6 Questions for Simon Davis of Mighty Bear 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 subject.

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 time, he scored a six-week gig as knowledgeable 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 firms together with King Digital Leisure, Ubisoft, Bigpoint, AKQA, Empire Interactive, and Laughing Jackal. 

In 2017, Davis teamed up with some pals and fellow trade veterans to launch Mighty Bear Video games in Singapore, the place they supposed to give attention to 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 based mostly 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 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 consider you may 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 basically 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 in the event you have a look at the charts for the nations which have an important slope of curiosity in crypto or Web3. They are typically nations the place present cost rails will not be tremendous developed.

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

So, it’s worthwhile to go the place the customers are. And this can be a little bit of a spicy take, however that is why 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 in the present day. 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 when it comes to silver bullets, proper? Like, “Oh, we’d like one good recreation,” or like, “We have to remedy 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 must occur. 

What I’ve skilled in the present day 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, normally, it must be as straightforward and as brainless to make use of as a Web2 expertise. And so I believe there’s an inherent battle in the present day with how individuals take into consideration Web3, you realize. They are saying issues like, “Oh, it’s worthwhile to educate the customers,” or, “Practice individuals to carry their personal keys.”

However you realize, 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 are going to go to market subsequent 12 months that are going to assist quite a bit. 

I don’t know the way outdated you’re, however I’ve simply turned 40 this 12 months. 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 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 suppose 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 had been making kids violent. There was an enormous ethical panic, similar to there was in music a number of years earlier than.

However I believe that once you begin to get these items in individuals’s arms and expertise them, perceptions change. I do suppose lots of the fame that we now have in crypto and Web3 is deserved. There are lots 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 kind of factor’s retention numbers are very sturdy, just like the preliminary metrics are very promising. And I believe that’s a very nice use case.

Reddit can also be an important instance, proper? They put NFTs within the arms of giant 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 suppose that’s such a nasty factor. If persons are not dumping the property on day one, I don’t see that as a damaging. So, I believe onboarding via stealth is fairly good.

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

So, individuals speak about installs and sign-ups — it’s only a self-importance metric. For me, I’m interested by how many individuals are coming in every single day, how often 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 will likely be round August/September, how properly are we doing on attracting non-crypto-native individuals into the sport as properly? That will likely 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 would assist blockchain gaming?

ERC-6551 tokens. 

Primarily, 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 connected. However basically, the JPG or the asset, no matter that’s, is then sure to a wise contract. 

And that is fairly cool as a result of it signifies that property can talk instantly with one another. So NFT to NFT, with out utilizing MetaMask. And it is also appropriate with different good 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 could possibly have a base character in a recreation because the 6551 token, after which all the garments or the gadgets or all the pieces 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, in the event you did a soulbound model, you could possibly 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 personal key.

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Brian Quarmby

Brian Quarmby found crypto in 2013 and immediately fell in love with the thought 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 rework artists lives within the close to future.