🥛 I got it all wrong 🤦

GM. This is Milk Road, the crypto newsletter that—THUD!

This is Chevy, I’ve just fly-kicked our intern off his office chair and cancelled our regularly scheduled Sunday recap.

(It’s ok he’s still moving…twitching, at least.)

Today, we’re teaming up with SuiPlay to talk web3 gaming.

Its future.

The problems it faces.

And the secret formula I believe we’ll need to see if we want juggernauts like Sony & Nintendo to come onchain.

Sound good? Great, let’s get to it – starting with a moment of honesty:

I was wrong about web3 gaming. Not once. Not twice. But thrice.

(Yeah, you heard me ‘thrice’.)

1/ Theory #1: it’s all about the games

Initially I was the guy beating the drum of ‘we just need quality, AAA-level onchain games, and then we’re golden’ – the idea being:

If a triple A game can come in → find success → prove the economic model → others will follow.

‘Cause that ‘economic model’ is a doozy!

If you’re a gamer – you’ll know there’s one thing we can all universally agree on: in-game micro transactions SUCK. They’re a tax on the player.

The beauty of the web3 model is it has the capacity to flip that notion on its head – allowing both gaming studios AND players to make money from the time they put into each game.

Players can sell their rare items in-game (for actual money) 🤝 game makers can take a cut of each transaction.

Is it perfect? No. Is it orders of magnitude better than the current status quo? Absolutely.

Ok, but as I mentioned up top – this little theory of mine ended up being wrong…

Why? See: Off The Grid. 👇

Source: Off The Grid

It’s got:

AAA graphics ✅
Players love it ✅
It’s web3 enabled ✅

Yet, so far, it doesn’t appear that other game developers are scrambling to follow their lead.

Alright, back to the drawing board of ideas…

2/ Theory #2: it’s the install base that matters!

Ok, ok – so we’ve got a hit web3 title that looked great, played great, was loved by players and…nothing?

Ahhh, I see the problem:

A game like Off The Grid can be web3 enabled – but if the game store it’s being distributed on doesn’t support onchain transactions, the game will have to nerf its web3 capabilities if it wants to be featured there.

(That’s exactly what happened to Off The Grid when it launched on the Steam Store.)

So if you’re a developer, the question becomes:

Why integrate web3 functionality when you’re just going to have to remove it to be featured on platforms with significant install bases?

My conclusion: we don't need a hit web3 game as much as we do a web3 gaming platform with a large install base.

But shoot…

Chicken, meet egg.

The problem with this theory is that you need a huge range of quality games to inspire a large install base – but you need a large install base to attract top tier devs that’ll build those quality games.

Moving on…

3/ Theory #3: we just need to coax the major gaming companies into web3

It’s not out of the realm of possibility. Sony has its own chain. The Epic Games platform (makers of Fortnite) allows web3 gaming.

Hell – we ran the numbers and found that a Pokemon title which allowed players to trade and collect Pokemon onchain could pull in up to $1.74B per year for Nintendo.

(More than double what they make from their Nintendo Online service.)

That kind of revenue, from a game as simple as this?? 👇

Source: Reddit

Something’s gotta give… right?

Not necessarily – and if we want a real shot at seeing web3 gaming take hold, hope cannot be the core strategy.

Then it clicked! On their own, these theories don’t hold water. But together, they give us a real shot.

Start with the install base → then work on the games → then coax the major platforms to follow suit.

Now, before you say it – I know, I know. The question still remains:

How do you solve the chicken and egg problem?

I don’t know for sure, but I recently held the best solution to date in my hands.

I tried to convince the higher-ups at Milk Road that I needed a SuiPlay0X1 web3-enabled gaming PC for “research” purposes.

…to which they said ‘no’.

So I went around them and asked Sui directly, promising to publish my findings. And waddya know… they said yes.

(Suck it Kyle.)

Alright – now that the gloating is out of the way…

Here’s why I think the SuiPlay0X1 is the best solution yet to web3 gaming’s adoption issue:

This thing isn’t a web3 gaming device as much as it is a general gaming device with web3 capabilities baked in – wallet, airdrops, device-gated NFT rewards – the whole lot.

(All made possible by the Playtron GameOS, which is fully integrated with Sui.)

And herein lies the ‘secret formula’.

What if – instead of building a player base and game library from scratch, you just…borrow them?

That’s the SuiPlay0X1’s gambit:

It’s a handheld gaming device that plugs straight into Steam, GOG, and Epic Games (which already has a sizable web3 gaming library), via its Playtron GameOS.

You just enter your email address & password, then BOOM!

You just created a Playtron wallet on Sui, and now have access to the massive catalogue of triple A games featured across both tech spectrums (web2 & web3).

….with that simple little integration?

The SuiPlay0X1 has a WAY bigger target market than any web3-enabled gaming device that’s come before it.

See how it rewrites your options as a consumer? Previously, you had to choose between:

Buying a web2 handheld gaming PC with access to a massive game library (like the Steam Deck) Or
Buying a gaming laptop that you can jerry rig to play nice with web3 gaming titles

Now there’s option C:

Grab a SuiPlay0X1 (once they come back on sale), and get everything you need to buy/play major triple A titles across both web2 & web3, right out of the box.

As I said before, I don’t know if this is the ultimate solution to the chicken and egg problem, but man is this a compelling pitch to web3-curious and traditional gamers alike:

Pick a handheld that locks you into a certain console maker’s ecosystem of titles – or find one that does them all (or at least, most of them).

👉 That’s the SuiPlay0X1 & Playtron GameOS.

The more its custom blend of web2 and web3 optionality brings players onchain → the more web3 games will be made → the more incentives there will be for the big dogs (Sony, Nintendo, and Xbox) to come in and compete.

…holy sh*t. Am I bullish on web3 gaming again?

I think I might be.