Base is a new blockchain as its mainnet went live in August, 2023. Despite that, more than 30 gaming dApps are already deployed on its ecosystem. Witnessing such a huge surge, Base is now encouraging projects to build and manage their games on a dedicated Layer3 using Base as the settlement layer. These chains will leverage customization, higher throughput, as well as the Ethereum security of leading gaming chains like Immutable, Ancient8, XAI games, and Metaname. Speaking about the impact, AaveGotchi, Clique, Iskra, and dozens of projects have already started building their Base Layer2. All of these projects have chosen OP Stack because of OP Stack’s high modularity, EVM-compatibility, and most importantly the effect of Bedrock upgrade (we will discuss them later).

Through this article, we want to discuss the benefits of building Base Layer3 with OP Stack. We will basically dive into all the possible scenarios of building blockbuster games on Base while also discussing Base and OP stack’s basics.

Why should game developers choose Base ? 

Base is a secure, cost-efficient, and complete builder-friendly Optimistic rollup layer. Designed as Ethereum layer2, Base has all the security and scalability features needed to manage advanced on-chain apps. Some of the key features of Base are:

>Ethereum-equivalency: Base is a Ethereum-equivalent Layer2 blockchain, which means that any dApp on Ethereum can move to Base with zero heavy lifting. All the existing codebase, VMs, smart contracts, and other components will remain as it is, only the underlying ecosystem will change. 

>10x cheaper costs: Base’s Optimism-powered rollup architecture reduces transaction cost for all kinds of projects, up to 10x lower. As needed, you can set up gasless transactions using account abstraction (AA) developer APIs, or you can also build multi chain applications with ease.

>Open-source: Base network is created to be open-source so that anyone from any corner of the world can access Base, experiment, and build next-level applications. 

>Seamless Layer3 creation: Besides deploying dApps on Base layer2, projects can build their Layer3, dedicated chain using a range of frameworks & environment, including OP Stack, Arbitrum Orbit, Solana Virtual machine, Parallel EVMs, or even UnityVM (for future). However, since Base itself is built with OP Stack, its focus is mostly on OP Stack based Layer 3s.

>Excellent features: Spend only a fraction of cost to get a powerful EVM environment. Add interesting features in your application with ERC-4337, ERC-1155, as well as ERC-721 token standards. 

>Scaling with Coinbase: As a Coinbase product, Base allows developers to build next-gen decentralized applications with access to Coinbase’s tools, users, and services and meanwhile provide them peace of mind due to Coinbase trust backed by over 110M verified users and $80B+ assets.

A bit of OP Stack: Why is it always the 1st choice? 

OP Stack is a set of standardized development stack that facilitates the development of dedicated Layer2s and Layer3s on Optimism and for all the Layer2 blockchains running on Optimism mainnet. OP Stack consists of a diverse set of software components that powers Optimism and the Optimism Superchains, upholding their governance. Simply put, OP stack is designed as a framework that can accommodate a simplified process of creating high-quality, fully open-source, and interoperable L2/L3 blockchains. 

Being Etereum compatible, the OP stack eliminates the need to create codes or design virtual machines from scratch. Instead, developers can migrate their existing Ethereum codebase and other essential components to Optimism without hassle. The current iteration on OP Stack is the Bedrock upgrade, which provides advanced tooling for launch of production-grade OP rollups. Regarding top features, OP stack offers 90% less fee than Ethereum after Bedrock upgrade, archives 2-second blocktime, supports enhanced modularity, EIP-4844, Ethereum equivalence, and so on. 

If you’re interested in diving deeper into OP stack and its Superchain concept, refer to the detailed guide linked below: Understanding OP Stack & Superchains: The most simple yet powerful framework to build Optimistic Rollups

How to build blockbuster web3 games utilizing Base with OP Stack?

If you often explore blockchain’s evolving realm, you must know that Base is becoming one of the preferred ecosystems for gaming projects– be it general or high-performing blockbuster games. While we are here to discuss game development on Base with OP Stack, let’s also discuss the approach of running gaming dApps on Base layer2. This will make the whole picture a little clearer, allowing everyone to understand the significance of building games such as Layer3 on Base.

Scenario:1 Building games directly on Base Layer2

As discussed, Base offers a reliable, secure, and scalable ecosystem for development of low-traction, fun games in which user experience remains the main focus rather than aspects like very high throughput or launch of a separate native token, or protocol-level customization is needed. All the games on Base layer2 will benefit from its largest on-chain economy and meanwhile gas cost on their project will reduce significantly. For example, the gas cost on Base is as low as $.01 following the Dencun upgrade. Plus, games on Base layer2 will leverage other benefits such as seamless onboarding of players, onramps, easy distribution, and lower fees. 

Scenario:2 Building dedicated Layer3 on Base with OP Stack

Layer3 blockchains are the hottest trend in the rollup space. Base is now joining this trend with OP stack underneath, allowing developers and studios to run their dedicated layer3 gaming chain on Base. This approach of running games entirely on-chain allows for very high throughput, customization of chains to offer specific features, and they can even offer gasless transactions to control gas spikes. Following are the main highlights of Base Layer3:

1. Base layer3 has seamless connectivity with layer2, hence players on your chain can quickly and simply access any L1 or L2 assets, for example; ETH, NFTs, or USDC. This way, in-game trading and exchange activities become really easy. 
2. A separate Layer3 chain will make onramps in game extremely cheap or even free, depending on the use cases.
3. One of the biggest problems– liquidity will no longer exist. Gaming Layer3s can easily tap into Base’s rich economy for liquidity. Plus, L3s are built with OP stack, liquidity can also be derived from other superchains interconnected with each other.
4. A ton of experiments can be done on Laye3s built on Base with OP Stack. For example, you can choose the type of sequencer, VMs, or prover. Also, with full control on the execution layer, you can adjust the throughput as per to the real-time congestion or 3rd party services can be opted for essential rollup components, such as explorer, wallet, bridges, etc. 

Scenario:3 Starting with Base Public ecosystem, then migrating to Layer3 

You can also opt for the third option, which is somewhat similar to the concept of progressive decentralization where projects move from centralized to decentralized infrastructure upon rapid growth. But, in case of Base, games will move from public layer2 to their dedicated Base L3 built with OP Stack. That’s when their ecosystem starts growing with thousands of daily active users and millions of transactions to demands massive throughout and other features like customization, modularity, separate tokenomics etc. 

Check this TL;DR 

1. For general games that aim to monetize through in-app purchases, plus they do not require very high frequency of transactions, it is recommended to deploy directly on Base layer2.

2. Web3 games that have to do millions of transactions and customization is an important aspect for them, building Base layer3 with OP Stack is the viable option.

3. If your game is already running on Base L2, but it struggles to offer the desired scalability and performance, you can migrate to a dedicated L3 with great ease.

4. If you are planning to launch tokens or economic assets for your layer3, consider issuing them on Base L2 as it will benefit from the liquidity of the broader Base economy and meanwhile these assets can be brought on L3 for doing various activities.

5. Your Base Layer3 will leverage all the features of OP stack, only the base execution layer will be the Base layer2 instead of Optimism Mainnet.

Top gaming projects built as Layer3  with Base and OP Stack

Let’s discuss some of the interesting gaming Layer3s running on Base with OP Stack framework:

1. Aavegotchi

In March, 2024, Aavegotchi– the popular gaming-based trading and marketplace platform with a huge TVL of $1.11m, made an epic announcement of using Base as their execution layer for building their dedicated layer3– Gotchichain focused on gaming. In their initial statement, Coderdan; the CEO of Pixelcraft studio has mentioned that choosing Base Layer2 for execution layer will allow them to be completely on-chain for creating next-level player experiences and meanwhile they will leverage massive scalability and lower transaction costs for better sustainability. Additionally, Aavegotchi team is tapping into OP stack to enhance modularity on Layer3 Gotchichain, eventually creating a superchain. 

2. Clique

STP Network recently introduced Clique– a Layer3 blockchain designed for AI-enhanced gaming on Base using OP stack framework. Clique will be utilized to power top 3 blockbuster games in future. Despite being new, Clique has completed 1.347M transactions and 2.07K total addresses while offering a minimal average blocktime of 1 second. The first game on Clique has been announced, which is Eternal Legacy; a strategic, AI enhanced card battles. The other two are underway. The primary aim of Clique choosing Base is to achieve enhanced efficiency, performance, and scalability while powering the game’s digital identity with ERC-6551. Further, OP Stack allows Clique to embrace modularity in its rollup, choosing alternative data availability and execution layer. 

3. Iskra

Iskra is a premier ecosystem for web3 gamers and developers that has a total of 907.56k transactions and $100.86M TVL (stats for past 30 days). Iskra has announced its hub chain to the Base ecosystem. With this strategic decision, Iskra seeks a range of Layer3 opportunities with Base L2 and OP Stack, including cost-efficient transactions, enhanced on–chain experience, seamless onboarding, better accessibility, and a lot more. Further, Iskra aims to establish its interoperability with all the Base L2/L3s and OP Stack superchains so that its increasing requirement for liquidity and decentralization can be fulfilled.

Other gaming projects building on Base with OP stack are Chain Safe Gaming, Animoca Brands, Applied Primate, G7 DAO, Land Torn, and more. 

Launch your Layer3 on Base with OP Stack and Zeeve

Zeeve offers all inclusive services for Base blockchain. If you want to deploy your application on a Base public chain, Zeeve allows you to deploy, scale, and manage a full node on enterprise-grade infrastructure. Whereas, if you are looking to launch a dedicated Layer3 chain, Zeeve’s rollups-as-a-service (RaaS) supports development of custom layer3 and layer3 rollups for all leading Optimism frameworks, such as OP Stack and Arbitrum Orbit. With Zeeve, you can deploy rollup chains in a few clicks via a low-code RaaS platform regardless of the industry; it can be Web3 gaming, DeFi, healthcare, TradeFi, or general-purpose rollups. To add modularity to your OP Stack rollups, you can choose from 30+ third-party integration services. 

Zeeve further removes your hassle of managing rollup infrastructure with its 24/7 monitoring dashboard optimized for both desktop and mobile devices. For more information on how Zeeve simplest rollup deployment and save your significant cost, contact us. Or else, you can schedule a one-to-one meeting for a detailed discussion.