Blockchain Brawlers has been moving at a breathtaking pace since its inception nine months ago. It started as an NFT farming-style game, where players bought in, and mined a currency by Brawling with their Brawler NFTs. Then, the game, spearheaded by Mike Rubinelli and his Wax Studios team, quickly pivoted into a new era.
Play-to-Earn (P2E) became Play-to-Own and Wax Studios shifted the focus from mining a currency into good old fashioned engrossing PvP gameplay. Now, Mike and his team are moving at the speed of light into a new phase of the game – the PvP phase – and Mike is beaming about it all.
“We knew that to get broad adoption we couldn’t just have a click mining game, but had to build a real game,” he said. “The focus shouldn’t be on earning, it should be on owning. Earning should be a result, not a goal.”
“If the goal is to earn, then your focus is all wrong, but if the result is earning revenue tied to the things you’ve acquired, that’s a much healthier proposition and that’s how you’re going to get broad adoption.”
A PvP card combat wrestling game
Mike and his team have devised a new formula for Blockchain Brawlers, inspired by Richard Garfield, which is centred around an engaging blend of WWE wrestling and cards. Yes, you heard it right – the new PvP phase is a card game inspired by pro wrestling entertainment. In this game, you will enjoy all the thrills of being a pro wrestler, gaining the adulation of the crowd, taunting your opponents and even smashing them with steel chairs – as you play an enthralling game of cards.
Following the game’s closed BETA release – BCB is shaping up to be a major player in the blockchain gaming space.
Mike said: “We have taken a similar minimalistic approach to Shigeru Miyamoto, (Super Mario Brothers, Donkey kong, Zelda), who is literally the godfather of video game design – he’s the best. Miyamoto said: if I can make this really fun from end to end, with grayscale artwork, then throw in the art after that – it’s a home run.”
“With the Blockchain Brawlers PvP close BETA we said to the players: is this card game fun to play? Is it easy to understand the rules? And is it good enough that you would tell your friends about?”
The response was overwhelmingly positive. A resounding 95% of the responses from the closed BETA release approved the game, and that was only the 40% complete version.
At NFT News Today, we were fortunate enough to experience the closed BETA version of the game and even without all the frills – the taunts, the crowd cheering, the music, the finishing moves – the game was highly engaging and strategically challenging.
Indeed, with all the sumptuous BCB art thrown on top of that engaging PvP card combat experience, it’s sure to be a winner for the community.
Welcome to the Brawl-O-Verse
Furthermore, BCB has been slowly building an ecosystem for the ages, so that all of its players can enjoy an incredibly fun, immersive, ‘native experience’. Within this ecosystem, newly built systems include a leaderboard, crafting, a PvP game, a streaming platform to showcase the taunting, an in-game marketplace and an in-game store.
This ecosystem has been built around the players and in particular, a select number of players who have purchased a Brawl-O-Seum (BOS) NFT, which enables them to craft assets and sell them to all the other players on the secondary market.
This is where the ‘Own’ aspect of Play-and-Own really comes to life. Indeed, BOS owners, with their ‘crafting passes’, get to take a slice of the BCB ecosystem and profit from its success.
Mike explained: “What we’re saying to the players is: you’re the producers and developers, it’s almost like a franchising model, like, you can’t own Mcdonalds, but you can own your own piece of Mcdonalds, and sell hamburgers.”
“The franchising model is what our crafting passes do and that’s about to go live any day now and Brawl-O-Seum owners will be selling assets for the PvP game.”
The Brawl-O-Seum crafting model
On that note, the open BETA version of the PvP game arrives imminently, which will enable many more players to try the game out. Next week, those who aspire to become a BOS owner will get the opportunity to craft packs of cards in anticipation of the game’s release.
This pivotal moment, entitled the ‘BOS Crafting Debut’, will be another milestone in the blistering journey of this BCB game thus far. Furthermore, it must be remembered that BCB will only be a successful game if the BOS owners are able to sell packs of cards.
Mike said: “We need the players to be the producers, and for us, we clip the ticket every time an NFT is sold. So, we think this player-driven model at scale will be great for us and great for the world of gaming. We only make money when they make money, so we really need the players to be successful. We need them to be prolific.”
Besides the card packs, BOS owners will be able to craft, and sell, various cosmetics in the game. These additional purchases, in the form of NFTs, will be at the heart of every combat game that’s played between players.
Finishing moves like the ‘Steel Justice”, and taunts like ‘Flipping the Bird’ are just a couple of examples of how you can spice up your in-game card action.
Imagine playing a high stakes card game and your opponent is taunting you, and the crowd are cheering for them? All kinds of dynamics enter the gameplay and that’s why the sale of these NFT assets is a smart move by the game.
“It’s a real game, we think about the design every minute of every day, how to make this a really engrossing, engaging experience,” Mike said. “When people tell me a better taunt doesn’t matter, or cosmetics don’t matter, I’ll tell you that last year, Epic Games did $5.2 billion in cosmetics upgrades for their community.”
For more revealing news about Mike’s plans for BCB, reflections on the game thus far and future game modes in the works, check out our in-depth interview with him!
