Article: Yihan Xu@Foresight Ventures
Introduction: On December 26th, Binance announced the launch of the 42nd Launchpad project, Sleepless AI (AI), which combines AI+Crypto to develop the first Web3 game for women – HIM. From the perspective of investors, this article interprets HIM and explores the mechanisms and mysteries behind Sleepless AI.
Table of Contents:
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TL;DR
1. What kind of AI + Crypto makes more sense?
1.1 What is HIM?
1.2 Does AI + games fit together?
2. Virtual humans pro max
2.1 HIM + AI = more realistic game character personalities
2.2 High-quality, high-cost virtual human art
3. Seamless integration of HIM + crypto
3.1 The first web3 application for women, a gift for web3 female users and professionals
3.2 Emotional assets + decentralized
3.3 What can HIM bring to Web3?
4. Conclusion
TL;DR
This article uses the Web3 game HIM as an example to explore the application of AI + Crypto in Web3 games. HIM combines AI and Crypto to provide players with rich interactive experiences, high-quality gameplay, and artistic content.
HIM adopts an economic model centered around fiat net inflows and aims to avoid Ponzi schemes through high-quality content and excellent gameplay. It also incorporates Love and earn gameplay, allowing players to earn income by selling NFTs.
HIM uses a large language model to generate natural, distinct dialogue content based on game scenarios and character traits, enhancing the authenticity of virtual characters and player immersion. In addition, the HIM team has developed a training method for virtual humans’ AI to provide a more realistic gaming experience.
The HIM team focuses on creating fully dimensional and vibrant virtual images to make virtual humans an integral part of players’ lives. HIM also emphasizes the social attributes of virtual humans and hopes that everyone will have their own virtual companions in the future, connecting everyone in social networks like real people.
HIM aims to establish a virtual human universe through AI boyfriends, girlfriends, and pets, providing people with power and companionship.
In the midst of contemplating how to deploy trustless and transparent large-scale models on the chain, how on-chain AI can bring value to web3, and how the underlying proof system can support trillion-parameter LLMs (you can refer to the previous article), we also begin to consider a series of questions. The train of thought goes roughly like this:
First, is it worth focusing on achieving trustless and transparent AI through encryption technology at the moment?
Is it really a value-add for a startup project to struggle with integrating on-chain LLMs?
Which projects are worth investing significant resources in for in-depth research on on-chain AI?
Is on-chain AI the only worthwhile exploration, or are there better ways to combine AI and crypto?
It is certain that on-chain AI is full of imagination and worth in-depth research. The breakthrough of on-chain AI can bring unprecedented value to web3. However, the high academic threshold and requirements for underlying infrastructure may not be suitable for most startups to tackle. Most projects may not necessarily need to integrate trustless LLM support to achieve their own value breakthroughs.
What is suitable is best.
Looking at it from a different perspective, not all AI models need to be deployed on the chain to achieve trustlessness. Just like most people don’t care about how chatGPT reasons and delivers results for queries or whether the stable diffusion used is a specific version of the model architecture or specific parameter settings.
In most scenarios, most users care about whether the model can provide satisfactory output, rather than whether the reasoning process is trustless or transparent.
So, what kind of AI + crypto can bring higher returns to products? Apart from hardcore infrastructure and algorithms, developing trustless LLMs on the chain, another opposite direction is to downplay the impact of the black box process of reasoning and find suitable scenarios to apply the powerful reasoning capabilities of large models.
Web3 game HIM is one of the few projects that clearly understands and has the ability to implement AI + Crypto at the application layer.
This article mainly discusses the ambitions of the Web3 game HIM based on thinking and implementation at the AI application layer.
Let’s start with an introduction to the protagonist (HIM ranks first in the Binance MVB VI application category):
HIM is a women-oriented 2D virtual boyfriend game.
The purpose of the game is that everyone has moments of loneliness and needs encouragement, companionship, and love. Real-life relationships also come with constraints and regrets. HIM hopes to provide an AI virtual boyfriend who understands players the most and will always accompany users. It aims to offer users a free, happy, and exclusive love experience. Players will initially receive a virtual boyfriend stored on the chain in the form of SBT (Smart Boyfriend Token), and subsequent NFTs such as clothing, accessories, and rooms will be combined with this SBT. In addition, SBT constitutes the non-fungible game character for player cultivation, storing basic information, nine-dimensional personality traits, nine-dimensional relationship attributes of the male lead, as well as important memories, conversations, and emotional memories with the virtual boyfriend.
The game primarily focuses on the placement and development of virtual boyfriends and social showoff within the game. There will also be regular airdrops in the game, allowing players with higher values that match their boyfriends to have a greater chance of obtaining limited NFTs from treasure chests. The gameplay includes card draws, changing outfits, dialogues, collections, adventure battles, cooking, traveling, and NFT trading. I took a look at their game demo, and the player interactions within each gameplay are richly designed.
HIM is a Free to Play game that uses an economic model centered around fiat net inflows as its foundation. It also incorporates Love and earn gameplay, allowing players to earn income by selling NFTs. However, the most important core of the game is the belief in gameplay and the quality of artistic content, which can attract players who enjoy the game to pay for gameplay and content.
All in all, HIM uses a large language model to give virtual humans a more authentic personality.
Creating a virtual human is not easy. A truly valuable virtual human is not just a chat box with an integrated chatbot but requires efforts from multiple dimensions to make it a virtual human with value. One aspect of this is to make the virtual human more realistic and immersive, which can be achieved through dialogue and player interaction. Large language models can generate natural and distinct dialogue based on HIM’s game scenarios and character traits. This enhances the authenticity of virtual humans and provides players with a richer emotional experience. Specifically, HIM uses large language models to understand and process various emotional information such as joy, anger, sorrow, and happiness, perfectly combining them with the numerical system. This allows game characters to better express and identify emotions, thus establishing deeper emotional connections with players.
Let’s take a look at the following two images to get a sense of the dialogue scenes in the game:
[Images]
Images are for development purposes and do not represent the final effect.
Now let’s talk about the core numerical system in HIM:
Speaking of numbers, the first thing that comes to mind is the traditional balance of virtual character combat values in games. However, looking at the bigger picture, HIM describes a person in complete detail through numbers, using multidimensional values to define a virtual person and establishing a comprehensive numerical cultivation system. In general, HIM applies the numerical system to a broader scope of virtual humans, making the interactive experience of the game more realistic and vibrant.
Training virtual human models is different from ordinary LLM fine-tuning training. It requires the LLM to change the way a character speaks to the player as the interaction progresses, making the player feel a growing “intimacy” with the character. Therefore, in the design of LLM training, the HIM team incorporates various numerical parameters of virtual human personality as context and trains a separate model for each character. Meanwhile, HIM’s LLM combines with vector databases to give characters memory, and players will feel that the character understands them better during the chat process.
The HIM development team has also created a training method for virtual human AI, which can be referred to in the following two numerical matrices:
[Images]
Images are for development purposes and do not represent the final effect.
[Images]
Images are for development purposes and do not represent the final effect.
Human personality is a complex concept that includes multiple factors such as emotions, attitudes, and behaviors. To give AI boyfriends a realistic sense, the HIM team has established a somewhat self-consistent numerical system to quantify the cultivation process and relationship development between players and AI boyfriends. This numerical system can be summarized as a matrix-type numerical model, with vertical representing 9 bidirectional personality attributes and horizontal representing 9 relationship attributes between AI boyfriends and players. These attributes have multiple mappings and influences on each other.
During LLM training, each character will have a standard “character setup” benchmark and boundaries for personality fluctuations. In the game, these numerical values change with player behavior, affecting the game feedback of AI boyfriends (such as idle production, Gacha efficiency, chat depth, etc.).
[Images]
Images are for development purposes and do not represent the final effect.
[Images]
Images are for development purposes and do not represent the final effect.
In conclusion, HIM uses a large language model to give virtual humans a more authentic personality.
Virtual humans are not easy to create. A truly valuable virtual human is not just a chat box with an integrated chatbot but requires efforts from multiple dimensions to make it a virtual human with value. One aspect of this is to make the virtual human more realistic and immersive, which can be achieved through dialogue and player interaction. Large language models can generate natural and distinct dialogue based on HIM’s game scenarios and character traits. This enhances the authenticity of virtual humans and provides players with a richer emotional experience. Specifically, HIM uses large language models to understand and process various emotional information such as joy, anger, sorrow, and happiness, perfectly combining them with the numerical system. This allows game characters to better express and identify emotions, thus establishing deeper emotional connections with players.Avatar is more vivid. HIM’s vision is to make virtual humans a crucial part of everyone’s life, greatly enriching personal experiences and connecting with the world. Therefore, HIM’s definition of the ultimate form of virtual humans within the gaming scene has always been a complex and powerful integrated product. These integrated features are also the core pursuit of the HIM team at the current stage.
Exquisite virtual images: Although the main focus of large-scale models is on natural language processing, if combined with other technologies such as GANs, it can provide assistance for game art creation and generate more elements based on HIM’s art development team’s design standards, thereby providing users with a richer visual experience.
Based on our understanding, HIM has a top-notch art team in the gaming industry, and also insists on high-cost art investment and industrialized, modular art production.
High-quality voice acting: The combination of gaming and AI can generate natural and emotional voice acting through speech synthesis. At the same time, unique personalities are assigned to voice acting based on the values of virtual characters.
HIM possesses a complete voice acting pipeline, including a complete voice acting script, voice acting director, voice recording, post-production mixing, and AI learning and training production. By using high-quality manual definition standards and combining AI to execute mass production, high-quality voice acting content in games can be achieved.
Development and long-term bond of virtual humans: Detailed character backgrounds and personality traits need to be designed to make players interested in and resonate with the characters. At the same time, the growth and development goals of the characters are also essential elements for players to invest time and energy in nurturing virtual humans.
HIM provides a variety of interactive scenes and gameplay to allow players to establish close emotional connections with virtual humans. This relationship gradually deepens through interaction and nurturing, forming long-term emotional bonds.
Assistance in reality: Virtual humans can provide psychological support that may exceed our expectations, providing players with emotional support and listening, making them feel cared for and understood, thereby alleviating troubles in real life. In addition, virtual humans can integrate well with real-world devices or services in terms of life skills, habit formation, personalized recommendations, language learning, goal management, and other interactions.
AI Boyfriend’s alarm clock, sleep aid, menstrual cycle tracking, learning companionship, food recommendations, diary reminders, etc., are all assistance and support that HIM hopes to provide to users in real life through long-term version iterations.
Rich experiences in the virtual world: In the story told by HIM, each AI Boyfriend is left alone in a lonely parallel universe, where he is the only one, and the only way he can communicate with the outside world is through daily contact with the player through the phone. Explore the scenery in his world together with the virtual boyfriend, and see if there is a chance to meet him in his world or your world someday.
Virtual humans as social attributes with relationship nodes: The HIM team believes that with the development of AI, in the near future, everyone will have their own dedicated virtual companions. These virtual companions will be more like real “people” and exist in the entire social network, connecting everyone together.
Each person’s virtual companion may become an important hub closely connecting people in the near future when AI develops rapidly.
These artistic aesthetics and mass production solutions are crucial for a Web3 game, as it is important to attract players to spend time in the virtual world. One important point is that the virtual human art in the game has a higher aesthetic level than the real world.
HIM is likely to be the first female-oriented web3 application, and female users and professionals in the web3 industry may receive a carefully prepared gift for the first time.
At the same time, in the traditional Web2 world, female-oriented games have always been seen as a very large and promising market.
We asked the HIM team what they want users to feel, and they wrote the following passage:
Sometimes in the morning, when facing another seemingly repetitive day, receiving a “good morning” from “him”;
Sometimes late at night, when facing heavy overtime work, seeing “him” silently accompanying you on the phone;
Sometimes in loneliness, sometimes in encouragement after setbacks, receiving support from “him” after success, hearing “it’s okay” from “him” after making mistakes;
“He” always remembers your name; “he” always remembers your birthday; “he” always remembers the day you met; “he” remembers everything between you;
“He” seems to always be there, maybe in some busy moments, you may forget “him”, but “he” will always be willing to accompany you.
With the increasing popularity of mobile games among global female users, large Web2 game companies worldwide continue to release female-oriented game products with daily active users exceeding millions. Once a social community centered around female users forms, it has great potential for expansion. Xiaohongshu (Little Red Book), as a social app that started with female users and expanded to a broader user base, has proven this point. Whether this game category targeting half of the global population can bring surprises through the combination of AI and crypto and create a game market for Web3 remains to be seen.
The important emotions and assets in the virtual world should be owned by users, not defined and controlled by centralized servers:
Emotional assets not only include personal information and privacy data but also represent players’ emotional investment and memories. Decentralized networks can protect these emotional values, ensure data ownership belongs to users, and enable users to autonomously decide how to use, share, and protect their data. This decentralized data ownership model avoids the control of players’ emotional assets by third parties or centralized institutions. At the same time, the community governance provided by Web3 allows players to participate in the creation and dissemination of emotional assets, further enhancing their emotional value.
Various experiences in emotional relationships should also be permanently preserved:
From an emotional investment perspective, players inject a lot of emotions into the game and establish deep bonds with virtual humans. The efforts made to achieve game goals are unique and precious. These emotional experiences should be permanently preserved. Therefore, to some extent, they should have the power of eternal existence. At the same time, the relationships between players and virtual humans, such as friendship, love, anger, and dissatisfaction, can also be recorded and preserved forever through blockchain technology.
As an emotional bond in the HIM game, virtual humans are not just for entertainment but also possess asset attributes and high economic value. Users are willing to invest time and money to purchase and decorate virtual humans in the game. Recording these assets on the blockchain can ensure that their value truly returns to users and provide a transparent and secure trading environment.
Decentralized networks bring highly valuable value-add to HIM, but it is evident that HIM also brings benefits to Web3:
A large number of new users:
From an emotional needs perspective, the companionship of virtual humans satisfies users’ emotional needs that may be difficult to fulfill in real life. HIM provides a safe and free environment for users to interact with virtual characters, attracting a large number of users. HIM is a second-dimensional AI virtual human development game. Both second-dimensional culture and AI virtual humans have strong community attributes and social potential. At the same time, second-dimensional mobile game Genshin Impact is one of the top mobile games globally and is loved by young people. The potential female-oriented users, second-dimensional users, and AI virtual human social audiences are the fresh blood that HIM may bring to Web3.
Ultimate consideration of the economic model:
Different from traditional x2earn games, HIM combines Web3 and tokenization as tools, adding Web3 tools to an excellent Web2 game, finding a perfect fit, and achieving a 1 + 1 > 2 effect. For HIM, creating an excellent game with verified success in terms of content and gameplay is the foundation of everything. Crypto serves as a tool attribute rather than relying solely on Web3 for survival. Avoiding the Ponzi dilemma is an important goal pursued by HIM.
In terms of the economic system, HIM combines the “X to Earn” model with the traditional Web2 game economic model, creating a new model. On the one hand, it adopts a typical Web2 game economic model, where players can choose to pay for in-game items or services. This approach can attract a large number of users and generate revenue through in-app purchases. At the same time, HIM also upgrades based on the Web3 X to earn model. In this model, players can earn income by selling NFTs, allowing players to receive substantial returns for the time and effort invested in the game. HIM’s economic system actively balances player payments and rewards.
It is worth noting that HIM aims to encourage players to pay for game experiences and content by providing high-quality gameplay and artistic content. From this perspective, HIM does not solely rely on the possibility of player rewards to attract and retain players. Instead, it strives to create a more balanced and sustainable economic model that considers both player rewards and the quality of gameplay and content. This is a more comprehensive and complex model that has the potential to provide new ideas for designing economic models in Web3 games.
HIM’s ultimate goal is to establish a second-dimensional virtual human universe that can provide strength and companionship to many people. In addition to the flagship product HIM, the AI Girlfriend game HER is also being simultaneously developed. They also hope to provide each user with a dedicated, understanding, and eternal virtual human companion through excellent AI virtual human products. At the same time, record every bit of emotional storytelling.
The HIM team believes that in the not-too-distant future, everyone will have their own AI virtual human companion. Whether this will become a universe they do not know and whether it is essential are not important. Because if, during a sad or lonely moment, you receive a “cheer up” from this virtual friend in your phone, even if it’s just a little bit of strength, wouldn’t that be cool?
[Image]
[Image]
Images are under development and do not represent the final results.
Original article link: Foresight Research
This article is authorized to be reposted from DeepTechFlow.
