Do’s and Don’t For Play to Airdrop Campaigns
Ideas → Demos → Games
With the underperformance of gaming tokens in 2024, it’s easy to be skeptical about the promised future of blockchain-enabled gaming. However, taking a step back, it’s evident that the standards have increased for what a game should already have built out to receive substantial market validation. Games are being called out more often for not being open about cutting corners by using cheap asset packs and game templates. People aren’t falling as much for an ‘AWS partnership’ or the Epic Games logo being slapped on the website. While slow, there is an increased appetite for enjoyable core loops and an appreciation for teams that think game first.
I see 2021 as the cycle for the ideation phase of crypto games, where some managed to create playable vertical slices, but most were merely pitch decks hastily assembled to capitalize on the Axie hype. By 2024, we have transitioned into the cycle of the playable demo, alpha, and beta, with the expectation that a few games will be released in a near-complete state. The next cycle will likely see fully developed, ready-to-release games become the norm.
Leveraging an MVP
Teams have recognized the value of using an early slice of their game to attract interest and investment. The Beacon raised around $4 million from selling an NFT where access was gated behind playing the game. Pirate Nation soft-launched their game 18 months ago and used that time to iterate on their product while providing weekly updates. This approach helped them establish a committed and enriched community, which now serves as a launchpad for future developments (for example their Apex chain). Similarly, after building in public for over a year, Pixels secured a move to Ronin and a subsequent Binance listing. These teams have recognized the power of tapping into the enthusiasm of an early set of core believers and continue to emphasize co-developing with said audience.
How teams are putting their MVPs to use:
Fundraising: Leveraging an MVP can significantly ease the fundraising process, whether through NFT sales or signaling demand to VCs. There is no better way to sell a game than to show potential investors you can attract a player base.
Accelerating Feedback Loops: In a bull market, getting players to demo games without incentives is challenging. Early incentivized campaigns can speed up the process of stress-testing the game. The rewards distributed to players motivate them to find any advantage they can, helping to quickly identify potential exploits and areas for improvement.
Community & Trust Building: These early testing phases reignite the passion of an existing community while also attracting new supporters. By successfully delivering a sample of the grand vision, both old and new supporters' belief in the team grows, along with their social and financial support.
Do’s and Don’ts
1. Set Clear Timeframes
One major pitfall is running campaigns for an undisclosed amount of time. It is wise to let people know upfront what kind of time commitment you’re asking from them. It can create a lot of frustration if teams keep farming their community endlessly without any indication of when it will end.
Overworld is a prime example within crypto gaming of the consequences of indefinitely pushing timelines further into the future. They originally planned to launch their token in January/February of 2024, but a combination of factors has put them in a tough spot. Although not explicitly stated by the team, these likely include lacking the right metrics to appease exchanges, coordinating their launch in a crowded quarter for new tokens, decreasing market appetite for new gaming token launches, and internal milestone delays. As a result, their NFT value has steadily declined from a peak of 2.7 ETH to 0.55 ETH, despite their stellar marketing campaign at the end of 2023.
MarginFi provides a non-gaming perspective, having announced their points program over a year ago. While it initially helped grow TVL, that number has since fallen by over 50% from its peak. Launching endless campaigns with no end date, or announcing points with no timeline for redemption, creates massive fatigue and even greater expectation debt — a term I use to describe the minimum reward required for any outcome to be seen as worth its time or capital investment. The longer a campaign drags on, the more user inputs begin to feel like work, and the perception of rewards shifts from being a bonus for participation to something users are more inclined to cash in.
Estimate the maximum time needed to achieve your goals and try to be upfront about the duration of the event; one can always cut the campaign short if necessary (no one will complain about less dilution).
2. Limit Social Farming Quests
While early social farming campaigns like Portal’s were successful, the marginal benefit of copying them today is minimal and may even lead to negative perceptions unless the model is innovated to address its weaknesses. The core fault of the original system is that it rewarded meaningless timeline spamming, which prevented teams that copied the strategy from gaining sustained mindshare. Pacmoon shifted the focus from quantity to quality by providing participants with a handbook reflecting their vision for how discourse around their initiative should take form.
For an industry that is supposed to be about games, most campaigns are still heavily focused on not playing them. At this stage, audiences know that exchanges and launchpads have thus far incorrectly overvalued Twitter metrics for games. Fortunately, with teams such as Pirate Nation and My Pet Hooligan receiving Coinbase listings without relying on cheap social media tactics, we’re starting to see some change in the ways games and tokens at large are being evaluated. Teams could, therefore, place greater emphasis on shareable in-game moments instead of rudimentary social media engagements going forward.
Instead of flooding the timeline with announcements and retweet quests, offer content that players would be proud to post, such as mission debriefs showcasing their performance, run time, damage taken, or damage dealt.
Consider reshifting the focus from "What’s the maximum amount of tweets we can artificially boost?" to "How can we make our players more proud to share their progress in the game?" while creating social quests that incentivize fewer but more meaningful announcements and updates.
3. Immersive Point Systems
A prevalent issue is the current overuse of point systems, which results in widespread user fatigue. This scenario offers a prime opportunity for differentiation that game developers should capitalize on. Games inherently incorporate quests, gear, and currencies into their core structure. In contrast, protocols must add these gamification elements to engage users. When designing a points program for a game, it should be crafted in a way that immerses players so deeply that they forget they are participating in an airdrop event. This is the distinct advantage gaming teams possess; users will never be able to lose themselves in farming Eigenlayer or the latest perpetual DEX.
Instead of relying on generic points that have been overdone and often excessively inflated to create a false sense of value (e.g., billions of blur points being worth less than $100), use game-specific items like crystals or coins (bronze, silver, gold, platinum) and frame them as premium airdrop rewards with different rarities. In today's landscape, players can easily disassociate from points, but it feels much more special when they receive only a few valuable fragments each day.
Points can still be used, but reframe them as XP required to progress to higher levels, which in turn grants users greater chances to earn premium airdrop currency or in-game items. This approach maintains immersion and provides a more engaging gaming experience.
This strategy also unlocks more opportunities for the team, as you now have in-game items that can be further gamified (see point 10). The key is to be adaptive and responsive to the current landscape. I know at least two teams and a marketing agency that are closely watching Pirate Nation, meaning some of their tactics may be less effective marketing tools six months from now.
Fern has an insightful breakdown of the state of points both in and outside of crypto and how they could evolve in the future.
4. Innovate on Existing Strategies
Bit generic, I agree, but even outside of play-to-earn, marketing in crypto is far too often just copying what works. Sure, the early copycats will see some success, but after a month or two when 20 others have run the playbook, it becomes difficult to stand out. Let me illustrate with an example.
One common strategy is to give X number of partner communities points towards an airdrop. Instead of just doing that, how can we add to it to make it interesting? How can we embrace the collector persona that exists today? Off the top of my head, instead (or on top) of flat bonuses per NFT held, you can have a badge system where:
5 “bluechip” NFTs = 10 diamond relics + an additional 10 if you hit a 10-day streak
Held your NFTs for over a year = Diamond Hand badge = Unlock special quests with separate rewards
10 NFTs from your collection = Whale badge = token/points buff for 10 rounds
1 NFT + 1 Partner NFT = 100 coins/relic/currency (after 20 games played)
Again, this will differ from game to game, but the importance here is that one should try to add to existing plays where one can. The question that needs to be answered with this specific strategy is how can a team give out a reward (tokens, “currencies”, XP) to specific groups that prompt them to engage with your product. It is better to risk trying something new than to fall by the wayside for not standing out (as I write this 2 more games have announced the same hold x community NFTs for airdrop points tactic).
5. Meaningful Rewards
Avoid giving out minuscule amounts of tokens. Over the past 3-6 months, a few games have issued such small token rewards that users end up not claiming because they barely cover gas fees. This usually lends ammo to a loud minority who take their weaponized dissatisfaction to Twitter, ultimately harming the company's image. Realistically, not everyone can or should be rewarded for playing a game. Creating that expectation is a recipe for disappointment sooner or later. By identifying and removing low-quality accounts, you can increase the rewards for genuine participants, ensuring they feel their efforts are valued by increasing the average payout.
Pixels decided to limit rewards to the top 7000 players on their leaderboard with 1000 additional reward “slots” going into a raffle amongst anyone who scored at least 3000 points.
AI Arena tackled this by splitting wallets into two cohorts. Cohort 1 users were deemed to be of sufficient quality (measured by score or Discord activity), while Cohort 2 included low-quality/sybil/bot accounts identified through an experiential examination of a large set of wallets.
Low-quality accounts were required to complete KYC, which eliminated most multi-account users. One improvement I would suggest is redistributing unclaimed tokens after the claim period to your genuine users. These tokens were already allocated for the initial drop, and since any abusers likely diluted the average payout, a redistribution simply returns their true share of whatever percentage was promised.
Pirate Nation approached it in a similar fashion to Pixels. They set a threshold and raffled off a fixed allocation to 10% of the wallets which fell below their requirements. This reduced the number of low-quality wallets receiving rewards from 25,000 to 2,500. Such a threshold is at the team’s discretion but should reflect the minimum engagement you expect from an engaged player.
6. Encourage Habit Formation
Introduce regular, time-based quests that encourage players to check in and engage consistently. These could be daily individual quests or weekly global quests.
Beacon (left) created a quest tree that slowly unlocked over time, fostering a habit for players to log in regularly. Expanding on this, you could introduce regular global quests (think Helldivers 2, Fableborne, or Tatsumeeko) that require community collaboration.
Pirate Nation, on the other hand, implemented a “daily streak” multiplier, which required users to burn energy at least once a day. Energy is depleted whenever a pirate is sent on a quest or harvests resources.
7. Incentivize Desired Behaviours
When designing the campaign one should reward behaviors that align with the goals of the testing phase. Let’s think from first principles: what would my ideal participant be like? For many teams in web3, it would be someone who owns NFTs, plays their game frequently, buys non-profit-oriented items, and talks about the game to their friends. Each team should prioritize these aspects by their level of importance and encourage them in their reward system by:
Giving more rewards to people who engage in the activities that are most valued.
Additionally, providing bonus rewards/multipliers to people who complete multiple of the aforementioned activities.
Pirate Nation aimed to incentivize both playing time and holding NFTs. The NFTs provided significant boosts but were only worth purchasing if players used them in the game. In season two, they continue this approach while expanding incentives to include new features like their marketplace.
8. Referral Systems
Design referral systems that scale with user engagement rather than inflating meaningless metrics. Going back to the previous point, we should reward referrals that engage in the actions we value most. Reward the referrer and the referred based on their in-game activities rather than simple sign-ups.
Instead of giving out points for simply knocking at the door, reward users with in-game items or airdrop currency that increase as the players spend more time, level up, or earn premium rewards in the game. This strategy encourages engagement and makes your system much more resistant to Sybil attacks. To ensure maximum effectiveness, design the system with a recursive incentive, so that not only the initial referrer and the referred person benefit but also any second-degree referrers who are part of the referral chain.
This method also creates a significant incentive for guilds and other active gaming communities to participate, as they spend the most time playing crypto games rather than purely speculating on the assets. This gives them a leg up on the competition and kickstarts the network effects within your game.
Additionally, teams will benefit from considering how these systems could extend to converted believers, e.g., giving out bonus rewards if the referred wallet buys an NFT.
9. Balance Simplicity and Depth
Offer a simple entry point for new users, with additional depth for those who want to engage more. This approach helps avoid overwhelming new players while rewarding dedicated ones.
Let’s look at two ways to tackle this issue:
Splitting the campaign into main and bonus quests, as seen in Beacon’s quest tree. If a user just wanted the minimum amount of rewards all they had to do was complete the 5 main quests.
Designing simple quests that can be completed by almost everyone but are potentially accelerated for players who excel or improve at the game, similar to Bloodloop (their view on P2A, in general, is one I believe more teams should embody).
Allowing progression solely based on playing more, such as giving 5 points per game without a daily limit, forces players to play excessively to stay atop the leaderboards. Instead, entertain the idea of limited time windows, a fixed number of quests, or a set amount of runs per 24-hour window. Players should not feel the need to spend 8 hours a day in the game to not fall behind in a P2A campaign.
10. Embrace Risk and Reward
Your primary audience, by nature, consists of players who have been “crypto-pilled” and are very aware or even attracted to the idea of speculating on future outcomes. Yet, I rarely see teams lean into this fact. One recent success that has implemented risk as a core part of their game is Cambria, which brands itself as an on-chain RuneScape with risk. To date, they have reported over $91 million in volume. Not to mention casinos like Rollbit or Shuffle, which have proven to be some of the only products in crypto to find proper product-market fit (PMF).
For play-to-airdrop campaigns, I would recommend allowing players to make strategic decisions with whatever currency is accumulated during the event for potentially greater rewards. This can be designed so that either another user is the counterparty or the developers themselves act as the counterparty.
Memeland, while not being a game, did this quite well with their raid mechanic. Each week, NFTs accrued a set amount of maps, which could then be risked in raids. Players wanted more maps because they speculated that maps gave bonus tokens. The team effectively used this as an engagement tool and a way to reduce the supply of maps in total.
The main improvement here would be to clarify why players are risking something valuable. They understood that maps were valuable, but the team introduced XP that wasn’t defined, so when players lost their maps, they weren’t consoled by the fact that they had leveled up with experience points from the raids. In a play-to-airdrop campaign, XP can be used to level up and players would be risking your version of premium currency to gain:
More XP (to level up for better rewards later)
More premium currency
Better placement on the leaderboards
Gangsters Arena, an idle tycoon game, implemented this mechanic well. Players had to choose what assets they were willing to risk, and their rewards would scale accordingly.
The team could act as the counterparty instead. In Metin 2, a game I got hooked on during the summer of 2017, players would risk items to upgrade their weapons. The outcomes were either:
a successful upgrade,
an unsuccessful upgrade and loss of materials, or
an unsuccessful upgrade and loss of materials plus the armour or weapon.
Implementing similar mechanics in your game can appeal to the speculative nature of crypto gamers. In the P2A event, the team can play the house and burn whatever supply is taken due to players’ losses giving them another potential lever with which you can influence the total amount of airdrop currency in circulation.
Additional Considerations
How do I distribute my tokens to holders?
Allocating the entire airdrop balance at once would help with a healthier fully diluted valuation and sell the idea that the token is more investible but also consider Apeiron’s battlevesting retention mechanic. Within this structure, recipients receive 15% upfront and can unlock 1% of their $ANIMA daily through battlevesting. The idea of a vested airdrop also extends beyond just games.
Blast recently took on a similar approach in their season 2 announcement where “vested users need approximately 80% of their Phase 1 liquidity to hit their threshold...so if a vested user only reaches 50% of their vesting threshold in a given month, they will receive 50% of that month's unlock.”
How much time and effort can your users reliably give you?
Your system would benefit from being designed to scale the time and effort investment required to engage in your ecosystem as needed. Default to underestimating the effort a user will give and adjust as necessary. For example, Fableborne added 20 additional levels to their PvE campaign both to give the team more time and because many players had completed the first 50 levels. Bloodloop’s initial quests were designed to be quickly completed, with difficulty scaling based on the number of users who completed the quests tagged as “hard” each day.
Conclusion
Ultimately, it would be impossible for a team to incorporate all the elements mentioned here into their game. For some, it would require too many resources; for others, it wouldn’t even fit the genre. However, one excuse that shouldn’t be accepted is repeating the mistakes of prior teams. Designing a successful play-to-airdrop campaign requires a balance of clear communication, meaningful rewards, and innovative incentive design. All of crypto has been an experiment so far, and games are no different. We stand today on the learnings of early TCGs and monster battlers of 2021. We’re learning in real time how to design and distribute incentives for a new audience of financial gamers, and our goal should be to constantly take existing mechanisms and improve them by adding our unique spin.
-Hunter (https://twitter.com/huntersolaire_)
Disclosures
Of the teams mentioned, I currently have varied amounts of exposure to Overworld, Fableborne, AI Arena, and Gangster’s Arena.