On June 21, Neo organized a talk about insights on web3 gaming. Below is the transcript.
Conversation participants:Serge Kopov, CEO and founder of Sunday Games which develops Supernova Shards
Fraga, European and American community lead of MetaCollabWin
Neo
Welcome everyone to our NEO eco talk. So today our topic is Web3 gaming. We have so many brilliant minds in the NEO ecosystem. So back to last year, I have met some of the NEO eco game projects like To The Moon and Dodge Rift. I believe that the community members can remember them. And I love to hear the insights on the industry as a founder and developer. So the other day, Alex proposed a Twitter space and this comes out to be a good idea to introduce you the Neo gaming projects on the Twitter space session. So now you can see many of the contents are of Neo X. I have to say we are still keeping building the Neo N3. So today we have us, Pixudi, Supernova Shards and MetaCollabWin.
Let’s kick things off with a quick round of introductions. Could you please briefly introduce yourselves and your projects?
Alex
Okay yeah uh welcome everyone and glad to be glad to be here uh my name is Alex Scoresby and i’m the ceo and founder of the Cape Crew team in recent years we have been deeply involved in the development of new blockchain projects and are thrilled that our journey led us to this innovative blockchain, because through now, we have successfully implemented multiple exciting projects like Pixudi, NEOBOX and also some other features. Personally, I have previously worked with companies like Hasbro, Nintendo, Ravensburger, and several other gaming companies as a full stack developer. But then I have a build team and we decided to build some projects in Web2 and Web3, especially gaming projects.
So our first project is on Neo is Pixudi. Don’t want to waste a lot of time describing this. You can try it on game.pixudi.com, but Pixudi is a blockchain based game that blends traditional gaming elements with Web3. It means it’s a traditional board game where people can play, collect NFTs, level up, and I think that the main mission of Pixudi is to bridge the gap between Web2 audience and Web3 audience.
And now the projects, which were another project which was created with big thanks to Neo and Neo FS. It’s wonderful technology for creating decentralized storage like IPFs, but much better. And that’s why in parallel, when we start to create Pixudi, we use Neo FS for storing objects, metadata of our characters and so on. And that’s why we decided to create something which can be useful for us and for community. And that’s why we have created NEOBOX which which is a platform that enables fully on chain hosting of applications or Unity games with comfortable environment like Google Drive or Dropbox. And we really focus now on this project to we you can check it on neobox.world. And we wanted to to create something like sandbox for any apps because you can load your game, you can play Unity game. And the main thing that all of this is fully on chain, it’s stored in Neo FS loaded with NEOBOX, and you can play Unity games web games, you can use different apps. So it’s a new way of decentralized technology.
Fraga
Hello, everyone. I’m very pleased to be here with you guys. As such wonderful time. And I’m Fraga the European and American community leader of MetaCollabWin. MetaCollabWin is a hybrid metaverse game designed to assist El Salvador in creating an integrated online and offline metaverse Bitcoin City on November 21st. Maybe it’s 2021 president Nana Nana Nana announced plans of build of the world’s first Bitcoin city via Twitter. Sounds incredible. Yeah, and the Bitcoin city will utilize the energy from that eco source. Only impose value. The 80 day tax and the expected income tax and property tax and other fees. The proposed Bitcoin city will be circular in shape and include an airport and residential areas and commercial zones. In residential school when viewed from above, will resemble the Bitcoin symbol is a fantastic right and this city aims to be a fully ecological Web3 city with decentralized governance, including maybe decentralized decision making by moral and other administrations. I think it’s a wonderful utopia of decentralization in MetaCollabWin players can earn rewards by contributing building materials, participating in PvE and PvP battles, and upgrading land and the characters they can feature are economic based on MCW token and adult currency structure century. In this development, it will begin with NFT prices and later introduce MetaCollabWin, allowing users to our tokens and the real world assets from El Salvador such as Salvador land and digital points automatically when the Bitcoin city launches, as users will become true citizens of metaverse bitcoin city.
Serge
Hello! My name is Serge. Thanks for having me. I am the founder of Sunday Games. I’ve been developing apps and games for 18 years. I love new game mechanics, so I couldn’t miss the release of CryptoKitties. Since then, I’ve been experimenting with open economy games. In 2019, our game 0xUniverse was the most popular on Ethereum and Polygon.
As for now, we at Sunday Games working on Supernova Shards a multiplayer space sim set in a single persistent universe, with sandbox survival gameplay and realistic economics. We have been cooperating with NEO platform for a long time, and I am glad that they liked our new project.
Neo
Thank you all. Seems that all of you are very experienced game builder and developers in the industry. So next I would like to lead a question about the industrial trends.
So what are your thoughts on the recent popularity of telegram bot games? Have you seen any innovations in Web3 games, and did they inspire you in any way when building your games?
Fraga
Yeah, many apps, things like dives, yeah, right? Many apps based on Telegram are bound to become popular sooner or later, I think. As a common user social tool for Web3 users, Telegram has a significant amount of social traffic. Within this ecosystem, many apps introduce gaming and staking features. I think the popularity of games on Telegram can be attributed to five main reasons, simplicity and addictiveness, and no account registration required, social interaction is very easy, easy of access, developer-friendly environment. Additionally, games on Telegram are often used for casual entertainment during commutes or leisure time, such as kill time. But however, there are limits to mobile devices as indicated by global gaming statistics. The mobile game population is projected to have grown by 137 million, maybe it’s about 8% between 2024 and 2027, indicating continued growth in the mobile gaming market. But I think this is very, very exciting for game developers. There is a takeaway. If you are interested in creating casual games, please focus on simplicity, accessibility, and social interaction.
Serge
Of course, I keep an eye on all the new products in the crypto space. But I don’t see anything new in these games. I wouldn’t even call it “games”, it’s more like applications that use game mechanics. What I am seeing is a new channel to attract a cheaper audience. So of course, we will test this audience, and we will attract it if there are more gamers than I am expecting.
But this whole topic about telegram bots is more related to marketing rather than games. Our team’s strategy completely focused on creating a great game; we don’t pay much attention to marketing. This is our strength and weak point.
Alex
Yep. I agree about the marketing side of the telegram bot that mostly it’s a new channel. How you like Google Play or like App Store is another channel where you can launch your game and or make I mean, like, make a copy of the game you have on another platform. And by the way I forgot to make a post, but for example, in Pixudi we have launched Pixudi game bot. You can play our game even in telegram and later we will add connection with Web3 wallets through telegram bot. So I think that telegram has pretty good user base and it can be a good way to attract users. But I think that telegram games are more focused on mini games. It’s like. More about mini games. If we are talking about building some AAA games for the audience, especially for traditional audience, I think that they for now, they are still interested to play on traditional platforms like PC, Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo and so on. Not in telegram. It’s more for like mini games, basically. But they have some hype right now. Let’s see.
Neo
Thank you. Agree that telegram has a big user base, but we also want to see more game with well designed craft. And next question when is the next game wave? So to clarify is that how do you see people will make mass investment on the gamefi track?
Serge
I assume by “game wave” you mean the rise of investor interest. Of course, I don’t know exactly when it will be, but it will definitely happen after several successful releases, Just then it was in 2021 after Axie Infinity set an example. Unfortunately, most investors do not think, but simply repeat successful cases. I wish there were more investors who carefully select projects at an early stage and help them become successful.
It would be cool if Neo paid more attention to games. There is no need to wait for the game wave; Neo can to create it itself.
Alex
I agree with Serge. We shouldn’t wait for the next game wave, because we we have already have this wave. Not in web3, but in web2 gaming. Everything is perfect. And it’s the big task to adopt traditional gamers in web3 field. That’s why I think that the next wave of web3 games is anticipated around 2024 or 2025, right now. Driving by good games with I think I will share it later with good gameplay. Because many projects thinking about tokenization first, then about gameplay, and I think that Neo can be wonderful blockchain for creating games. Regarding some special things about this blockchain and again, returning to what we are doing we have already started to work in this direction with Pixudi, with NEOBOX and with mini games and NEOBOX and so on and on.
The next week I’m very glad to announce that we are launching Neo Game Guild. I decided to save this, this info, especially for this session and everybody who are participating on this session. But we really see potential in building games on Neo. I will be honest with everyone when we have started to work with Neo blockchain, we haven’t realized that we will dive so deeper in this blockchain, but we are glad that we did it. So on the next week we will publish simple landing of Neo Game Guild and some info about what we are going to do in this guild.
Fraga
Since the last bear market they gave me that’s true has entertained a period of relative quiet due to the current NFT market. Yeah, right. And the fruits in the play to earn model. However, it’s undeniable the game sector has always been a focal point for major institutions and users. But I think this is a great market potential. Over the past two years, top institutions have invested numerous promising Web3 game projects and even traditionally gaming giants, and venture into this space and anticipating the upcoming bruising market, we can expect another wave of gaming innovation feature even more outstanding titles. Meanwhile, I’m really, really proud of our project MetaCollabWin as a world first metaverse game backed by a sovereign nation promise an entirely new experience and the unprecedented empowerment. We invite everyone to follow and participate in our exciting journey.
Neo
Thank you. Personally, I’m a game lover. I especially love to play the trading card games. So I totally agree that the gameplay will be will be the main feature that attracts users. So let’s go to the next question.
Can you share some insights on creating Web3 games?
Fraga
Blockchain games have gone through two distinct eras, 1.0 and 2.0. In the 1.0 ERA type games and the gambling games represented landscape, notably in 2017. CryptoKitties is maybe you guys, you know, an early desktop, sorry, an early type collectible trading game campaign. Blockchain translation properties and assets. Unicorns with gameplay. On December 9th, 2017, it’s reached over 14,000 daily active users. It’s a huge users, right, causing congestion on the small network in the 2.0 era of blockchain games. The emergence of the player to earn economic model has been game changer. But we can say P2E models offer several advantages, such as DeFi liquidity mining, balance the gameplay and the player retention and some Dao governance. But however, the 0.2 era also revealed significant flaws P2E modes, you know, some bubble risk and the initial a pair. But now we are approaching 0.0. The game sector will experience further innovation and transformation. Addressing the flow of the 0.0 will pave the way of explosive or users growth. MetaCollabWin introduce real world assets like Bitcoin city land and the El Salvador government issued digital bonds. The stable assets mirror the role of gold ratio in traditional finance, ensure stability in the game economic and returns as Bitcoin city develops and expands MetaCollabWin as a crucial part of El Salvador’s Bitcoin ecosystem will seamlessly integrate benefits from sovereign nations. Metaverse city and its as a society dividends.
Alex
So first of all, building Web3 games is not just about creating a game, but also about educating the web2 audience on what Web3 is, why it matters, and how it compares to traditional games, and how it can make traditional games better. That’s why the main focus on, I mean in creating Web3 games and it’s a big pain to educate your audience. Unfortunately, in the early days of the industry, many projects focused on tokenizing their assets without fully developing the gaming component. Component storyline, the game itself and this approach often failed to capture the traditional audience, who prioritized fun and engaging gameplay over their ability to earn money in game. Because as a traditional gamer, I mean, I have a hard work day. I wanted to play and have some fun and relax, not just earn money. I earn money on work. And then I wanted to have fun. As a result, early Web3 games often lagged behind their traditional counterparts in terms of quality, because the quality I don’t want to say about now, but previously, the quality of Web3 games was worse than quality of web2 games.
And I think that, in my personal opinion, that similar to how the internet initially found its primary use in banking transactions, in banking area before becoming integrated into everyday life, into gaming. So we need now to leverage blockchain technology to create high quality games and focus on the storyline, on the gameplay. And this involves shifting our focus from tokenization to developing compelling game mechanics and engaging gameplay and immersive storylines. So by doing so, we can ensure that Web3 games are built on a foundation of entertainment and innovation. And people are ready and and you don’t need a token to to earn some money on your game. Just look on Fortnite, World of Warcraft, and some other games they earn maybe even much more money than some games selling their token just with skins, some funny things. We should think how can we copy this experience in Web3 gaming.
Great speech, Alex. I completely agree. We too have gained a lot of experience creating blockchain games in the past. So let me list 3 pillars that we put on the basis of Supernova Shards.
First, the Web3 approach can really make games better, this is not just a suppose, we experienced it ourselves. So that’s why we’re still working with it.
Second, Web3 should not be the main game mechanic. The main thing should be gameplay, it should be competitive with other games on the market. Your game should be able to attract audience even if you remove the web3 mechanics. Web3 should make your game better, more unique, but it shouldn’t be the only thing in the game core.
Last one, your game must be big. Gameplay should use a complex economy and should allow players to engage in complex social relationships. Only then will web3 mechanics be able to demonstrate full potential.
Neo
Yes, I agree. I think that many of the people, they are playing Web3 games to earn, but this is actually, I think this is not a good environment for the gaming projects to develop to be a better one. So hopefully the new Web3 games can develop more funny game plays or features to attract people to use rather than just to play to earn.
And so next question is also our last question. Could you provide us with some updates about your game on Neo and are there any current campaigns or benefits for users? We can see more people are here and I believe that people are love to hear that what benefits or campaigns you can provide.
Serge
We plan to add support of NeoX to our game Supernova Shards right after the launch of the mainnet. We will make a bridge for our token LFC, run some quests, and of course the token can be earned while playing. We will also launch the sale of unique starship NFTs on NeoX.
So I wish you a successful mainnet launch and recommend the listeners subscribe to our announcements.
Fraga
We will soon launch a Treasure Map event where all users can participate and mint a Treasure Map NFT for free in addition to receive a draft rewards. The treasure map will serve as proof of participation in the next stage of activities. Furthermore, we are planning to go live on the Neo blockchain. I’m very excited! And introduce exclusive events and benefits specifically for the new chain. So, guys… Why not join us now? Let’s go. Let’s explore game together!
Alex
So, first of all, we are launching Game Guild on Neo on the next week. And then we will prepare some special NFT collection, maybe, for this guild. The main focus of this guild will be interacting with current game guilds like YGG, Y3GG, and YGGSEA. By the way, answering the question about some insights on creating web-free games, I really see big potential in SEA region.
About the Pixudi, we are expanding our game into Pixudi Multiverse. Some of you maybe have already known about multiverse.pixudi.com, where you can know more about what we are preparing. And one of common thing that we are preparing, it’s NFT collection of 5,000 portal blasters. And the main idea of Pixudi Multiverse: some of you who are playing Pixudi, you know that you can play on different boards. And in Pixudi Multiverse, we are going to generate these boards randomly. It means that every time you play Pixudi, it will be new board creating from different pieces. So that’s about Pixudi Multiverse. Multiverse, and also I will be very glad we have already started to prepare our third board, which we are preparing for Neo blockchain, and we will launch this board related to third season of Pixudi. And if you have some idea of objects that you wanna see on this board, you’re welcome to share, for example, here in the comments.
I don’t want to promote some kind of token sale on this AMA session, but in NEOBOX, we have already launched about 7 games, some of them on Unity, some of them on just web. You can play them. Also, we have collaborated with Aura NFT. It’s the platform where you can create tournaments for your audience. And by the way, we have some other partners which we have mentioned in Twitter. And we are going to add more partners in the next weeks. And adding more games.
Neo
Thank you. I’m so happy to see you all are keep building and add more features and updates on the community. So since that we can end earlier, do you have other information to share with our audience is free to talk.
Alex
I just want to mention that it’s really cool idea to create game environment around Neo. Oh, and by the way, we have integrated Neo X on NEOBOX and we will integrate Neo X in Pixudi. We fully support this initiative with Neo X. I want to say in the end that it will be very cool when web3 companies start to think about traditional games and how to build something creative instead of something about the token. Thank you!
Neo
Thank you guys! Thank you to our guests for sharing your insights and experiences today! And to our audience, thank you for joining us in this Neo Eco-Talk. So stay tuned for more updates and discussions on the project and Neo X development. So until next time, keep building in the future of gaming on Neo. Thank you all. Don’t forget to check out their page to and their products. Thanks!