I agree with all of this.
I have been a gamer and game dev for over 40 yrs, shipped over a dozen titles, worked with some of the best devs, publishers, distributors etc. Making games is hard. It’s super expensive (even standard indie games cost a lot more than most people even think e.g. PalWorld was $7M. Just think about that) and fraught with all kinds of insurmountable risks.
Though I have been in blockchain since the Bitcoin whitepaper was released, I only started looking at Web3 gaming seriously (while learning to play with all the programming toolsets) during the pandemic when I was bored and trying not to die a horrible death from a virus. I also authored a series of articles specifically about it. Then, to separate it from my Web2 studio, in 2022 I spun up a Web3 startup to publish an MMORPG game (which was already 100% completed but going through extensive visual upgrades) . Then, last month, I spun up another [smaller] team to create a new third-person combined arms shooter based on one of my other IP - also for Web3.
Amid all that, in talking to trusted people in the space, chains, devs, investors etc. do you know what I have noticed? Most of them don’t actually know the intricacies of funding and making games. Most of them just pretend that they do because their bags are at risk and throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks seems to be the plan. That plan continues to fail.
When you design and plan out a game, budget it, put a team together, depending on the game, that’s usually a 2-5 yr commitment. And in some extreme cases - mostly for AA or AAA games - even 10 years. e.g. recently released Hellriders2 took 10 (!) yrs to make. The next GTA title is approaching just as long. And PalWorld - a phenom success - took over 3 yrs. Despite the fact that we have a LOT more tools today than back when I started and when we had to build everything ourselves, it takes longer because most of those tools are more complex and thus take a lot more time - especially for n00bs - to get going. And content creation is an absolute time sink. It’s why you see most games now going with a low poly flat style art theme ala Fortnite et al.
All that said, the primary issue that I have found with anything related to Web gaming is that because it’s mostly about making money via owning stuff than about making and/or playing an enjoyable game, people think short-term. Unless you are staking tokens or NFTs for yield farming, why would you want to invest even $1M to make a game that’s going to take upwards of 2yrs? In Web3, that’s literally a lifetime. And it’s specifically why investors started doing token warrants as part of their deal flow so that they can get some - if not all - of their investment out sooner rather than later. Guess what that does to the token when they unlock.
Since 2020 when investors and chains started throwing funds at every cook who said they could make a game, the failures have been mounting in 2023 as a result because making games is hard; and most of those guys already cashed out and moved on to the next thing.
If you throw $500K at 5 teams to make a game for $100K apiece, you will reap what you sow. And the teams that have no funding, no vertical slice etc. are simply going to take that $100K because they can even though they know it’s completely inadequate to finish their game.
Most of the people doing BD for Web3 gaming don’t actually understand how the process actually works. And those who do, are finding that even the core Web2 principles don’t work in Web3 for some of the reasons I mentioned above.
Take for example the proposal in the OP:
How many serious and experienced builders do you think those amounts are going to attract?
And while I do get the gist there, I have to point out that’s not how game funding - with risk mitigation - actually works. Plus, if you’re going to give a grant, then do that - but with the expectation that it’s money lost the moment it’s paid out. Expect nothing in return.
Here are some examples of Web3 gaming related proposals from our DAO:
(1) This was a $10M ask by Mighty Bear Games to create a publishing arm for the DAO. It’s one of the most comprehensive AIPs that you’re likely to see.
(2) This was a $20M ask by Jonah Blake to create a publishing arm for the DAO. Yet another comprehensive proposal.
(3) This was a $500K (originally a much larger $2M scope) marketing co-op ask for one of my teams - for a 100% completed Web2 game being re-released as Web3; a first of its kind.
(4) This was a $2M ask for a 100% completed game.
(5) This was a $500K ask for a game accelerator. It passed because all their buddies voted for it; but thus far, not a single game has come through there.
This is our DAO’s track record for passing game related AIPs. It’s as bad as it looks.
My point is this. The people voting in DAOs for most things have no insight into how they actually work. And so, the size of the fund doesn’t actually matter either way. The second part of that is, milestone based funding only works if the producers (at both ends, that being the dev and publisher/investor) actually know what they’re doing, how the milestones are tailored, the criteria for milestone approval and payment etc. It’s not as simple as it looks or sounds. It’s a major op. All that, setting aside the caveats of doling out money via a voting system such as a DAO.
@dk3 made some exceptional points in his missive above regarding the criteria in this proposal and which all but guarantee that it won’t yield the expected results.
Djinn wrote an excellent proposal but which appears to minimize the involvement of outsiders. If the point is to have devs and publishers come to Arbitrum, then what’s the point of having a criteria that says they should already be on the chain? That makes no sense to me - unless I am missing something. He also said:
“The Ape community is now on Arbitrum, outside publishers looking to build on Arbitrum can also put forth proposals. I see a lot of interest coming from the publisher side which will = more builders.”
To me, that’s wishful thinking. For one thing, why would any builder want to go on apechain instead of ARB? The primary thing that apechain creates is competition for ARB. I have no idea where a lot of publisher interest would be coming from just because apechain is on ARB. Plus, the state of our DAO all but guarantees that apechain is DOA because without AIPs passing there’s seemingly no incentive to go on apechain. Plus, you can just deploy on ARB anyway - while also putting up a grant and running through the same gauntlet.
froggie made some other poignant posts as well. Specifically regarding how the funding would be doled out. As I mentioned above, the milestone proposals are entirely inadequate.
People like jlee who know how the grants gauntlet works can draw from a wealth of experience because, like some of us, those people do have the experience required to opine on such things.
I want to callout divdaurres eloquent post which also makes a salient point: chains tend to have a BD team that seek out experienced and credible builders. It rarely works the other way around. I would know because I’ve spoken to quite a few chains who do this - even as recently as last week.
In conclusion, whether the fund is $100M or $500M won’t make a difference if it’s :
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going to all the same players already in the ARB ecosystem while already sitting on underperforming games.
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if builders - at least the experienced ones - have to go through a daunting gauntlet that is the DAO voting system which has its own challenges, while trying to convince and on-board voters who have little to no understanding of how game dev actually works etc.
When I put up a $2M grant request at my DAO, it was an all-encompassing proposal from the perspective of both a dev and a publisher - and over 87% of the funds were to go right back into the community. Through discussions (as you can see in the link above), and having to explain it numerous times amid much resistance and derision, instead of withdrawing it entirely, I whittled it down to $500K just for the adoption of the token (at the time, we had no intentions of launching our own token) which would have ultimately led to the game being on apechain down the road.
And it’s not that my DAO, like this one, doesn’t care about games. It’s that, tribalism and favoritism aside, the power brokers don’t; while others only care about preserving the treasury because giving out grants (unless it’s to their friends and contacts) leads to builders cashing out thus further depressing the value of the token. It’s a double-edged sword. And even with the advent of apechain, my DAO basically built a chain for Yuga seeing as even those who would be inclined to use it, aren’t likely to do so without going through the usual gauntlet. And why would they?
The experiences that most of us legacy game devs have had in Web3 is precisely why Web3 gaming continues to attract inexperienced people because apparently the plan is to throw everything at the wall and to see what sticks. Well, what if nothing sticks. Then what? Building a $25M game means that you don’t actually need grant funding because for that kind of money, even if a chain or investor tosses you money, it’s probably going to marketing or UA. And with everything that goes into developing Web3 backends - of which security alone will keep up the most experienced team late nights - when you tell people that even a $1M game probably spends about $250K on Web3 integration alone, they look at you funny. It’s with that type of mindset that we see grants - which aren’t likely to fund games from scratch anyway - not being an attractive proposal for all but the most experienced builders. There’s no getting around that. And chains which already have their own BD or investment team, operate with the same mindset in that some tend to lack the experience and insight required to pick winners or losers. And so, you find that they tend to fund failures while passing on the ones that actually do stand a chance - and vice versa.
Getting DAOs to fund gaming isn’t going to work out as planned; and so, will always yield failure and/r malcontent. Even if, as in the case of this proposal idea, it’s to funnel the money to publishers like Treasure who are already sitting on a list of underperforming (note: a fun game doesn’t mean that it’s making money) games because there no guarantees in an industry that yields a 90% failure rate.
Finally, most Web3 communities tend to be “elitists” in nature; and that just works to keep most outsiders away. The result is a walled garden. What’s the point of having a kitchen full of foodies if you have no cooks?
If this community is serious about gaming on ARB, it needs to re-think the approach while noting that without skin in the game you might as well give the money away without any safeguards.
ps. This is my first time here; and I only opined because a very good friend of mine, deep in the ARB ecosystem, encouraged me to “check it out”, the community was great, and for me to consider bringing (like my friends over at Neon/Shrapnel, I am likely to deploy both on AVAX) my games to ARB etc.