What's Your Gam3? 17th Sept

Welcome

Welcome to What’s Your Gam3? My aim with everything I do is to introduce you to new games! As I continue to improve the newsletter, all feedback is gratefully received. Now, let’s see what has happened this week.

What's Your Gam3? Ep. 57

This week on What’s Your Gam3? I spoke to MixMob. You can hear the full episode on YouTube! 

MixMob

We spoke with Simon, CEO and Co-founder of Mixed Mob. He has 15 years of gaming experience, including significant roles at renowned companies such as EA, where he worked on FIFA, and others like PokerStars and Lego.

He outlined the basics of the game, best visualized as an invigorating merger of Mario Kart and Clash Royale. Players select a track and a card deck before the race begins. The card deck contains the different power-ups that a player will have access to as part of the race. The decks contain cards that are categorized as offensive, defensive, and miscellaneous. As players race around the track they collect cells, which fuel the cards. Feedback from the community led to a pivot from physics-based to lane-based mechanics. Making the driving controls relatively simple, just switching between 3 lanes.

A key point he highlighted was integrating a wagering system. "Mix Mob" is likened to poker where players compete at a virtual table. Players place an ante with 90% going to the prize pot and 10% going to the house. Similarly to poker MixMob is also implementing a staking aspect which receives rewards back from the 10% collected by the house, akin to rakeback.

Discussing the ever-expanding lore and universe of MixMob he described the inception of the world. They noticed an increasing uniformity in the digital realm, where algorithms amplified biases, resulting in diminishing originality. Their game addresses this narrative by depicting a world under the shadow of an AI that aims to obliterate their entire cultural identity. In response, a diverse band of rebels, comprising crypto hackers, musicians, and artists, retreats to the shadows, adopting masks as a primary shield against the AI's facial recognition capabilities. As these rebels unite in opposition to the AI, racing robots gain prominence as a favored pastime in this clandestine community, which ties in seamlessly with the central gameplay mechanics.

Looking to the future, he covered the game's forthcoming updates and developments, there is the possibility for players to create their own arenas. The team plans to roll out an "incentivized beta" that allows participants to earn governance tokens. Furthermore, they will soon unveil a primary game token and are working towards optimizing the game for mobile devices. A token launch is anticipated by the close of the year, and a substantial licensing agreement hints at the potential introduction of a licensed arena in the future.

Don’t forget to join us next week when we talk to Today and Titanborn.

Gam3 Changers - Jihoz

This week I got the chance to talk with Jihoz, co-founder of Sky Mavis, and core contributor of Axie and Ronin network. It was great to find out more about such a well-known figure within the web3 gaming space.

Jihoz is a lifelong gamer and collector. He fondly recalls collecting insects and fossils as a way to bond with and impress his father. The first thing he ever did online was play Starcraft, and he was an active gamer throughout his life. Despite not always envisioning a career in gaming, he discovered NFTs early on, around the time CryptoKitties were introduced in December 2017. This tapped into both his love for gaming and collecting.

He started in Axie Infinity as a community member. He purchased some Axies and began helping out with tasks like community management, marketing, and writing, leading him down an unexpected but rewarding journey. The Axie ecosystem has expanded massively since the start. It has also been key in the expansion of the Ronin Network.

He covered the aim of Ronin Network becoming “The gaming network”, the key to this was selected partners. Jihoz is selective about partnering with games. He looks for teams that are experimental, community-focused, and can develop a unique game with a strong intellectual property. The potential for asset trading and community cultivation is essential.

Jihoz emphasizes the importance of true ownership of in-game assets. He critiques the standard practice of large gaming companies, like Blizzard, which maintains that they own the in-game items and players only get a "limited license for their use."

He supports games that produce revenue and share it with the community, emphasizing the idea of community ownership and control. Jihoz draws parallels between games like Eve Online, Runescape, Magic: The Gathering, and the emerging web3 gaming economy. He elaborates on the value drivers for such digital assets, like scarcity, utility, and aesthetics, highlighting the value of items.

He was excited about the experimental phase during bear markets. He believes it's the right time for inventiveness and trying new things to bring about positive disruptions in the market. He is excited to see what the future brings within the space.

Listen to the full interview on Spotify. 

What I Played!

You can join me live as I play new games on Twitch! Alternatively, you’ll find edited versions of my playthroughs on my YouTube channel. [Don’t forget to follow and subscribe].

Magic Craft

Magic Craft is a MOBA offering a variety of game modes and characters.

+Good variety of game modes
+Good variety of characters and move sets
+Daily quests and incentives to keep you coming back

-Controls felt clunky on mobile
-Can be hard to find games with other players.
-No basic attack leaves you with lots of “empty time” whilst you wait for move cooldowns.

The game is available to play on PC and mobile, for more information follow their Twitter to keep up to date.

Capsule Heroes

Capsule Heroes is a PVP battler with several modes and maps to select from, very early build so take points with this under consideration.

+A Large selection of avatars, maps, and weapons
+The play style “feels” original and unique
+Can see the potential for strong community/social gaming

-Struggled to find a group to play with (this is due to invite only)
-Some of the controls I find difficult to get the hang of.

The game is currently on PC and is invite-only, for more information follow their Twitter to keep up to date.

Shardbound

Shardbound is a tactical competitive card game mix with auto battler and map control.

+Strong immersive graphics and animations
+Large hero and card pool for varied strategies.
+Unique map control and objective play

-Hard to pick up
-Some decks felt unbalanced
-No matchmaking rating
-Games tend to snowball

My stream of the game was Sponsored.

The game is currently on PC via steam and is invite-only, for more information follow their Twitter to keep up to date.

Thoughts on the week

Xeenon

Xeenon is/was a streaming platform looking to revolutionize streaming. A key point was rewarding streamers AND viewers. This involved a web3 token. This week they made the decision to close the project, citing “The US regulatory landscape has made it tough for us to bring forth the innovative features we passionately wanted to introduce.”

This highlights that web3 isn’t an island. It is common to see people talking about web3 breaking the mold and setting its own direction. Whilst this a a great aspiration, currently web3 needs to play by web0/2 rules if it is going to be successful at scale. I feel that rather than fighting regulation thought leaders in the space should be reaching out to help create them.

The biggest danger is the people who create the regulation have no understanding of the space making life very difficult for people building, and stifling innovation.

I hope we don’t see too many projects have to make the same decision, but it’ll be key for them to deal with regulation issues head-on.

Thanks for making it to the end, that is all the new games for this week. Do you know any you’d want to hear more about? Let me know.

Remember to tell your friends about What’s Your Gam3? Otherwise, they’ll hate you for letting them miss out on all the new games.

Remember to play games you enjoy!