I mine bitcoin with graphics cards in Escape from Tarkov

More and more games are incorporating cryptocurrency elements.

Written by: Eric, Foresight News

When it comes to the most popular game recently, it has to be "Escape from Duckov".

This game, priced at just over 50 yuan, became a global sensation upon its release, selling over 2 million copies in just two weeks. Its peak concurrent player count on Steam exceeded 300,000, and its positive review rate surpassed 95%, earning it the title of "dark horse of the year" from major gaming media outlets.

"Escape from Duckov" was developed by a team of only five people called "Carbonated Squad", who are actually full-time employees of Bilibili. The development funding was entirely provided by Bilibili, making Duckov a fully self-developed game by Bilibili. Although the name is inspired by the highly open-ended and phenomenal "looter shooter extraction" game "Escape from Tarkov", Duckov is a pure PvE game with a focus on progression, where the main characters and enemies are ducks instead of humans. Some players on Steam have even admitted that, compared to the complex mechanics and high-intensity PvP gameplay of "Escape from Tarkov", Duckov is more in line with what they believe a "looter shooter extraction" game should be.

The simple gameplay, the thrill of collecting loot, and the fun of progression have even earned praise from the producer of "Escape from Tarkov" for this game, whose main storyline takes over 40 hours to complete.

The "knockoff" Duckov inherits some gameplay elements from Tarkov, with bitcoin mining being one of them. After building the black market in the hideout, the next facility players can construct is a bitcoin mining rig. Most of the materials needed to build the mining rig can be found in safes, cabinets, and computer hosts, while some materials must be obtained by defeating mechanical spiders in the wild after 10:00 PM.

After building the mining rig, players still need to collect graphics cards to start mining. The drop rate for graphics cards is entirely luck-based; you might get one from an ordinary duck, or you might not even get one from a boss. In my experience, opening computer hosts and fighting spiders at night are the two best ways to get them.

Inserting graphics cards into the mining rig allows it to produce bitcoin. The in-game item is called "0.2BTC", and even a fully loaded mining rig takes several hours to produce "0.2BTC". In the later stages of the game, players may obtain blueprints for advanced graphics cards in the J-Lab map, which require three regular graphics cards to craft, further increasing mining power. Mining is not the only way to obtain bitcoin in the game; players can also get bitcoin by dismantling the "Copper Coin String" item, or even combine bitcoin with rope to synthesize a Copper Coin String...

Besides the graphics cards in the game itself, since Duckov supports mods, developers have come up with all kinds of creative graphics cards.

Cryptocurrency Elements in Games

In recent years, more and more games have started to incorporate Web3 elements. In May this year, Nexon, the developer of the classic 2D online game "MapleStory", launched the Web3 version "MapleStory Universe", recreating "MapleStory" as a blockchain game. This project was actually announced as early as 2023, when Nexon also revealed a $100 million fund to support new blockchain games and their ecosystem, and to build a blockchain game sandbox platform for players and creators to freely create.

As Web3 becomes less niche, adding cryptocurrency elements to games is gradually becoming a trend. Besides directly transforming into blockchain games, there are also many games like Duckov that simply use cryptocurrencies as in-game items. There are rumors that the highly anticipated GTA 6, expected to be released next year, will include cryptocurrency items in the game, but these will only be items and have nothing to do with real cryptocurrencies. In Duckov, bitcoin is used as a tangible "copper coin", and even as a material to craft Copper Coin Strings—a playful design that, in some ways, introduces bitcoin to players in a more understandable way.

Back in 2016, Microsoft reported the story of 10-year-old student Yang Taoqi, who got into programming because of "Minecraft" and kept learning programming out of his love for games. The instant feedback mechanism in games gives players a strong motivation to learn skills they don't know but that can advance the game's story. If used well, cryptocurrency can also be introduced to more people in a less obscure way.