How Player-Owned Economies Shape Web3

As web3 gaming matures, sustainability has become a central focus for developers aiming to move past short-term speculation. One of the most widely discussed solutions is the concept of player-owned economies, where users hold real ownership of in-game assets and actively shape the ecosystem.

How Player-Owned Economies Shape Web3

VOYA Games, a Germany-based web3 gaming studio co-founded by Oliver Löffler, is working to implement this model through its flagship project, Craft World. This tap-to-play game allows players to generate and trade resources in a dinosaur-themed universe, marking a step forward in designing long-term, player-centered web3 experiences.

How Player-Owned Economies Shape Web3

From Kolibri to VOYA: Building for the Long Term

Oliver Löffler entered the gaming industry as a co-founder of Kolibri Games, where he helped develop Idle Miner Tycoon, a mobile simulation game that reached over 100 million downloads. The studio grew from a student project into a company with more than 100 employees before being acquired by Ubisoft in 2021. The experience taught Löffler how to scale games, teams, and player communities - skills that he brought with him when launching VOYA Games in 2022.

Rather than adapting existing web2 games for blockchain use, Löffler chose to build natively for web3. In an interview with ccn, he emphasizes that the shift from developer-controlled economies to player-controlled ones introduces new design challenges. In web3, developers cannot simply adjust tokenomics through updates. The economic systems need to be resilient and fair from the start. VOYA Games aims to build on this principle, ensuring that players are not just users, but participants in the ecosystem.

How Player-Owned Economies Shape Web3

Craft World and Project Voyager

Craft World is VOYA Games’ first major title under its Angry Dynomites Lab brand. It is designed to be simple and accessible at first, while gradually revealing a more complex economy. Unlike many games that use in-game tokens solely for cosmetic or speculative purposes, Craft World features over 25 on-chain resources that serve functional roles. These materials are used for crafting, trading, and building within the game, and all assets are held in players’ personal wallets.

This means players can freely transfer or exchange their resources, and the developer does not have control over those transactions. The game is supported by Project Voyager, a companion application that encourages deeper player engagement. Through this platform, users work together on shared goals - such as building a starship for their dinosaur characters - and earn rewards that can be used across the ecosystem. These rewards are designed to be reinvested into gameplay, allowing players to continue progressing, trading, or customizing their experience.

How Player-Owned Economies Shape Web3

Fair Token Design and Community Focus

One of the core principles of VOYA Games is to avoid speculative token models. Löffler explains that the game's utility token, Dyno Coin, exists solely to enable in-game progress. Players cannot buy it through presales or receive early access through insider allocations. Instead, tokens are earned through gameplay, including quests and trading with other players. The goal is to create a sustainable in-game economy where token use is tied to fun and meaningful activity.

VOYA Games is focused on long-term value creation rather than short-term gains. Löffler believes that if players enjoy the game itself, they will naturally want to acquire more of its tokens to access more content. By embedding utility into the gameplay loop, VOYA aims to make token ownership secondary to the experience of playing the game.

How Player-Owned Economies Shape Web3

Leveraging DeFi Mechanics in Gameplay

The Craft World economy operates through player-driven mechanics, including decentralized finance (DeFi) features like liquidity pools. Players facilitate the exchange of resources, and over 100,000 in-game swaps are recorded daily. This active trading system adds real liquidity to the economy and is driven entirely by the community.

VOYA Games also plans to introduce more advanced financial tools such as lending protocols and futures contracts. These additions would expand how players interact with the economy, offering more opportunities for collaboration and value exchange. Löffler emphasizes that such features should serve gameplay, not distract from it.

How Player-Owned Economies Shape Web3

Interconnected Games and Scalable Infrastructure

Beyond Craft World, VOYA’s broader vision includes building an interconnected suite of games that share tokens, assets, and player identities. This approach would allow resources earned in one game to be used in others, creating a unified ecosystem. Löffler sees this as an opportunity to not only engage players more deeply but also allow other developers to build on VOYA’s infrastructure using shared economic systems.

Early response to Craft World and Project Voyager has been positive. Within the first 20 days of launch, over 2.7 million accounts were created and more than 2.8 million on-chain trades were completed. Weekly active users have reached around 40,000. Although the platform faced some technical challenges, including bugs and a steep learning curve, the development team has been actively working to address user feedback and improve performance.

How Player-Owned Economies Shape Web3

Supporting Innovation Across web3 Gaming

Löffler believes that web3 gaming still requires extensive experimentation. While large-budget projects often receive more attention, he argues that smaller studios are doing important work in testing new ideas and pushing the boundaries of what’s possible. He points to games like Cambria, Pixels, and Fishing Frenzy, which are also built on the Ronin chain, as examples of unique approaches to gameplay and community development.

By prioritizing scalable, fair, and engaging game mechanics, Löffler hopes VOYA can contribute meaningfully to the development of the web3 gaming sector. His long-term goal is to support a stable ecosystem of interconnected games with at least 100,000 monthly active players, sustained without relying heavily on marketing or speculative hype.

How Player-Owned Economies Shape Web3

Aiming for Community and Longevity

The guiding principle behind VOYA Games is to create experiences where ownership enhances gameplay, not overshadows it. Löffler is focused on building a community of players who are there to enjoy games first and foremost, not to speculate. If players find value in the ecosystem and feel a sense of ownership and connection, he believes the studio will have achieved its purpose.

As web3 gaming continues to evolve, projects like Craft World aim to demonstrate that blockchain technology can support engaging, sustainable, and community-driven experiences. By placing ownership in the hands of players and designing systems with long-term viability in mind, VOYA Games is contributing to a future where web3 gaming is defined not by hype, but by lasting value and real participation.