thread/ the biggest opportunity for generative AI x games is unlocking new categories of play 🎮

we're seeing early glimpses of new AI-first games and the potential is massive. innovation > saving time or money

a few areas we're excited about 👇
a16z.com/2023/07/19/the… 1/ generative agents - apply LLMs to agents inside simulation games for incredibly lifelike behavior

sim games are popular. >70M people around the world play the Sims, where they manage the everyday life of virtual humans in an "interactive dollhouse"

1/ excited to share that @a16z is leading a $40M investment in @CCPGames and their new AAA game - set in the EVE Universe & merging 20 years of best-in-class game design with the latest in blockchain technology 🔥

a16z.com/2023/03/21/inv… 2/ years before the first blockchain, sci-fi MMO @EveOnline proved many of the core principles of web3

EVE is a virtual world in which every item from drones to dreadnoughts is player-made & tradable in an open economy. players self-organize into complex corporations & alliances

1/ games are unique in how new platforms (ex. mobile) grow TAM rather than cannibalize older platforms - take console:

@Sony just had a monster PS5 quarter 🔥
- 32M consoles sold to-date
- 7.1M sold last quarter (82% YoY growth)
- $9.7B games & network revenue (53% YoY growth) 2/ consoles are 📈 today despite growth in mobile gaming, and against a consumer recession

@ballmatthew has a great chart on how new game technologies drive net growth by unlocking new types of content (& thus bring in net new users)

this is unique vs other media (film, music)

we're entering a new era in AI-first game creation ☀️

up to now AAA games like Red Dead Redemption 2 cost $500M and took over 3,000 people 8 years to make

with generative AI, small teams can ship at near AAA quality but at a fraction of the cost & time

a few thoughts 👇 1/ as a fusion of art & technology, games are infamously complex & costly to build

@CyberpunkGame took a crack team of 500 developers over 9 years and ~$175M to ship, and was still widely panned at launch for being incomplete

nytimes.com/2020/12/19/sty…

1/ generative AI will likely go big first in vertical communities like anime, games, D&D 🎯

while most folks are focused on film/tv, i think high-end creatives will be the last to adopt - too much existing tooling, inertia, unions etc

the fringe is where revolutions start 🤘 2/ new innovations spread like wildfire through verticals with dense & passionate communities 🔥

- dense: each member has a high average # of connections
- passionate: members love talking about their affinity for a product
-> anime & games are good examples

1/ excited to share that @a16z is leading the $56M Series B in @readyplayerme - a leading platform for interoperable avatars, used by over 3k developers across web2 & web3 virtual worlds. i'm honored to join the board and team up with @cdixon 🔥

more 👇
a16z.com/2022/08/23/inv… 2/ we believe the next generation of virtual worlds will be built with interoperability as a core tenet, enabling players to own their identities & digital assets and take them wherever they go

these open economies will be larger & more durable than any walled garden to-date 🧱

1/ the "death" of web3 games has been greatly exaggerated 🪦

builders know that all new platforms go thru ups & downs. it takes a few tries for devs to learn to build with new primitives

i'm optimistic on web3 enabling new types of play long-term 🧵👇 2/ take mobile games - @PokemonGoApp was one of the first true mobile-native games, enabled thru smartphone features like GPS & camera

its prototype Ingress didn't launch until 5 years after the initial release of the iphone (2007)

1/ stoked to share that @a16z is leading the $22M Series A in @clockwork_labs - developers of gorgeous sandbox MMO @BitCraftOnline powered by a revolutionary new database technology for scaling games, web apps, & web3 dapps 🔥

thread 👇 2/ clockwork is led by the talented technical duo of @TylerFCloutier @AlessandroAsoni who first worked together as software engineers @Bloomberg

they founded Clockwork as their 2nd start-up after data science platform Skylab. in between Tyler also led data science @MachineZone

As we close 2021, here are my top 5 posts on games, web3, & product design:
1) The best apps today are games in disguise 🎮
2) How to make play-to-earn work 💸
3) The future of games is instant ⏱️
4) The Axie management sim 📊
5) Onboarding lessons from games 🍎

Recaps 👇 The best product design = game design. Case studies on how game design is driving innovation across consumer, fintech, enterprise, & healthcare:

https://twitter.com/Tocelot/status/1370771791891861515?s=20

Prediction: virtual economist will be one of the most in-demand jobs of our time 👩‍💼🔥

As web3 grows and games become virtual economies where millions live and work, designing systems where users feel rewarded for time spent will be a critical skill

Short thread 👇 1/ Balancing virtual economies with lots of people is really hard. Beta tests don't capture large-scale behavior, and humans are really good at exploiting loopholes - just see the recent @wolfdotgame exploits that forced the devs to rebuild the entire game

Some news: I'm taking on a new role as GP @a16z! I'll continue investing in games & crossover verticals (social, web3)

Huge thanks to @andrewchen and an amazing consumer team for supporting me over the past 2yrs. I'm also stoked to welcome @gwertz to the team! 🧵👇

https://twitter.com/a16z/status/1460634919684747266

1/ Why games? Games are a lifelong passion for me - growing up in a rural small town, games were where I found friends, status, and a bigger world of opportunity

In 2012, I was lucky enough to land a job in games as a PM @RiotGames and have never looked back

I'm thrilled to announce that @a16z is leading the Series A for Core Loop, a new game studio innovating at the intersection of web3 and the MMO genre with their project @WorldEternalMMO 🔥

a16z.com/2021/11/05/inv… 1/ Core Loop is led by industry veterans @Crash_Universe @Dchao, who were formerly CTO @MachineZone and lead designer @GREEgames, respectively. Together they've built an impressive game prototype and dev team in a short period of time

Play-to-earn games like @AxieInfinity have introduced a brilliant new endgame: the management sim

There are more jobs to be done in a P2E game than ever before. Player, manager, scout, breeder, coach etc

Thread 👇 on my journey from player to manager in @AxieInfinity 1/ Historically most folks think of games as an activity to complete - "I beat the game"

Free-to-play games can extend player lifetimes through updates and events. Yet eventually power users reach the highest level - the "endgame"

Why do play-to-earn games work when real money trading in games has (mostly) not worked? 💸

What can @AxieInfinity @Diablo @EveOnline @CSGO learn from each other?

Thread 👇 proposing a framework for what makes play-to-earn work. Stay a while and listen =) 1/ First, a few popular games where real money markets worked and didn't:
- Didn't work: Diablo 3, Artifact, Star Wars Battlefront II
- Worked: Counterstrike, World of Warcraft, Eve Online, Genshin Impact

The future of games is instant ⏱️

A new generation of instant games is melding the accessibility of Flash games with the performance of native apps. These games are poised to reshape the market for both players & creators 🎨

But wait, what are instant games? Thread 👇 1/ Instant games are games instantly playable within a browser or message without downloads / installs

First popularized by Flash games in the 2000s, there are more instant game platforms today than ever: @FacebookGaming @XboxGamePass, Snap Games, iOS AppClips, Wechat Miniapps

Games have some of the best onboarding flows

'Time-to-fun' is a key metric in game design relevant for all software. As apps that compete for free time, games deliver value quickly & unpack complexity slowly 🎢

Thread 👇 on onboarding best practices from games 1/ Time-to-fun is how long it takes a product to deliver value (h/t @ibjade)

Top mobile games have TTF <60secs. Longer TTF = greater risk users churn to social media, netflix etc

High utility apps (ex. email, banking) can have high TTF, but shorter still better. Users are busy!

The best apps today are games in disguise

@calm @tiktok_us @superhuman @chime - many of the top consumer / enterprise / fintech apps embrace game design. These 'game-like' experiences feel fun and have great retention

Thread 👇 1/ First, game-like != gamification

- Game-like apps incorporate the design principles behind good games into the core product 🍎

- Gamification merely applies the surface mechanics like points, badges, leaderboards without understanding the design principles 📋

Thread/ all social products need to choose between real-life vs anonymous identity when they reach a certain scale. Users want to know if that 'Elon_Musketeer' raving about Mars is really Elon or just an imposter. 🚀 This is a design choice I’ve been thinking a lot on 👇 1/ on one hand, the largest social networks today lean toward real identity: @Facebook @Twitter @tiktok_us etc. Enforcing real identity is fundamental for enabling creators on these platforms to build audiences – simply put, users want to know if that person is real!

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 👇 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

👇 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 🏈 -> 🧑‍🦱

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 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