#885 Can EverQuest veteran John Smedley get web3 right?
Deconstructing FPS Reaper Actual
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Following the news that John Smedley’s new San Diego studio Distinct Possibility has raised $30.5 million to develop Reaper Actual — a persistent open-world PC-based loot shooter running on Tezos’ EMV L2 Etherlink — one commentator pointed out this sort of thing wouldn’t have been surprising two years ago.
Today, it is — especially the funding.
To put that into context, it’s the largest investment in blockchain gaming since Parallel Studios announced its $35 million round in March 2024.
The rub, however, is that the funding and game were announced yesterday. That’s not when the funding happened.
Indeed, Reaper Actual has been in development at the 100-strong Distinct Possibility (with help from co-dev Brazilian studio Big Moxi Games) for two years, strongly suggesting the money actually changed hands in 2023.
Notably, neither have lead investors Bitkraft and Brevan Howard Digital been writing this level of cheque recently, while other investors such as North Island Ventures and Decasonic stopped their blockchain game funding activity back in 2022. Shima Capital has also been very quiet since early 2024.
Hence, the reason this feels like a 2023 deal is because it is a 2023 deal.
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But the most surprising detail isn’t the funding. It’s Tezos.
It’s never had a strong community for gaming. Granted Ubisoft launched its ill-fated Quartz platform for NFTs on Tezos in 2021, but aside from a handful of other titles such as Dogami (which moved to Polygon) and Tezotopia, that’s been it.
So why is Reaper Actual using Tezos?
Maybe Distinct Possibility is just trying to downplay blockchain. Why that means you make a suboptimal decision about what blockchain to use, I don’t know? Maybe it hopes Tezos will act as kryptonite to crypto degens.
The other possibility is the Tezos Foundation has ponyed up a lot of that $30.5 million.
Fundamentally, however, I think that despite Smedley saying “It’s web3 done right,” it’s actually because Distinct Possibility doesn’t care very much about blockchain, at least at the moment.
For example, Reaper Actual will launch in a purely web2 version via Steam and the Epic Games Store. This will be functionally identical with the web3 version, which will only be available via the game’s website.
Indeed, while web3 players will be able to own and trade in-game assets such as their bases, playable characters and craftable gear and guns, these assets won’t be transferable to the web2 versions, even though the web2 game will contain the same in-game assets, some of which may be web2 tradable via the Steam Community Market.
In other words, everyone plays in the same world, but web3 players own inside their own little blockchain bubble — a setup that completely undermines liquidity.
As for what the game’s FAQ says on the matter:
Why have any crypto elements at all?
“We really believe in the idea of an ecosystem that exists outside the game. Web3 is an awesome way for people to participate in the economy of the game in cool ways. There won't be any scammy elements to our web3. That's not what we're about. We also plan to offer these same elements via the Steam Community Market. We're giving players a simple way to decide which version to play. Don't want to see any crypto elements at all? Cool. You don't have to. Play on Epic or Steam where they don't exist. We think long term when players see the approach we're taking, the current issues people have with playing games with crypto elements will largely go away if we do it right.”
More generally, though, the game’s concept sounds interesting.
It’s a persistent open-world extraction shooter with vehicles, in which players complete ongoing missions generated by five AI-controlled factions. The island map is huge — four times as big as Warzone apparently — and there will be extensive crafting features in terms of guns and gear.
Bases are particularly important for crafting and storing loot, and that means both other players and AI factions have the ability to loot your base, so players will have to set up automated defenses.
The game’s FAQ also says players will be able to rent their own servers and mod the game, which may play into deeper web3 elements, in future. After all, there will be a game token, and what’s a game token without utility? 😂
Of course, this approach is also something that the similar — and similarly funded in 2023 — web3 shooter Shrapnel hoped to leverage, albeit on Avalanche, not Tezos.
So, if nothing else, Distinct Possibility certainly has ambition. That’s not something John Smedley has ever lacked.
A co-founder at EverQuest developer Verant, he went on to head Sony Online Entertainment through the glory years of PlanetSide, Star Wars Galaxies and H1Z1. Afterwards, he formed Pixelmage Studios, before becoming GM of Amazon Games' San Diego studio.
Neither of those last two tenures resulted in new games, however, highlighting how difficult and expensive it has become to create these kinds of experiences.
For — as Shrapnel has demonstrated since 2023 — a great team and $30 million doesn’t necessarily get you far. And web3 is more of a hindrance when trying to attract the sort of audience you want for high-end skill-based shooters.
In other words, this really ain’t 2023 any more. Good luck.
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