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

Earlier than crypto, he was knowledgeable guitarist who made ends meet by taking part in in steel bands and canopy bands and by instructing guitar. However after his cash dried up one summer time, he scored a six-week gig as knowledgeable recreation tester — and he’s by no means seemed 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 buddies and fellow trade veterans to launch Mighty Bear Video games in Singapore, the place they meant to concentrate on 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 embody “Arty Bear,” “Bear-Abel,” “Excel Bear,” and “Bear McNumbers.”

Why the pivot to blockchain gaming?

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

I feel that for stay 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 possibly can have digital worlds with out digital property rights, basically.

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

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

I feel cellular gaming goes to be the dominant platform due to geography. You see this in case you have a look at the charts for the nations which have an amazing slope of curiosity in crypto or Web3. They are typically nations the place current cost rails are usually not tremendous developed.

Persons are largely unbanked in locations like Indonesia and Brazil. These markets are mobile-first. Like, individuals within the Philippines and India are usually not 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 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 now. So, you see a whole lot 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 discuss it by way of silver bullets, proper? Like, “Oh, we’d like one good recreation,” or like, “We have to remedy the pockets drawback.” I don’t assume it’s any a kind of issues. I truly assume it’s simply a whole lot of lead bullets, a whole lot of small issues that must occur. 

What I’ve skilled right now remains to be fairly horrible, and scary, like social restoration. And it’s beginning to develop into a factor, however that should develop into loads 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 feel there’s an inherent battle right now with how individuals take into consideration Web3, you understand. They are saying issues like, “Oh, you want to educate the customers,” or, “Practice individuals to carry their personal keys.”

However you understand, my mother doesn’t wish 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 feel 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 12 months that are going to assist loads. 

I don’t understand how outdated you might be, however I’ve simply turned 40 this 12 months. I bear in mind within the 90s organising a house web connection on dial-up. It took me two days of calling technical assist and somebody telling me like configs. I used to be having to go in and alter manually and stuff. And now, you understand, 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 feel we have to get to that stage.

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

It’s humorous as a result of gaming acquired a reasonably unhealthy rap within the 90s. You already know, everybody was speaking about how video games have been making kids violent. There was an enormous ethical panic, identical to there was in music just a few years earlier than.

However I feel that once you begin to get these items in individuals’s arms and expertise them, perceptions change. I do assume a whole lot of the status that we now have in crypto and Web3 is deserved. There are a whole lot of unhealthy actors exploiting the dearth 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 type of factor’s retention numbers are very sturdy, just like the preliminary metrics are very promising. And I feel that’s a very nice use case.

Reddit can also be an amazing instance, proper? They put NFTs within the arms of big numbers of individuals. Lots of people didn’t even notice they have 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 assume that’s such a foul factor. If individuals are not dumping the property on day one, I don’t see that as a destructive. So, I feel onboarding by stealth is fairly good.

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

So, individuals discuss installs and sign-ups — it’s only a self-importance metric. For me, I’m excited about how many individuals are coming in daily, how recurrently they’re coming again, and what the expansion curve of that appears like initially.

After which as soon as we do the cellular 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 special angle, however it’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 provide a sensible contract account or a sensible contract pockets to a 721 [token]. So, you understand, a standard NFT could be a JPG with some metadata connected. However basically, the JPG or the asset, no matter that’s, is then sure to a sensible contract. 

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

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

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

Then as a dev, I feel it’s actually good for status administration as effectively. Like, in case you did a soulbound model, you might have achievements, proof-of-work, proof-of-play, social id. I feel 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 personal 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.