It is difficult for the human brain to grasp conditioned probabilities, and nowhere is this challenge presented in more depth than in web3 comparisons to the early growth of the internet. Some technological concepts are evolving into very large platforms that affect hundreds of millions or even billions of people, and the Internet is a perfect example of this. Others are buzzing, growing up for use by a significant number of people, looking ready to be everywhere, then collapsing or just seeing the growth slow down. Every significant technology was at some point a niche; Not all niche technologies are growing to be significant.
However, there are striking parallels between the current state of web3 gaming and the founding period of free mobile gaming in the West, which dates back to about 2011 and coincides with the launch of Mobile Dev Memo. Some of the realities of the public perception of free games to play from that era, which may sound familiar to those following web3 games today are:
- Free mobile games have been ridiculed by AAA console gaming studios and fans of these titles alike. Mostly unauthentic and immaterial;
- Free mobile games resonated with a Different core demographics Than traditional AAA console games;
- Free mobile games were mostly Promoted through aggregator apps and through community building, In the absence of dedicated advertising channels.
The first two features of the free to play mobile category early on are certainly true for web3 games today, but exploring these specific points is beyond the scope of this article. In examining the frictions and processes for audience growth, the similarities between web3 games, as it exists today, and the early state of free mobile mobile games are very clear. It is not clear that web3 design standards will become prominent within the gaming system. But if so – if web3 games reach adoption in the mass market and capture a large share of the overall gaming market – then its growth models are likely to evolve in ways reminiscent of the free-to-play mobile path to proliferation. Reverse this logic: every web3 game developer should actively try to navigate into the growth tactics used in free mobile games, as these tactics have worked.
Currently, the launch and augmentation of the web3 game is done primarily through Discord, the community management platform, and through PPC web advertising on platforms like Facebook, Google AdWords, etc. Some crypto communities and large blogs also offer opportunities to promote revenue sharing, in which they advertise a web3 game in exchange for some of the revenue generated by each new user generated by the campaign. Often the marketing pulses using these promotion channels are organized around token sales before distribution for in-game assets and game launch, but few web3 games run the type of marketing performance common to the free mobile games category, which refers to us Purchasing users.
The lack of a user acquisition paradigm – a performance-oriented and ongoing marketing set-up of digital marketing campaigns appropriate to the unit’s economy and profitability goal – on web3 will be interpreted by various camps as a kind of Rorschach test for crypto. By extension. Web3 proponents argue that it accelerates a fundamentally new model of content consumption that users actually own, creating an environment where users are naturally attracted to the products that are most relevant to them because they will be able to participate in the economics of those projects. . In other words: there is no need for proactive marketing. This idea seems naive to me and not ambitious enough.
In the 16th century, Hernando Colon endeavored to read every existing book; In 2010, Google edited it There were 130mm books, And The average book sold less than 200 copies in the U.S. in 2021. In a consumer environment with few professionally active and developed web3 games, it may be possible to spur a commercially vibrant and strong community to exist through air shooting, promotions and partnerships. But if the catalog of live web3 games approaches that of the App Store, with almost 1MM games are available for download, So efficient user acquisition will start to become important. Again, this reflects the experience of activating free mobile developers: viral sensations like Angry Birds and Subway Surfers are noteworthy because most of the big viral hits from mobile infancy have been displaced by games that have taken over user-expandable use. The same will be true for web3; These are the laws of the physics of marketing.
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At the opposite end of the spectrum of enthusiasm: web3 critics point to the lack of sensitivity to acquiring users as proof that all crypto projects are scams and ponzi schemes. This faction argues that companies building web3 games have no interest in expandable mechanics of growth because they simply strive to make money from their projects during an initial hype cycle and do not care about the long-term viability of their products. This is of course true for some projects and is inevitable given the wider hype surrounding crypto, but it is proven to be false for many of the teams of veteran game developers who have started projects. Again, web3 games will be displayed through the lens of any particular person of the comprehensive crypto landscape.
This was when free mobile game developers took the growth of their titles seriously by systematically acquiring users with performance, tools to facilitate this organization Emerged From advertising platforms. Put another way: the advertising ecosystem needed to manage growth in a phased and scientific way for free mobile titles, came together around this revenue opportunity when developers began to take this growth strategy seriously. Many of those game-specific advertising networks are now worth billions of dollars, as their fortune reflected the industry they served.
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The current growth book for web3 games relies on patches of labor-intensive and non-expandable tactics like partnerships, revenue-sharing agreements and web-based campaigns that convert very poorly, given the built-in friction from online clicks to all the crypto-related implementation needed. Mobile app stores do not currently advertise web3 games given the alternative monetization scheme, and this, coupled with the prospect of gaming economies managed by players authentically, represents web3’s biggest promise: removing consumer behaviors away from hardware-based content platforms, and back to the open web. Describes in this three-part series about the future of mobile content platforms.
But this potential future situation requires a joint growth effort on the part of web3 game developers. The growth model of web3 games may ultimately depend on a fully supportive ecosystem of dedicated advertising networks, as with the rise of free mobile to run. The idea that the economy of LTV> CAC is fundamentally becoming more user-friendly or manageable with web3 seems like a wish. Web3 companies need to plan for the future of fierce competition for consumer attention, and there is no better prototype for this than free mobile to run.