Thread by @MPH6967

The Grand Shift in Web3 Gaming A🧵

NO creating investor ponzi & play2earn games!
Inhale the power of Crafting Experiences for Gamers.

Founder, dev, CC, advisor, investor or VC in this space: This is for you.

Share this to help spread the word!
1/22
#Web3Gaming #InvestorPonzi

Start of a new year. I join a podcast of a major player in the "web 3 gaming" space. A question is presented to the guests about what this space needs to thrive this year.
Two instant Answers: "This will likely be a silent year" + "the markets need more liquidity first".🤯
2/22

These people were so lost it motivated me to educate everyone on the reality of the situation.

Web 3 gaming is a moneyhole for the VCs dreaming of exponential returns. Knowing Game tokens are chained to the markets they plan to invest now & exit once the markets go up.
3/22

Founders know this well and take advantage of it. They often begin building brands, hype and some sort of scuffed product with high promise.

Usually they do this with relatively small teams, as it is convenient today with the influencers and tech available to leverage.
4/22

Most of the time these people are businessman with one purpose: to profit.

How do they gain VC funding? They need engagament. Primary way for that is building a community/traction.

The target demographic for this community are usually young men looking to earn easy money.
5/22

So there is a promise of high earnings and investors speculating on it.

These people stick around & often contribute lots of their money (and time) to earn their spot to be able to enjoy the speculated rewards.

Rewards, well where do those come from? The consumers.
6/22

Ofcourse: there are investors, the team, founders and the consumer. Wait, where are the consumers?

Well, if a game is still in development currently there are no consumers yet.

Once the game is ready the goal is often to have great amount of consumers enjoying the product.
7/22

"Hmm. There are like unlimited amount of games to choose from. How can I be sure this game will get enough of those consumers?"

The user acquisition relies on organic growth of the community & marketing of the game.

Those users need to like the game a lot to keep playing.
8/22

"Hard to say how it will work for the game I invested in, as we haven´t seen any footage of the game or heard about the marketing plans"
-You are kept in the dark.

"The game is play to earn and team said we want to keep it in web 3"
-Check if it has 5year scope for adoption
9/22

"It does seem like a great game, but you need a wallet or NFT to play it so we haven´t yet found consumers"
-You have, you are the consumer.

For successful game marketing you need to know the target audience & not scare them away with web 3 words or difficulty of access.
10/22

I run a playtesting group of over 60 gamers. 9/10 of them shit their pants if they have to use a metamask, they wish to stay away from crypto or web 3.

I´v looked profiles of thousands of gaming influencers. Most of them would never risk their reputation by marketing web3.
11/22

The mainstream has a certain opinion of this space & you cannot change it through argument. Only actions.

Why do they call these projects investor ponzis? If there are no customers, you are the customer.

System only brings money through new investors:
Not sustainable.
12/22

"Play2earn" is directly linked into web3 & crypto. It is impossible to market to mainstream today.

It has existed in games for quite a long time. (coming from someone with great success in it at TF2 and CSGO)

It was never the incentive to play those games. Only a niche.
13/22

Enable an easy way to trade in your game and earn some ingame cosmetics through playing: your players will thank you for it.

But 99% of the times that will not be the reason for them to try out your game. Usual Reasons are the hopes of a great experience & socializing etc.
14/22

What about ownership? Players tend to agree that it would be great to have.

Yet, it is not a reason to choose a certain game + they don´t want to use wallets or crypto or other things they are scared of.

So how do you actually succeed in User Acquisition for your game?
15/22

Make a game that is marketable through the Aesthetics, Concept, Narrative & has a game design that gives the game retention.

Game design is all about crafting an experience for your target audience.

Work together with your audience and form a community of testers early on
16/22

Just as important is prioritizing working together with the gaming influencers & supporting them. Their choices decide the narrative & winners in the industry.

Create a real bond of trust & long term relationships rather than using these ppl for onetime marketing splash.
17/22

There are lots of great games being developed in 2023. All kinds of competition for your game: Indie, Web 3, traditional AAA games etc.

How can you push your game to be one of the successful ones that gets the eyeballs?

Let me give you a few quick tips to nail it in 2023
18/22

+Community built game with a full transparency and working feedback loop. Shape the game together with the people you are making the experience for.

+Revenue model that supports Gaming Influencers long term, not the standard 5%, even though it is better than nothing.
19/22

+Rewarding UGC tools that enable players to create levels, mods, skins etc. & therefore boost the engagement & replayability massively

+Innovative game design. Players & influencers alike are grasping to find something fresh rn.
psst: Social Features + Interactivity are UP
20/22

Stop wasting the funding available.
Lets take down these walls around #Web3gaming

Gamers don´t want tokenomics or prioritize true ownership enough.

Lets Deliver first. Later some rare people may want to mint their ingame items onchain & ppl might just accept it.
21/22
#XPFIRST

I hope this thread gave you value & sparked thoughts.
Comment below!

Wanted to post this 6 months ago, but the narrative back then was 10x worse than today.

More content to come.
Contact me through direct messages if need.

Looking to follow others creating experiences!
22/22

Two updates: You can now read this easier as a blog post through my brand new substack if you wish: xpfirst.substack.com/p/the-grand-sh…

Also set up bsns email you can reach me through: [e-mail]

#Web3Gaming #XPFIRST #Gamedev #Gamedesign #Metaverse #esports #Influencer #gaming