Blockchain Gaming World

Jon Jordan talks to Upland co-founder Idan Zuckerman about how he got into blockchain, the vision for Upland - a mobile-first game running on the EOS blockchain - and how the team plan to build on their initial success - currently Upland is the #2 blockchain game by daily activity - by launching the ability to run businesses within the game.  You can use this link to get a sign-up bonus of 6,000 UPX, worth 2 entry-level buildings. https://discover.upland.me/blockchaingamingworld

In the latest episode of the Blockchain Gaming World podcast, editor-in-chief Jon Jordan talks to MMOG legend John Smedley about his new studio Distinct Possibility and its forthcoming persistent extraction shooter Reaper Actual, which will be released on Steam and Epic Games Store as a pure web2 game, with the web3 version only available via its own website.[2:33] Reaper Actual is a mix between a MMO and a FPS: an "open world persistent shooter".[4:18] It's like Escape from Tarkov in an open world and had a baby with Rainbow Six Siege.[6:00] How Reaper Actual is different to the likes of Delta Force and Arena Breakout.[9:20] The game's persistence is around bases but also a player affinity system.[11:40] How the game is using genAI ethically in terms of paying voice actors.[14:40] Why is it a blockchain game?[18:56] Why there will be a separate web2 version for Steam and EGS.[21:50] We are not a pay-to-win game. We never will be.[28:14] The game will sell bases, which in the web3 version of the game, will be NFTs.[33:07] Why Reaper Actual is building on Tezos' Etherlink EVM L2. [34:55] The first playable version will be released on Steam and web3 in late September.

Jon Jordan talks to Voya Games' CEO Oliver Loeffler about the launch of idle resource game Craft World on Ronin and what's coming next?[3:20] Craft World isn't trying to chase hype. It's a project with a long term vision.[4:10] We have a long runaway. Yoya Games is very careful with its money.[4:55] Right now, we're not sure if we have product-market-fit so we're still experimenting.[5:53] Voya is still a small team -- 11 people, mainly in Germany. [6:18] AI provides a real boost in terms of productivity. 7:59 The Project Voyager token campaign attracted a lot of degen activity.[8:50] We see Project Voyager as its own game. We will reuse it to distribute future rewards.[12:08] Degens are a great crowd but you also need to onboard a wider audience to web3. [13:03] How Project Voyager winner CattanSettler got into Craft World.[14:30] Why Craft World choose Ronin as its blockchain.[19:35] Plans for a Ronin Mega Event. [23:04] Why the DynoCoin token has been designed for utility, not speculation.[29:30] What is Dynogotchi?[31:40] Future plans for Craft World and land NFTs, how this fits into the metagame.

Jon Jordan talks to Playful Studios' CEO Paul Bettner and lead game designer Brad Weir about the development of web2 card collectible action game Wildcard and its web3 streaming platform Thousands. [5:29] Why did "crypto-skeptic" Paul Bettner end up making a gaming ecosystem using blockchain?[6:24] The crucial technology focus for its web2 game Wildcard is streaming, not blockchain.[6:59] But blockchain is crucial for the wider ecosystem for players, content creators and community.[9:02] The USP of Wildcard is its unique genre - deck building + action gameplay with strategy MOBA. [9:55] It's a CCAG - collectible card action game - the first of its kind.[10:08] "Web3 is an enabling technology for the new things we are trying to do."[11:45] A lot of the core team on Wildcard goes all the way back to Age of Empires.[14:09] Paradigm led the investment round because they played Wildcard and loved the game.[15:18] How the game design of Wildcard has changed over the years. [15:40] As a designer, you need to question everything and iterate quickly to make the best decision. [17:15] Moving from 1v1 to 2v2 was a big change for Wildcard, especially for the social aspects.[18:51] "You have to make the thing people like the least about your game into what they like the most."[20:24] Until your dev team can not stop playing your game over other games, it's not finished.[24:40] "When I fire up Wildcard, it's not like any other game in my Steam library."[32:15] "Watching a game is the most casual, accessible way to enjoy gaming."[33:10] Popular streamed games weren't built for streaming. How should it change the design?[33:51] We talked to Twitch and Discord but they couldn't build the streaming tech we required. [35:20] We started showing other studios our streaming tech and the response was overwheming.[37:26] Thousands allows us to give revenue share back to streamers who refer the spenders. [38:24] An authentic streamer gives us the highest quality users we can get.[40:17] Before Thousands, we didn't know how we were going to have web3 tech in Wildcard.[45:10] You have to make a game and ecosystem that satisfies gamers, earners and content creators.[49:20] How Wildcard is ensuring it allows its most skilled players to demonstrate that skill.[51:32] Wildcard is being tested on Fridays/Saturdays via Steam early access.[53:51] Thousands isn't about quantity, it's about your most dedicated 1,000 fans.[54:25] Our ARPV (average revenue per viewer) is already over $100, with a payer conversion of 83%.[55:26] We have streams that are regularly monetizing at over $20,000 per stream.

Jon Jordan talks to Pixels CEO Luke Barwikowski about the game’s forthcoming adoption of the new Apptokens standard, which as well as seeing the launch of the spend/stake-only vPIXEL token, will also herald a new staking model, which will use the token to boost marketing for Pixels and its partner games.[4:42] Games like Axie and Pixels have been massive successes. We need to make them sustainable.[5:25] Some of the issues for web3 games are just gaming issues. Web2 games are not doing well.[7:50] DAUs is not the primary metric for Pixels. It's secondary compared to net revenue.[9:00] We thought we could convert DAUs into paying users. We can but the rate is very low.[11:45] In particularly, it's hard to convert paying users into net paying users.[13:53] We're doing a lot of work to figure out who are the right users to give incentives to.[18:20] The three elements that are required to make a great web3 game. [19:10] Explaining how ERC721C enforced NFT royalties aligns incentives for devs and NFT traders.[20:50] Apptokens (ERC20C) do something similar for fungible tokens. [21:38] A lot of the players we give PIXEL tokens to just sell them - this is misalignment.[21:50] Apptokens allows us to give more tokens to players who spend them in-game. [22:25] We're doing this with our new vPIXEL token, which can only be staked or spent, not sold. [23:48] We want to preference players who use the PIXEL tokens through its tokenomics.[27:36] This is going to be the industry-standard soon. [28:41] The new staking system embraces all the games published in the Pixels ecosystem.[28:50] This sees 28 million PIXEL distributed monthly via these games, giving rewards to stakers.[33:17] This won't be limited to Ronin games, although the staking contracts will be on Ronin.[34:47] How the core Pixels game will fit into this new multi-game PIXEL token ecosystem.[36:35] Pixels is launching a mobile-first Tamagotchi-style pet app in June/July.[38:27] Players who want to convert vPIXEL to PIXEL will pay a c.50% withdrawal fee.[40:47] It doesn't matter how web3 a game is. What matters is whether it works.[42:30] Pixels has given out over $100 million of rewards in terms of PIXEL tokens.

Jon Jordan talks to Ultra's new CEO Gus van Rijckevorsel about why the entrepreneur decided to invest in the company. He explains his ambition for Ultra, including competing with Steam and turning the platform into a unicorn that will shake up the entire games industry.[2:38] Gus van Rijckevorsel's previous career as a serial enterpreneur.[4:10] Why he created a French TV show to build his credibility.[9:02] Why Gus "fell in love" with Ultra and wanted to invest. [12:55] Previously Ultra had two co-CEOs, which wasn't the ideal structure for scaling. [16:24] Ultra's just raised $12 million in bridge finance with more funding due later in 2025.[19:29] Web2 gamers don't care about web3. They're here just to play games.[20:00] We are here to eat a chunk of Steam.[21:08] I am convinced we will make money by pleasing game developers.[22:20] We are the game distribution platform with the best technology.[23:55] Can any company compete with Steam when it's so dominant?[26:18] The three different types of gamer that Ultra will support - players, streamers and spectators.[28:52] What are the key things Ultra needs to do to drive its success in 2025?[31:35] We want people to open Ultra in the morning and have it open all day. It's the gaming OS.[32:58] Blockchain will completely change the next 50 years of the digital world. [34:50] We don't have the traffic yet, but one thing's for sure is that we will have the traffic. [35:12] As dollars are linked to the price of oil, so UOS needs to be linked to gaming.[38:15] Ultra needs to be all along the value chain. We need thousands of games on Ultra.[39:18] Ashes of Mankind is one of Ultra's exclusive titles. There will be more in future.[40:06] Call to action for the Ultra community - support us with constructive criticism.

Jon Jordan talks to Marco van den Heuvel, the co-founder and CEO of Beam about the formation of what was originally called Merit Circle as an Axie guild in 2021, then becoming a game investment DAO, and which rebranded as Beam in 2024 as it moved to focus on gaming infrastructure, something it will double down in 2025 with the launch of the Abu Dhabi-based Beam Ventures fund and accelerator. [2:15] Marco's journey in crypto starting with Bitcoin in 2017.[3:30] Started his first company around crypto community management.[3:45] Merit Circle started in 2021 when Axie Infinity blew up.[7:35] Merit Circle started as a guild breeding Axie but quickly expanded to other games.[9:26] It also moved from play-to-earn to become an investment DAO and now running Beam.[12:07] How much of this shift away from P2E was luck[12:44] The data showed that demand for Axies was dropping fast in fall 2021.[15:55] Did Merit Circle invest too widely? Would it have been better to put 200% into 50% of deals?[20:54] Why Merit Circle started making games like Edenhorde.[22:00] We're not a game developer. We intend to become a leading player for gaming infrastructure.[24:35] Why Merit Circle rebranded to Beam. [27:25] It also caused a strong upward valuation on the BEAM token.[28:55] How does Beam compete with Ronin, Immutable, Mythos etc?[30:27] Beam's tech stack can support multiple blockchains such as Immutable, Sophon etc.[31:58] What games should we check out? Trial Xtreme Freedom, Forgotten Playland, Rumble Arcade[34:20] Abu Dhabi-based Beam Ventures fund and accelerator is gearing up for launch in 2025.[37:56] How significant will AI agents be for blockchain gaming?

Jon Jordan talks to CCP Games’ CEO Hilmar Veigar Pétursson about why its forthcoming game EVE Frontier is being built open source and fully decentralized. [0:57] How and why Hilmar got interested in blockchain, starting with storing spaceships on Bitcoin.[6:04] Back in 2017, the crypto community was like the early MMOG communities.[7:00] I got more interested after the 2018 crash and I went to my first blockchain game conference.[9:07] Many MMOGs focus on a player's inventory being persistence, not world persistence. [10:12] For a persistent game, we should use technology known for being good at persistence.[14:30] A lot of software has been created to help players run companies in EVE Online. [16:16] Ethereum is a very adversial PVP environment, just like EVE Online. [17:15] EVE Frontier was designed so CCP Games and thirdparty devs have the same level of authority.[19:02] To make a proveable sound system, you end up with a lot of blockchain-like [21:30] "I think about EVE Online as being a city. If EVE is Rome, Frontier is a new city, say New York".[24:35] EVE Frontier is more of a survival experience, a multiplayer single sharded survival experience.[25:43] "What sort of Daniel Day-Lewis film is EVE Frontier?"[27:21] What do the current EVE Online players think about EVE Frontier?[32:20] "We are going to provide the city-building tools but we are not going to build the city."[36:32] Why is CCP Online also open-sourcing its own Carbon game development tools?[38:50] "In a decade's time, the city will be inherent better because everything is open-sourced."

Jon Jordan talks to Improbable CEO Herman Narula about why the UK game tech company decided it had to build its own blockchain. Called Somnia, its testnet is now live. [2:32] The Improbable genesis story: from Cambridge Uni to building games technology. [3:39] Building economies for virtual worlds means you need a blockchain for ownership. [4:54] Improbable's first success was The Multiplayer Guys, who worked on CoD, GTA, Fall Guys etc. [5:27] The biggest thing Improbable has learned is "the tenacity to pursue the mission". [5:44] The Improbable co-founders have been sanctioned by Russia due to their defence work. [6:59] The key thing for Improbable's MSquared tech is making the cost of operations so low. [8:19] Narula describes Improbable as a "venture builder" - it's a "company of companies". [9:56] What does MSquared do? It's a software platform to build large scale virtual worlds. [13:32] "We've always bet on the need for human beings to feel relatedness, even in games." [14:56] Why did Improbable have to design its own blockchain. Do we need another one? [15:32] The crypto space is obsessed with its token price. That's all they optimize for. [16:00] Somnia can handle 1 million transactions per second, with sub-second latency. [17:19] Improbable has almost a quarter of a billion dollars of cash. [19:08] "Pirate Nation's network costs are astronomical. It would save millions of dollars on Somnia." [20:55] Our focus isn't getting existing web3 games to move to Somnia, but new games. [22:23] The current problem for games is cost of UA and cost of development. [23:34] "I couldn't care less what the Somnia token price is. That's not how we make money." [25:31] Blockchain games now is like The Hunger Games - people fighting over a small amount of value. [27:39] How big a deal will AI agents be in future? How is Improbable using AI for development? [28:34] AI agents aren't going to have bank accounts. They're going to have crypto wallets. [31:02] In an post-AGI world, "Games are going to become a critical industry for human health." [35:17] If you're an EVM app, you change one line of code and move to Somnia.

Jon Jordan talks to NPC Labs' CEO Daryl Xu about its new gaming ecosystem B3, which was spun out of Coinbase's Base blockchain. [5:16] The original story for B3 as a founding team out of the Coinbase Base team. [6:15] Games wanted to launch on Base but it wasn't built for gaming. [7:03] There's a big lack in the game sector in terms of publishing services. [11:21] How does B3 help grow the blockchain gaming audience? Better games and infrastructure. [12:44] Everything will eventually be tokenized and all apps will have their own chain. [14:55] The biggest problem in traditional gaming is perverse incentives. [16:23] How does B3 work from a technical point of view? [19:16] If everyone is running on their own chain, what does B3 provide as an ecosystem? [21:38] Games get 30% rev share from users' spending in other games that they onboared to B3. [23:57] There might only be 100,000 real gamers in blockchain. [25:18] InfiniGods will be onboarding a lot of users to B3 via its mobile games like King of Destiny. [26:55] Parallel is building its Ceti Tau shooter on B3.28:44 B3 will back amazing game ideas with "everything we have " including funding. [30:28] B3 will integrate AI agents thoughtfully. It's already done integrations with Luna and Zerebro. [35:38] As a founder, how do you stop the B3 token price becoming the only lens of success?

Jon Jordan talks to TreasureDAO co-founder Karel Vuong about the "decentralized game console's" vision for 2025.[1:46] Karel's backstory in tech and VC investing, prior to Treasure.[4:37] Treasure was originally an offshoot of the Loot NFT ecosystem in September 2021.[6:25] Treasure's fair launch for the MAGIC token. No VCs, just community.[10:04] What's with the concept of being a "decentralized game console"?[14:05] Why Treasure's branding is focused around indie games.[16:57] Why Treasure moved from Arbitrum to ZKsync.[21:25] Treasure Chain's mainnet is now live on ZKsync.[23:04] To contextualize the decision, many gaming projects moved chains in 2024.[24:44] What's the vision for Treasure in 2025?[27:50] How AI agents fits into the picture?[33:20] Why Treasure's advantage is tech, culture and community.

Jon Jordan talks to Mythical Games' CEO John Linden about the success of NFL Rivals, the forthcoming launch of FIFA Rivals and Pudgy Party, and how he expects to hit 100 million wallets in the next 18 months. [4:26] 65% of Mythical's revenue is now generated from NFT trading in NFL Rivals, up from 20%. [5:12] We have an enormous plan for NFL Rivals in 2025 with PVP mode, more social interaction. [7:20] The game design challenge of not being able to reset NFT players at the start of each season. [9:29] The most significant thing we're done in web3 is the Quick Trade NFT bundling option. [12:11] On average, there are around 50,000 open orders for NFL Rivals NFTs at any time. [13:51] NFL as a brand is becoming global, we've reupped our licensing deal for the coming years. [14:52] Madden has 25 million players. FIFA Mobile had 500 million. That's the appeal of soccer. [15:54] FIFA Rivals is PVP, with an action real-time strategy style, and with an esports angle. [18:00] NFL Rivals is higher rated by its players on app stores than Madden. [21:28] Pudgy Party is a F2P mobile game competing with Stumble Guys. "It's awesome." [24:20] Pudgy Party might be released on additional platforms [consoles] at some point. [26:12] "Our goal was to add 3 games in 2025 but we'll signed 4 this month alone." [26:38] "I think we'll have 100 million wallets within 6 quarters [18 months]." [28:00] Our focus is experienced game developers, not crypto devs. [28:58] I don't think the narrative for web3 games is profit, it's about expressing digital identity. [31:29] Interoperability will be the option to trade NFTs across games using Quick Trade. [32:15] A lot of the fundamental pieces of web3 gaming are working. The future is about better UX. [33:04] Today, someone could sell an NFL Rivals' NFT and cash it out to spend on a debit card. [34:35] We're thinking about how AI agents can help players, but they shouldn't play the game.

Jon Jordan talks to Animoca Brands' chairman Yat Siu about the rise of memecoins, the value of Telegram and TON as a distribution platform, and how AI agents could shake everything up. [3:56] What's the state of memecoins in 2025? [6:28] "We are narrative, story-telling people - money, democracy, politics are all stories." [8:32] "The part that makes me a bit negative about memes is they are being abused by snipers." [11:02] Is PENGU a pure memecoin? Can a memecoin gain utility? [13:18] Will institutions buy memecoins? There will be memecoin ETFs. But this need narrative. [16:45] "Telegram is still the most powerful distribution platform." [20:50] "TON means that Telegram will survive [22:52] Ronin demonstrates the power of community as Axie was joined by Pixels. [23:22] "In web3, they came for the money but stayed for the social." [27:01] 'AI agents can now create tokens and pay humans to do things for it.' [28:31] How Yat deals with vampire agent IP attacks such AImonica and an AI Yat agent. [29:25] AI agents will make it easier for humans to interact with blockchains and wallets. [31:54] Yat's attitude to the AImonica AI agent project. [34:47] What's next for Mocaverse and the MOCA token? [36:15] Reputation systems don't have to just be for humans, but can be for AI agents too. [37:22] How blockchains and reputation can help student loans. [38:07] Why Animoca isn't as focused on building and investing games as it once was. [38:51] "We think NFTs are going to have a pretty big comeback in 2025."

In episode 188, Jon Jordan talks to The Sandbox's Sebastien Borget about what happened in 2024 and what's planned for 2025. [2:49] "The metaverse is far from dead". The Sandbox Alpha 4 had over 580,000 players. [4:25] No matter the market, people see that The Sandbox is building and launching." [5:35] "We will have four seasons in 2025. Alpha 5 is already in production." [7:20] A criticism of seasons is it means The Sandbox is stop-start. There's no flywheel. [10:20] "We are in alpha now but in 2025 we expect to go into beta." [13:10] RE: UGC, The Sandbox is following a similar approach to Fortnite and its UEFN program. [14:00] The mobile client didn't come out in 2024 so what's happening there? [15:30] Part of our new strategy is the Voxel Games Program - standalone games including mobile. [18:01] We have two announced games and over 100 applications for the program. [21:45] Will you release The Sandbox PC client through stores like Epic Games Store? [23:22] "The success of the metaverse requires the product, the content and the ecosystem." [26:32] "Our vision has always been to empower the creators." [29:18] How do AI agents fit into The Sandbox's vision?

Jon Jordan talks to Laguna Labs' CEO Aron Beierschmitt about leaving behind debut game Crypto Unicorns and moving to new project Neo Olympus, which is a fully onchain game using the MUD engine and running on the B3 blockchain, with assets on Ethereum and Base. [2:45] What happened to Crypto Unicorns? [4:02] 2024 was a rough year. We went from +90 people to 10. But the DAO still exists. [5:27] "I accept all the blame for the failure. But I'm optimist about the path forward." [9:08] What was the spark of inspiration for Neo Olympus? [11:10] Why Aron is bullish on fully onchain games. [12:05] "Crypto Unicorns would still be around today if it was fully onchain." [13:15] Why did you choose B3 as the blockchain for Neo Olympus? [14:12] Neo Olympus will be cross-platform: playable from Arbitrum, from Abstract, from Ronin. [15:20] Most of the Neo Olympus' NFTs will be minted on Base. [18:57] The DN404 standard is "memecoins meets NFTs". [25:49] There's no investor or team allocation for the Olympus token. [28:39] "Time-based token vesting is silly." [31:15] What did your investors think about this approach? [34:20] How do you hope to scale Neo Olympus as fully onchain games can be complex? [35:27] Neo Olympus' gameplay is map-based tactics - Fire Emblem with titans. [37:22] We're building the game on Lattice's MUD engine.

Check out Jon's daily Substack at https://gamestx.substack.com/ We kick off 2024 with a discussion between Jon and BlockchainGamer.biz editor Jenny on our predictions for blockchain gaming in 2024. Subjects covered include: 2023 was a bad year for blockchain games  Is the biggest threat external forces or get-rich-quick mentality?  Remembering the Axie Infinity boom in late 2021 Will the hit games of 2024 be the ones we currently know Shrapnel, Off The Grid, Pixels Is UGC the future of blockchain gaming?  Is mobile the future of blockchain gaming?  Are fully onchain games the future of blockchain gaming?  Should we even talk about "blockchain games"?

Jon Jordan and BlockchainGamer.biz editor Jenny Jordan discuss all the news from 2024. [2:16] The success of Pixels was an ongoing trend in 2024; but it wasn't always about DAUWs. [2:35] Heroes of Mavia was the first big game and token launch of 2024 but it didn't scale. [4:10] In 2024, we saw a lot of blockchain games launching through app stores but no big hits. [6:10] Browser vs app stores and PC gaming stores remains a key business decision. [8:44] A lot of meme-y game coins such as MON, PORTAL, CARV, XAI launched in Q1. [11:30] There was a lot of news about chain migration - so many new L2 and L3 chains. [13:00] In Q2, there was a big change in sentiment with game token prices tanking. [14:11] The rise of KOLs, who encouraged retail crypto to invest in new tokens with often bad results. [16:05] The rise of Telegram and TON as a strong marketing channel for blockchain games. [17:46] Another nascent year for Immutable: Guild of Guardians was not a success. [22:17] But in Immutable's defence... 4 million Immutable Passport wallet sign-ups. [28:28] In Q3, the issue of bots became a problem esp. in respect to airdrops and token rewards. [30:09] What are you trying to do with your blockchain game when it comes to giving out value? [32:04] Does it matter if bots or AI agents are paying $10 to play your game? [32:30] The other thing in Q3 was the start of successful games on Ronin - Wild Forest, Lumiterra etc. [34:56] Pretty much every game launched on Ronin has got +100,000 DAUWs in testing. [37:19] Should we view console game Off The Grid as a success? [44:22] Whatever happened to The Sandbox? [45:25] CCP Game's EVE Frontier is now in closed alpha testing. [46:59] What's significant is these projects are very serious about the value of blockchain in games. [49:45] More generally, the US presidential election was the clear pivot point for crypto in 2024. [52:51] Investment into the sector was down on 2023 but around $1 billion.

Jon Jordan talks to Gunzilla Games' director of web3 Theodore Arganat and Ava Labs head of gaming marketing Andrew 'Coop' Cooper about the launch of Off The Grid, the first blockchain-enable console game. [4:49] Early reaction to Off The Grid's launch. [6:19] It's been interesting you haven't focused much on the crypto aspects of the game... [6:43] "For us, it's about using the best technologies to create the best UX." [10:40] The strategy behind the launch marketing campaign with streamers like Ninja and Shroud. [12:59] Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 launch hasn't impacted Off The Grid activity - 3 million tx/day. [14:02] Currently only 20% of Off The Grid's full game has been released. [15:55] Everyone who plays Off The Grid gets a wallet seemlessly created for them in the background. [19:14] What's the roadmap for the campaign mode? [20:44] The background lore of the game from Richard Morgan and Neil Blomkamp. [22:38] What's Avalanche9000? [27:17] Why did Gunzilla choose Avalanche and what are its plans for the Gunz blockchain? [29:47] What's the roadmap for the Gunz blockchain to launch its mainnet? ends

In episode 184, Jon Jordan talks to TonTon Games' CEO Daniil Shcherbakov about the opportunity Telegram creates for successfully launching blockchain games. [2:40] Daniil's career to-date as an startup entrepreneur. [5:42] The opportunity for Telegram gaming is similar to that arising from app stores in 2008. [8:15] How can Telegram games expand beyond the current simple clicker experiences? [11:09] How TonTon's DRFT Party will leverage its forthcoming NFT collection. [13:27] We will not push all our games to have a token. You don't need tokens for the sake of it. [17:37] How important is Telegram's Star payment system for generating revenue? [22:05] How is TonTon's operating as a publisher of games in terms of selecting games? [25:54] Why it's looking for genres such as tower defense and mafia wars. [28:15] Are there particular countries with strong audiences for these games? [30:06] What's the UA situation like on Telegram for marketing games? [35:04] What's the plan for TonTon Games in the remainder of 2024? [37:12] What sort of retention metrics can Telegram games generate?

Check out Jon's daily email at https://gamestx.substack.com/ In episode 183, Jon Jordan talks to Sky Mavis co-founder Jeff 'Jihoz' Zirlin about the maturing of Ronin from the blockchain for Axie Infinity to a gaming ecosystem for dozens of web3 games. [3:09] What is Axie Pals? [5:58] The Axie treasury is generating $300,000/month. [9:52] What is the future for Axie as a brand? [11:24] Making Axie NFTs dynamic has created a sink for AXS tokens. [13:26] How has the change been for Sky Mavis moving from being a developer to a platform holder? [13:44] "We believe we have expertise, the eye, the taste to pick winners." [16:14] Why Ronin's current permissioned approach is not the long term strategy. [17:30] Does Ronin currently have too many MMORPGs? [24:33] Should we view Ronin as having a predominantly southeast Asian community? [27:20] Why is Ronin succeeding when other gaming blockchains seem to be struggling? [28:43] "Web3 gaming's biggest competition is with memecoins." [32:40] Are games big enough to drive a crypto cycle themselves? [35:31] 70% of players claiming AXS via our Bounty Boards are staking or holding their tokens. [36:59] What games is Jeff excited about?