When it comes to discussing blockchain games, one of the first few remarks are bound to be about CryptoKitties — one of the first, and most popular blockchain games.

These legendary cats are widely considered to be the originator of the blockchain gaming industry, kickstarting the future of gaming. Recently, a single cat named “Celestial Cyber Dimension” was sold for over $100,000 worth of Ether to Igor Barinov, a blockchain expert and apparent crypto-cat lover.

On the first day of August, the second stop of the “Rediscover Utopia — DOGI Blockchain Game Consensus” came to Shanghai. At the event, CryptoKitties co-founder 江家俊(Benny Giang) made his debut at the DOGI salon with “Kitty Verse”.

Benny Giang’s first public speech at the Chinese blockchain game conference

“The player buys a virtual cat image through Ethereum (ether) and then looks after the cat by feeding, caring and breeding it, following which the player can sell it as a target.” The above is a basic introduction to the mechanics of CryptoKitties, and has been mentioned many times in the media.

Because of its unexpectedly explosive growth at the beginning of 2018, CryptoKitties almost completely cripped the Ethereum blockchain, whilst simultaneously attracting a large number of blockchain game follow ups looking to capitalize on its success. A few months later, CryptoKitties was considered ‘down’ by the crypto world, and its daily activity remained the highest among blockchain games. Everyone is curious to see what new innovations blockchain technology can bring to the gaming industry.

At DOGI’s “Rediscover Utopia” Shanghai Station Salon, Benny not only answered questions, but also announced a series of new plans. He announced for the first time that a mobile version of CryptoKitties will be launched in August for Android. The mobile version, which has been in development for nearly half a year is expected to further expand the advantages of the game, and bring it to a whole new category of users.

It can be seen that this cat is undergoing “some kind of comprehensive upgrade.” — Axiom Zen, which Benny is currently working with, is looking to bring this blockchain originator game to a whole new level for both the market and its users. One problem is that restricting the amount of CryptoKitties content limits its entertainment value and prevents the cats from growing in value. To address this, Benny proposes the concept of a “KittyVerse” where the crypto world is able to experience to a potential of blockchain games.

“Reproduction, sale and collection are just the beginning.” Benny illustrates. In the first half of the year, many third-party developers made use of the cats in Crypto Kitties to create a variety of games, competitions and events, so that players can see the value of reusing assets from the CryptoKitties game outside of its initial use case.

The significant feature of asset reuse is the fact that developers can easily reuse assets from one game or app and use these for further development, giving them functionality across multiple games. From the player’s perspective, these assets can be used more frequently than would otherwise be possible. Because of its increase utility and usability, the potential for adding value is extremely large.

Benny and his team created the “Kitty Verse” community for this, “because opening the game doesn’t require permission, any player with a cat can choose which type of game they want to play”, this simply means that the cat is the key, how you use it is up to you!

“Up to now, we have created more than 30 kinds of experience. We are actively looking for Chinese game developers and are happy to fund projects that have the potential to add value to CryptoKitties.

Essentially, from the reuse of third party digital assets to the officially created “Kitty Verse” community, CryptoKitties asset reuse ideas are similar to those often mentioned in traditional games, but the former achieves maximization of the assets value. The value of each brand the asset is used in is superimposed on top of the initial asset value, which is one of the many charms of blockchain games.

Benny also revealed that Crypto Kitties is undergoing more changes to increase its entertainment value. For example, realistic facial expression packages are being tested. Different genes and different cats will show different characteristics. Officials behind CryptoKitties offer a wonderful vision: adopting a cat in the game will also give you a custom WeChat emoticon or AR filter!

Benny shows Kitty emoticons (image from Benny’s live presentation)
We even envision a future where CryptoKitties can become the protagonists of mobile games, currently this idea is in its early exploration stages, but has huge potential to open doors for many new games, including the blending of different game franchises! We can’t wait to see what will happen.

“Next year, we will see a healthy blockchain ecosystem build around CryptoKitties and other collectible games” — Benny has a clear, pragmatic outlook for the future.

Although doubts about the “down” of CryptoKitties has always existed, the openness of Benny at the DOGI offline salon shows that blockchain games are highly responsive to the needs of the industry, and the push towards accessibility on all devices and mediums, even to those not familiar with blockchain technology. To be straightforward, theses cats are already a very popular IP and the future of blockchain games such as CryptoKitties is not limited only to the actions of the officials behind it, but also to the third party developers who contribute to the entire “Kitty Verse.”

During the coffee break, Benny and the DOGI founding team explored the future of blockchain games.

As CryptoKitties continues to self-create and self-upgrade, all partners in the blockchain game industry are encouraged to continue exploring and testing new ideas. This is also the goal of DOGI as a blockchain game incubation platform. DOGI calls on outstanding developers around the world to work with the CryptoKitties team to build “Kitty Verse” together.

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