[Thoughts #172] The Most Underrated Moment in Web3 Gaming
[Thoughts #172] The Most Underrated Moment in Web3 Gaming
PLUS: 😵💫 The issue of deep engagement
Did that clickbait headline encourage you to open this piece with a little more urgency? 😉
Despite my marketing background, I’m not a fan of these tactics. Buzzfeed did enough damage to last decades on that front. I mean, there are title generator tools inspired by them!
However, I do believe there is a specific moment (or series of moments) that will be historically underappreciated when we look back at web3 gaming space in future years.
Before I share what it is, I want to emphasize that I believe this is the most underrated moment in web3 gaming. Not the most important, not the flashiest. The most underrated. And of course, this is my opinion. That’s why you’re here, right? 🙂
To the surprise of no one, the moment is related to the web3 game everyone’s been talking about, Dookey Dash. If you don’t know what that is, check out my piece from a couple weeks ago.
Alright, what is it?
Last Friday evening, I was catching up on Twitter and my thumb stopped at this tweet:
Why did I stop?
Mongraal’s score of 928,522 was the top score in Dookey Dash, and at the time of this writing, still is.
In fact, it’s significantly higher than the 2nd place score of 875,242. To illustrate this further, let’s do a simple analysis looking at the top 4 scores in Dookey Dash.
On a relative basis, Mongraal’s score is 6% better than second place. From an absolute basis, the gap is 53,000 points more than second place.
When you put this in context of world records being broken by hundredths of a second or games being decided by inches, this is domination.
Wait a sec TPan, who the hell is Mongraal?
I’ll admit, I didn’t know know who Mongraal was until I came across this tweet and did some more research.
Mongraal is Kyle Jackson, an 18 year old Fortnite pro.
An 18 year old is on track to win the coveted key reserved for the top score in Dookey Dash.
What was notable to me and compels me to write this piece is not the high score and not the fact that Mongraal is a pro gamer. It’s the fact that he’s publicly tweeting about it and his social following.
While most folks are oohing and ahhing at the score, I’m looking at this.
To my knowledge, Mongraal has not be livestreaming his gameplay on his social channels, but this shows the potential a reach a pro gamer and influencer like Mongraal has.
Additionally, Mongraal is playing for himself which is another underappreciated point.
Why?
Hiring others to play Dookey Dash on a Sewer Pass holder’s behalf is allowed. And if you wanted to hire someone to play for you, it might as well be a pro gamer.
As a result, there have been services like Orangie’s Dookey Boost service pop up. Orangie himself is an ex-Fortnite pro.
When we think about what’s happening here, we see a pro gamer who could’ve been hired to play for Sewer Pass holders take matters into his own hands and play the game himself. Over the duration of the game, Mongraal has reached first place multiple times.
The three scores in the screenshot above are currently 1st, 5th, and 11th place.
Why would Yuga Labs allow this type of outsourcing for Sewer Pass holders?
First of all, this would be hard to police. Motivated NFT holders are a force to be reckoned with, and find creative solutions to any constraint they come across.
More importantly, things get interesting if Mongraal maintains his first place status. Can you imagine all the gaming news outlets with headlines like “Mongraal Dashes Away with First Place in Dookey Dash”?
Mainstream gaming fans might laugh at Yuga and BAYC holders, but they won’t laugh at Mongraal. The slow march toward mainstream awareness and more importantly, adoption, become a little more clear.
I believe Yuga understands the potential that pro gamers hold. They are the influencers, the tastemakers, the individuals who hold the megaphones of what their followers should play. By letting pro gamers into the wonderful world of web3, it would be a win for the whole space.
It’s too early to confidently make this claim, but this meme is living rent free in my head, so here goes. Could Yuga become one of the forefathers of the web3 gaming industry? Maybe.
A couple more stats about Dookey Dash
With 1 day left…
Sewer Passes minted: 26,058
Sewer Passes that have played Dookey Dash: 24,388
Number of Dashes (plays): 7,231,600
Based on these numbers, each Sewer Pass has dashed an average of 296 times.
Additionally, 93% of minted sewer passes have played. This conversion rate is extremely high because holders need to play in order to participate in the next phase of the game.
I’m going to coin the 93% figure as the token utilization rate.
I initially thought I created that term (silly me), but it’s already been coined by folks in Defi.
That said, the concept of utilization rates seem to be new in the world of NFTs and consumer-facing use cases.
Utilization rates are a good metric to measure or act as a proxy for:
Community engagement
Dropoff points (eg: if the instructions to use the token are too complex, utilization rate would decrease)
Comparing different paths (eg: if a token can be used for multiple purposes, which options are more or less popular)
Another example of thinking about utilization rates is with the Doodles 2 launch.
With Dooplication, we can measure the utilization rate of Dooplicators. How many Doodles/Dooplicator holders participated and received their Doodles 2 wearables?
We can also apply this metric to the burn mechanics that many open editions have employed with Manifold. What is the utilization rate of tokens that have been burned to mint new art?
The issue with deep engagement
As web3 has become enriched with deep storytelling and multi-part activations, it feels like things will start reaching an inflection point. Similar to how it’s unreasonable to attend every Happy Hour or event when attending an industry conference physically, I believe we’re going to see this happen for holders of multiple collections.
So what does a brand do?
Create the most engaging campaigns, activations, and events
Expand the top of funnel. Bring in new users and entrants into the ecosystem
Nothing, holders will adapt
I’m not satisfied with these answers as I think this is a developing issue. If you have thoughts I’d love to hear them.
See you Thursday!