193 | Why Improbable had to build Somnia

Jon Jordan and BlockchainGamer.biz editor Jenny Jordan talk through the week's news including:[1:42] Parallel is the most successful web3 TGC partly through its esport prizes. Just awarded $100,000.[3:22] The second game in the universe is AI experiment Colony, but information is limited.[4:07] Sanctuary is their third game; an extraction shooter. A hard genre to pull-off.[7:20] WorldWide Agents' AI platform went live this week; first time to stake MOJO tokens.[11:03] Wemade's Night Crows game is about to hit its first anniversary: Jon's about to hit level 45. [15:41] Immutable's big hope RavenQuest goes live on 14th March.[21:00] Immortal Rising 2 has done 9 million app downloads but has less than 100,000 DAUs.[23:54] Sky Mavis has announced new MMOG Axie Infinity: Atia's Legacy.[26:36] It follows on from other experimental Axie games]Raylights and Homeland.[29:52[ It looks like it will be more PVE combat-focused with some farming and social elements.[34:20] EVE Frontier has a stark economic model and a new head of economy to test it.

Jon Jordan and BlockchainGamer.biz editor Jenny Jordan talk through the week's news including: [2:54] Yuga Labs has been struggling since 2023 but is now focused on its Otherside metaverse. [4:03] It's testing Project Dragon, a FPS which reach 2,197 concurrent players - a new world record. [5:40] It uses Improbable's MSquared networking tech to handle this in a cost effective manner. [7:05] Improbable has also launched a new blockchain called Somnia. [8:38] It claims to handle 1 million transactions per second. [9:48] Why do we need another blockchain? The dial-up vs broadband comparison. [11:37] Improbable's CEO thinks web3 gaming is too insular and focused on token price. [14:45] Wemade's latest web3 MMORPG Legends of Ymir is #1 on Google Play [17:30] Wemade has been successful with web3-gated MMORPG like Mir and Night Crows. [19:10] These games are grindy. Jon's played Night Crows for a year and not unlocked web3 stuff. [22:20] Overall, Night Crows has been successful with 250,000 web2 players and $200M revenues. [26:55] Netmarble has revealed the 7 games it's bringing to Immutable in 2025. [32:50] It's not clear (to Jon) Netmarble has worked out the best strategy for its web3 games. [37:02] What is Immutable's signature blockchain game? What title is bringing in new players? [41:09] It's unclear (to Jon) why Immutable isn't pushing highend games like Space Nation more. [42:50] The very strange case of TOKYO BEAST. [48:56] Social deduction game The Mystery Society is shutting down ... or will it be saved?

Jon Jordan talks to Improbable CEO Herman Narula about why the UK game tech company decided it had to build its own blockchain. Called Somnia, its testnet is now live. [2:32] The Improbable genesis story: from Cambridge Uni to building games technology. [3:39] Building economies for virtual worlds means you need a blockchain for ownership. [4:54] Improbable's first success was The Multiplayer Guys, who worked on CoD, GTA, Fall Guys etc. [5:27] The biggest thing Improbable has learned is "the tenacity to pursue the mission". [5:44] The Improbable co-founders have been sanctioned by Russia due to their defence work. [6:59] The key thing for Improbable's MSquared tech is making the cost of operations so low. [8:19] Narula describes Improbable as a "venture builder" - it's a "company of companies". [9:56] What does MSquared do? It's a software platform to build large scale virtual worlds. [13:32] "We've always bet on the need for human beings to feel relatedness, even in games." [14:56] Why did Improbable have to design its own blockchain. Do we need another one? [15:32] The crypto space is obsessed with its token price. That's all they optimize for. [16:00] Somnia can handle 1 million transactions per second, with sub-second latency. [17:19] Improbable has almost a quarter of a billion dollars of cash. [19:08] "Pirate Nation's network costs are astronomical. It would save millions of dollars on Somnia." [20:55] Our focus isn't getting existing web3 games to move to Somnia, but new games. [22:23] The current problem for games is cost of UA and cost of development. [23:34] "I couldn't care less what the Somnia token price is. That's not how we make money." [25:31] Blockchain games now is like The Hunger Games - people fighting over a small amount of value. [27:39] How big a deal will AI agents be in future? How is Improbable using AI for development? [28:34] AI agents aren't going to have bank accounts. They're going to have crypto wallets. [31:02] In an post-AGI world, "Games are going to become a critical industry for human health." [35:17] If you're an EVM app, you change one line of code and move to Somnia.

Jon Jordan and BlockchainGamer.biz editor Jenny Jordan reflect on the week's news. [1:05] Ronin-based prediction market Forkast has gone live. Jon is very excited. [2:38] It's one of the first non-gaming apps on Ronin as the blockchain has gone permissionless. [5:33] How the prediction market works - users buy and sell percentage bids on events. [7:02] The CGX token has also gone live. It's used for rewards and future governance. [8:30] This isn't gambling. It's skill-based gaming. [10:33] You'll also need the CGX token in order to create predictions in future. [12:00] Why predictions markets can generate useful information. [13:56] Jon spoke to Daryl from B3 on the podcast - B3 is a gaming L3 from ex-Coinbase execs. [14:56] The spark of inspiration for B3. [17:14] B3 is attempting to build an ecosystem including revenue share between games. [20:25] B3 successfully launched its token last week. Price is up 60%. [21:20] Indian company SuperGaming has signed up to bring its web2 games to web3 using B3.

Jon Jordan talks to NPC Labs' CEO Daryl Xu about its new gaming ecosystem B3, which was spun out of Coinbase's Base blockchain. [5:16] The original story for B3 as a founding team out of the Coinbase Base team. [6:15] Games wanted to launch on Base but it wasn't built for gaming. [7:03] There's a big lack in the game sector in terms of publishing services. [11:21] How does B3 help grow the blockchain gaming audience? Better games and infrastructure. [12:44] Everything will eventually be tokenized and all apps will have their own chain. [14:55] The biggest problem in traditional gaming is perverse incentives. [16:23] How does B3 work from a technical point of view? [19:16] If everyone is running on their own chain, what does B3 provide as an ecosystem? [21:38] Games get 30% rev share from users' spending in other games that they onboared to B3. [23:57] There might only be 100,000 real gamers in blockchain. [25:18] InfiniGods will be onboarding a lot of users to B3 via its mobile games like King of Destiny. [26:55] Parallel is building its Ceti Tau shooter on B3.28:44 B3 will back amazing game ideas with "everything we have " including funding. [30:28] B3 will integrate AI agents thoughtfully. It's already done integrations with Luna and Zerebro. [35:38] As a founder, how do you stop the B3 token price becoming the only lens of success?

Jon Jordan and BlockchainGamer.biz editor Jenny Jordan reflect on the week's news. [1:15] The RON token has flipped the marketcap of the AXS token. [2:48] The Ronin blockchain has gone permissionless in terms of its zkEVM chain. [6:57] Sky Mavis has announced a $100,000 RON prize pool for NFT trading this month. [9:10] Sky Mavis is pushing all the growth levers forward for Ronin. [10:12] Overall, daily activity on the Ronin is down to around 500,000 DAUWs from 2 million. [11:33] Blocklords has announced its AI agent roadmap. [17:04] Every game will be using AI agents to improve their UX. [18:11] Treasure has announced its Mage AI agent launchpad. [25:42] Gaming blockchain B3 successfully launched its token. [31:16] Is the success of B3 due to Base not having its own token? [31:58] Game7's G7 token has not been a success however. [33:54] The Sandbox has updated its Game Maker software. [37:15] Jon's love-hate relationship with The Sandbox. [41:34] The Sandbox's historic pivot towards brands and away from UGC. [44:37] OpenSea has announced some details of its SEA token.

Jon Jordan talks to TreasureDAO co-founder Karel Vuong about the "decentralized game console's" vision for 2025.[1:46] Karel's backstory in tech and VC investing, prior to Treasure.[4:37] Treasure was originally an offshoot of the Loot NFT ecosystem in September 2021.[6:25] Treasure's fair launch for the MAGIC token. No VCs, just community.[10:04] What's with the concept of being a "decentralized game console"?[14:05] Why Treasure's branding is focused around indie games.[16:57] Why Treasure moved from Arbitrum to ZKsync.[21:25] Treasure Chain's mainnet is now live on ZKsync.[23:04] To contextualize the decision, many gaming projects moved chains in 2024.[24:44] What's the vision for Treasure in 2025?[27:50] How AI agents fits into the picture?[33:20] Why Treasure's advantage is tech, culture and community.

Jon Jordan and BlockchainGamer.biz editor Jenny Jordan ponder the week's news. [1:05] Planet Mojo has announced WWA Season 1, in which humans and agents play, stake and win.[4:13] Humans play using $MOJO and earn World Points and AgentXP, which is staked on the AIs.[7:43] A key question is will it be fun to watch AI agents playing poker?[9:30] Mighty Bear Games is minting its AlphaGOAT AI agents, which can earn tokens.[13:44] Faraway has announced more about RIFT, including its RIFT Arena battler for AI agents.[18:52] NFL Rivals had a difficult year 2 in terms of balance, but big plans for year 3.[21:30] Mythical has "re-upped" the NFL license for future years.[22:08] FIFA Rivals will be Mythical's big launch for 2025.[23:48] Pudgy Party will also be a high profile launch in 2025.[25:32] Luca Netz from Pudgy Penguins expects Pudgy Party to be a #1 mobile game.[27:10] Over the next 18 months, Mythical Games hopes to onboard 100 million gamers to web3.[29:49] The growth strategy of Immutable vs Ronin vs Mythical.[31:20] Mythical's plan to get third party developers releasing games on the Mythos chain.[32:55] Is blockchain a revolution for gaming or just an evolution?[35:38] Are web3 games more about profit or digital identity?[38:50] How is Soccerverse doing three weeks into its first season?[48:15] What are Apptokens and why has Jon changed his view about them?

Jon Jordan talks to Mythical Games' CEO John Linden about the success of NFL Rivals, the forthcoming launch of FIFA Rivals and Pudgy Party, and how he expects to hit 100 million wallets in the next 18 months. [4:26] 65% of Mythical's revenue is now generated from NFT trading in NFL Rivals, up from 20%. [5:12] We have an enormous plan for NFL Rivals in 2025 with PVP mode, more social interaction. [7:20] The game design challenge of not being able to reset NFT players at the start of each season. [9:29] The most significant thing we're done in web3 is the Quick Trade NFT bundling option. [12:11] On average, there are around 50,000 open orders for NFL Rivals NFTs at any time. [13:51] NFL as a brand is becoming global, we've reupped our licensing deal for the coming years. [14:52] Madden has 25 million players. FIFA Mobile had 500 million. That's the appeal of soccer. [15:54] FIFA Rivals is PVP, with an action real-time strategy style, and with an esports angle. [18:00] NFL Rivals is higher rated by its players on app stores than Madden. [21:28] Pudgy Party is a F2P mobile game competing with Stumble Guys. "It's awesome." [24:20] Pudgy Party might be released on additional platforms [consoles] at some point. [26:12] "Our goal was to add 3 games in 2025 but we'll signed 4 this month alone." [26:38] "I think we'll have 100 million wallets within 6 quarters [18 months]." [28:00] Our focus is experienced game developers, not crypto devs. [28:58] I don't think the narrative for web3 games is profit, it's about expressing digital identity. [31:29] Interoperability will be the option to trade NFTs across games using Quick Trade. [32:15] A lot of the fundamental pieces of web3 gaming are working. The future is about better UX. [33:04] Today, someone could sell an NFL Rivals' NFT and cash it out to spend on a debit card. [34:35] We're thinking about how AI agents can help players, but they shouldn't play the game.

Jon Jordan and BlockchainGamer.biz editor Jenny Jordan ponder the week's news. [0:37] Faraway Games reveals its AI agent platform Rift, and airdrops the RIFT token. [3:14] This follows on from the launch of the J3FF AI agent and token in late 2024. [7:34] The Rift platform is interesting as a way of adding functionality to AI chat agents. [10:21] There's also the potential for these agents to earn crypto i.e. acting as validators. [12:32] Youmio has revealed more details of its Maestro AI agent launchpad. [16:34] NRN Agents promises to launch millions of AI agents for games on Ronin. [18:27] Alien Worlds has launched a LLM to help people create game lore. [23:28] Successful web3 games will not play like successful web2 games. [24:17] Talking to Animoca's Yat Siu about AI agents, memecoins and TON. [29:14] What's going on with the price of game tokens. Are they all really memecoins? [33:52] We could end up without any gaming tokens in the top 100. [37:50] Shrapnel's CEO Mark Long has moved to Unioverse. [38:20] Did Fableborne really raise another $12.4 million? No...