Some time ago, our guild planned an on-chain incentive event, but we almost got tripped up by Gas costs. The plan was actually pretty simple—players could earn token rewards by completing specified tasks in the game. But when it came time to submit each player's progress data to the chain for verification, we were stunned: the cost of verifying once was almost as much as the reward itself.

This failure got me thinking—how do those large gaming guilds enable thousands or even tens of thousands of players to participate in on-chain tasks at the same time, while keeping the costs down? After some research, I realized they never intended to put all in-game data on-chain in the first place.

The core idea can be summed up in eight words: off-chain computation, on-chain proof.

Let me give an example—the game server is like a teacher grading exams, recording details such as how long you took to answer and whether your answers were correct. The traditional approach is like uploading the entire exam room’s surveillance footage to the internet. Sure, it’s transparent, but the bandwidth and storage costs will drive you crazy.

What’s the smart way? After grading, the teacher only submits your final report card and a few key proofs (like your signed answer sheet) on-chain. The chain only verifies these streamlined proofs for validity, ignoring the details in between. This way, the outcome remains trustworthy, but the interaction cost is slashed to a fraction.

For regular players, this approach is completely seamless—you can play as usual and still get your rewards. But for builders, this is a truly viable Web3 gaming infrastructure solution. Of course, the security of the off-chain components and the trustworthiness of the servers are still ongoing risks that need to be closely monitored.