Kieran.eth@KieranWarwick
2,000+ web3 games have launched. Yet all I hear is "there are no fun web3 games." Statistically, that's almost impossible. Even with debut studios, the sheer capital deployed makes "zero fun games" an anomaly. Something deeper is happening, and nobody talks about it.
Here's the uncomfortable truth: Gamers weren't born "web3 gamers." They were gamers who discovered web3. And the moment you can earn money in a game, something irreversible happens in the brain.
Earning becomes the dopamine. Not the gameplay. Not the progression. Not the story. The money. And once that switch flips, the monkey doesn't go back in the bottle.
This is the overjustification effect in action. When extrinsic rewards are introduced, intrinsic motivation gets crowded out. The game didn't get worse. Your brain just rewired what "reward" means.
So when earning slows or stops? Game = not fun. Doesn't matter how polished it is. Doesn't matter how good the combat feels. Your brain already decided what it's playing for - and it's not the gameplay.
This is why the "play-to-earn" framing was always a trap. It trained an entire generation of players to optimise for extraction, not enjoyment.
The solution isn't removing earnings. It's reordering priorities.
There are two honest paths:
Lean fully into earning. Make it the point. This is what we're doing with Deathmatch: real money stakes. Would I play it without the ability to earn? Honestly, probably not. And that's fine. It's designed for that.
Build fun-first, earning as the cherry on top. This is Overworld. The entire game is built around progression systems, creature capture, quest completion, discovery, and boss battles. The loop is fun because the game is fun. Getting loot and being able to sell it? That's the cherry. But even here, the balance is razor-thin. Lean too hard on earning, and you topple into the same trap.
The studios that unlock this will define the next era of gaming. But it's insanely hard to achieve, which is why it's easy to say that everyone who's tried is retarded and knows nothing about gaming.
Some are getting it right, though. And being brutally honest, I didn't realise this when I first discovered web3 gaming 6 years ago. I just thought: people love games; people have always wanted to own their items so they can sell them (black markets prove this), so it is blatantly obvious that it will work, but it's way, way deeper than that.
This is also why I get frustrated when I see people saying "rewards are the future." They're not. If monetary rewards are the first thing you push down a gamer's throat, you change their psychology immediately. You don't even stand a chance.
Monetary rewards don't grow on trees. They run out. For everyone. Regardless of how big your treasury is.
At one point, we had $1.6 billion of rewards sitting in our treasury. I fucking know.
If your game isn't fun without the money, it was never a game. It was a job with better marketing.
