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 nearly twenty years working within the gaming trade, however he by no means deliberate to really work on this discipline.

Earlier than crypto, he was knowledgeable guitarist who made ends meet by enjoying in metallic bands and canopy bands and by educating guitar. However after his cash dried up one summer season, he scored a six-week gig as knowledgeable recreation tester — and he’s by no means regarded 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 workers embrace “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 enjoying with NFTs, and I’m fortunate sufficient to be additionally primarily based in Southeast Asia, so I may see firsthand what was taking place with Axie [Infinity]. I believe, for me, as somebody who lived via the transition to free-to-play, it felt very very like 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’ll be able to have digital worlds with out digital property rights, basically.

And I believe that does allow lots 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 suppose serves as the easiest way to draw customers to blockchain gaming?

I believe cell gaming goes to be the dominant platform due to geography. You see this if you happen to take a look at the charts for the nations which have a terrific slope of curiosity in crypto or Web3. They are usually nations the place current cost rails aren’t tremendous developed.

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

So, you want to go the place the customers are. And it is a little bit of a spicy take, however this is the 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 lots 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 suppose the present hurdles are for large-scale blockchain gaming adoption?

Lots of people speak about it by way of silver bullets, proper? Like, “Oh, we’d like one good recreation,” or like, “We have to clear up the pockets drawback.” I don’t suppose it’s any a kind of issues. I truly suppose it’s simply lots of lead bullets, lots of small issues that have to occur. 

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

 

I simply suppose, on the whole, it must be as simple and as brainless to make use of as a Web2 expertise. And so I believe there may be an inherent battle right this moment with how individuals take into consideration Web3, you already know. They are saying issues like, “Oh, you want to educate the customers,” or, “Practice individuals to carry their personal keys.”

However you already know, my mother doesn’t need to maintain her personal personal 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 quite a bit. 

I don’t know the way previous you’re, however I’ve simply turned 40 this yr. I keep 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 already know, we solved that, proper? After which, the web turned a mass market, after which individuals may simply put a CD of their laptop, and it simply labored. I believe we have to get to that stage.

Do you suppose the unhealthy rap blockchain/NFT gaming will get is an enormous situation? 

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

However I believe that whenever you begin to get these items in individuals’s palms and expertise them, perceptions change. I do suppose lots of the fame that we’ve in crypto and Web3 is deserved. There are lots of unhealthy actors exploiting the shortage of regulation, however the issues that excite me: I’ve seen some video games, for instance, that permit gamers to earn small quantities of Bitcoin, And this kind 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 also be a terrific instance, proper? They put NFTs within the palms of giant numbers of individuals. Lots of people didn’t even understand they had been interacting with NFTs. So then they’d 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 suppose that’s such a nasty factor. If individuals are not dumping the property on day one, I don’t see that as a unfavorable. So, I believe onboarding via stealth is fairly good.

What sort of adoption metrics are you in search of along with your video games?

So, individuals speak about installs and sign-ups — it’s only a vainness metric. For me, I’m fascinated about how many individuals are coming in each day, how usually 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 shall be round August/September, how properly are we doing on attracting non-crypto-native individuals into the sport as properly? That shall be very attention-grabbing, and to see how they play collectively. It’s a special angle, but it surely’s one which I’m fairly bullish on.

What are some concepts or tech upgrades that might assist blockchain gaming?

ERC-6551 tokens. 

Primarily, they offer a wise contract account or a wise contract pockets to a 721 [token]. So, you already know, a conventional NFT can 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 implies that property can talk immediately with one another. So NFT to NFT, with out utilizing MetaMask. And it is also appropriate with different sensible contract wallets. 

I believe the actually cool factor is that, basically, your asset turns into a pockets and might have its personal logic as properly. So you would have a base character in a recreation because the 6551 token, after which all the garments or the gadgets or every little thing 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 fame administration as properly. Like, if you happen to did a soulbound model, you would 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 sensible contracts with its personal personal key.