A story is one caveat that everything we consume should have. A well-defined, eye-catching, clear, and concise story is essential for users to immerse in an experience. Whether it is companies selling their products through storytelling or games alluring players with lore, a story is vital for every case.
While a story is crucial to every product, ‘story-telling’ is more important. A good story may have all the elements to capture users’ interest; however, it may not have the dynamics to keep users wanting more. Moreover, it may not have the ability to immerse users in a reality-altering experience.
Story-telling is an immersive art of using elements of a story and imprinting them in users’ minds. Not only does it have the ability to capture users’ interest, but it also has the dynamic to keep users desiring more. Through theatrics, actions, events, or experiences, good story-telling leaves its mark on users’ minds.
That’s what’s important in today’s era, where attention spans have significantly dropped down. New data could suggest an even lower attention-span considering the popularity of short-form media like TikTok, YouTube Shorts, Instagram Reels, and more.
Leaving a mark on a user’s mind is what every product is focusing on today, and what better way to do it than by telling a story?
Games - The Leading Storytellers
Whether it is Pokemon: Red or God of War: Ragnarok, you’ll find players playing these games for hours, enchanting users to make progress in the game and complete the story.
Games have been some of the most popular forms of storytelling in the modern era, mainly because of their ability to involve a player in the story and help them unveil parts of the story by progressing through an immersive experience.
Regardless if you’re Kratos unlocking the history and lore of Midgard or a teen going from town to town capturing wild beasts and unlocking badges, the reason you’re allured by these games is that you’re at the center of the story, progressing by beating challenges, and learning more about the story with time. The story-telling dynamic of games to put you, the player, at the center of the story is second to none.
For years, games have successfully been able to leave a mark on their users. Some of my favorite memories are of games that I played years ago. The lore of League of Legends is undoubtedly one of my favorite stories to date.
Although released in 2010, and despite not having a campaign mode, League of legends has successfully continued pushing out some of the best lore material I have seen in years, so much so that League of legends’ lore was able to create an award-winning TV show on Netflix called Arcane.
Not just Play-to-earn
Web 3.0 gaming is the fastest-growing sector in the gaming industry today. Web 3.0 technology consisting of blockchain technology and crypto assets such as NFT have transformed games by introducing interoperability, scalability, sustainability, transparency, ownership, and other important aspects to games.
However, because of the craze around NFTs and the tendency of a game to return investment in the Web 3.0 gaming spheres, many games turned into pump-and-dump schemes, making empty promises and selling concepts instead of games.
The space was quickly saturated with Pokemon-inspired 2D isometric monster-catching MMORPGs and Animal Crossing-inspired farm-building games without any story or lore. But despite the saturation, many games couldn’t live to see another day once crypto winter arrived.
Games quickly realized that they needed to follow in the footsteps of traditional games by focusing on consistent story-telling and leaving a mark on their users’ minds. Games, in the end, needed to keep immersing their users with content and involve users besides selling them the ‘play-to-earn’ narrative.
Interestingly, unlike most projects, some projects have been focusing on their lore and story-telling and have seen a lot of success despite the crypto market going through one of the worst times yet.
Elements like consistency in the lore, dynamic story-telling, growing ecosystem, interoperability with other projects, and user-driven lore are some elements of Web 3.0 games that have steered clear of the chaos of the crypto winter. Here are three exciting projects that have skillfully weaved story-telling into their games to keep their users interested.
MetaBlaze
Set in Galaxia Blue, an intergalactic, constantly growing metaverse, MetaBlaze is a project that emphasizes user immersion instead of pushing out NFT collections and meaningless events. MetaBlaze, unlike most platforms, takes a different approach by creating user-driven lore that dynamically grows yet stays consistent with each addition to the ecosystem.
One way MetaBlaze captures users’ interest is through its ability to continue telling its story and helping users feel involved by constantly pushing new games, lore, and content for users to experience. By incorporating elements of science fiction, fantasy, role-playing, strategy, and action, the metaverse platforms hook its players in an unending, action-filled intergalactic journey, where users can play new games, make progress, and play their own version of a story.
If you’re a fan of the Star Wars franchise, MetaBlaze could interest you because of its space-themed lore and mechanics.
The Red Village
The Red Village is a dark-fantasy bloodsport fighting game with one of the most interesting lores in the Web 3.0 gaming sphere. One thing I appreciate about The Red Village is that they stay consistent in their storytelling throughout their social media. Whether it is Twitter or Medium, the platform emphasizes continuity and continues to tell its story consistently.
The Red Village’s experience is threaded with its unique and horrifying stories, poems, and satanic lore. The game has skillfully captured users’ interest with its barbaric and brutal storyline, enticing users to keep playing and unlocking bits of the story.
One way The Red Village involves players in its story is by introducing different classes of fighters in the game. Players can pick and choose fighters in the game, learn about their unique backstories, and participate in the proving grounds, battling out their density for the Blood queen.
The game has taken a similar stance as Mortal Kombat and Tekken. While characters in Mortal Kombat and Tekken originally may not have had stories, context to their lore was later added in other versions of the game.
Today, despite being fighter games, Tekken and Mortal Kombat have some of the best lore in the gaming sphere, and The Red Village is walking in the same footsteps by staying consistent in their lore and helping players relate to their characters through carefully crafted stories.
Alien Worlds
Alien Worlds is one of the most played games in the Web 3.0 gaming sphere, as per DappRadar, a trusted Web 3.0 data aggregator. The game has successfully held the top rank for years beating games like Axie Infinity, The Sandbox, and Splinterlands.
One major reason is because of its story. Like MetaBlaze and The Red Village, Alien Worlds stays consistent in its intergalactic storytelling in all forms of its media, emphasizes continuity, and involves players in the story by creating relations with the characters of the game. \
Role-playing and tactical strategy games tend to be repetitive, considering they provide similar experiences on the same map over and over again. A good example can be taken from Apex Legends, Valorant, and League of Legends. Players play 1000s of games on the same map; for example, Summoner’s rift, a League of Legends map, was last updated eight years ago in 2014. Since then, players have been playing the same map, climbing the ranks.
However, despite offering a monotone experience, games like League of Legends and Valorant have given substance to their games and retain millions of users every day by creating meaningful relationships between players and their characters. League of Legends’ dynamic ecosystem of introducing new champions, Valorant’s dynamic of introducing new legends, and their parent company Riot Game’s willingness to compensate for the siloed experience through lore, music, videos, and collaboration are major proponents of why these games are some of the most played games today.
Likewise, Alien Worlds has been successful because of its ability to create relationships between its characters and players, giving players a sense of importance and comradery for choosing their particular character, progressing with it, and growing along it. \
Whether it’s participating in the DAO, exploring the metaverse, or playing the game, Alien Worlds stays true to its science fiction roots in all aspects of its product.
Conclusion
Story-telling is crucial for a product to connect with its consumers. Surprisingly, in this short-attention-spanned era, Games have been the most successful in connecting with their consumers. One primary reason why Games have been so successful is that they put the consumer, the player, in the middle of the story and allow the players to progress by challenging them to unlock it over time.
With Web 3.0 games initially failing because of the NFT craze and saturation of meaningless projects, games have shifted their focus towards story-telling and are focused on providing the best content they possibly can to retain users and attract the next wave of users.
Although one of the fastest-growing sectors in the gaming industry, the Web 3.0 gaming sphere is still experimental; however, seeing the success of projects that emphasize stories and user immersion, we could see a new era of Web 3.0 games moving forward.