6 Questions for Simon Davis of Mighty Bear Video games

Simon Davis is the co-founder and CEO of Mighty Bear Video games, a multiplatform recreation developer in Southeast Asia creating accessible multiplayer experiences in Web3.

Davis has spent virtually 20 years working within the gaming trade, however he by no means deliberate to truly work on this discipline.

Earlier than crypto, he was an expert guitarist who made ends meet by taking part in in metallic bands and canopy bands and by instructing guitar. However after his cash dried up one summer season, he scored a six-week gig as an expert recreation tester — and he’s by no means appeared 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 associates and fellow trade veterans to launch Mighty Bear Video games in Singapore, the place they supposed to deal with 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,” mentioned each Mighty Bear worker receives a “bear title.” A few of Papa Bear’s staff embody “Arty Bear,” “Bear-Abel,” “Excel Bear,” and “Bear McNumbers.”

Why the pivot to blockchain gaming?

I used to be fortunate sufficient to form of get into Bitcoin accidentally in 2015, so I’ve been within the house for a number of years. In 2021, I began taking part in with NFTs, and I’m fortunate sufficient to be additionally primarily based in Southeast Asia, so I may see firsthand what was occurring with Axie [Infinity]. I believe, for me, as somebody who lived by the transition to free-to-play, it felt very very similar to a second, form of like when Farmville got here out on Fb. 

I believe 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 imagine you may have digital worlds with out digital property rights, basically.

And I believe that does allow a variety of new issues that we’re actually beginning to scratch the floor on. So, I believe that actually was the pull issue.

What format do you assume serves as one of the simplest ways to draw customers to blockchain gaming?

I believe cell gaming goes to be the dominant platform due to geography. You see this in the event you have a look at the charts for the international locations which have an incredible slope of curiosity in crypto or Web3. They are typically international locations the place present fee rails should not tremendous developed.

Individuals are largely unbanked in locations like Indonesia and Brazil. These markets are mobile-first. Like, individuals within the Philippines and India should not essentially utilizing high-end PCs. 

So, you must go the place the customers are. And this can be a little bit of a spicy take, however for this reason I’m very bearish on individuals making tremendous HD high-end Web3 video games as a result of it’s simply not the place the markets are right this moment. So, you see a variety 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 assume the present hurdles are for large-scale blockchain gaming adoption?

Lots of people speak about it when it comes to silver bullets, proper? Like, “Oh, we want one good recreation,” or like, “We have to resolve the pockets downside.” I don’t assume it’s any a type of issues. I truly assume it’s simply a variety of lead bullets, a variety of small issues that have to occur. 

What I’ve skilled right this moment continues to be fairly horrible, and scary, like social restoration. And it’s beginning to turn out to be a factor, however that should turn out to be lots simpler.

I simply assume, on the whole, it must be as simple and as brainless to make use of as a Web2 expertise. And so I believe there’s an inherent battle right this moment with how individuals take into consideration Web3, you realize. They are saying issues like, “Oh, you must educate the customers,” or, “Prepare individuals to carry their non-public keys.”

However you realize, 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 believe we’re nonetheless fairly a good distance away, however I’m seeing significant enhancements, truly. I’m seeing merchandise which might be going to go to market subsequent yr that are going to assist lots. 

I don’t know the way outdated you might be, however I’ve simply turned 40 this yr. I bear in mind within the 90s organising a house web connection on dial-up. It took me two days of calling technical help and somebody telling me like configs. I used to be having to go in and alter manually and stuff. And now, you realize, we solved that, proper? After which, the web grew to become a mass market, after which individuals may simply put a CD of their pc, and it simply labored. I believe we have to get to that stage.

Do you assume the unhealthy rap blockchain/NFT gaming will get is a giant situation? 

It’s humorous as a result of gaming bought a reasonably unhealthy rap within the 90s. , everybody was speaking about how video games had been making youngsters violent. There was a giant ethical panic, identical to there was in music a number of years earlier than.

However I believe that whenever you begin to get this stuff in individuals’s arms and expertise them, perceptions change. I do assume a variety of the status that now we have in crypto and Web3 is deserved. There are a variety of unhealthy actors exploiting the dearth of regulation, however the issues that excite me: I’ve seen some video games, for instance, that enable 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 believe that’s a very nice use case.

Reddit can be an incredible instance, proper? They put NFTs within the arms of big numbers of individuals. Lots of people didn’t even understand they had been interacting with NFTs. So then that they had 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 truly don’t assume that’s such a nasty factor. If individuals are not dumping the property on day one, I don’t see that as a damaging. So, I believe onboarding by stealth is fairly good.

What sort of adoption metrics are you on the lookout for together with your video games?

So, individuals speak about installs and sign-ups — it’s only a vainness metric. For me, I’m occupied with how many individuals are coming in day by 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 cell launch [of Mighty Action Heroes], which can be round August/September, how effectively are we doing on attracting non-crypto-native individuals into the sport as effectively? That can be very fascinating, and to see how they play collectively. It’s a distinct 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 realize, a standard NFT could be a JPG with some metadata hooked up. However basically, the JPG or the asset, no matter that’s, is then certain to a wise contract. 

And that is fairly cool as a result of it signifies that property can talk immediately with one another. So NFT to NFT, with out utilizing MetaMask. And it may be appropriate with different good contract wallets. 

I believe the actually cool factor is that, basically, your asset turns into a pockets and may have its personal logic as effectively. So you may have a base character in a recreation because the 6551 token, after which all the garments or the objects or the whole lot that that character has, the form of sub-assets, can change inside, every with its personal logic.

As a recreation developer, you begin pondering of how your characters may evolve and how one can connect new property with out updating the core.

Then as a dev, I believe it’s actually good for status administration as effectively. Like, in the event you did a soulbound model, you may have achievements, proof-of-work, proof-of-play, social identification. I believe it’s fairly cool. […] It’s safer as a result of it’s not simply an asset inside a pockets like it’s on good contracts with its personal non-public key.

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Brian Quarmby

Brian Quarmby found crypto in 2013 and immediately fell in love with the concept of decentralization. Brian has since lived and labored Asia and returned to Melbourne in late 2019. Brian is a lover of sport and artwork and is bullish on the potential for NFTs to remodel artists lives within the close to future.