jon jordan

This week in blockchain games, @pixels_online goes open source, @MaplestoryU talks composable smart contracts, and @TheSandboxGame gets 12K sign ups for its new AI tools. 02:45 The Sandbox reaches 12,000 sign-ups for its Studio tool. 05:05 YGG launches its first $5,000 @Vibecode_game jam with @AnimocaMinds 07:30 MapleStory Universe changes its builder strategy, adding Action Modules. 11:18 Pixels' open source vision. 12:42 It's initially open-sourcing its frontend. 14:07 Pixels plans to open source its server too. 15:00 There will also be an asset-weighted community voting system for governance.

Lately there's been an increase in Phishing scams using my persona to try and schedule a call or meeting using Calendly and a spoofed email of mine. A few things to alert: 1. I do not use @Calendly never have 2. I don't send out invites for meetings via my own email its either my human or @hellominds_ assistants 3. I would never randomly send out an invite with zero context. When in doubt just check-in if needs be here on X Stay safe everyone! I'm sure this isn't happening just with me.

In BCGW #212 I spoke to @gabusch about why @YGG_Play wasn't sustainable and what's next for @YieldGuild which now has 4 years of operational runway for its new Ai vision. 00:48 Casual degen web3 gaming platform YGG Play is shutting down. 02:17 LOL Land launched well in May 2025 but overall revenue peaked in October 2025 at $3 million. 03:40 Why the crypto liquidation event on 10th October 2025 was so significant. 05:00 Why releasing more titles typically doesn't add revenue for crypto game platforms. 06:19 Why this was a decision based on the market, not on the product. 07:35 Gabby's lesson is you can't control where liquidity flows to. 09:59 LOL Land, Waifu Sweeper and the YGG Play platform will run until 31st July. 11:26 As part of the restructuring, YGG has confirmed around 35 redundancies. 13:08 YGG will now focus on providing gaming data to AI companies i.e. world models. 14:15 In some way, this is a return of play-to-earn, just not earning in crypto tokens. 16:04 This data is useful, particularly for robotics and in-game agents. 18:33 YGG has already been working on this AI P2E with its AI Alerts system. 19:26 YGG was set up to allow people anywhere in the world to earn from using technology. 21:20 YGG isn't shutting down. The founding team remains in place and it has 4 years of runway. 22:53 This doesn't mean web3 gaming is dead. This is just YGG's particular decision.

This week, it's all about @MaplestoryU and @Verse_Eight @AxieInfinity Atia's Legacy and Terrariums and @AVALON + @soneium 00:22 MapleStory Universe's Vibe Camp and the rise of web3 game jams in the AI era. 02:10 Why Verse8's AI platform made this hackathon easier to enter - over 430 entries submitted. 02:48 Playing the Vibe Camp games and early quality signals 03:12 MapleStory’s curation dilemma -- openness vs controlling the IP. 04:47 Axie Infinity has run the third playtest for Atia’s Legacy this week. 05:50 Combat was 8x8 bouts, 5 weapons. There was also a paid AXS tournament. 06:49 Axie Terrariums got an update with more ways of boosting your yield. 09:17 Terrariums generated $95,753 during its first week. 12:46 Wemade's founder has sold his 39% stake for around $600 million. 14:25 Why are Chinese-linked investors buying into Wemade? 17:38 What does the sale mean for Wemade’s blockchain strategy? 18:51 Avalon says it will be using Sony's Soneium blockchain (an Ethereum L2). 22:00 The blockchain will be used for ownership and payments but no overt wallets or gas. 24:40 EVE Online and EVE Frontier's Carbon game framework is now fully open source. 26:50 This is a key part of Fenris' vision for EVE Frontier as an open ecosystem. 27:20 MapleStory Universe vs EVE Frontier: two different blockchain philosophies.

We haven't heard much about @AVALON and its blockchain strategy but the PC/console AI-centric UGC MMORPG is now confirmed to be using Sony's @soneium blockchaingamer.biz/news/42553/mmo…

Data center water use, contextualized (chart via @axios)

@0xMementoMori Are guilds really still operation at scale?

Spend more time on your GTM strategy for guilds:

I think people would be surprised how many and how expensive the IAPs are in Craft World. And this is a good thing, obvs!

In blockchain games this week, @EVE_Frontier cycle6 goes live, Immutable's AI marketing pivot and we talk with @MaplestoryU 00:31 Eve Frontier's Cycle 6 Sanctuary has gone live and is free for five days. 02:35 Cycle 6 should feel more structured for new players, with more controlled onboarding. 03:18 The new opening area introduces feral AI/NPC threats and a stronger survival game feel. 03:48 Environmental hazards are becoming more important, especially heat. 04:50 Another big change is a base ship that you build from modular components. 07:11 Eve Frontier remains a demanding, time-heavy game, in keeping with Eve Online. 08:26 Cycle 6 introduces a testnet version of the EVE token to test the economy. 11:00 Immutable is restructuring, ditching internal game development. 12:26 It's pivoting to its AI-driven marketing platform, Immutable Audience. 13:35 Gods Unchained will continue to be commercially run by a third party. 14:41 Guild of Guardians is more complex and is now in “Evergreen/Maintenance Mode". 18:48 Immutable’s broader blockchain gaming platform strategy has failed. 23:25 Immutable claims 10 years of runway but this seems optimistic. 25:09 It's easy to underestimate the scale of MapleStory as a gaming IP - $4B, 250M players. 27:25 The launch of MapleStory N was very difficult in terms of bots and extractive players. 28:15 The first 6 months was deploying anti-bot systems and stabilizing the game. 29:40 Then it added more content, updating at twice the speed of a web2 game. 30:55 Nexon and Nexpace are committed to the vision of a blockchain version of MapleStory. 32:50 Nexpace continues with MapleStory N. The community will build MapleStory Universe. 33:26 How does game IP have value if AI just makes your favorite game? 34:28 Nexpace’s strategy is players use AI to build what they want with MapleStory IP. 36:02 Fenris and Nexpace have an advantage because they know what they are remaking. 37:00 EVE and MapleStory also have existing audiences and strong IP awareness.

I downloaded a game to relax. @AngryDynomites Then I started calculating crafting costs. Then machine ROI. Then market cycles. Then intrinsic value. Now I own spreadsheets with more formulas than my actual job. Welcome to Craft World. 📈🪞 #CraftWorld #Ronin #Web3Gaming #GameFi #CryptoGaming #PlayAndOwn

Over the past year, @Nexpace_HQ has made MapleStory N a successful web3 game ($31M, 3.8M a/cs). In year 2, its COO Keith Kim @nexpacetime explains how it moves from a game to the MapleStory Universe @MaplestoryU ecosystem. 01:00 MapleStory N’s first year - $31M revenue, 3.8M accounts, 650K engaged wallets. 02:10 How the profile was different for MapleStory N compared to traditional MapleStory gamers. 02:57 What we have done well is being agile and altering our strategy, adjusting quickly. 03:25 The pace of updates for MapleStory N is 3-5x faster than for a web2 game. 04:20 The Winter update - new maps, new bosses - has driven really good numbers. 05:06 From Feb 2026, MapleStory N started recouping more token value than it emitted. 05:40 June could be MapleStory N’s highest revenue and biggest NXPC token deflation. 09:45 In web2, players play for fun. In web3, some players spend as much as $100k a day. 11:12 Players really try to make money during the first 3 months of any new blockchain game. 13:36 Our goal is to work out how we can add blockchain to make MapleStory more fun. 14:40 It took 6 months to gain confidence in our direction from the reaction of real fans. 16:05 When Keith realized the eye-opening power of AI for games. 17:13 Nexpace has been encouraging the team to build their own games with AI. 18:55 We're trying to consider the scenarios of how AI changes the game industry. 19:17 Initially, we were worried that game IP becomes less important in the AI era. 21:18 You have to let your fans use AI to extend your IP. 21:58 We hope our MapleStory Universe builders make more money than we do. 26:05 Some IP holders want to tightly control their brand. We just want to limit AI slop. 28:20 We need to change our view of what is high-quality content. It's up to the users. 30:04 This is a very exciting time to be a builder, especially with MapleStory. 33:38 Professional developers can also build proper businesses on MapleStory IP.

@0xMementoMori "Company is doing fine" 🤔 I think "10 years of runway" is more of an aspirational quote. It's lost $50m each year for the past 2 years, and continues to be loss-making. It's never been profitable operationally, as opposed to from crypto gains.

Immutable is pivoting from crypto gaming to AI marketing tech for game publishers (Immutable Audience). They cut their internal game dev teams and will outsource dev to a third party. Company is doing fine, as it still has 10 years of runway left (great treasury mgmt).

In blockchain gaming this week, 2 games 💀, 1 game 🐣and @AngryDynomites 🦖🚀 00:42 @SkyMavisHQ is rebooting its vision for Axie land NFTs with Terrariums. 01:25 It builds on the complex learnings of the original Axie land game Homeland. 02:14 Homeland was an attempt to combine land-based gameplay and NFT staking. 04:31 It was a surprisingly deep resource-management game but a bad staking system. 07:10 Sky Mavis removed staking in early 2024, and everyone stopped playing Homeland. 08:39 Terrariums is the v1 attempt to rebuild a land NFT staking system using the bAXS token. 10:33 Terrariums will also be the base layer for land gameplay, which will be added over time. 12:48 Ronin idle mobile/browser game Craft World has announced 60,000 MAUs. 16:00 Craft World is a full onchain game but very accessible. 19:53 You can market it to a web2 audience and there's no talk of wallets or gas or tokens. 23:37 In Craft World, you can't buy your way to top status. Time is a key resource too. 25:28 Fishing Frenzy is shutting down. In contrast to Craft World, it was a crypto-first cozy game. 28:05 You can sustain crypto-first games for as long as players think they will get free rewards. 30:22 Pudgy Party is shutting down as Pudgy Penguins focuses on Pudgy World web portal. 33:00 Pudgy Party was good but lacked the marketing support required for a social game. 34:35 Pudgy World is cheaper and easier to operate and market as a platform.

Me and @sjanuskas were watching the Kintara ($KINS) run and got curious about what else is being built in Solana gaming. There are so many people using AI to build fast, weird, interesting experiments that it’s getting hard to keep track of everything (too bad Fable is gone for now). So we vibe-coded an internal agentic dashboard to monitor the space for ourselves. Very early, still experimenting. solgames.buzz Would you find this useful?

Top 3 stories in crypto gaming of the week: 1) Fishing Frenzy goes under 2) The "Pudgy Party" is over 3) What's going on with Kintara? All covered in the latest Sidelined News ↓

Which players in @soccerverse are currently the best deal in terms of their in-game prize and IRL World Cup performance? Please note, past performance is not indicative of future results svcshowdown.com

If anyone is looking for experienced, crypto game devs or marketers please reach out Have a few excellent team members who will be looking for a new home, and who are used to building and manage live products and communities

@0xDith @playgigaverse so why aren't you gigaDith?

@playgigaverse are you guys simply gonna put "giga" infront of literally every existing word out there and pretend it works??? yes we are

Announcing: GIGATHON 1 🏗️ Our first-ever Gigaverse hackathon goes live on Monday, Jun 15. Build useful apps, mods, or tools for Gigaverse, with a special focus on Gigling Racing and our community. Full details at launch.

This week, the blockchain gaming news is all AI-powered, especially @TheSandboxGame 02:05 The Sandbox announces The Sandbox Studio, its AI-powered creator tools. 03:00 Roblox as the obvious benchmark for AI-powered UGC in games 04:20 Did The Sandbox waste time in H2 2025 on Corners, its memecoin experiment? 06:40 What The Sandbox Studio actually is, and why it is still only in alpha 07:25 Why Sandbox’s old creator tools were already good, but never solved distribution 08:35 Roblox vs Sandbox: the importance of instant publishing and social concurrency 10:10 AI harnesses vs AI models 11:47 Will such specialist frameworks matter once foundation models get much better? 13:10 The big strategic question: do creators need The Sandbox Studio if AI can make games directly? 14:00 Sandbox’s plan to help creators publish to web, Telegram, Steam and app stores 15:30 Roblox’s massive advantage: creators publish inside an existing audience 16:40 Why The Sandbox’s lack of player concurrency remains its core problem 18:10 The missed opportunity of The Sandbox land as a connected world/map 20:15 Jon's launched his own AI game - Soccerverse Showdown 21:10 How the World Cup leaderboard idea evolved from a Soccerverse internal concept 22:35 Comparing Soccerverse Showdown with a more traditional fantasy-football game 24:48 How player influence in Soccerverse generates World Cup points 25:59 Why ROI may be more interesting than total points on the leaderboard 27:15 Claude Fable “did two weeks of work in three hours” 28:45 The feeling of publishing a first game after 25 years covering games 30:00 Nexpace as a strong example of strong blockchain and AI execution 30:45 MapleStory Universe revenue, Avalanche chain and ecosystem strategy 31:20 Verse8 + Vibe Camp = AI-generated MapleStory experiences 32:05 First AI-built MapleStory-based games are now live on Verse8

A plausible and frightening vision of Europe's near future, ending in economic collapse and vassal status under the US or China. Enjoyed reading it, although I feel a little depressed now. europe2031.ai