OneWayBlock’s Stepan Sergeev on Blockchain Gaming and All Things Crypto

If you’re into GameFi, the chances are that you’ve heard of Clash of Coins. As one of the latest blockchain games to pop up in the sector and one of the most exciting in the space, it’s certainly gaining momentum.

Within weeks of its Beta being released, thousands of people flocked to the game, not only for the chance to conquer virtual territory and engage in thrilling battles, but also for the chance to win cryptocurrency.

You see, it’s part of a new generation of blockchain games that are providing their players with tangible rewards. Set to surpass 200,000 users by the end of the year, we spoke with Stepan Sergeev, founder of OneWayBlock, to find out more about the game and the future of this blockchain facet.

There’s been a lot written about you in the media, but what’s one thing that people might be surprised to learn about you?

That my success wasn’t instantaneous; I’ve had my fair share of failures. I didn't give up on the first hurdle, and I've always been interested in things like entrepreneurship, business development, and growth hacking.

Initially, I had plans to develop a multi-chain crypto wallet. This is one of the simplest ideas when you have digital assets and need to exchange them. But, for personal reasons, I had to give up. And so, long before the success of the first generation of GameFi, I came up with a question that led me to an idea – why not combine the spheres of mobile gaming and the blockchain? And so, in 2020, the first prototype of Clash of Coins was born.

You’ve been in the blockchain space for over five years now. What advice do you have for others?

Firstly, blockchain isn’t just an up-and-coming space where one can make a liveable passive income and huge returns on their investments, but it's seriously interesting. It was probably one of the most interesting discoveries of my life. It’s also important to note that through losses, I learned; it’s by losing that you find out where the big gains are and what to avoid.

The second point is don't trust anyone. Bloggers and influencers the least of all. Too many people follow any old advice that they read online without proper and professional deliberation. Surely, before tucking into an apple, you’ll check to see if it’s rotten, right? Well, it seems that over 99% of people don't look deeper into online information, its origins and its reliability.

What successful examples of blockchain games motivated you to create the OneWayBlock studio and the Clash of Coins game?

There were none. The only motivation came after our colleagues initially tested the GameFi approach through the so-called P2E model.

However, with the success of Axie Infinity in mind, it became clear that the shared economy is not simply focused on the developer's pocket, and we found this very promising. There was only one complex question remaining – how can we prevent the game from turning into a banal pyramid with a destructive inflationary loop? In solving this issue, a system of complex tokenomics is required.

When selecting your genre, why did you choose MMORTS?

We chose to focus on casual concepts. First of all, it's easier. We’re not talking about the 5 years needed for the development of an AAA shooter.

Secondly, there are plenty of these games in this genre that claim to focus on the gameplay, but at the same time don’t operate well on the blockchain and the flow of the game is disastrously disrupted as a result. It’s clear there’s a need for a game that delivers on its promises of genuinely fantastic gameplay.

Thirdly, the idea of MMORTS with light elements of RPG is a whole lot of fun, and has captivated gamers outside of the blockchain, so it only makes sense to start here. We’re looking to achieve an average user game-time of 15 minutes per day, with occasional spikes of hour-long gameplay.

Was Clash of Coins originally created for the sphere of GameFi, or was it a later decision? Did you consider other models during the development of the project?

Initially, we generally only dealt with F2P game mechanics. However, there were certainly distant elements of P2E. Back then, no one called it Play-to-Earn. Just this year, we started a very smooth implementation of a full-fledged GameFi 2.0, which takes into account all the mistakes of competitors or, at least, the largest ones.

How did you go about choosing a blockchain for the game, and why did you end up choosing Ethereum and BSC?

Everything is very simple here. These are the top-two blockchains by user base. Ethereum is recognised for its transparency, stability and longevity. Users just trust it. This is the starting point for any complex transaction (especially those that involve smart contracts). However, it’s no secret that you have to pay an arm and a leg for this.

The BNB chain is a less transparent blockchain, a fork of ETH. However, it has a wild audience and cheap transactions. At the junction of this approach, we got an extremely successful bundle for both experienced users and beginners. Both for people with shallow pockets and deep ones. That was what ultimately influenced our decision.

How do you assess the prospects of the P2E model? Now, literally everyone is talking about it – will you ever get tired of it?

There’s a certain stagnation observable that has caused the partial collapse of the first versions of GameFi.There are two things at play here: the lack of adequate gameplay and problems with inflation funnels. Sooner or later, the income and monetary prospects of users will decrease.

It’ll take at least 1-2 years to fully solve the problem with access to GameFi 2.0. I could definitely name at least 4 projects that are working full time on this problem.

Our main advantage is that we have working Core Gameplay with a huge scope for embedding various blockchain mechanics. We can still choose and experiment. The problem with current projects on the market is that they have driven themselves into the corner of current tokenomics, which are already difficult to modernize.

How does the volatility of the crypto market affect user behavior – the influx of players, the frequency of sessions, LTV, and the frequency of project departures?

The effects are huge, and will continue to play a part until the moment when games flood onto the market. At the moment, if there’s a drop in the market, your DeFi ecosystem will drop proportionally. It’s a very complicated situation, for sure.