Gas Hero Spaces: Shifts in Web3 Demographics That Led to Superquests
Gabby Dizon joins Mable Jiang of Find Satoshi Lab, the studio behind STEPN and Gas Hero, to discuss how the web3 player base has evolved to understand that they have to give value to get value.
Developed by Find Satoshi Lab, the studio behind the web3 lifestyle app, STEPN, Gas Hero is a strategy-based web3 game where players lead their character on a journey to acquire riches, recognition and influence by battling with other players. It is set in the year 2084, when a technological revolution that initially promised a bright future turns against humanity with the rise of a destructive AI.
YGG co-founder Gabby Dizon was invited for an AMA on Gas Hero’s weekly Spaces to chat with Mable Jiang, Chief Revenue Officer at Find Satoshi Lab, about the emergence of a more engaged and community-oriented player segment in web3. They also talk about how YGG is developing its ecosystem with its regional guild partners and the smaller communities within the guild, as well as the prospect of cross-quests between different web3 games.
The following is an excerpt from the AMA in which Mable and Gabby delve into the significant enhancements undergone by web3 games and the growing number of people that help build game communities. Listen to the full recording on X.
Gas Hero Spaces: AMA with Gabby Dizon - Founder of YGG
Gabby (15:11): Of course, we've had to evolve in the three years that we've been around. So, we started by doing the Axie lending, or what's known as the scholarship program — breeding Axies and then lending it out to people who wanted to play the game. Now, we're creating different kinds of products to help people experience different kinds of web3 games.
So, one of the products we're making is a platform called Superquests, which we are launching next week. Superquests is a questing system that gets you deep into a game where you have to perform certain tasks — there's an educational part that is taught by content creators, then you have to finish these quests, and you get a soulbound token NFT achievement that shows forever that you completed this quest. Achievements are a very big part of our philosophy — and web3 reputation in general — because I think it would serve crypto more, long term, for users to really care about their on-chain reputation.
A lot of DeFi cares more about liquidity than everything else. But I think, long term, reputation is very important. If you can show, if you can attest, that you've contributed to some community in some way — whether it's playing a game, being a top player, being a helpful community member — then you should be able to get offers from other games, other protocols or other DAOs, because they want your profile to be part of their community. That's a big part of what we're doing now.
Mable (16:52): You pointed out a very interesting change. So, like, over these years in YGG, what trend did you observe that happened to the users who are playing and engaging in these games that leverage blockchain tech? I'm sure this adjustment — for you guys, starting from scholarships and now focusing more on the quest-related things — there must be also a change to the profile of these users. So, who are these people? Why are they here?
Gabby (17:22): Definitely, the user base has gone up and down in the last couple of years. And at the very beginning, a lot of them were very early crypto enthusiasts that wanted to play these games. As the prices of crypto went up, then a lot of people were around that, I would say, were more financially-driven, like they wanted to make money from playing games. And as the prices have gone down, a lot of these people who were just here to make money playing games have gone, and what you're left with is a smaller community, but much larger than before, when we started in 2020.
Now we have people who actually care about what being part of a web3 community and what having a web3 reputation can do for you. What I would say is that they still want to use web3 to be able to be part of a global virtual economy, which means that, in web3, it doesn't matter if you're in the Philippines or in Kenya or in the US. You should have equal opportunity to take part in whatever opportunities there are.
So that part hasn't changed. But I think people are now more, I would say, circumspect. And they are aware that you really have to give value to be able to receive value. So people are really helpful to the community. They help onboard other people, teach the basics of crypto, and they understand that we're not here just to make quick money.
Mable (19:00): You mentioned the user side of things, but I think this structural change also has something to do with what games are available on the market. So I was curious about your observation on what kinds of games are around and how the change looks from your angle, given that you're always on the consumer side of things.
Gabby (19:40): In general, after Axie made it big, what we saw first are a lot of fast-follow Axie clones that had a slight change but essentially the same business model. Most of those games have washed away, but more importantly, what we saw after the success of Axie two years ago was that there's a lot of other games that came in and did some really good innovations to the blockchain gaming model.
Honestly, STEPN is one of those. I think you guys have done an incredible job with STEPN. I'm really looking forward to what you'll be doing with Gas Hero. Now we see a lot more interesting titles that are built by experienced developers with thoughtful iterations on how token utility would work, how NFTs would work, and how the virtual economy inside the game would work.
I don't think anyone has nailed down the formula yet for how these things would work. But I'm certain that we're going to see some breakout hit titles within the next year.
You can listen to the full recording on Gas Hero’s X account.
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