Episode 137 of Blockchain Gaming World is live, episode 138 has been recorded and I’ve already had two requests for episode 139.
The podcast I started on a whim in 2018, dropped for six months during 2019 and wasn’t sure what I was doing with for much of 2021 and 2022 appears to have found a life of its own.
But the truth is more nuanced.
Generally I’ve treated it as something close to an inconvenience. There’s only a certain number of people I’ve wanted to talk to but I’ve not been very active in terms of actually inviting them to talk.
I’ve also been overtly sensitive about those who have attempted to invite themselves onto the show. ‘If I haven’t heard of you, are you really good enough for my show?’ has been the thinking. And — sadly — that broadly remains the case.
But I’m (finally) learning it’s easy to be full of yourself to the negation of opportunity. If people want to come on my show, perhaps that’s a good, not a bad, thing?
However, the reason I’m now banging out the episodes is I’ve stumbled upon what appears to be a highly effective marketing channel. At the current time I’m not going into detail but just look at the impact in the monthly plays.
In many ways I hate the fact I’ve been doing a podcast for five years that had virtually no organic scaling even through the crypto bull market but spending $100 per episode on ads seems to have 5-10x my audience.
Of course, I don’t run in-cast advertising so I’m not generating anything directly from this expansion yet, and there’s the inevitable argument as to the “quality” of these new listeners compared to my unincentivized core audience.
Nevertheless, I’m pretty happy with the current situation and enthused to compare the effectiveness of other advertising channels. Plugging a money-making gizmo into the flow would make my joy complete.
In the meantime, you can read an edited transcript of BCGW #137 — an interview with Bright Star CEO Mark Laursen about how it’s looking to leverage its novel streaming engine to globally scale MMORPG Ember Sword — here.
Or check out the YouTube video below.
The audio version is available through your podcast provider of choice.
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Calendar
Hunters On-Chain goes live on Polygon mainnet — 20th July
CryptoFights launches on Google Play — 24th July
Agora’s Cyclops collection drops on Ultra — 27th July
Mighty Action Heroes releases APK — 16th August
Let’s meet at Gamescom — 23-24th August
M&A news
Web3 development framework Thirdweb — used for a bunch of games — has announced it’s acquired wallet/onboarding company company Paper for an undisclosed sum. This looks like it’s one of the many smallscale consolidation deals we’ll see in the sector during the coming months.
For the record, Paper raised $9 million in various rounds lead by Initialized Capital, Electric Capital and Founders Inc. Thirdweb has raised $29 million to-date, with its Series A led by Haun Capital.
Paper is reported to have onboarded more than 500,000 people to web3, by which I guess it’s created more than 500,000 wallets and worked with clients such as deadmau5, Tilting Point, Unilever, Fnatic and Lacoste. As part of the deal, Paper’s CEO James Sun is now veep of product at Thirdweb, which will integrate the service into its existing tools.
Moonbirds’ Next Flight news
I’m a holder so incentivized but PROOF’s Moonbird Mystics NFT expansion is going live. The details are that nested Moonbirds which have reached diamond status — that’s 360 days of nesting — can generate an egg which will create a Mystic NFT. You can burn also a Moonbirds Oddity NFT for the same result.
One interesting twist in the process is that only 50 eggs can be hatched daily and the process allows users to choose between various traits. Of course, over time early rare traits may become common and vice versa.
Additional Links
Via its Strategic Innovation Lab, Ubisoft has announced it’s become a validator for the Cronos blockchain. Ubisoft is also a validator for the Ronin, Ultra and Oasys blockchains.
CoinFund — a token-centric VC which has invested in the likes of Crypto Unicorns, Gunzilla and Dapper Labs — has announced a new $158 million fund.
Similarly, Polychain has announced a first close of $200 million for its $400 million Fund IV. It’s previously invested in the likes of Neon (Shrapnel), Horizon (Skyweaver) and Branch.
A wallet which spent $19,000 on the Ethereum ICO has moved its tokens — now worth $116 million — to the Kraken exchange.
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