Blockchain Brawlers — 20 Days in
Blockchain Brawlers — A play-to-earn (P2E) game on the WAX blockchain went live with their Beta version on March 30th, 2022. Here is a rundown of the game 20 days post release.
This review is based on my own experiences as a player and information given to me by a group of Brawlers players including krw-arts, DataJunky, Keirmon Master Mint Matters, and Anders ‘anyobservation’.
At the time that I was interviewing the guys, I wasn’t playing and hadn’t seen the game. I was simply reading about all the money that was being made. First by the WAX Games Studio for all their Legendary Brawler auctions, and then by the players that started on day 1. Rather than an actual “game” it is a once-per-hour button click to earn your BRAWL tokens and a chance for a Gold NFT drop. To be fair, it is just the beta and many other features have been promised such as Factions, Tournaments, Player vs. Player (PVP), and in Gym Training Mini Games. You can see the game roadmap here.
“I thought there would be “gameplay” like real matches or something, or at the very least a graphic or animation or an actual match, instead you just click brawl and get a pop up that says how much brawl or gold you earned.. which is great! But, I expect more when you have brawlers selling for 20k USD” — krw-arts
“They made it pretty clear (near the game launch date LOL) that it was a click click clicker game to start. Progressively expanding the gameplay and player engagement is a huge plus and I am confident this team will overdeliver everything they promise. I think the biggest thing going for Brawlers is the team they’ve put together and the cross chain promoting they are able to accomplish together. They’re not stuck on WAX, but they cater to WAX. They grab outside investors and players and build bridges to their networks and communities. For that reason, I am long BCB and I will happily click every 60 minutes until the cows come home.” — DataJunky
Things were going pretty well and everyone playing was making good money. Probably too good which is why on day 19, the team made some major changes to the game economy which you can read about here.
The game’s Discord server nearly exploded after the announcement and players are still not happy. According to Mike, the GM, and Head of Studio at WAX games they thought players would behave in a certain way and when that didn’t happen the BRWL token and Gold NFT supply ballooned which brought prices down by up to 90% in the case of Gold.
Because the Rare ring lets players use 4 Brawlers at a time and the Legendary ring 8, “Scotty Farms” developed. Scotty Wideye is the game’s common Brawler and before the 19th, he was inexpensive to craft, paid out the most Gold, and a decent amount of BRAWL when equipped with the common gear “Brass Knuckles”.
Instead of crafting higher tier Brawlers, Gear, and Rings many players were using their earnings to craft additional Scotty Wideye’s. To curb this behavior the crafting cost for a Scotty has been increased from 4,000 BRWL + 6 Gold to 5,000 BRWL + 13 Gold. His gold percentage drop rate was reduced by 1% and his BRWL earnings rate was dropped from 70 to 60 (but was increased to 61 several hours after the announcement).
In the game Rings and Gear (called “durable goods”) have a set number of uses. For example a Legendary Ring had 2,800 uses prior to the change. Once the 2,800 matches (hourly button clicks) had occurred a new ring would need to be crafted in order to continue playing. The game team felt the duration was too long thus resulting in players hoarding BRWL and Gold. They have now reduced Ring and Gear usage by up to 78% (2,800 vs. 600 for a Legendary Ring). They hope that these two major changes will help bring the token and Gold values back up and get players to start crafting higher level Brawlers rather than multiple Scotty’s.
Hopefully the team continues to monitor the player’s habits and continue to fine tune economy to ensure long-term sustainability while still being profitable for players. Learn more by joining the Bockchain Brawlers Discord here.
This game review has been brought to you by the Wizards Guild — a WAX Block Producer.
https://wizardsguild.one • Wizards Guild on Twitter • Wizards Guild on Telegram • Wizards Guild on Medium
Written by subterranean
