Improbable founder: Why are Web3 games so easy to fail?
Original author:Herman Narula, Co-founder of Improbable
Original compilation: GaryMa, Wu said blockchain
Original compilation: GaryMa, Wu said blockchain
Note: In 2012, the game technology company Improbable was officially established. In March 2015, it received the first funding from a16z, which was about 20 million US dollars. In July 2015, under the leadership of a16z, Improbable completed the second financing transaction with an amount of 30 million US dollars, and Temasek was also an investor at that time. In May 2017, it raised another $502 million, led by SoftBank. In July 2018, it received another 50 million financing from NetEase. In April 2022, Improbable's new project M² raised approximately $150 million in funding, led by a16z and SoftBank.
Herman Narula, the co-founder and CEO of the game technology company Improbable, recently tweeted a summary of the pitfalls and experience he encountered in evaluating the success potential of future MMO/Kickstarter/web3 games in the past ten years in the game industry. If you have experience The importance of leadership to promote the success of the game, technology application, the best window for capital investment, team crisis response and handling capabilities, community communication, etc. Compile and organize as follows:
1. Due to factors such as budget and technology, online games are very difficult and the failure rate is very high, so experience is very important. If you make a commitment to AAA quality, make sure experienced leadership is in place. Without leadership, there is no game.
2. When it comes to technology. If the technology hasn't been publicly proven to work with real users in a HIGH FIDELITY experience, forget it. Ask questions like "ops per second", bandwidth per user, server cost, etc., and if they don't have a good answer, run."3. If people claim to have""millions of players"seamless connection
etc. Assuming their performance will remain at the same level as when they announced the project, instead of magically becoming hundreds of times better later. Then it might be downhill later on.
4. The interesting fact is that in our new architecture we can do well over 15000 concurrent players, but we won't say this publicly because it hasn't been fully tested yet. Even at 15000, that's a very complex load testing robot. So we have absolute confidence only in rarer cases.
5. Generally speaking, technology is now a commodity, and people will buy it from other companies instead of developing it themselves. They should use off the shelf engines, unity or unreal and services like playfab.
6. Never bet on something that is more than 1-2 years away. For an online game, the 3-4 year development cycle has too many possibilities for error. Buy close to the top line when more is proven.
7. Never accept a multi-year technology roadmap with wild and uninhibited visions unless the team conducts regular public testing to let you see progress. Don't participate in the presale without a public test. Call for an independent review of the technology. (Actually, we sometimes do this as a service).
8. Large-scale online games are very expensive. You can't just put a demo of a game engine asset store online, you need complex infrastructure up and running. Even the biggest studios outsource these, like our MPG team. As such, releasing a quality online game on a sub-$30 million budget is highly questionable, especially with the promise of AAA quality.
9. Ensure that the founding team cannot obtain funds for personal use in any form before the game is released. If they are richer than you. this is not good.
10. Continuous communication is crucial. At least quarterly updates, preferably quarterly, plus major milestone updates are important. Leadership should be available on social media.
11. Mistakes are inevitable. In a decade, every game I've seen or played with has gone wrong. Teams are judged by how they communicate and how they solve problems. If they deny/evade, it's not good.
12. Creating a new audience for a high-budget game will be next to impossible in an insanely crowded market in 2022. You're not going to create meaningful buzz utility for hundreds of thousands of users by buying some land or assets. So they need a marketing plan or a huge brand. Before spending money on marketing, check to see how engaged the community is, talk to community members. A small thing but always worth doing. In one case, we found out that all the founders were ignoring this!
