Simon Davis is the co-founder and CEO of Mighty Bear Video games, a multiplatform sport developer in Southeast Asia creating accessible multiplayer experiences in Web3.
Davis has spent nearly 20 years working within the gaming trade, however he by no means deliberate to really work on this area.
Earlier than crypto, he was knowledgeable guitarist who made ends meet by enjoying in steel bands and canopy bands and by educating guitar. However after his cash dried up one summer time, he scored a six-week gig as knowledgeable sport tester — and he’s by no means regarded again.
Throughout his time within the gaming trade, Davis has held administration and product lead positions at gaming corporations together with King Digital Leisure, Ubisoft, Bigpoint, AKQA, Empire Interactive, and Laughing Jackal.
In 2017, Davis teamed up with some pals and fellow trade veterans to launch Mighty Bear Video games in Singapore, the place they meant to give attention to creating conventional video games — earlier than pivoting to blockchain in 2022. And in 2023, the agency launched an open beta for Mighty Motion Heroes, its first Web3 gaming title.
Davis, who additionally goes by “Papa Bear,” stated each Mighty Bear worker receives a “bear title.” A few of Papa Bear’s workers embody “Arty Bear,” “Bear-Abel,” “Excel Bear,” and “Bear McNumbers.”
Why the pivot to blockchain gaming?
I used to be fortunate sufficient to type of get into Bitcoin accidentally in 2015, so I’ve been within the house for just a few years. In 2021, I began enjoying with NFTs, and I’m fortunate sufficient to be additionally based mostly in Southeast Asia, so I might see firsthand what was occurring with Axie [Infinity]. I feel, for me, as somebody who lived by means of the transition to free-to-play, it felt very very similar to a second, type of like when Farmville got here out on Fb.
I feel that for reside service titles [games like Fortnite, League of Legends and Apex Legends], a dominant enterprise mannequin goes to emerge to revolve round player-owned and operated economies. As a result of I don’t consider you possibly can have digital worlds with out digital property rights, basically.
And I feel that does allow a whole lot of new issues that we’re actually beginning to scratch the floor on. So, I feel that basically was the pull issue.
What format do you suppose serves as one of the simplest ways to draw customers to blockchain gaming?
I feel cellular gaming goes to be the dominant platform due to geography. You see this if you happen to take a look at the charts for the international locations which have an amazing slope of curiosity in crypto or Web3. They are usually international locations the place current cost rails will not be tremendous developed.
Individuals are largely unbanked in locations like Indonesia and Brazil. These markets are mobile-first. Like, folks within the Philippines and India will not be essentially utilizing high-end PCs.
So, you could go the place the customers are. And it is a little bit of a spicy take, however this is the reason I’m very bearish on folks making tremendous HD high-end Web3 video games as a result of it’s simply not the place the markets are at the moment. So, you see a whole lot of these groups elevating, like, mega bucks to make console-quality titles, but when nobody can play them, then they aren’t going to do very a lot.
What do you suppose the present hurdles are for large-scale blockchain gaming adoption?
Lots of people discuss it when it comes to silver bullets, proper? Like, “Oh, we want one good sport,” or like, “We have to resolve the pockets downside.” I don’t suppose it’s any a kind of issues. I really suppose it’s simply a whole lot of lead bullets, a whole lot of small issues that must occur.
What I’ve skilled at the moment remains to be fairly horrible, and scary, like social restoration. And it’s beginning to change into a factor, however that should change into quite a bit simpler.
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I simply suppose, generally, it must be as simple and as brainless to make use of as a Web2 expertise. And so I feel there’s an inherent battle at the moment with how folks take into consideration Web3, you already know. They are saying issues like, “Oh, you could educate the customers,” or, “Practice folks to carry their non-public keys.”
However you already know, my mother doesn’t wish to maintain her personal non-public keys. She does all her buying and selling on Crypto.com. We have to make it basically idiot-proof so anybody can do it.
I feel we’re nonetheless fairly a great distance away, however I’m seeing significant enhancements, really. I’m seeing merchandise which might be going to go to market subsequent 12 months that are going to assist quite a bit.
I don’t understand how previous you’re, however I’ve simply turned 40 this 12 months. I bear in mind within the 90s organising a house web connection on dial-up. It took me two days of calling technical assist and somebody telling me like configs. I used to be having to go in and alter manually and stuff. And now, you already know, we solved that, proper? After which, the web grew to become a mass market, after which folks might simply put a CD of their laptop, and it simply labored. I feel we have to get to that stage.
Do you suppose the dangerous rap blockchain/NFT gaming will get is an enormous concern?
It’s humorous as a result of gaming acquired a fairly dangerous rap within the 90s. You recognize, everybody was speaking about how video games have been making youngsters violent. There was an enormous ethical panic, identical to there was in music just a few years earlier than.
However I feel that if you begin to get this stuff in folks’s fingers and expertise them, perceptions change. I do suppose a whole lot of the fame that we now have in crypto and Web3 is deserved. There are a whole lot of dangerous actors exploiting the dearth of regulation, however the issues that excite me: I’ve seen some video games, for instance, that permit gamers to earn small quantities of Bitcoin, And this type of factor’s retention numbers are very robust, just like the preliminary metrics are very promising. And I feel that’s a very nice use case.
Reddit can be an amazing instance, proper? They put NFTs within the fingers of big numbers of individuals. Lots of people didn’t even understand they have been interacting with NFTs. So then they’d their first style, and yeah — there are some stats which have come up, and never an enormous quantity of them have transacted on-chain.
However I really don’t suppose that’s such a foul factor. If individuals are not dumping the belongings on day one, I don’t see that as a damaging. So, I feel onboarding by means of stealth is fairly good.
What sort of adoption metrics are you searching for along with your video games?
So, folks discuss installs and sign-ups — it’s only a self-importance metric. For me, I’m excited about how many individuals are coming in day-after-day, how commonly they’re coming again, and what the expansion curve of that appears like initially.
After which as soon as we do the cellular launch [of Mighty Action Heroes], which can be round August/September, how properly are we doing on attracting non-crypto-native folks into the sport as properly? That can be very attention-grabbing, and to see how they play collectively. It’s a unique angle, nevertheless it’s one which I’m fairly bullish on.
What are some concepts or tech upgrades that might assist blockchain gaming?
ERC-6551 tokens.
Basically, they provide a wise contract account or a wise contract pockets to a 721 [token]. So, you already know, a standard NFT can be a JPG with some metadata hooked up. However basically, the JPG or the asset, no matter that’s, is then sure to a wise contract.
And that is fairly cool as a result of it signifies that belongings can talk straight with one another. So NFT to NFT, with out utilizing MetaMask. And it is also suitable with different sensible contract wallets.
I feel the actually cool factor is that, basically, your asset turns into a pockets and may have its personal logic as properly. So you would have a base character in a sport because the 6551 token, after which all the garments or the gadgets or every thing that that character has, the type of sub-assets, can change inside, every with its personal logic.
As a sport developer, you begin pondering of how your characters might evolve and how one can connect new belongings with out updating the core.
Then as a dev, I feel it’s actually good for fame administration as properly. Like, if you happen to did a soulbound model, you would have achievements, proof-of-work, proof-of-play, social identification. I feel it’s fairly cool. […] It’s safer as a result of it’s not simply an asset inside a pockets like it’s on sensible contracts with its personal non-public key.
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