Exclusive Interview with DeepLink Protocol CEO: Can decentralized cloud gaming allow everyone to play the ultimate 'Black Myth: Wukong'?

Author: ZEN, PANews

On August 20th, the first domestic 3A masterpiece “Black Myth: Wukong” was released and quickly occupied the headlines of various social platforms. This popular game has won the hearts of many players solely based on its exquisite graphics. Whether it is the beautiful ancient architecture, the pleasing natural scenery, or the rich and diverse demon bosses, they all give players a visual feast on the journey to the west.

Excellent game graphics, mainly thanks to its use of Unreal Engine 5, supporting NVIDIA’s latest ray tracing and DLSS 3.5 technology, achieving movie-level quality in both static lighting and dynamic effects. However, exquisite game graphics require sufficient hardware support. According to the configuration requirements and game test results announced by Black Myth: Wukong, players who want to balance game quality and smoothness need to use at least a GeForce RTX 40 series GPU.

Therefore, while “Black Myth: Wukong” is selling well, it has also driven the search for graphics cards and other products, and the Trading Volume has also seen a significant rise. The search volume for related products such as “NVIDIA Black Myth Wukong joint graphics card” on Taobao has surged by 1379%. In addition to spending a lot of money to upgrade hardware, cloud gaming platforms also provide a more cost-effective option for players who want to experience blockbuster games without spending a lot. Tencent START cloud gaming, for example, supported the game immediately after the launch of “Black Myth: Wukong.” The official statement mentioned that when players set the game at 4K resolution and ultra-high quality settings, the game can maintain a frame rate of 64 frames per second even with ray tracing turned on. However, due to limitations in server support and geographical distance, some players in China and overseas may find it difficult to enjoy high-quality gameplay.

These geographical limitations, along with high consumption, scarcity of game resources, and even latency issues, are not uncommon on current cloud gaming platforms, which is also the reason why cloud gaming platforms have not been widely accepted by mainstream gamers. With the continuous development of DePIN, Decentralization’s cloud gaming protocol DeepLink has provided a new paradigm for the cloud gaming industry, and has opened its ‘road to proof’. Since the launch of the first product in October 2022, DeepLink has covered more than 110 countries and regions including China, Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, India, North America, and Europe, attracting more than 1.4 million users.

In the blockchain industry, the concept of cloud gaming is not often mentioned because the technology itself has a high threshold, and it is also a major challenge to integrate it with blockchain technology. So, what is the background of the DeepLink team? How can their decentralized architecture bring new breakthroughs to cloud gaming? Can players and resource contributors benefit from it? … With these questions in mind, PANews recently interviewed Yong He, CEO of DeepLink, to learn more about the project and the cloud gaming industry.

Veteran Players in the Cloud Gaming Industry Join Forces to Create

Yong He entered the cryptocurrency industry in 2016 and launched the artificial intelligence computing platform DeepBrain Chain (hereinafter referred to as DBC) driven by blockchain technology in 2017. After 4 years of development, it went online on Mainnet in 2021. During the search for applications for DeepBrain Chain, he identified the decentralized cloud gaming platform DeepLink and established a cooperative relationship with it. He also personally invested $1 million in the project out of recognition.

In 2022, after the encryption market entered the Bear Market, Yong He was invited to serve as the CEO of DeepLink, responsible for project financing and product development. Earlier this year, DeepLink announced that it raised $8 million in angel and Series A financing, plus over $5 million raised in the token public sale, bringing the project’s total funding to over $13 million.

“I want to make DeepLink a benchmark project on the DBC artificial intelligence public chain.” Yong He said that just as some applications on the Ethereum platform have experienced explosive growth, its ecosystem will be able to attract various developers. Obviously, the success or failure of DeepLink, which focuses on DePIN+AI technology, will be crucial to the future development of DBC."

The reason why DeepLink is being heavily invested in is mainly because the core team of the project has more than ten years of rich experience in cloud gaming technology. The founder and CTO of the project used to be the dean of the research institute of Shunwang, a cloud gaming solution provider, specializing in technology research and development. Other members are core technical personnel from companies such as Cisco, Intel, Nvidia, and Huawei.

Achieve B+C All Kill with DePIN+AI

In the field of cloud gaming, relevant companies can usually be divided into two categories: cloud gaming platforms and cloud gaming technology providers. The former directly provides cloud gaming services to players, with mainstream platforms including Tencent Start Cloud, Migu Quick Game, NVIDIA GeForce Now, etc.; the latter focuses on providing underlying technology support for cloud gaming platforms or other third parties, such as WeLink Era, which has seen its valuation increase 20 times within a year after making cloud gaming for Genshin Impact. DeepLink, on the other hand, has developed two products, DeepLink Software and DeepLink Protocol, which address different needs.

“DeepLink Protocol is a fundamental protocol at the underlying layer, and DeepLink Software is a cloud gaming platform developed based on this protocol.” Yong He further explained that as an Open Source Decentralization AI cloud gaming protocol, DeepLink Protocol allows distributed sharing of GPU Computing Power and provides Decentralization’s ultra-low latency AI cloud gaming rendering technology, which can be widely used in cloud internet cafes, cloud esports, and game companies.

He said that after a certain South Korean Internet cafe used the DeepLink protocol, the one-time investment dropped from 1.8 million RMB to less than 1 million, saving a lot of machine equipment costs. In addition, according to reports, a large e-sports hotel group in Nanjing has reached a cooperation agreement with DeepLink Protocol and DBC in mid-month, which will greatly reduce the initial investment and operating costs by connecting to the GPU computing power of DBC.

DeepLink Protocol is essentially an application of DePIN. Its GPU network has a large number of GPUMiners connected to the machine supply side. They place GPU machines in IDC centers to provide Computing Power resources and receive rewards in the form of DLCTokens. Each GPU machine provider needs to stake a certain amount of DLCTokens in advance. If there is instability in the GPU network, the corresponding Tokens will be deducted as a penalty, which is almost equivalent to a Miner’s one-month income. This strict penalty mechanism motivates them to work harder to maintain server reliability, further ensuring the stability of their cloud-based physical infrastructure.

In the application of AI technology, DeepLink Protocol mainly uses AIAlgorithm to improve the game’s image resolution and quality, similar to the DLSS technology developed by NVIDIA, further reducing the demand for GPU performance. This allows players to maintain high image quality while reducing the pressure on the GPU and increasing the game’s frame rate.

How does the Decentralization mechanism benefit players?

With the development of communication technology, hardware facilities, and cloud gaming technology, many cloud gaming platforms mentioned earlier have already established a stable foothold. The product logic of ‘drop the hardware threshold and break free from scene restrictions’ has also been recognized by many players.

However, on the one hand, there are still more players who want to “play high-quality games with low-end hardware” that need to be further tapped, and on the other hand, the competition between platforms for the existing market is also fierce. It is not easy to make a name for oneself in such an environment. Yong He analyzed the differences between DeepLink as a Decentralization cloud gaming solution and the vendors or platforms on the market.

Because DeepLink does not require high costs like centralized cloud gaming platforms on the market, such as purchasing a large number of machines and hardware, its operating costs can be significantly dropped. Therefore, DeepLink can pass on the saved expenses to the player community, which means that players will pay lower costs when experiencing cloud gaming services. According to Yong He, the pricing of the DeepLink platform is particularly low, basically within 30% of the current mainstream prices (approximately $0.1 to $0.2 per hour).

In addition, if centralized cloud gaming platforms want to cover more areas, they must build a large number of data centers within their operational scope. However, due to the insufficient scale of users, it means that even after huge investment, it is difficult to achieve a balance between revenue and expenditure. This is the reason why most gaming platforms can only cover a few countries and regions, and also the reason why cloud gaming platforms such as Caiji Games, Youzu Network, and Glaiyun Gaming have been shut down one after another in the past few years. Meanwhile, DeepLink’s distributed blockchain technology can enable data centers and GPU servers Nodes to be distributed all over the world, and even allow players with high-end hardware configurations to share their devices with other users. Yong He revealed that among the current 1.4 million users, there are already over 300,000 players with high-end configurations participating in sharing.

Finally, strictly speaking, DeepLink integrates two types of platform services: cloud gaming and cloud computing, supporting multiple devices such as mobile phones, PCs, and Vision Pro. Players are not limited by the resources of the gaming platform and can enjoy various games, including 3A-level blockchain games. This web3 player-friendly service is also a major feature of DeepLink.

DLCToken: User consumption and Miner incentives

“The use of Token is very critical, I think it is a core factor for the long-term development of a project.” Yong He said that DeepLink’s DLCToken adopts a deflationary model and can support the formation of a circular economic system. When users use DLC to pay for cloud gaming services, DeepLink Protocol will charge a commission of 20-30% for each cloud gaming transaction and settle it in DLC. These parts of the Token will be directly destroyed by 100%. As the number of users increases and the consumption time increases, the amount of DLC destroyed will also increase exponentially. In this way, the Circulating Supply of DLC in the market can gradually decrease, and the value of the Token will increase."

On the side of GPU providers, as supporters who generate and provide DLC, they can receive rewards in Tokens, which are also the core source of income for Miners. Currently, the total annual Token supply is 2 billion. The higher the value of DLC, the greater the income that GPU providers can obtain, and this positive cycle will also attract more Miners to join. In addition, as mentioned above, when Miners place GPU servers in IDC centers, they need to stake a certain amount of DLC to ensure the provision of long-term stable services. Users and Miners are thus connected through Tokens, forming a closed-loop economic system.

In addition, DeepLinkMining is divided into CPU traffic Mining and personal GPU machine Mining. Only Node owners can participate, and the total reward is 12% of the total DLCToken (12 billion). Among them, CPU traffic Nodes account for 4%, and personal GPU Nodes account for 8%. The total number of Nodes is limited to 120,000, and no more will be issued. The purchase cost of these Nodes is actually a kind of stake to ensure the stability of the system. As for the Node sales method, DeepLink is divided into 10 levels, with the lowest level being $30 per Node, and each Node will receive an additional Airdrop of 30,000 DLC.

"Based on the current price of DLC on the market, the total value of 30,000 tokens is roughly equivalent to $90. As a result, the selling price of Node is actually lower than the price at which Token is purchased in the market. He said this is because DeepLink wants to attract more miners to join and improve its ecosystem. So that’s actually some perks for Node providers. ”

Decentralization: The New Path of Cloud Gaming

In 2020, cloud gaming became one of the hottest technology concepts after the basic infrastructure such as network transmission matured. A well-known consulting firm, NewZoo, found through user profiling that players can be divided into 8 categories, all of which correspond to the characteristics of cloud gaming. For example, backseat players enjoy the sharing nature of cloud gaming, price-sensitive players like the low entry barrier of cloud gaming, and even hardcore gamers are interested in the cross-platform experience and convenience of cloud gaming. However, it is not easy to open up a new market. Currently, cloud gaming users generally have low consumption levels and most players are not very interested in cloud gaming, criticizing it as more of a gimmick than a reality.

Yong He believes that the cloud gaming industry needs to focus on two factors. On the one hand, costs must be low. If costs are too high, then it will be impossible to reach the group of players who want to play high-quality games on low-end devices. Only when the cost of consumption is low enough, will the platform attract gamers. On the other hand, the coverage of IDC is limited, so players who are far away from it will have a very poor gaming experience. Google, which was once one of the leaders in cloud gaming platforms, had to close its cloud gaming platform Stadia because it was too centralized, the data center distribution was concentrated, and the enterprise-level GPU provided by NVIDIA was too costly. Instead, it focused on cloud gaming technology solutions. Other large cloud gaming platforms also have similar challenges to a greater or lesser extent.

On the contrary, small and medium-sized cloud gaming companies have achieved good development in recent years. However, due to the balance of income and expenditure, they are unable to invest a large amount of GPU in advance. The high cost of enterprise-level GPU and limited IDC coverage ultimately make these platforms show obvious regional characteristics, each occupying their own territory. Yong He said that this is the inevitable result of centralized cloud gaming platforms. When it reaches a certain point in development, its rise will enter a bottleneck.

Therefore, after more than a decade of cloud gaming technology development, the DeepLink team’s technical staff chose to apply blockchain technology and its Decentralization mode in order to achieve cost reduction and efficiency improvement, while expanding coverage by dropping costs. Players are no longer limited by physical distance and the bottleneck of centralized servers, and can enjoy a smoother gaming experience. In addition, this Decentralization architecture also provides more opportunities for GPU providers to participate, forming a new economic model. This not only improves the resource utilization efficiency of the system, but also promotes the popularization of cloud gaming, allowing more users with low configuration devices to enjoy high-quality gaming experience.