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Robin Guo Profile picture
Robin Guo
@zebird0
Investing in nerd culture @a16z: games, web3, gamified apps, anime, UGC. Building SPEEDRUN | Prev. VC @riotgames | top 200 head-clicker @pubg
May 19, 2024 • 27 tweets • 8 min read
People ask what my framework is for web3 games. Runescape is always my reference point for some of the primitives that web3 games innovate on 🧵

1) Emergent economic behavior
2) Bots as a feature, not a bug
3) Stakes are intrinsic not extrinsic
4) Crowdsourcing design decisions Image But first, applications for SPEEDRUN close in just 12 hours!

@a16zGames is actively looking for great web3 games founders innovating in tech, games, and crypto. Let's chat if you're building here.

sr.a16z.com
Dec 13, 2023 • 10 tweets • 3 min read
Last week, we here @a16z gave our predictions on big ideas for 2024. For me, I'm doubling down on anime.

Anime has quickly become one of the highest grossing genres of games by ARPU. In 2022, Mihoyo grossed over $3.8 billion from Genshin and Mihoyo. And... they also grossed more profit than gaming giant Activision Blizzard (think, Candy Crush, Call of Duty, etc.)



sportskeeda.com/esports/news-g…
pocketgamer.biz/news/81717/mih…
Aug 23, 2023 • 15 tweets • 5 min read
Waifus are eating the world.

Mihoyo made $3.8B in revenue last year (PocketGamer), nearly half of Activision Blizzard. Here's why anime games / culture are taking over🧵 1/ The Rise of Anime

69% of GenZ watch anime, up from 57% of millennials and only 23% of baby boomers. What was once a niche genre has now gone mainstream!

There's a reason why Mihoyo's motto is "tech otakus can save the world." Image
May 26, 2023 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
SPEEDRUN. Demo. Day.

33 of the best companies hand picked from 1600+ applications that are innovating at the frontiers of gaming, AI, mental health, ed tech, social, etc. Lots of long nights for this one 😅

June 8th. 12-5PM. Apply here: info.a16z.com/apply-for-spee… 2/ We're really excited about this cohort.

Top developers from Riot, Nintendo, Blizzard, Discord, Epic. Technical, GenZ influencers with millions of followers. Second time founders of unicorns. AI engineers working at the frontiers. Even a company partnered with Leo Messi!
Mar 9, 2023 • 12 tweets • 3 min read
Games VC is a unique job that didn’t exist 10 years ago.

So here are 5 lessons I learned from working @a16z for the last year 🧵 Image 1/ Metrics > Team > Ideas. Doesn't matter what kind of genius thesis you have on a particular market, if a startup is blowing up everyone knows it. Strong retention, high growth, tons of deal heat. The hard part is picking out a sustainable game from overnight flashes in the pan.
Mar 8, 2023 • 16 tweets • 5 min read
How did this janky game get so popular? A theory on how BRs like @PUBG/@FortniteGame caught lightning in a bottle. 🧵

👀 Session novelty
🧭 Market/player opp
👯‍♀️ Fun alone, better with friends
📈 Monotonically increasing intensity Battle royales were first popularized by fiction, the 2000s Japanese film "Battle Royale," The Hunger Games, etc. Transmedia works!
Mar 7, 2023 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
The hardest thing in games is to evoke a feeling.

Some games do this through narrative (Last of Us), some through cooperation (League), some through world-building (Genshin).

The Believers have it all, and we're excited to partner on their journey.👇

a16z.com/2023/03/07/inv… @Believer_Co is led by legendary game developers Michael Chow and Steven Snow, the EP of @wildrift and one of the OG EPs of @LeagueOfLegends respectively.
Feb 17, 2023 • 20 tweets • 8 min read
Today's my one year anniversary @a16z. It all started with a cold email.

A story about my winding journey to becoming Employee #1 at Games Fund One 📖 It starts three years ago when I was still working @McKinsey focused on biotech/healthcare. Like many fresh consultants out of college, I was thinking about what I wanted to do next.
Feb 15, 2023 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
One thing I'll always ask new game founders when they're pitching: who's your audience?

For newbies and vets alike, Bartle's taxonomy is the OG framework for understanding this. At Riot we called this game primitives, at Blizzard psychographic profiles. And you can deconstruct it further. But this is a good starting point.
Feb 13, 2023 • 21 tweets • 6 min read
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 🧵 Image 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. Image
Dec 20, 2022 • 18 tweets • 5 min read
As 2022 wraps up, I ran a survey of 2,000+ gamers to see who they are, what they're playing, and how they're spending. And discovered one big surprise 👀

A sneak peak of Games Fund One's 2022 Gamer Survey (Part 1)👇 A couple hypotheses I wanted to test:
1) What platforms and genres are people gravitating towards across age, geo, income, gender, etc.?
2) Why are people drawn to specific genres? What're their motivations for play?
3) What's driving IAP/F2P spend?