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Jon Lai

28 Dec, 7 tweets, 4 min read

As we wrap 2020, here are my top 5 essays for the year:
1) The digital future of tabletop games ♟️🐉
2) The rise of "lifestyle" livestreamers 🤳
3) Cloud-native gaming ☁️🎮
4) New social modalities in the Metaverse 🎢
5) Tencent's investment strategy 🌏

Essay links & recaps 👇

@AmongUsGame

1/ The next big innovation in social play will likely come from tabletop games: D&D, Warhammer, Mafia etc are exploding & being reinvented by modern digital tools. Since essay was written, @AmongUsGame has emerged as the latest example of our noted trends
bit.ly/3rt92rr

@Twitch

2/ Livestreaming (@Twitch @Youtube @Caffeine) has grown beyond gaming to become a medium for creators to chat about everything from food to falconry to politics. "Lifestyle" streamers see higher engagement, deeper community, & new biz models

bit.ly/3pvgi4i

@GoogleStadia

3/ The promise of cloud gaming (ex. @GoogleStadia @FacebookGaming) lies not in hardware, but software -> the potential to unlock a new class of "cloud-native" experiences that leverage cloud capabilities to create unique entertainment experiences

bit.ly/2M3LXeq

4/ As we spend more time in virtual worlds, the way we socialize will evolve

We'll see
- new forms of engagement 🎮
- new types of friendships 🧑‍🤝‍🧑
- more spontaneity 🎢
- enabled by new content models 🎦

bit.ly/3pqlaYg

@TencentGlobal

5/ A few lessons learned from 4 years as a builder & investor @TencentGlobal
- Product innovation is king
- Build for a core customer community
- Pick the right battleground
- Trust in great teams
- Don't be cheap

https://twitter.com/Tocelot/status/1256290185446166530?s=20

To readers - what would you like to hear more about in 2021? Let me know any requests for essay topics! 📙✍️

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Jon Lai

@Tocelot

10 Dec

👇 Thread: As we spend more time in virtual worlds, the way we socialize will also evolve

We'll see:
- new forms of social engagement 🍻
- new types of friendships 🧑‍🤝‍🧑
- more spontaneity 🎢
- enabled by new content models 🎦🎮

We break it down here!
bit.ly/2VZ2sdC

1/ In the Metaverse - with worlds at our fingertips, socializing will shift from the purposeful "what" to the people-centric "who"
From 🏈 -> 🧑‍🦱

@netflix

2/ Today the majority of digital entertainment, from TV to music to games, is made by professionals and is largely single-player, i.e. your @netflix show doesn't change when you watch it with friends 📺

Read 15 tweets

Jon Lai

@Tocelot

1 May

@TencentGlobal

Thread/ I often get asked to explain how Tencent has such a great track record in games. Their portfolio includes hits like Riot Games, Epic, Discord, Supercell, etc. Here are a few lessons I learned in 4 yrs @TencentGlobal investing & publishing some of the top games of our time

@dots

1/ Product is king👑– the first thing we looked for is product innovation⚗️, something that enables a game to break out and become #1-2 in a genre. This could be a new mechanic like @dots Squares, a new system like @PUBG Battle Royale mode, or new tech enabling the above

1a/ While obvious in hindsight, ‘innovation’⚗️is hard to identify in development unless you’re really familiar with the problems of the category. That’s why almost everyone in Tencent senior mgmt is a core gamer with thousands of hours under their belt. Eat your own dog food🐶

Read 15 tweets

Jon Lai

@Tocelot

8 Apr

@Twitch

👇Thread: New blog on @Twitch @Youtube @caffeine!
Myth: Livestreaming is about games
Truth: Livestreaming is about personality & community
We're seeing the rise of a new class of ‘lifestyle streamers’ for which games are only 1 way to engage fans
bit.ly/2xYcsej

@Drake

1/ This trend of non-gaming focused 'lifestyle' streams is playing out across the industry, with @Drake doing battle rap shows on @caffeine and @FlavCity hosting live cooking shows on @Youtube

2/ On Twitch, non-gaming content has actually been the fastest growing category over the last two years. Since 2018, the non-gaming channel Just Chatting has grown ~4x as fast as Twitch overall. See chart:

Read 10 tweets

Jon Lai

@Tocelot

14 Jan

New blog post! The promise of cloud-native games -> a new class of cloud games is emerging that will upend the entertainment experience as we know it and bring us closer to the Metaverse. How? a16z.com/2020/01/14/clo…

1/ Myth: cloud gaming will succeed by "killing the console," thus expanding the TAM for games (no hardware needed to play)
Truth: cloud-native games (software) exclusive to the platform will be cloud gaming's true killer app

2/ Cloud-natives are games designed specifically for the cloud where client/server are hosted in the same architecture. These games will enable entirely new gameplay experiences and business models - changing not only how we play, but what. A few examples:

Read 8 tweets

Jon Lai

@Tocelot

16 Oct 19

Thread: Next-generation games will be bigger than anything we've seen yet. Forget 100M MAU, tomorrow's MMO will target 1B+ MAU (Facebook scale). Why?
Here are 6 key ways next-gen games will be different ->

1/ Games are the new mall. Fortnite looks more like Facebook than it does a traditional FPS: millions of players just hang out in squads & custom games. huge communities form around esports and in-game events like Marshmello's concert (~11M attendees) and #fortniteblackhole

@LeagueOfLegends

2/ Games live for years. No longer Hollywood-style hits, live service games today can thrive for decades: @LeagueOfLegends just celebrated its 10-year anniversary yesterday with a franchise-high 8M concurrent daily players

Read 8 tweets

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