Thread by @zebird0

Who’s the web3 gamer, the casual n00b or the 1337 gamer? We here @a16zGames ran a survey to dig in a bit more.

A couple highlights:
87% traded digital items in games before ⚖️
72% male (comp. to survey avg. 59%) 🧑‍💻
2x more likely to love MOBAs 🧙‍♂️

Thread 🧵

1/ Let's start with the market. In the existing gamers I sampled, crypto usage is becoming more widespread amongst US gamers. But web3 games are still relatively nascent among them, with only 6% of gamers having played.

2/ Among those players, a small minority were opposed to crypto. The detractors tended to be bimodal: casual gamers still new to the space, or very hardcore gamers who played a lot.

Beyond the obvious suggestions on growing the space (being player first, solving UX/FTUE, improving security, etc.), there are a couple areas I’ll dive into in this thread:

a) Thinking through an economy where resetting the balance can have substantial financial implications

b) NFT drops as a form of leveraged UA, which creates an incentivized holder community that needs to be actively managed

c) Finding player-genre fit aka finding the fun

Let's keep diving in 👇

4/ Sentiment has shifted a bit over time, and here at @a16zGames we’ll continue to monitor what drives some of these changes. When web3 studios launch new games that are intrinsically fun and player-forward, perceptions among trad gamers should change.

5/ Interestingly, gamers seemed less concerned about volatility and security issues in some web3 games. 31% of respondents simply “[didn’t] know enough” about the games, the top listed reason. Understanding the mechanics of the game can be hard enough, but layer on...

getting a wallet, figuring out self custody, buying the token to purchase the NFT, signing the smart contract, paying the gas fee, etc. and it's a lot of cognitive work for some players. Compared to more familiar mobile games, time to fun is way too long.

6/ Compared to the non-web3 gamers I surveyed (of which the majority was male), the web3 gamers skewed male (73% vs. surveyed pop of 59%), young adults (25-34), urban, and wealthier

Current adopters of crypto games tend to gravitate more towards higher income urban centers, and also tend to be fairly tech-savvy.

7/ So... what did the survey results tell us about the gamers themselves? The ones in our sample tend to be hardcore gamers with higher player patterns across all platforms. 22-25% more web3 gamers play multiple times a week on console/PC compared to the overall average.

8/ They also liked traditionally more "hardcore" genres. First-person shooters, BRs, and action games were popular as per usual, but MOBAs and MMOs ranked higher among the web3 gamers surveyed and puzzle and life sim games lower.

9/ Web3 gamers seem to have way more experience trading digital items on previous web2 marketplaces (Steam, WoW Auction House, Runescape Grand Exchange, etc.). This naturally translates to experience trading digital items on new crypto/ NFT marketplaces.

Anecdotally I've met a ton of folks that have spent thousands of hours on old school MMOs, trading commodities, buying expensive items, writing bots, and getting scammed once or twice too.

With web3, a challenge to solve will be managing an economy that now has RWM implications. All game economies are rebalanced and modified over time, but now those price fluctuations aren’t simply in "monopoly" money, but fungible currency.

10/ Tracking with the more hardcore demographic, the web3 gamers in the survey tended to be more interested in competition, community, and brands compared to baseline, and were less interested in simply playing to "pass the time."

Game studios should think about whether they want to market to this hardcore base of early adopters of web3 games, or a broader audience of more casual players, as the GTM will be different.

To wrap, a few thoughts:
a) Web3 gamers surveyed in the US tend to be more hardcore and sophisticated, less interested in passing the time and more experienced in digital goods trading
b) To expand the space, web3 games can use some of these play motivations and genres

to better understand game-player fit. Target the core or expand the breadth.
c) Besides solving UI/UX, FTUE, scams, etc. building a robust web3 game economy is a complicated task that even in web2 was difficult to achieve. Diablo, WoW, Runescape, etc. can give lessons on design.

As a reminder, the survey demographics: US-only, 2K+ surveyed, play games multiple times a month. Survey directional data given limited size.

For more on games, AI, web3 and more, give me a follow @zebird0!