Disclaimer: None of this information should be taken as financial advice. DYOR + I will hold some of the assets mentioned in this newsletter.
PRODUCT REVIEW:
None for this week.
Next week, we will explore esports prediction markets (?)
MARKET TALK
TAKEAWAYS ON BUILDING CRYPTO GAMES
Last Friday, I posted an article named 18 Takeaways on Building Crypto Games from 6 Founders. A summary of my favorite quotes and takeaways from six interviews about crypto gaming that Wesley and I held. Here’s a condensed list of my favorites per founder:
Derek Lau (Fishing Frenzy): “Sustainability is more of a tool than a requirement. More of a lever than a requirement”
Takeaway: Many took away from Axie that unsustainable rewards will implode your economy, but this is only true when it’s being done over a long period of time. Teams shouldn’t be afraid to temporarily overdeploy incentives to fuel a launch or important event, and later dial them down
Adam (FDF): “We didn’t really tell anyone what we were building until it was ready. On D1, we created a Twitter account, and we launched the product”
Takeaway: Surprise + delivery can be more effective in creating credibility and hype than long pre-launch marketing campaigns. Sometimes, we might overvalue the benefits of building in the open pre-launch, and the wait usually creates expectation debt
Dith (Gigaverse): “The easiest way to study the market is by participating in it”
Takeaway: You can only understand the nuances of this industry by being an active participant: minting, buying tokens, and interacting with new apps. Grasping how the crypto audience behaves is key to designing new features for them
John Smedley (Reaper Actual): "I like that kind of free use (with cross-asset interoperability) and ability to do things that the creators of the game never intended"
Ownership is freedom, and allowing players or devs to break the original intent of an asset is what can lead to innovation and community-driven initiatives. In a way, similar to how Gigaverse has an open API
Slayer (WolvesDAO): “I would bet you a lot of the streamers themselves are not as personally anti-crypto as they come across as being”
Many streamers in Web2 are/were forced into this audience narrative that everything crypto is a scam and a grift, and so putting crypto gaming in this same bucket. However, these individuals are likely more invested in this industry than we might think
Kevin Lambert (Project O): “...all of the provenance of the item and how it relates to you, that goes so far above and beyond how much it sold for last time and to who”
Ownership/collecting is emotional and cultural, as much as it is financial. However, so far, there have been few examples of how provenance can play a larger role when it comes to collecting NFTs, a largely unexplored opportunity
It was a great pleasure to talk with these 6 founders. There are another 4/5 interviews in the pipeline, and we are always looking to talk with other builders in this space. If you’re interested, feel free to send me a DM
WILDCARD FANTASY LEAGUE
Wildcard introduced a new feature to its game recently, the Wildcard Fantasy League (WFL), bringing an onchain (financial) layer around esports fandom in the game
The aim is to capture the value and excitement from competitive games like Wildcard, both inside and outside the game. Thousands.TV will introduce these value layers (the metagame) onchain with the WFL
By nurturing this ecosystem that develops outside of Wildcard, meaning you don’t have to play to participate in the fun, they’re opening up the funnel to a more diverse set of players (e.g., speculators, fans, and owners)
To participate, holders of the WC tokens can sponsor Summons (in-game characters). Becoming a Sponsor is coupled with various benefits:
Access to the WFL Clubhouse, a WFL draft invite, increasing your Sponsor Rank, priority for future sponsorship opportunities (FSPs), and the eligibility to claim a USDC signing bonus
FSPs include Champions, Venues, and more. I’d wonder what kind of brands will be interested in branding a Wildcard venue
Summons are listed as Rookies, Semi-Pros, or Pros, each with a WC sponsorship price and a USDC signing bonus
Every week, sponsored Summons will enter a Preseason Draft, where they can be called up. When drafted, the signing bonus is unlocked
So, through this mechanic, Wildcard is essentially buying back some of the WC supply (pre-unlock) in exchange for USDC, but only if the WFL were to launch before the liquidity pool went live. Or can we expect a token launch soon?
The total token supply is also quite small, only 88.9M
Overall, the WFL will be a feature that will bring Wildcard closer to its vision of becoming as fun to watch as it is to play. Similar to the idea of Delphi’s “Magic Circle”, the WFL introduces a financial layer that lives outside of Wildcard and doesn’t touch the purity of the game
As this initiative is also coming out of Thousands, I imagine that the WFL will become a white-label solution
