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Shilling Smarts: Marketing Web3 Games Without the Hype
Recorded: April 16, 2025 Duration: 0:59:30Space Recording
Short Summary
In a recent discussion, industry leaders explored the evolving landscape of Web3 gaming marketing, emphasizing the shift from hype-driven strategies to sustainable community-building practices. Key insights included the importance of creating quality games, leveraging social media for outreach, and fostering genuine connections with players to enhance trust and engagement.
Full Transcription
Thank you. The End . Thank you. Thank you. Music Thank you. . Thank you. all righty we are at the five minute mark good morning good morning today we'll be talking about
marketing in web 3 games without the hype do need it? Do they not need it?
How can we market in a sustainable way to create good communities and retain our users?
So it looks like today we have Earth from Another Sun with us.
I believe we have King Snooch as well. We're trying to get him up here.
And we might have Jorge as well.
We also got Warp up here as well.
So welcome up here, Warp Chain.
Good to see you.
Oh, actually, that might be King Snooch.
All righty.
Well, we can go ahead, and it looks like we got a smaller panel today.
So we can go ahead and start with some intros.
You just want to tell us who's behind the account,
tell us a little bit about your guys' company,
and if you want to add a little update or anything like that, no worries since we do have a smaller panel.
And then we can go ahead and jump into the questions, so I'll go ahead and pass it to Earth from Another Sun.
Good morning, good morning.
Hello guys, how's it going?
This is Shiv from EFAS, or Earth from Another sun. We are a base building FPS game with roguelite elements where you can command your
own totalitarian state in humanity's darkest hour. That being said, I think overall the place that we
are today for Web3 Gaming does need a lot of anti-hype marketing, which just means something
which is more purpose-driven, more long-term, less instant gratification, more
things that actually sustain our industry for creating value for actual gamers, for
actual retail investors that aren't looking to flip us like we're meme coins.
So I think with all that, we definitely have a good panel here.
So excited to get the conversation started.
Yeah, absolutely.
It's good to have you again on here, Shiv. I know you're here every single time i'm a host man and i always love
your takes and i always love to see good it's on my google calendar i have two spaces on my google
calendar by default it's this a new era tomorrow it's always i love it i appreciate the support
brother and i'm always glad to have you up here all righty we'll go ahead and pass it over to matt
i'm assuming
he might've been in the Warp chain. I don't know. There's a lot of question marks here, but Matt,
how are we doing today? Yeah, doing good, man. Doing good. I just came because Warp was here
and I was like, ancient A, King Snooch, Nick from Numson, Hoi, Zip Flash, Lies. I love these
people. I'm going to come up and chat shit with you.
And it's all about marketing Web3 games without the hype. Because it's very rare to get the hype.
And often the hype is got by people whose projects are basically dying. I've seen plenty of games in
the space. And the last thing before the shutdown is a bunch of KOLs shilling them hardcores. Like,
it's a bunch of kols shilling them hardcores like they must have spent the last money on the kols
and then that's it game died so you know let's let's bring something back let's bring it back
to actual fun games actual things that we do yeah don't forget warf on the intro i am not warf i am
part warf i am chief commercial officer i'm one of her founders give of them i'd see zinthi as well straight dente
all good hell yeah man i appreciate you stopping by last minute and uh it's good to have you up
here man excited to hear your takes i know i know you started giving us a little taster right there
so definitely excited to dive into the topic here we'll go ahead and pass it over to king
snooch brother how you doing today there we go sorry about that i was trying to find the
tab on my computer trying to multitask i got a lot of things going on i'm doing well thanks for
having me nick great to be up here with a bunch of a lot of a lot of friends that are up here so
it's going to be a good good morning for me i'm glad to be part of the conversation excited to
get this kicked off let's go absolutely. Always good to have you up here.
Another consistent speaker on our spaces.
So I appreciate you always being up here.
We're going to go ahead and pass it over to WarpChain.
I'm 0 for 2 on who's behind the account.
So how are we doing today?
Ah, man, listen, you'll get there eventually.
It's 0 for 2 on the Warp account.
Good to see you, Nick.
Also very happy Matt has come up here
because Matt is our chief.
He's our chief shiller.
So he is.
Chief shilling officer.
That actually should be my title.
He shills loads of smarts for Warp.
So he does.
And he does it in all the right places we send
them out to all the various uh conferences and everything so he's the main one yeah but yeah
it's me i'm the one that's usually behind the warp account whenever you see it on on spaces unless
it's a very specific one that that we are attending and yes just good to hang with you guys it's a good
topic so it is uh you know we we all, we love a bit of hype,
but, you know, we want hype that's backed up by actually something,
you know, and that's why we're here.
So, yeah, let's have a bit of fun.
I actually forgot that it was Wednesday.
I don't know.
I thought it was Thursday for some reason.
So I've got an extra day in my life, which didn't think I had. I'm actually in a very
good mood.
You came to the daily meeting as well.
Come on, man.
Gratitude in the small things.
That was like five hours ago.
They're crypto hours.
That's 10 years.
I could be 60 now for all i know
that's what it feels like in crypto huh i've been in crypto working with the gaming for oh my god
what year are we in like four years now and it feels like a million so i totally get it you're
607 crypto years old yeah exactly right i i could be a i I could be a CEO at this point with all my experience.
Only in crypto though.
But yeah, we could definitely get into the topic here.
As you can see, it's marketing Web3 games with the hype.
I got a question here that I decided to throw a little twist.
So it's a little bit on the hype, but also on sustainability a bit.
So, you know, my first question, which is going to start with a statement,
is in Web3, especially these past few years,
we've seen a lot of over-promising and under-delivering,
a lot of underwhelming products
and a lot of underwhelming executed campaigns.
And so with that being the norm in Web3 gaming,
how can Web3 games in today's time gain trust
and grow a sustainable community
we can go ahead and do hands um if you guys just want to speak we can figure it out for sure
go ahead matthew we go matthew and then earth from another side i mean i don't mind hands it's it
always it's always funny when you come up on a space and it's like you don't know whether it's
going to be a hand space or everyone just like chats with each other. I like everyone here.
I don't want to take up too much airtime.
But generally, make a good fucking game that people want to play.
One.
Two, make some people some money at some point who had none previously.
That's all you need to do.
Literally those two things.
You're not enough game that people want to play.
Make people some money.
I mean, if you make people some money, they'll put up with a shit game. That's game that people want to play make people some money i mean if you make
people some money they'll put up with a shit game that's not where we want to be i wouldn't advise
it it's really bad to do it and it's not that expensive to make a good game these days so do
both and we win that's all it is when you say make a you know give them some money though are you
talking in an open economy are you
talking in a in a play to airdrop you know what would be uh i'm talking i'm talking like play to
airdrops kind of suck because your game probably sucks already that's why you can't get people to
play it that's why you're doing a play to airdrop to entice them to play your terrible game like
they play your game they enjoy it and whether your game is Ponzi or whatever it is,
as long as the people who are early adopters, like in Axie, make some bank, they cash out,
and it doesn't completely kill the economy, and they have some money, and they earned that,
they will be your diehard biggest fans. If you can earn a couple of hundred bucks
in playing a game, and that game is enjoyable enough that it isn't a chore, you're winning.
That's all it is.
If you can do that consistently without your project dying, without rugging it, and without spending all the money on Balenciaga and trips to Singapore where everyone's partying on the plane, then you're good.
Yeah, absolutely.
I think that there's definitely a fine line
between having a fun game, a good product,
and the money not being the motivator,
but the experience being the motivator,
and the money being kind of that secondary,
it's almost like the cherry on top, right?
Definitely is interesting in that aspect,
and I hope that we do get to that point
where we just have fun games with open economies
and, you know, we're able to be incentivized if we want.
I'm also a big fan of incentivizing early supporters, right?
Without any promises.
Early supporters that are actually a fan of what's being built and kind of see the vision
there.
But absolutely, Matthew, I appreciate it.
We'll go ahead and pass it over to you, Shiv.
Awesome.
Yeah.
So I think the skepticism in the statement that you made is definitely justified. And I think the overall
cyclical nature of over-promising and either rug pulling or under-delivering has done real damage
to us as an industry. So I think the only way we can solve it is first to undo that damage by having actual transparency over hype.
What most projects don't realize is that hype is, of course, important.
Marketing aggressively is important, but there is a time for that.
If you're a project that raised $200k on an idea and an MVP, you probably shouldn't be allocating $100k or $50k of that off the bat into marketing because you aren't going to get what you need
at that stage of your journey.
So I think moving away from those cinematic AI trailers
that are meant to make a retail investor wow
and more just having live playable builds
that can get community members on is very important.
So I think the more you show the product early,
the more you actually iteratively ship products,
it allows the community to see actual progress,
which undoes the damage of these false promises.
So I would say maybe having the ability to prioritize player value
over token value until it's absolutely critical
for your project to stay alive is
important. You should be able to make sure that the community and the builders understand that
these games in Web3 should not revolve around a token chart. The core loop has to be fun.
The amount of games that are incredibly fun right now, playable, and have a lot of
actual community members with a low market cap is real and
in fact about our industry.
And if you throw it back to when Web3 Gaming and the metaverse was in the multi-billion
dollar stage, you didn't have as many gamers as you have today and the products weren't
close to as good.
So I think that's very important.
Backing that up with everything you do on chain being an actual commitment rather than a
claim is also important because we talk about the benefit of the Web3 side of things being
transparency, decentralization, etc. But most of it just ends up being words used in a campaign or
words used in a post that you're making. If you can actually have provable accountability for
everything you do on chain, it's the best way to back up your words and you'll attract more community members from Web3 over the
long term than any individual campaign will be able to bring you. And finally, just because you
said it yourself in your statement, I would just say the best solution is to under promise and
over deliver, where if you can have unexpected features,
bonus campaigns that just come without massive hype
and expectations riding on it,
you're going to be able to earn trust in this space
without having the hurt that comes from the loud promises.
So that's probably where I'd start and take it from there.
Yeah, absolutely. I appreciate that take.
Would you say that every game needs a token
i would say definitely not at the stage we are today as an industry maybe at a future point a
debate could be made for that happening yes but i think today we definitely don't need that because
there's enough tokens out there i think on top that, the whole meme coin space has oversaturated the amount of tokens available.
And today, web-free gaming PGEs, at least as a blanket statement for a majority of them, are not going well.
We always have occasional mints that mint out millions and are like, oh, are we back?
We're not back until we onboard millions of gamers.
So I think until we actually have good products,
probably not, maybe yes again in the future.
Absolutely, I appreciate that take.
And I do think we're getting pretty close to good products and good games, right?
I know Project O got a lot of good feedback over at GDC.
I know Nihon Heroes just launched.
I think they just ended their play test.
You know, maybe Jorge can come up here and talk about how that went as well and i know that there's a lot of uh i wouldn't
call it hype because i don't want to use that word because i think it almost takes away but
wildcard seems to be cooking up something pretty cool over there as well so i definitely think we
are getting closer to these good tangible products that aren't just farming or mining games right or these um these exactly project
oh was dope project oh was really really good and the tournament they ran was fantastic i mean they
gave away shiny jar regards psa 10 shiny jar is us you cannot fault a game that does that even if
it's not their own ip you can see where they're going with it. Yeah, absolutely. They seem to be doing some good things over there. I know they partnered
with some good guys like Fiasco and them as well. So excited to see how that cooks up
as well. We do have a new guest up here so we can go ahead and introduce them. We have
Jumi up here. Jumi, really quickly if you'd like to do an intro on yourself really quickly
and who you know,
who you're with, and then we can keep the conversation going after that, but just didn't
want to forget about you. Jumjum, everyone. My name is Jumi. I'm a content writer and storytelling
marketer and also a gaming creator. And yeah, for the topic about the space, I'm just going to add one or two things about marketing retrograde games without the hype.
And lately I noticed that a lot of projects have been, you know, coming up.
And, sorry, am I audible?
Yes, we can hear you loud and clear.
Yes, we can hear you loud and clear.
Okay, yeah.
So my honest opinion on this is games should just create a product that is worth using.
Because if you're saying, oh, you're doing a play to a drop or you're doing a play to end or attaching rewards to everything.
in the long run you're not actually attracting any real consumers because
In the long run, you're not actually attracting any real consumers.
wherever is there 90 of them are there for the rewards and after the money is
gone they are gone also they move on to the next
paying thing so if games can create a good product
that don't even need rewards to you know attract users
listening to web 2 games web 2 games don't reward their users. Yes,
people are still addicted to them. So instead of focusing on the reward and the economics
aspect, games should focus on creating a good product that attracts users without having
to lure them in with rewards. And at the end of the day, you find out that you are just
marketing to farmers and not to real
users. So that's just my take
on this and how can you do this?
Create a good product,
make sure the law is good
and strong enough to
keep users in.
So that's just what I have to say.
Thanks for the mic and
I appreciate
the speakers also and the listeners.
Yeah, absolutely.
Thank you for being up here and thank you for giving your take.
I do have a follow-up question because I think that we've heard a couple speakers say, you know, build a good product.
And then, you know, everything else will follow.
And I'm curious, if you have a good product, you still need to bring awareness towards it.
Right.
And so I'm curious on your guys' thoughts on some some tactics.
Right.
Or some sustainable ways to market or even to bring these good products to gamers.
Right.
What are some good ways that we can do that?
Because obviously, you know, even I'm going to use Jorge as an example down there again, but he even mentions. Right. What are some good ways that we can do that? Because obviously, you know, even I'm going to use Jorge as an example down there again, but he even mentions. Right. And I think a lot of people have noticed this and came to this realization over the years. But Twitter is not a place to onboard users. Right. It's not a place to onboard gamers. It might be a good place to onboard DGENs, investors, people that can bring some liquidity over to your token, NFTs, X, Y, and Z,
but it might not be the best place to onboard users.
So I'm curious to hear your guys' thoughts on some ways to onboard gamers, right,
into this hypothetical good product.
We can go ahead and start it over with you, Jumi.
Okay, yes, that's a very good question.
I understand that, okay, if you have a good product without popular marketing, it's going nowhere.
But then the marketing strategy we're using in Web3,
especially the gaming space, needs to be changed.
Okay, take for example, I launched a very good game
and I want to attract users.
Instead of promising each and every user that,
you know, play my game a certain amount from the airdrop.
Why not do this?
Get a user.
Do you get me?
Get a user.
And then make that user bring in other users.
How?
Okay, let's say you have a game.
You can create an in-game referral system
or an in-game reward system
where you don't have to do much work.
And it is basically the users bringing in more users for you.
Because if I'm playing a game and I tell my friend, oh, come and join me here,
it's very easy for me to bring them in than if they're hearing from a project directly
because I have more influence over them.
Do you get what I'm saying?
Sorry, can anyone still hear me? we can we can you made a fantastic
point you do me do you mean like literally what you said that referral link we hooked up apps flyer
to our game call and avoid we were like 10 000 monthly active users we did exactly what you said
that referral link to bring people in easily. And we got up to 250,000
monthly active users within three to six months. You have hit on one of the best marketing tactics
in Web3. It's fantastic. Yeah, really good point. Yeah, because I drafted a marketing plan
a few days ago, and it was like this, bring in one user and then focus your marketing on that user and then
make those one make that one user begin three orders and those three orders will begin three
each and at the end of the day you have like 12 users of your products from just focusing on one
person so that's just it and there are many sustainable ways to you know market your products
without having to spend millions on airdrops.
And at the end of the day, you get farmers in return.
And you find out that you didn't even actually do anything at all
and just reward people who are just there to get your money and go.
And as for what Nick said about Twitter not doing a good place to find gamers, I agree with that.
There are a lot of platforms that you can find gamers.
And marketing should not be within Twitter alone because you're doing VGC campaigns, you're doing space, you're doing everything, but you're limiting to just
one platform. There are platforms for gamers that are specifically designed for gamers.
Go to this space, go to communities, enter those communities, bring them in from there.
And it doesn't have to be just through Twitter spaces alone,
Twitter threads.
There are several platforms that are specifically designed for gamers.
And in fact, people who are truly interested in your product,
even before they hear about the monetization aspect.
So I think, did that answer your question, Nick?
Oh, yeah, absolutely.
I appreciate it.
Because I think referral programs are a huge marketing tactic and if done correctly, work very well, right?
And I believe you were talking about doing some airdrops in gaming communities as opposed to play to airdrops.
And I've always been a big fan of that, but more of the route of assets, right?
Once again, it's finding that fine line
of incentivizing a certain action from users,
but figuring out a way to incentivize them
to do something that can't be extracted, right?
And so I always kind of go around to assets
within the game that kind of, you know,
always sparks up the idea.
But Jumiumi great points
I appreciate that I'm gonna go ahead and pass it over to Shiv and then Matt I know you had your
hand up and it went might have went down because you started talking so we can bring you back after
after Shiv amazing so first of all again I think Jumi made some great points all in all I think
the main like million or billion or trillion dollar question of onboarding
Web2 gamers needs to be almost grandfathered in from the traditional industries because Web3
improves a lot. It brings a lot to the table, but it can't become the table itself for something
like Web3 gaming. For a lot of DeFi projects, it does make sense to have the very architecture or
messaging of what Web3 brings be your main marketing points. But over here, it does make sense to have the very architecture or messaging of what Web3 brings
be your main marketing points. But over here, it needs to be just what the Web3 aspects bring.
An example of that is flexing the fact that you can have prestige or something of digital value,
which is repped by you, which is enabled by blockchain technology, but you're not flexing
the technology of non-fungible tokens,
if you know what I mean.
So I think that being said,
probably leading with gameplay over tech is always helpful.
Every time, I mean, just speaking from eFast's perspective,
the first three to three and a half years of our building process,
we didn't market to a single Web3 individual.
It was just Web2 onboarding,
putting as many gameplay clips as possible up online.
Anything that would make someone just sit back and be like,
wow, that's unique, I want to know more.
Web2 gaming outlets exist.
I mean, at a first BD glance,
you might think that getting covered by Steam
or being covered by IGN
or any of these big Web2 gaming media platforms is a huge task.
And at day one, it probably is.
But it's the same way we can network in Web3.
There are doors to break down in Web2.
So go out there and send your gameplay to as many people that can cover it as possible.
See events where people are showcasing trailers.
We recently featured on the Kind of Funny Spring Showcase,
which got us
thousands of people that had never even heard of our game before to see the trailer, and none of
them knew that there's Web3, Solana, anything crypto even involved. So I think the more you're
able to get people in for just the Web2 side of your game, you're going to be able to allure them
more into your community once they find out
the benefits of Web3. If you compare that to just having a lot of Web3 hype driven or just words on
your campaigns and on your socials that don't appeal to an average gamer, you're going to end
up creating more friction points than any incentive you can offer them would bring in.
So that, in a nutshell, would mean using Web3 as a layer of enhancement
rather than just an onboarding gimmick almost.
And once the players have enjoyed the game,
then optionally introduce things like asset ownership, trading, or earning.
And if you have a good enough game and there's strong culture within your community,
those things will just feel inherent to learn.
Like people will want
to instinctively get onboarded into these if your community is fun and if they're feeling that FOMO.
So if you just merge that with familiar enough onboarding user experience, where people don't
have to sign transactions every time they have a kill, they don't need to understand what a seed
phrase or wallets mean. and you can have progressive disclosure
of almost having the crypto side invisible
until needed or wanted by the player,
you're going to end up having way less friction points
and a much higher value experience overall.
Absolutely, Shiv.
I think you hit on a really good point
that I want to touch on,
which was adding this Web3 layer and it becomes invisible.
I almost feel like we're going to get to a place pretty soon where you're going to be seeing games.
What would be the word for it?
Marketed or even like awareness will be brought from the Web2 side, such as IGN, such as Web2 creators.
And the main talking point will not be the Web3 elements whatsoever.
It will probably be invisible.
And, you know, if people deep dive,
then they'll kind of understand this is a Web3 game.
But eventually we will get to a point where they're just games.
And some of them will have Web3 elements and some won't.
And those won't be the talking points
because those were definitely the talking points years ago, right?
This is a Web3 game web 3 web 3 web 3
and so i'm happy that we're starting to see a shift from a builder's perspective of focusing
on game mechanics as opposed to web 3 mechanics so thank you on that shift i'm gonna go ahead and
pass it over to you matthew yeah no it's a it's a really important point like web 3 games that
actually can run in web 2 and don't actually make a massive point about the web 3 are are going to
be the future it's going to happen but eventually like everyone has to know it is a web 3 game and
they can cash out something or that they hold something or that they can transfer it to something
else um so i do think like we shouldn't be afraid of it we shouldn't be afraid of it games yes games
are just games the quality level is
different like the bar that you have to hit with web 2 game that has no incentivization other than
the gameplay is infinitely higher than you would imagine unless you've been working and releasing
games in the industry for the last like 20 years or so so we shouldn't shy away from the fact that
we do give out incentives for playing
these games because those incentives help those people to build on our success. They help us to
retain players, help us to grow our audiences, and they help us get to that point where you can
actually rely on these people to push you to that next level so that you can hit that standard.
So I'd never be afraid of Web3, and I would never be afraid of saying that people can win
and they can get stuff. What I would never do is just say, we will give you money by turning up
until you've more than proven the fact that just by turning up, you make money off people.
If you can do a game where people can get money by turning up, you have to be making
a ton of money already for that to be sustainable.
But I don't think we should ever shy away from the fact that we say crypto.
I think that crypto is important.
There wouldn't be so many scammers in crypto unless there was demand.
People can change their lives with this tech.
People have changed their lives with this tech.
Everyone I know and everyone I work with, all of the Web3 people have come from entirely different
walks of life. They've never done this before. They've never been in games. Support this.
This is the power that we have to change everything.
Absolutely. I think that crypto has given so many people so many opportunities
to build and to you know step into an industry that's typically hard to step into right
i keep seeing you mute on me you got something else to say or no no
okay awesome awesome um king snooch you've been quiet over there man normally you're just
spinning away with some takes man is there any uh any thoughts that you'd like to add to what's
been said or any of these questions so far i know you're multitasking over there so i threw you on
the hot seat no it's it they're kind of covering everything i mean there's not a whole lot to add
to it um it's not typically the thing that I like to get too in depth on this conversation because I end up, you know, arguing with people about it.
Um, I love everybody up here on the stage. So to me, it's not worth arguing about, but I'm,
I don't know. I'm very, very against the whole idea of encouraging people to come play your game by enticing them with financial rewards.
I think that's you're not going to pull in the gamers.
You're going to pull in the people who are looking to extract.
And I think that's a big problem with Web3 and why a lot of the games are struggling, because.
It is something that Web3 can offer.
Yes, you can make money in the games
but when your your pitch to people to gamers right is that oh come play my game you can earn money on
it you're gonna get people whose main focus is just to extract and i think when you have games
that are just fun and have people that are playing them and there's an
opportunity if somebody decides they want to go that route they can that's a different story i
look at path of exile as a perfect example path of exile is not a crypto game but in the game they
have you know weapon skins that you can buy from the marketplace. They have all the items that you find throughout the world
and they have a whole trading economy online where you can go trade your items back and forth
between players. I can trade, you know, if I find some exalts, I could trade those for
a piece of gear that I want. There's a trading marketplace. However, on the outside of it,
which is why I think like this would be a perfect opportunity
for Web3, there's actual groups. I don't know even what you call them, organizations that are
these massive organizations where these players will go play the game. They'll get the exalt
items, right? The in-game currency, they'll get it in the game and then what they've done is they've created a
second website where they actually sell those items for money so somebody could go on and if
they need the exalts to buy the gear that they want in the trade site they go to this third
party website they pay them money and they go in the game and they deliver the items to them
that's what web3 could be and i think that's like the perfect example of an economy
that would exist and function right, where you just have a few people, some people, right?
There's occasional people that want to go out there and farm the items just to sell them to
somebody for money. But the majority of the players in the game want to spend money on the
game because they enjoy playing it so
much and i think once we get to that point things will start to turn around and we'll start to see
more mass onboarding absolutely i appreciate that i appreciate that take and i it's funny you say
that because i always kind of think about this in a way of there's two users within a game, especially with a lot of bigger Web 2 games that have kind of nailed this down where you have guys that grind and don't spend money and they earn, you know, these skins or these weapons or X, Y, and Z in the game.
But then there's also a path of pay to win, right, where you're able to fast track maybe a battle pass, right?
I think Call of Duty is a good example of this.
You can unlock all the guns.
It probably takes like 20 hours of gameplay or you can just buy the battle pass
and i think it's like for 30 bucks you can like fast track the battle pass right um and so finding
this layer where instead of fast tracking that battle pass players earn these weapons and then
they're able to then sell them and you know an open market or x y and z and then you can kind
of have incentivization
that way right without directly coming from your token or you directly paying the players and you
know everyone's really anti play the airdrop and i'm curious do you think your guys's tune on play
the airdrop would be different if these products were better because we keep saying good product
good product good product now if it were a good product and there's a play to airdrop campaign
do you think your thoughts on this would be different we take hands yeah they
don't perfect no why not because you're still basically advertised I think the
advertisement needs to be changed I think whether the game is good or not,
if you're marketing that your product is going to make people money,
you're going to get people who are there to make money.
If you're advertising your product as a fun product, as a game,
then you're going to get people who want to come and play the game.
Most likely people that if it's a good product will be willing to spend money on the game.
And I think that's where we're struggling right now
yeah i think that's a good point i i do think there's a fine line i don't think play the airdrop
is a completely dead marketing tactic i just think that maybe it's been used not incorrectly
but definitely could be used in a different way um i think it is a good way to drive users towards your game right and potentially retain them but i do see a lot of the
negativity geared around it especially in the early stages of the way it's been used
we can go ahead and pass it over to shiv i saw your hand fly up and then it went down so if
you want to go you can go if not we'll go to warp and then jumi down. So if you want to go, you can go. If not, we'll go to Warp and then
Jumi. Right. I just think exactly what King Snooch said. I mean, if you look at Web2 and
any of your favorite tech products, the iPhone takes a lot of technology to be built, probably
more than most Web3 projects out there. And yet never is any marketing about the backend technology.
It's always what that technology enables. So
even if you are doing quote unquote web free marketing, it needs to be about what
feature is enabled from the underlying technology. And if you're able to do that
and just create that shift in your head, in the short term, it may hurt. In the short term,
you may not have the vanity numbers, which are brought in by saying $1 billion marketing
campaign, guys, come and get your money. But over a long enough time, it'll be much healthier for
your project, you're going to end up attracting people that are actually want to be community
members. And you're going to end up actually onboarding them into Web3 eventually, if you're
building right, the amount of people in our community that are like in their 40s, 50s and
60s that had no idea how to set up a wallet.
And for like our first campaign had to understand how to do that was amazing to see, because the more you can get people into Web3 through your project as a vessel, the more you know that you're doing things right.
absolutely so it seems like even with the good product we're still leaning towards
no play to airdrop and more as you mentioned focusing on the marketing of the the experience
and what the tech kind of emphasizes as opposed to the tech itself i appreciate that shiv i'm
gonna go ahead and pass it over to war yeah thanks nick. Just to briefly, very briefly, hopefully to expand on what Matt said.
It is very important that, you know, people are touching on this as well,
is that the product really is not there yet.
We don't have the games.
But, I mean, that's not necessarily, and that's not dissing the ideas behind the games
or, you know, the concept of a game or any of that it's that the core
underpinnings of a successful business in other words a successful project or whatever is that
it's done right so that they know you know everybody can plan the thing but it's about
managing the the whatever runway to have managing you you know, when certain things should be done, you know, it's like,
I've been in that many spaces over the last six months sort of reiterating this
that, you know, sometimes myself, I sound like a broken record,
but like even after six months, you know, as we're setting up,
we still see people doing the same mistakes, you know,
and that's why we're here to fix that.
But when it all comes down to it, you know, when you're talking about, you know, even
if you have a good project and a good idea and you've built a good product, you have
to be making money because you can't sustain anything in the long term vision of a game
or if it's not making money.
And, you know, that's when it all comes down.
So you can airdrop this, you can do that, you can give out rewards.
In simple terms, and it's a simple fact of life, really,
when it comes down to it, is you can do a lot of things
when you've got money.
You know, there's very rarely, you know, a downturn in sort of world economics or world recessions or whatever.
You know, there's very rarely, you know,
But if you have money, you won't feel the effects of that.
And that's the same as when it comes to business.
You know, if you can bring in revenue, then you can do whatever the hell you like to attract people and bring them on board.
Yeah, absolutely. I think those are some great points revenue definitely is probably the number one focus or should be the number one focus right and to your point
if you're making a lot of revenue then then we can potentially talk about this play to airdrop
right or potentially start talking about how can we incentivize users or even give back, right?
I think that was kind of one of the earlier thoughts in Web3 Gaming was we make money
and we give back to the gamers, right?
Kind of bring the power back to the gamers in a sense.
So I think those are some great points.
And, you know, I think a play to airdrop might not be the move then from the consensus of
the panel. But we definitely are still learning how to
leverage Web3. I'm sorry, maybe leverage the technology
and figuring out how to enhance these gameplays as opposed
to completely focusing on the technology itself, but focusing on
the experience. But it does look like we're at 15 minutes
left in the space. so we can go ahead
and this kind of builds off of what the second question was right about how can we market to
these users you know outside of play to airdrop and and actually getting gamers and so i'm curious
to hear your guys's thoughts on creators, right, and different platforms,
because it seems like there was a lot of back and forth about KOLs and creators in the Web3 space,
and it seems like people like them, don't like them, think they're beneficial, think they hinder.
And so I'm curious, what are some ways that games can actually leverage creators and even platforms to bring attention towards their games?
And I'm definitely
excluding x here just because as mentioned right i think x is a good discovery ability platform but
i i would assume that we can all agree that x might not be the best platform
for for really getting to the eyes of the users that we're really trying to get to
but i'll go ahead and pass it over to you shu
sure so i think with creators it's actually pretty interesting because,
I mean, as someone who's worked in a lot of non-Web3 gaming parts of Web3, I've seen how bad
like deal flow with KOLs can actually get. And now with Web3 gaming, it's almost interesting because
for creators, they actually have to play games. Your value as a creator stems from the community
you build through actual live streams, through actual gameplay footage,
and stuff like that is very different from what it's like
in, say, the DeFi sector of Web3,
where it's almost like shilling or nothing for 95% plus of creators.
So I think there definitely is now in the past
and in the future of Web3 gaming a great opportunity with creators,
it just depends, again, on the messaging that you're using them for. If you use a Web3 creator
with a community of people that actually enjoy playing video games, you're going to end up having
actual people come in through them. But if you're just trying to allocate the best financial strategy
towards the KOL that gets maximum impressions,
you're either just doing it from vanity metrics in the short run, or you're doing it as a means
to fulfill some raise of tokens or a mint or something in that spectrum. So I would say the
best way to go about it is, at least in the first six to 12 months of building, I would say you
probably don't need creators because that's the time where you need those first 10, 50, 100 people that are truly aligned with your
vision. And once you have that, and once you have a product which has been iterated on through at
least a few cycles of player feedback, you can start looking for small or big creators that
align with your vision, that have content that you think would be appealing to your existing community.
And then from there, if you onboard them,
that can have a very neat domino effect
in onboarding more people that have a similar vision.
But if you go down the strategy of what it was with KOLs a few years ago,
where they shill you as a product of or just a vessel of a token to buy,
you're going to end up having a much drier and
emptier community because they haven't entered for an emotional reason. And every time you get
someone, be it through a creator or campaign, or just through average content, which is coming in
for finances, more likely than not, they're going to shortly after they either get the money they
expect or not leave for that same financial reason. Whereas if you can get them
in for a true connection through Creator X or through certain emotions, you're going to have
them end up staying much longer just because they actually at some point at least gelled with or
aligned with the vision that you've been pitching. Absolutely. I appreciate that, Shiv. It seems like
what you were mentioning, right, is not going after maybe the most expensive KOLs or the KOLs with the biggest numbers, but actually finding supporters, right, almost ambassadors for your games as well.
Interesting kind of finding that fine line, but also finding creators that actually enjoy
your game and figuring out how to onboard them because that's, you know, kind of a big
task in itself.
I'm curious to hear, you know, Matthew's thoughts on this as well.
Just leveraging creators and even leveraging different platforms, right?
Such as TikTok, YouTube.
I'm curious if you have any expertise or experience on that on that front.
Yeah. I'm curious if you have any expertise or experience on that front.
Matthew.
All right, we might have missed Matthew.
Can I pass this over to you, Warp?
Tell you what was the question, man.
No, it was just, you know, if you have any expertise or any thoughts on leveraging creators, right, and even platforms such as X, YouTube, you know, even like YouTube Shorts and TikTok.
And, you know, is there any thoughts on good strategies or good ways to leverage them?
Even if it's in terms of like marketing right uh creating a marketing campaign
around it what do you what are your thoughts on it um i don't know if you heard shiv's take but
he was just mentioning not going after vanity metrics and kols but actually going after creators
that support your game and believe in it well i'm not going to disagree with shiv because uh he
makes a hell of a lot of sense, you know, and that I mean,
it's not marketing is not is not necessarily my thing.
Right. But the one the one thing where
where I know about is is people and it's engaging with people.
And I mean, no,
you know, yes, you can spend like Coca-Cola did and all this sort of stuff.
You can spend millions on creating a whole perception.
The whole, you know, we all know the whole notion that Coca-Cola is now reviewed as a
Christmas thing.
And that's the only reason why Santa Claus is dressed in red now, because it's a Coca-Cola.
Right.
And that's obviously clever marketing, but it's also spending a huge amount of money.
We're in the sort of thing where we don't necessarily have that amount of money so it's about engaging with people and being open and and direct and sort of honest with them and
and bringing them into into the vision about what what you want to do look we're very focused i mean
snooche was one of the the very first uh sort of creatory types who came on board and
started discussing about about what we were doing and since then you know we we have we have we have
a lot who have who are sort of wading in behind us with with more and more each week because
with more and more each week because they can see that.
And I mean, creators is, you know, I find it a lot more organic
because it's like you're creating a sort of a movement.
I mean, it might sound a little bit cheesy,
but one of our sort of driving ideas or concepts
is creating like a nation, you know,
like the Warped Nation of creators and gamers and all of this.
And it's forming the basis of our engagement platform,
which we're working on at the moment.
And actually, we're pretty pleased where it's at.
It's ready to go, but it's just not the right time for it yet.
And it's bringing that on board because because that's where the the
the natural hype and and organic growth is is is going to come from i do appreciate and
you know that there's still a certain need for kols stroke people of influence you know if you're
doing a node sale you want
somebody who's very good with node sales pushing it but again you want them you want to be working
with the people who believe in what you're doing you know you don't necessarily just want somebody
who's going to come in and and just take the money and run because that kind of defeats the whole
ethos of of why we were created in the first place,
is that we want projects and, A, let's look at this.
We want gamers to have good products and that they can feel safe in this environment.
And that means getting away from X and obviously all the various TikToks,
Instagrams, Facebooks and all these platforms where they're engaging.
and all these platforms for their engagement.
But also it's that, you know, you want to make it for studios
that they spend all their money or whatever money they have
at the right places.
There might necessarily be a need for a K-Welt at a particular time,
but you do need the people who are not looking at you,
your project as a cash cash kit you know because that's
that's one of the reasons why why you know there's there's a lot of hassle in the place and
a lot of struggling and and that like we see so many good games uh you know who who reach the
end point because they've spent all the money interestingly enough on our link we commented on our linkedin one of our connects and that was describing another project it was
was widow games uh and they had released the token trying to raise money through a launch pad
and they got absolutely shafted so they did and it was just like, you know, to think that even now we're still seeing this, we're still seeing the same old sort of.
And I won't say scams, but the whole idea that launch pads and CXs and this here, you know, are still working in tandem to work against innovation and development and growth is is depressing really but and again because i'm
mr optimistic and mr happy is that you know this is going to change and it's going to change when
enough people decide to say affect this we're gonna we're gonna stop this there are projects
out there not just work but there are other projects out there, along with ourselves who
are determined and driven to change this because it is the future of gaming.
It is the future of gaming.
It just needs people to get out of the X bubble, the whole cash grab stroke struggling to get
somewhere at the expense of everybody else, you know,
and it's just a case of coming together and understanding is that, you know,
change doesn't happen with one person.
It takes an army to do this.
Absolutely. I appreciate that, Warp.
And I think one thing that you mentioned that I actually, you know,
I think is a good controversial point is you mentioned having good products
for these creators.
And I think that creators have gotten a lot of flack in this space over the
past year or so,
but they're unfortunately kind of pushing half baked products.
Right.
So I think there's definitely was,
there is an issue on both sides,
not just on the creator side, but the product side as well.
They can only work with what they're given.
Exactly, right?
Yeah, and that's the funny thing, right?
I think a lot of games think these KOLs are miracle makers and kind of, you know, excuse the point of their products being pretty shitty in a sense.
So I do think that there's both sides to it.
And I definitely do see both sides to it.
And once again, all I can only say is we definitely have products
that are working towards something that will give the creators
something to work with.
I think Off the Grid is a good one.
I think that we've seen some creators push a lot of games in the past
and kind of found their home with Off the Grid, which is amazing.
So hopefully we keep going in that direction. But warp i do appreciate your take especially just you know
me throwing it over to you without you raising your hand we will end this last answer with creon
creon good to have you up here i know that uh you're a bit late so we couldn't get you up here
earlier but happy to have you up here now and definitely happy to hear your take as we close
this out.
Yeah, brother, thank you so much for letting me speak still.
So sorry, apologies for being late.
But you were asking about how we can leverage social media and the influencers. I'm going to answer that and probably give my thoughts on the overall topic.
I think we can leverage social media as research platforms and make
engagement with potential users there. Let's have Web2 creators do a poll maybe, you know,
in their community and let their community do a play test and give feedback. So I think we have
to exert more effort on outreach. And we keep, I don't know, I just realized that we keep making a noise about Web3
without actually going to Web2 communities and showing them what Web3 can offer
and what we are building here.
And I don't know, we kept on asking them to create hype for an MVP that barely cuts it,
you know, the minimum viable product that has, you know,
it's just the basic functionality and all that.
But if we get feedback, we do places.
Like we actually go to Web2 communities on Discord.
Because we're always on the Web3 community, you know,
Web3 projects community.
But I don't know who's doing actual
outreach to web community maybe on facebook um on on instagram on on youtube because there's
other uh you know spaces to do outreach as well um it's time to step away from creating a synthetic
demand uh demand um somebody mentioned demand earlier but i you know most projects here on
webfair are actually creating synthetic demand when it comes to doing their marketing um we
are pushing for that um because that way you know but but but what we're actually attracting are
just speculators and value extractor um so i think yeah we need to right like really do things um as
organic as possible i know it takes a lot of effort, but we are learning.
This is a young industry and we're also learning.
As much as I like to understand founders, builders,
about the struggles on building their product and community,
but I guess we have to really go beyond to like really go for, you know,
beyond what we are, what we're used to doing here on Web3.
So do outreach on Web2.
We need to like, yeah, reach out to them and educate them
and then show them the product and then bring them,
before we bring them here to Web3.
Yeah, that's all my take.
Thank you, Nick. Yeah, absolutely, Kiana. bring them here to web3 yeah that's that's all my take thank you nick
yeah absolutely krean i appreciate you giving a an overview of all your thoughts on it um
we are on the top of the hour so i want to go ahead and thank everybody for being here and for
for giving your thoughts and your expertise and you know even on the controversial topics right so. Right. So I just want to thank King Snooch Creon. Once again,
thank you for that last take to close, close this out, Warp Chain, Jumi.
And I appreciate all the listeners as well.
We will see you next week at this same time. So once again,
thank you so much, everybody.
And I'll just close out with the song until my house ends the space.
So thank you so much, guys,
and we'll see you next week.
Cheers, man.
Thanks for having us.
Great space. Thank you.
