Fault Magnifiers

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Fault Magnifiers

Hi friends,

I know, I know. I said I’d be letting this newsletter lie dormant for a while.

But there has been a whole lot of vitriol and negativity lately.

I guess that’s sort of what Twitter is all about, but recently it’s been seeping into Discords, group chats, and other parts of the onchain games ecosystem that I had previously found to be much more optimistic and supportive.

In some ways, this whole situation has been entirely predictable. A group can remain uniformly optimistic only so long before disputes and in-fighting start to invade the discourse.

Allow me, if you will, to use today’s newsletter to briefly zoom out and take a more long term view of where we are today.

This edition is not intended to call anyone out directly. I simply wanted to share some thoughts, provide a more optimistic take, and attempt to recenter our collective mindset given the current market sentiment.

What follows are a few of the “hot takes” I’ve encountered in the last week and my rebuttal to each.

Let’s get into it. 

“web3 games are dead” 💀

We’ll start with the biggest clickbait of all: that onchain games are NGMI.

Web3-enabled games have really only been building and fundraising in earnest for three or four years. While there are certainly examples that predate the Axie Infinity-era hype cycle of ‘21-’22 (several of which I’ve written about previously), it’s going to take a lot longer still for web3 gaming to establish itself as a meaningful force in the broader games industry.

Having money and developers to throw at the problem is not enough. Just look at VR, or cloud gaming, or voice-controlled gaming, or MILEs, or toys-to-life games, or any of a hundred other gaming “investment theses.”¹ These have all been in the works for five, ten, fifteen years or more and still haven’t meaningfully expanded the market for games. Some likely never will. New technology rarely emerges fully-baked; its going to take time for the final form of web3 gaming to solidify (fully onchain or otherwise).

Let’s also remember that the games industry has been flat-to-down for the last year or more. If we’re already struggling to get gamers to spend money on stuff that we know works, why should we expect them to suddenly open up their wallets and reallocate their entertainment time for something entirely new simply because it has a decentralized backend?

A more accurate take (that will certainly get fewer clicks) would be that we simply don’t know yet! Not enough time has passed, not enough truly great games have released yet, and not enough players have given web3 games a chance.

The related but equally misguided take on the “web3 games are dead” topic is that actually web3 games are not dead, because [insert misleading statistic here].

I don’t doubt that there are positive numbers we can point to. If you’ve got great stats, by all means, flaunt them. Just don’t think that impressive-sounding numbers will somehow fool players, woo investors, or win this argument for you.

Know that no one cares how many testnet transactions have taken place in your ecosystem. Make sure you know the difference between users and retained users. Don’t conflate active users with active wallets. Avoid chart crimes.

And most importantly, be honest with yourself.

It’s cool if you want to be excited about web3 games. I’m excited about the future, too. I wouldn’t work in this industry if I wasn’t optimistic about its prospects.

Let’s just be realistic.

“Too much talk, not enough action” 🥱

This sentiment stems from the fact that, apparently, far too many words have been wasted on ideological and philosophical ramblings about the potential for fully onchain games. Supposedly, too few actual games have been shipped.

As a writer, I’m obviously a bit biased on this topic, but I can at least point to the fact that I’ve been pretty consistent in calling for a more pragmatic approach if our lil’ onchain games niche is ever going to expand:

While I agree that there is a whole lot of “thinkboi” energy propping up the discourse around fully onchain games, I completely disagree with the idea that builders in the space aren’t shipping.

Don’t believe me? Here’s a short list of recent developments spanning multiple games, studios, ecosystems, and tech stacks across the FOCG space. All of these have come in the last two to three months:

• The Lattice / MUD / Redstone ecosystem has been cranking out developments left and right, particularly around the recent Redstone Worlds Expo. Here’s a whole list of games and updates from the last couple of months.

• Games in the Dojo / Starknet ecosystem have also been making plenty of noise.²  Force Prime Heroes has launched new maps, new modes, and new Seasons. Dope Wars (f.k.a. Roll Your Own), PAVED, and Pistols at 10 Blocks are all live on Testnet and gearing up for Mainnet soon. By the time you read this newsletter, Influence will have officially launched. I also know for a fact that several more games will be shipping in time for EthCC (👀) in early July.³  

• Pirate Nation launched a token, shipped multiple Seasons, and welcomed thousands of new players into their ecosystem via a host of partnerships and activations. There’s frankly not enough space in this newsletter to list all the recent developments from the Proof of Play team, but here’s one more: they also shipped their Multichain.

• Paima’s Tarochi is about to kick off its second Season, Curio launched its newest title, Duper, and Primodium shipped yet another mega update.

• We’ve seen onchain betting markets, onchain corporations, and onchain quests and reputation.

I’m sure there are even more updates that I’m missing. Apologies if I missed your game. It’s getting tough to keep up with all the news!

Look, no one is claiming that any of these games or experiences are going to outsell Call of Duty.

Great games take a long time to build, especially when the people making them (read: 90%+ of the FOCG ecosystem) have little to no practical experience in professional game development or publishing.

But frankly, if you think that the onchain games ecosystem isn’t shipping, you’re not paying attention.

Gatekeeping 🚫

"That's not truly secure!"

"That's not actually decentralized!"

"That's not really an Autonomous World!"

I know that most of the folks in our ecosystem come from technical backgrounds and care deeply about the specifics of implementation.

I get it. Details are important.

But gatekeeping behavior is the absolute worst.

We need to grow our ecosystem, not turn people away because their project doesn’t fit some ideological or technical definition that they might not even be aware of.

Realistically, the vast majority of projects are not decentralized or secure right out of the gate. Nor should they be! It’s far better to ship (see: previous section) and get player feedback on the game itself before spending a ton of time trying to achieve full decentralization or absolute autonomy.

Most of the projects I’ve spoken with are just getting started. They have small teams and meager resources, but what they don’t have in short supply is ambition. Many aspire to create open source, fully decentralized, community owned, permissionless games over the long term.

These things take time. Unless a project is an outright scam, we should give builders the benefit of the doubt.

Fully onchain game developers are already operating on hard mode. Having a bunch of gatekeepers tell you your tech sucks before they’ve even played your game is not going to improve the situation for anyone.

This is especially true when it comes to the “Autonomous Worlds” moniker, which is rapidly turning into our ecosystem’s version of “the Metaverse.”

I’m sure there are broad strokes definitions that most would agree to, but let’s be candid: the term has outlived its usefulness. This whole conversation is reminiscent of music fans debating which obscure subgenre a band belongs to.

Here’s the thing: anyone can look smart by poking holes in someone else’s vision.

Try not to be the jerk that says why something won’t work and instead channel that energy into a “yes, and…” contribution that moves us all forward.

Any game designer or product manager will tell you that gathering feedback is important. Starting a discussion about technology choices is fine. Just do us all a favor and take it to DMs instead of trying to come off as intellectually or ideologically superior in a public forum.

Purity tests don’t benefit anyone.

In Conclusion

We don’t need to tear each other down or cast aspersions on the entire ecosystem in order to make a point.

Be realistic, be supportive, or just shut up and build if you can’t do either of those things.

Whatever you do:

Just look how far we've come from the days of Huntercoin or Dark Forest. The amount of games shipped, studios launched, and technological advances achieved since then has been incredible.

We’re just getting started. It might not feel like it yet, but if there’s one thing you can take away from today’s newsletter, it’s that these things take time to unfold.

Thank you, as always, for reading.

Until next time.

Notes:

1. As an aside, if you’re interested in VR and spatial gaming, stay tuned to the Always Scheming blog. I have a deep dive on the future of the format coming very soon.

2. As a reminder and in the interest of full disclosure, I work for Cartridge, which is a core contributor to the Dojo ecosystem and which works closely with many of the teams building with that toolset. You can read more about that here, if you missed the last edition of Dark Tunnels.

3. If you’re going to be in Brussels, let’s meet up! You can find me at the Onchain Games Meetup co-hosted by Cartridge, Playmint, BITKRAFT, and Komorebi’s Hacker House.

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