Hello! I have just returned from the PBA (along with a much needed day off!) where we delivered two sessions. The first, with Chrissy Hill, was on crypto regulation, what to watch as a developer, and Polkadot’s place in crypto regulation history, and the second was on GAMING. Please see summary below with a link to the deck here:
DOT PLAY STRATEGY REPORT - POLKADOT GAMING
Polkadot Community! Join us on Thursdays from 9-930am ET for the Dot Play GAME SOUK - or plan to POP in! Come to sell your wares at the souk! Wares = Ideas on the latest news in gaming, entertainment and crypto. The gaming community on Polkadot is growing! Link: Launch Meeting - Zoom
DOT PLAY STRATEGY
As the Founder/CEO of Signum Growth and the Founder/CIO of Dot Play, I bring 22 years of gaming, esports, traditional finance and investing experience. WHY ARE WE HERE IN POLKADOT?
We were already in a crisis of authenticity (awakened by Cambridge Analytica) and we already needed to break the blockades that false, purchased narratives were building between people. Heading into 2025, AI is pouring gasoline onto the fire of inauthenticity. A national security level crisis might wake us up, but why not try to fix this NOW? Polkadot, with JAM as the engine behind the scenes, brings More Truth, Less Trust
“Blockchain games” attract Individual Players to token-based games, who come to speculate on tokens. Instead, we are bringing INDEPENDENT GAME DEVELOPERS with large audiences (millions) to Polkadot.
We believe in the mantra - follow the developers. The players and communities of great games will follow developers. When players arrive, they will find community. We have been calling the tech that makes our community work - THE EXPERIENCE EXCHANGE FOR GAMING IN POLKADOT. Stay tuned as we are finding many synergies with what is being built in Polkadot’s parallel esports-verse, where we are also working with our Esports Krew to do something that hasn’t yet been done in a decentralized world.
Solving problems that game developers have with FUN and easy onboarding UI, through a Player ID. Think quests, inter-game activity, newsletters, events and frequent flyer-like rewards - “DOT POPS” Pop is a word that you will hear a lot from us because it represents a lot of what we are doing in Polkadot - bubbling up, surprise appearance, sudden growth. For our UI, think pink bubbles, top left with a ticker to the right that displays one’s activity points, or Dot Pops.
Examples that we will use to show developers the way in gaming - MYTHICAL (AAA) & EVRLOOT (Polkadot Hub)
What Dot Play is NOT - this is also important to understand!
Why aren’t we the Blockchain Games that we have seen to date? They are part of a new genre in gaming called speculation and trading. Buy a token, hope to sell before others. The Activity So Far Rounds to Zero. Nada. Losses. $0.00. (see deck and report)
Why aren’t we trying to recreate Web2? There are many challenges in Web2 gaming that we can avoid by building in Web3!
- Cost to build increasing
- Time to build increasing
- Marketing challenged due to regulatory changes e.g., GDPR, IDFA
- Layoffs since the peak ~90,000 led to many becoming independent developers
Why aren’t we spending any energy trying to convince well-known AAA companies like Electronic Arts, Activision or Ubisoft? The intentions of these companies are mostly known, and they are not likely going to build a Polkadot native solution currently, unless they come to Mythical.
- AAA in the US and Europe (e.g., EA, Ubisoft) is conservative and suspicious of crypto; they are right in believing that what we have seen so far, other than Mythical, is not the gaming that they know
- AAA Asia/Japan mostly built their own gaming blockchains (e.g., Wemade, Sony, many others) and want to be the gateway to blockchain gaming
INDEPENDENT GAME DEVELOPERS are the Dot Play Games Bounty focus because their ethos is aligned with Web3, and Web3 can solve problems that they have now. It will take a bit of time (not as much time as it takes to build a traditional game!) because they are still skeptical and trigger words like ‘crypto’ ‘NFT’ ‘blockchain games’ do not help our case. However, indies are freer to move since they aren’t dedicated to multi-year build cycles, and since they are more crypto aware. Many have already moved to UGC platforms where they can make their own games, build audience/community and thrive.
Bottom line: There is an OPPORTUNITY TO BRING WEB2 TO POLKADOT & WEB3. We are investing time, energy and resources into web2 developers now so that when they are ready, we are ready. Also, we are proving out a new business model for the Polkadot Treasury - enabling the Treasury to make money along the way, while we evangelize!
Two sides of Dot Play:
- Dot Play Bounty is set up as a Games Publisher for the Polkadot Community
- Dot Play Business Development is a W3F-funded ‘Top of Funnel’ for all gaming in Polkadot
Dot Play Bounty - What is the Games Publisher?
- An operating business which provides services, tools and funding to game developers, who build experiences. We aim to create a sustainable business model for the Treasury, by returning capital, or “net revenues” a measure of profitability to the Treasury. Dot Play Bounty does not make equity investments. Target: Indie Web2 developers with audience potential and cash flow.
- We evangelize and return capital to the Treasury along the way
Web2 developers will flow into two Go-To-Market pathways
- Polkadot Hub - Evrloot to show game developers of individual, casual games outside of our ecosystem how to onboard to Polkadot
- AAA games - Mythical Marketplace for AAA games that are a fit with Mythical’s platform of sports, entertainment and party games
Mythical - What’s New in 2025?
- Pudgy Party
- FIFA Rivals
- ~6-7 More Games Onboarding to Mythical Marketplace
How are we doing?
Game Partnerships
- UGC - 1st Game is a Hit! SpongeBob Tower Defense (on Roblox Platform) - Green light
- UGC - Building Blox! Six Indies - Work In Progress (all six on Roblox Platform) - In progress
- Web3 Mobile - CM Games: Nitro Nations World Tour (on Mythos Platform) - In progress/Yellow light
- NEW Evrloot Dark Fantasy RPG - Polkadot Hub Go To Market (Polkadot Native) - Green light
NEW Game Developer Tools in Polkadot - our strategy is to leapfrog the other games publishers by providing tools that game developers want but game publishers are not yet providing
- VIRTUAL INFLUENCER SQUAD, LED BY DOTTIE: Virtual KOLs play your games and then talk about them on social media. Polkadot Treasury shares revenue of all virtual influencer AI technology + all content created with the technology
- SORTIUM AI 3D ASSET GENERATION, Powered by Polkadot. A highly differentiated publisher tool - one of the first AI offerings to enable developers to create “tables and chairs” 10x faster. Tools require human experts. If a token launch occurs, Sortium will launch on Polkadot
- 3D AVATARS FOR THE POLKADOT COMMUNITY. PolkadotAvatars.com by UNDER - Our first attempt at Proof of Personhood
Game Developer Tools in Polkadot
- Unity SDK for Polkadot - the tool
- Unity SDK Marketing Program “Verified Solutions” -INITIAL CONTRACT $125,000 - 2023; $25,000, signed Jan 2025. Ironically, this contract inspired me to jump into the deep end on Polkadot Gaming, as I believed I could help bring some industry experience to contract negotiations and general industry practices. Unfortunately, we are still struggling for relevance here. This is not a criticism of the first tool or the technology that Ajuna built, but rather a criticism of our propensity to build and pay for tech with no plan of getting it into the hands of many. As many smart people have said (even if misattributed to Einstein!) “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
- Dot Play Bounty Recommendation 1: The tool that was built for Unity in 2023 was already approved by Unity in 2023/2024; before building another tool, we should first figure out why the one that we built did not get out into the developer world. Dot Play is negotiating with senior contacts at Unity to get a better deal for Polkadot - the good news is that Unity recognizes what is happening and we believe that they want a win/win outcome to fix the past. Before paying for an upgraded Unity SDK tool for Polkadot, let’s first figure out why the initial tool and first money spent did not show a return. One should not assume that we need to pay Unity to market the tool, as we have seen many game developers, such as Mythical, do not pay for the program.
- Dot Play Recommendation 2: The game engine market is split between Unity and Unreal, but Unreal is gaining share fast. We do not want to be left with half of the market. We are vetting teams who can build an alternative Unreal Engine tool for Polkadot. Estimated cost: $100,000, which would include the tool and the marketing.