflation in WoW cause player complaints for a while after the first appearance of Chinese farmers on the US server, but then they gradually accepted it and it became a fixed part of the game's ecosystem?

There are definitely things that Web3 games lack, and it's not just about centralized economic mechanisms.

Let's start with World of Warcraft.

I. Gold coins are not "endgame value".

Those who have played WoW extensively should know this: in the game, gold is basically not linked to your status or position. Your achievements, rankings, reputation, etc., cannot be directly bought with gold. When a top-tier piece of equipment drops in a dungeon, it's either rolled or auctioned off using DKP (Dragon Kill Points) based on contribution points. The player who ultimately picks it up has it bound to their account and cannot sell it for money.

So, gold coins might save you some time, but they won't make you a hardcore player. Back then, many domestic web games did the exact opposite: big spenders could dominate everything, which is somewhat similar to the style of current Web3 games.

Ultimately, in World of Warcraft, nothing "meaningful"—top-tier gear, achievements, titles, raid contributions, etc.—can be directly purchased with gold. Therefore, while gold farming could be scaled up, leading to the industrialization of the first generation of Chinese gold farmers, it could never dominate the core gameplay experience. In other words, this "industrialization" was confined to the "periphery" of the game.

II. The official approach of "absorption rather than confrontation"

Blizzard made a series of moves after the emergence of gold farming studios, which in hindsight were all very clever.

• First, it's officially controlled – allowing you to buy gold coins with real money, but the price is regulated by the system, and there's no free financial outlet, turning the underground black market into an official currency exchange.
• Secondly, various barriers have been added – such as daily and weekly tasks, various cooldown locks… No matter how many accounts you have or how high your level is, you still have to wait patiently, diluting the advantages of industrialization.
• Third, they added more "meaningful things" that couldn't be bought with gold, such as guilds, raids, and social reputation, as mentioned above. This led to the emergence of gold farming groups and GKP (Gold Rush Points), but top guilds always achieved first kills in various dungeons first, which could never be done by gold farming groups. Therefore, gold farming will always be a "second-class citizen" in World of Warcraft.

As for Roblox, the logic is slightly different.

I. Encourage creativity, not repetitive work.

If you look at the article I cited in my previous Roblox article, you'll know that the most profitable thing in Roblox isn't repetitive tasks like farming resources; those aren't very lucrative.

The real money is made from activities such as map creation, gameplay design, and community management.

These are all difficult for studios to replicate on a large scale. No matter how many resources you use, you can't create a gameplay style that children will enjoy (but now that we have AI, is it possible to "mass-produce" this kind of thing?).

II. The economic system operates in a closed loop, and asset exchange is not free.

This is somewhat similar to what John was saying. Buying Robux with a credit card is very quick, but converting Robux to cash isn't so smooth. There are barriers, delays, and exchange rate losses, so arbitrage and similar techniques don't work well here.

Furthermore, most of the money in Roblox goes to the platform's commission, including the various top creators and in-game spending mentioned above. It's a closed-loop economic system with little spillover.

Of course, whether it's World of Warcraft or Roblox, being fun and having a large player base are the most important foundations that form their core, without a doubt.

In contrast, what is the real reason for the collective demise of Web3 games?

Looking back, setting aside the question of whether it's fun or not, perhaps the very design intent of blockchain games predetermined today's outcome.

Almost all blockchain games allow for "repeatable actions" plus "assets that can be freely withdrawn".

In an era where the Web2 gaming ecosystem is already mature, this will inevitably lead to capital and scripts becoming the ultimate players in blockchain games, rather than humans.

In other words, this is the inevitable outcome whenever Play and Earn are linked.

Whether it's Play 2 Earn, the later improved Move 2 Earn, or Play & Earn, they're all just different versions of the same thing, with no fundamental difference.

This is somewhat like the impossible triangle in gaming: you can only achieve two out of three of the following: fun, profitable for speculators, and scalable for studios.

From this perspective, the problem with Web3 games isn't the quality of the team or the scale of funding, but rather that they are fundamentally inherently incapable of being "fun."

Is blockchain technology feasible for World of Warcraft? Is it meaningful?

I remember when blockchain games were all the rage, we often imagined what would happen if World of Warcraft were blockchain-based.

It's not about putting the game on the blockchain, but about putting the entire economic system of World of Warcraft on the blockchain, including gold, items, mounts, etc., so that these items can be freely traded, freely withdrawn, and financialized.

Looking back now, I was incredibly naive. If I had done that, WoW would have been doomed to be destroyed by the system.

The underlying axioms of World of Warcraft's success

• Meaning is untradeable - The most valuable things, top-tier equipment, achievements, titles... almost all of them are bound, untradeable, and untransferable. These things represent what you have done, not what you own.

• Progress does not equal wealth – your time investment, operational skills, and teamwork are the foundation of your success. Gold coins may make things a little more comfortable, but they cannot allow you to transcend social classes.

• Players are not asset owners, but role-players – this gear I farmed/acquired with DKP, this boss was our guild's first global kill, this character is the culmination of 10 years of hard work… Once it becomes “I bought this, I invested in it,” the character, emotionally tied to you, is reduced to a skin in an asset account.

If we must talk about putting things on the blockchain, then what truly deserves to be on the blockchain in World of Warcraft are these things – such as first-kill proofs of a certain boss, guild history, your achievement timestamps, and records of witnessing world events… What's being put on the blockchain isn't assets and value, but memories and traces.

The greatness of World of Warcraft lies precisely in its most important element: it can never be sold.

From this perspective, "blockchain games must die"

It wasn't just blockchain games; we used to treat blockchain like a hammer, seeing everything as a nail, something we had to hammer away at. Little did we know that there are so many things in this world that don't need to be "financialized." Their purpose is simply to be experienced, remembered, and told.