Back from Sweden and now off to London in the drizzle to give a talk about blockchain games to a mobile game studio.
As ever I’ve ended up with too much information — do 96 slides fit into 60 minutes? — and as ever I’m wondering if my focus on history, data and trends isn’t somehow missing the deeper point.
I also wonder if this isn’t just my failing but that of the entire sector too.
We spend a lot of time arguing about the balance between “fun” and “blockchain”, talk of “onboarding strategies”, “tokenomics” and “multi-layered monetization” — all the details which could have an impact but which likely don’t much.
Instead, what I think we don’t discuss enough is how to create assets that people will love in the long term and value beyond their financial value.
Of course, it’s a complex and abstract sort of discussion. But I think the default starting point should be that these games are completely free to play but their most skilled and dedicated players will gain assets that can be traded and that other players will — maybe — also treat as valuable.
This raises a numbers of issues — particularly given the current tangle about enforcing royalties — but the ability of a community to generate assets and price discovery overcomes many tricky problems, notably government overreach around illegal securities, and community backlash around mint prices.
There’s also the open question of how developers fund their activities if they can’t tap NFT sales.
But, more crucially, it provides for a much more holistic — and likely slow-growing — ecosystem in which the price of assets is set by what players will actually pay.
Personally I’d also try to employ mechanics such as wither or land rents which encourage high levels of ongoing engagement, to both incentivize active players and add friction for investors.
And, broadly speaking, I think such experiences would look very different to most of the blockchain games in development, which is somewhat worrying.
This Substack is sponsored by Hiro Capital: investing in the future of gaming
Dapper Labs Layoff news
Following similar move from Immutable (-11%) and Polygon (-20%), Dapper Labs has now announced it’s letting go 20% of its staff. It previously lost 22% of headcount in November 2022, which if my math is correct suggest a lot decline of 38%; quite significant.
CEO Roham Gharegozlou said Dapper Labs maintained a “strong cash position” but the move was required to create the “right cost structure” to be able to grow the communities on the Flow blockchain sustainably.
Chainmonsters moves to IMX
ImmutableX has gained another game but this time it’s not at the expense of Solana. Instead it’s long-time Flow project Chainmonsters, which cites multiple reasons for the move, including Immutable’s new Passport onboarding system, its robust tools and gaming ecosystem, plus its support for Ethereum NFTs, and various marketplaces including Rarible, GameStop and Immutable’s own option.
Of course, this means that all existing NFTs will have to be moved from Flow to IMX. More generally, the PC version of Chainmonsters will be released via the Epic Games Store on 6th March. It will be cross-platform and compatible with the existing mobile versions available for iOS (Testflight) and Android devices (Play Store early access).
Yet, aside from all this will be the reaction of the community, which has supported Chainmonsters as one of the earliest games on Flow, and hence something of a posterchild for Dapper Labs’ blockchain, until now!
Bored Apes Bonanza news
Two ex-Barclays bond traders Ovie Faruq and Mike Anderson have sold a job lot of 72 Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs that they acquired for $1.1 million for a 711% return. At the market’s peak in May 2022, it’s estimated the collection would have been worth around $30 million.
“We have learnt that you have to respect the liquidity when it’s there and take the profit when it’s available,” Faruq told Bloomberg.
The pair will continue to build out their new NFT research platform Degenz.
Have you installed crypto security layer Stelo for Metamask yet? If not, why not?
You said it!
"Instead, what I think we don’t discuss enough is how to create assets that people will love in the long term and value beyond their financial value."