Mark Long on the future of Web3 Gaming

Web3 games have a shaky track record. It’s easy to see the appeal: There are literally billions of people playing games, and most of them are doing so for free. They spend countless hours – and often their own cash – creating content that grows the ecosystem, and they get nothing while the gaming companies get everything. Web3 games in theory give power (and fairness) to the players.

Or, it was the pitch in the last bull cycle, when Web3 games like Axie Infinity seemed to create new economies and even lift players out of poverty. Then prices tumbled, games crumbled. Can Web3 Games Make a Comeback?

Mark Long is a speaker at Consensus 2024, in Austin, Texas, May 29-31.

Now at least one thing is different: Top-tier gaming talent has entered the Web3 space, focused on creating games that are actually a blast to play, not just a way to grind out crypto. “It’s really important that it’s a great game, whether it’s for Web2 or Web3,” said Mark Long, CEO of Shrapnel, the blockchain-infused and “moddable” first-person shooter slated for release in 2025 will become (Modding refers to the ability of gamers to change aspects of the game experience.)

Long know about building great games. He is the former head of Xcloud, a game streaming service, at Microsoft, the former head of publishing at HBO Interactive, and he has produced more than 32 games in his 26-year career. And now he’s bringing those skills to Web3. Long opens up about the extra challenges of creating a Web3 game (the wrong adaptation to a database can cost players millions), what players can expect from Shrapnel (“modding on steroids”), and why he sees Consensus as the most considered “scholarly”. crypto conference.

Interview has been summarized and lightly edited for clarity.

What is the vision of Shrapnel? What are you trying to get at?

Mark Long: So, I love triple-A shooters. I just love all shooters; I play all of them all the time. But what I love more is actually modding shooters. And I mean, going all the way back to Doom 2 and Quake and Half-Life.

You speak my language. I still remember the keyboard shortcut to pull up the shotgun in Doom.

Yes! So even though I was making games in the studio during the day, I would come home at night and modify those types of games. And if I got 11 people to play my card, I’d be thrilled. Right? Which is ridiculous because I make games for millions of players. But it is something very personal. I get a personal joy from modding a game I really like.

So, fast forward to the Roblox, Minecraft, Fortnite era. Kids start making their own content in Minecraft, and they age in Roblox, and so they become more skilled. And with Fortnite, 50% of the engagement is made by other players, which is amazing. But when you turn 18 to 35 years old, there is nothing for you to age into.

And I don’t think young players are going to stop wanting to make their own games. And our theory is that if you gave them the same professional level of tools that we have, they would actually make some pretty cool shit. So, that’s what Shrapnel is. It is an extraction first person shooter based on Web3. And it’s a free, frictionless database technology that allows us to seamlessly attribute all these contributions players can make to a game, and then reward them for it.

You will be rewarded for your contribution. And in our world it can be many things. You can change our maps – just use all our static meshes and edit them. You can make character skins. You can do character customization. Make emblems, customize weapons. And then, of course, you just coin that. And then I could sell, trade, rent, put all those items on the game. That’s what I’m really excited about. This is modding, but on steroids.

Let’s talk more broadly about Web3 games. If you take Shrapnel out of the equation, why do you think there haven’t been any great Web3 games yet?

So all these games were put into production in the last bull cycle, right? And they are only now coming to the public in early access or open beta. But I’d argue there are a handful of really good games out there that I’m excited to play. There’s MetalCore, the mech shooter. There’s Wildcard, the card battler game by the husband-and-wife team that did Words with Friends. I like Dead Drop. I like Off the Grid, which has art direction by Neill Blomkamp. I fucking love Neill Blomkamp. So the short version is that there are a handful of games that are actually going to be really good and break through, and then of course there’s Shrapnel.

Fair enough! There are some good games. But these seem to be the outliers.

I think part of your lament about the earlier Web3 games is for two reasons: Many of the teams are not game development teams, they are crypto development teams. Right? And two, it’s production values. They didn’t have the money to put into the game to make it really great.

What is extra challenging about building a Web3 game, compared to a traditional video game? What are the additional wrinkles caused by decentralization?

Good question. I want to start by saying that it’s very important that it’s a great game, whether it’s for Web2 or Web3. It’s easy to lose track of it. But to answer your question, one simple thing comes to mind. Think of working on a database in a game. For example, think about all the items I can collect for my character — my equipment, my helmet, my weapon, all that stuff. You have a fairly complex database and it needs to allow for all this attribution. If I make a mistake in normal development, you just reset the database and then start over.

But here with web3 it has real value. Right? So if we screw up and I delete $1,000 worth of your stuff, I can’t claim to be World of Warcraft and that you never really owned it anyway. This is a big problem. So we need to be especially careful when integrating any Web3 component. Then there is the problem of potential exploitation – things we miss can create disaster for the economy. It takes longer to integrate the Web3 component. The code should be audited at a level that game code usually never needs to be audited. It was all brand new to us. This slows down our roadmap. But as we get better at it and there are more tooling APIs and SDKs available, it will only get better and better.

For many who only casually follow the Web3 gaming space, they have heard of the boom-and-bust cycle of “Play to Earn.” There are concerns that this model is not sustainable – it only works when the token price rises, but then, when the price falls, the economy collapses. What is the solution to this? What’s the trick to making Web3 games viable for the long term and not relying on price appreciation?

So I would probably guess that for the economies that you’re thinking of that have collapsed, they’re sort of pyramid economies where you have to have a large number flowing in at the bottom, and they grind and level assets or characters that then become sell to the person above them who also grinds. You need a lot coming in at the bottom to do that. And then when the community collapses or the token price collapses, nobody plays because it’s a fun game – they’re there to make money out of it. So they abandon it.

Ah, so the trick is the game quality itself…

What we think will happen in game economies like Shrapnel is the more players you have, and the more engagement you have, the more they use the token in the game. It drives the need for the sign and it kind of has a burn effect. This consumes the supply, and that means there is more buying pressure than selling pressure.

If I’m hearing you correctly, it sounds like you’re saying there must be actual legitimate utility in these signs. This is not a dummy utility. People use it. They use it because they want to play the game and have fun. So the game must be good, period. Am I getting it right?

Yes. Let’s just use a rough order of magnitude example. The average paying player in Web3 can be $100 per month versus $10 per month on Web2. So each of those new Web3 players adds $100 worth of consumption. Remember, the economy is in the token, so they spend $100 of the token.

Okay, last few questions are about consensus itself. What is your favorite Consensus memory?

Well, you know, last year we demoed the game for the first time at Consensus. We were right by one of the main entrances, and by the end of the first day they just moved the bar to our space because so many people wanted to play the game and were excited to get their hands on it.

What are you most looking forward to at Consensus this year?

This is a very well put together conference. I would call it a scholarly conference, where the panels are well tested.

Love it, and thank you. On a less scientific front, what is the best consensus side party?

Good answer. See you there!