Custom Appchain for Gaming vs General-Purpose L1 for Gaming

Custom Appchains for Gaming (e.g., Immutable zkEVM, Xai, Paima) excel at sovereignty and performance isolation. By dedicating the entire chain's resources to your game, you eliminate network congestion from unrelated DeFi or NFT mints, enabling predictable sub-second block times and near-zero gas fees for players. For example, Immutable zkEVM leverages Polygon's zk-rollup tech to offer over 4,500 TPS with instant finality, a critical metric for real-time gameplay.

General-Purpose L1s for Gaming (e.g., Solana, Avalanche Subnets, Arbitrum Nova) take a different approach by offering immediate liquidity and composability. Building on a shared, high-throughput chain like Solana (which sustains 2-3k TPS with ~$0.001 fees) provides instant access to a massive ecosystem of tokens (e.g., Raydium), DeFi protocols, and user wallets. This results in a trade-off: you gain network effects but must compete for block space during peak activity, potentially leading to variable transaction costs.

The key trade-off: If your priority is complete control over the stack, predictable economics, and bespoke tokenomics, choose a custom appchain. If you prioritize rapid user acquisition, deep liquidity, and interoperability with a broad DeFi/NFT ecosystem from day one, choose a battle-tested general-purpose L1. The decision hinges on whether you value sovereignty over speed-to-market.

Custom Appchains (e.g., built with Polygon Supernets, Avalanche Subnets, or Arbitrum Orbit) excel at providing unmatched sovereignty and performance control. By owning the chain, you dictate the gas token, transaction finality, and can implement custom fee models (like sponsored transactions for players). This results in near-zero, predictable fees and ultra-high TPS tailored to your game's logic, as demonstrated by games like Shrapnel on Avalanche or Pirate Nation on its own Arbitrum Orbit chain, which avoid network congestion from unrelated DeFi activity.

General-Purpose L1s (e.g., Solana, Ethereum L2s like Arbitrum, or Polygon PoS) take a different approach by offering immediate ecosystem liquidity and developer tooling. This results in the trade-off of competing for block space but grants instant access to established user bases, DeFi primitives (like Uniswap for in-game asset swaps), and battle-tested security. For instance, deploying on Solana provides sub-$0.001 fees and 2,000+ TPS, but your game's performance is still subject to the broader network's load from protocols like Jupiter and Raydium.

The key trade-off is Sovereignty vs. Synergy. If your priority is complete technical control, bespoke economics, and isolating performance for a complex, high-throughput game world, a custom appchain is the definitive choice. If you prioritize rapid user acquisition, leveraging existing DeFi composability, and minimizing initial infrastructure overhead, a general-purpose L1 or its leading L2 is the superior path. For most studios, the decision maps to a spectrum: start on a robust L2 for launch velocity, then migrate to a dedicated appchain as your player base and economic complexity demands exclusive resources.