Thetan Arena Deconstruction
Thetan Arena is a top down MOBA released by Wolffun and is an blockchain version of their very successful game Heroes Strike. It is one of the first blockchain based games being released on Google and Apple stores and is a great insight into what could possibly be a favoured business model that could take blockchain gaming to the masses.
High Level Metrics
Though this is a blockchain game, players can play for free. The game launched in late Nov 2021 on iOS and Google stores. The game has a Free 2 Play monetization model on stores as well as a Play 2 Earn model on the blockchain.
Free 2 Play Store Statistics
On iOS, the game has made approximately $184K while it is interesting to note that Brazil generated 32% of the revenue. Compared to the Top ten geographies for Brawl Stars, Brazil, Malaysia and Indonesia are new markets for this genre. We need to see how this evolves over time.
Downloads on iOS are stand at approximately 0.5M till date and the country distribution is similar to the Top Revenue generating list. This is interesting as there does not seem to be an exponential difference between ARPI of geos.
At the time of writing (8 Jan 2022) this article, the total number of players as per the main website is 18,920,603. This means that an overwhelming majority of downloads i.e. more than 90% have come from Android. A good substitute for the revenue and download numbers of android (which are difficult to get a hold on) are the ranks on the Google Play Store.
Thetan Arena reached Download Rank 1 in Philippines, Indonesia, Venezuela, Spain and Singapore on Google Play. Its interesting to see new geos emerge for adoption of blockchain based games.
The Grossing Ranks story is similar to the Download Ranks with a few deviations. Interesting to see El Salvador here which is one of the few countries to lave legalized Bitcoin.
Play 2 Earn Blockchain Statistics
Though the game has an on-chain and off-chain monetization model, most of the important monetization aspects happen on-chain. This means that the on-chain stats are important indicators for the game.
Currently, based on the Last 7 days data, Thetan Arena ranks 23 among the on-chain games with a WAU of 18.64K. In comparison, the top game; Splinterlands has 500K WAU.
Of the above mentioned revenue streams, we can make sense of the revenue generated from In App off-chain Heroes Sale (USD) and the NFT Marketplace Transaction Fee (WBNB). Revenue from THC and THG is difficult to measure as the tokens are either burned or put into the treasury or recirculated in the economy or used (or will be used) in the future in an undisclosed fashion.
Of all the revenue generated in its first month i.e. $6M, almost half came from Transaction fees charged in WBNB while the other half came from IAP stores. Its important to note that:
Though Transaction Fee is an important component of the on-chain revenue, it is not the only component.
IAP revenue is the only off-chain source of revenue and is heavily tilted towards Google Play.
Gameplay
The main gameplay is a top down hero based MOBA with multiple modes. It follows the proven traits of MOBA’s but does small improvements along the way to keep things interesting. Lets understand each of these aspects.
Heroes
There are primarily 3 Classes of Heroes;
- Tank | Health Point: High; Attack Damage: Normal; Speed: Slow
- Assassin | Health Point: Low; Attack Damage: High; Speed: High
- Marksman | Health Point: Normal; Attack Damage: High; Speed: Normal
Within each Class, there are Hero Types of 3 rarities:
- Common
- Epic
- Legendary
Along with that, every Type has 3 Skin rarities:
- Normal
- Rare
- Mythical
The above rarities determine the strength and earning potential of Heroes.
To top this off there are 2 additional progression systems for Heroes:
- Hero Trophy Class: Heroes can progress upto 10 Trophy Classes purely based on their engagement in the game.
- Hero Upgrade Level: Heroes can upgrade upto Level 11 to improve their gameplay ability and earn more THC per match.
Skills
Skills are powerful actions that you can take in the game. They can be used multiple times in a game based on a cooldown. They are of 3 types:
- Effect Skill: Inflicting status on self, allies, and enemies
- Damage Skill: Dealing a great amount of damage in a short period to your enemies.
- Support Skill: Aiding you against attacks of enemies.
Players need to equip 3 skills. One of these skills is unique to the hero. However, rest two can can be selected from among the available skills of that day. This gets players to try different gameplay styles.
Game Modes
There are 4 game modes in Thetan Arena having 8–12 players with each game lasting for 3–5 minutes.
- Battle Royale (Solo / Duo): 12 players joining a battleground try their best to survive and to become the last man standing.
- Tower Siege: In this mode, players are divided into two teams. Their mission is to bring down the rival’s tower.
- Super Star: The “mother” Superstar produces Point Stars which give match points to the team which collects these. The team that has more match points will be the winner. In the case that a team has more than 50 match points than their rival, it will be instantly announced as victorious.
- Deathmatch: In this mode, the main target of all players is “Eliminating others as many as possible”.
Just like the skill system. The modes that players can play also change after a time interval to have a variation in the gameplay. However, this has not gone down well with players who prefer certain modes.
The variation in Hero Classes and the dynamic Skill selection system makes the game feel fresh and pushes the player to try new things. However the dynamic Mode selection keeps players from playing and improving in their favourite mode.
Since this is an eSports title, the developers can allow players to choose any mode they like but can bring about variation through other system and reward based means.
One very important gameplay design decision here has been the availability of these Heroes on-chain and off-chain with the basic difference being that the on-chain Heroes can earn the on-chain currency THC with every match while the off-chain heroes cannot.
For now we will limit our analysis to the on-chain economy however both (on-chain and off-chain) Heroes can engage in the same gameplay involving modes and skills.
Token Economy
There are 2 main on-chain currencies in the game Thetan Gem — THG (Similar to AXS from Axie Infinity) and Thetan Coin — THC (Similar to SLP from Axie Infinity.) Lets look at them in detail.
Thetan Gem — THG
THG can be looked as an investment currency that grows over time. It does not show that behaviour at this point in time but it is too early. Since its limited in nature, its source is highly controlled.
The release schedule goes on till Q3 2024 so as to ensure a smooth supply demand curve. This can also be thought of as “stocks” for Thetan Arena that give you voting rights for some of the games decisions in the future thereby making the game a DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization).
- Advisor Fund, Team Fund can be thought of as stock options for the makers.
- The Strategic Sale Fund will be sold to generate revenue for the team.
- The Staking Issuance can be thought of the THG given as interest for people staking it. If more people stake it, the supply reduces thereby driving up the price.
- The Gaming Issuance is to promote engagement in the game. One way to think of this is the bonus Uber its drivers get when they perform above average rides.
- The Ecosystem Fund is for the DAO to manage.
- The Liquidity Fund is to ensure that there is enough liquidity in the markets.
Currently the price of THG is not heading in the right direction. Maybe its too early to tell. However, some initiatives that the team can think of doing are (most of which I am sure the team has already planned):
Promote more THG rewards for playing the game so as to increase the need to sink more THG for buying and upgrading Heroes.
Promote staking of THG to reduce the supply.
Thetan Coin — THC
The two currency system is becoming common in most blockchain games. The daily earning for players comes from THC as they get it in abundance and it is needed in abundance. Its important for THC to remain stable (or increase) in value as it gives players predictability of their earning potential. However for Thetan Arena, the value of THC has been dropping over time; primarily due to oversupply.
The team has definitely recognized this issue and is trying to reduce the currency in circulation by promoting THC burn programmes. At this point in time, it does not seem to have a significant impact.
The THC price definitely needs more stability. The main reason for this is the oversupply. Some measures that the team can adopt are:
Have additional THC sinks through consumables, upgrades and decorations.
Try integrating Token Bonding Curves to have more control on the economy.
Hero Economy
The heroes can be purchased from the Thetan Box or the Thetan Marketplace.
A quick look at the marketplace reveals the percentage distribution among various Types and Skin rarities. Lets assume that players sell in the marketplace what they acquire in the Thetan Boxes. A simple calculation reveals that:
- Common Box (THC) — 65% of the Boxes Sold
- Epic Box (THC) — 30% of the Boxes Sold
- Legendary Box (THC) — 5% of the Boxes Sold
Thetan Arena uses WBNB (Wrapped Binance Blockchain Token) for its marketplace transactions. The cheapest hero (with high percentage of battles remining)at this point in time costs 0.135 WBNB while the most expensive one costs 1000 WBNB. With the price of WBNB being $450, this means that the cheapest and the most expensive items cost between $60 and $450,000 respectively. Thetan Arena takes a 4.25% cut of the WBNB from every sale of a Hero from the marketplace.
The huge difference between the price of cheapest and the most expensive Hero (more than 7000x) is good as it allows for an engagement from a wide variety of players or crypto enthusiasts and is possible due to the multiple rarities and progression systems.
The total Heroes in the system seem to be increasing steadily at 20% in the last 30 days, the total number of addresses are increasing at a far lower pace of 8.5% a month even though the total downloads of the game seem to be increasing at a pace of 45% in the last 30 days.
Its interesting to note that 16% of the players own 40% of the Heroes while the rest 84% own 60% of the Heroes. Currently the address with the highest Heroes owns 796 Heroes !!!
While the total players are close to 19M, there are only 119,969 accounts that are playing with NFT’s. This means that only 0.63% of all players have to this point converted to an on-chain gameplay.
Thetan Arena’s metrics can improve exponentially if it can figure out how to convert more off-chain players into on-chain players.
Play to Earn
The most important properties of Heroes when it comes to earning are:
- THC Battles: Total battles the Hero is eligible for earning THC
- Daily THC Battles: Total battles the Hero is eligible for earning THC in a day
These numbers depend on the rarity and upgrade level of the Heroes. Lets try to understand the earning potential from different Thetan Boxes.
This reveals some interesting design choices by the team.
- There is barely any difference between the earning potential of the Common and the Epic Thetan Box. In fact, for a beginner, it will be much more beneficial to purchase the Common Thetan Box as it requires a lesser Win % to break even.
- Leveling Up Heroes does not seem to help the earning potential for average or skilled players for the Common and Epic Thetan Boxes.
- There is a clear benefit in the Legendary Thetan Box pushing players to purchase THG. The Win % required to break even is also reasonable. The highest possible reward is $430 in a month if the player is very lucky with the drop and is extremely skilled. This requires the price of THC to be stable. One can also multiply these profits by simultaneously playing with multiple heroes.
The team has also ensured that the average time required to maximise this profit is one month giving this the flavour of monthly wage.
- Apart from getting Heroes from the Thetan box, players can also get them from the marketplace using WBNB if they find good deal. Higher the rarity, better the rewards.
Players can also earn upto 1560 THC by ranking up while ranking up. Even players with off-chain Heroes have access to this giving them a chance to purchase the Common Thetan Box. With this, the team has ensured that even off-chain users have a path to earning from the game.
Conclusion
Thetan Arena is a great game and has all the right ingredients to be a worthy challenger to Brawl Stars. The team has yet to release features like Clans, Battle Pass, Tournaments etc. and it remains to be seen what impact they will have. Since most of the revenue will come from the on-chain gameplay, the team needs to figure out how to convert more players from off-chain to on-chain. That, combined with multiple steps to increase the price of THC and THG will ensure long term success.
P.S. While doing this analysis, I was pleasantly surprised at the amount of data available. It will be interesting to see what this availability of data means for the dynamics between copycats and innovative products in the blockchain gaming space.
