- Haseley told Blockworks his play-to-earn project Undead Blocks is different from other Web3 games
- Bear markets are annoying for people – so gambling is a distraction, he said
Venture capitalists are keeping a close eye on GameFi — they’ve funded the sector more than any other crypto-related investment this year. Messari noted that more than $1.2 billion in funding flowed into 128 companies in the first quarter of this year alone.
Blockworks spoke to Grant Haseley, founder of Web3 game Undead Blocks, about his kill-to-earn zombie shooter game, which went live in May. He said an effective play-to-earn game is one that engages the most players with entertainment value, not one that uses earnings as the primary gameplay motivator.
Former Goldman Sachs analyst-turned-Web3 games developer wants play-to-earn concept to evolve to play-to-have-fun. It’s a big misconception that games compete against each other, he said, adding that the founders of Web3 games interact and have working relationships with each other because each project generates more users for the ecosystem.
GameFi companies on his radar include Mythical Games, Blowfish Studios, The Sandbox and Big Time.
blocks: When and why did you enter the GameFi sector?
Haseley: I’ve been in crypto since around 2015 and have watched as we went through a DeFi explosion that transitioned to GameFi.
Axie Infinity was the game that brought it into the mainstream, but I didn’t really like their tokenomics model. I thought it would flop. People just sold the secondary currency called SLP because they didn’t believe in it. They wanted to cash out.
I figured I could build a better tokenomics model and I just needed a fun game to play. In the last year, we’ve raised about $5 billion to develop Undead Blocks. It’s a zombie shooter similar to Left 4 Dead, Call of Duty – Zombies or Resident Evil. But I’ve been in play-to-earn for a year and a half now, and if anyone tries to tell you they’re an expert, they’re wrong.
we are so early I’m in New York and if you polled 100 people I bet you would know what play-to-earn games are.
blocks: What has changed at GameFi since you started working on GameFi to today?
Haseley: Most scammers are gone, and that’s a good thing. I think many of them were wiped out by the crypto crash. Towards the end of 2020 and early 2021 people were indoors, the pandemic was still ongoing and there wasn’t much to do. People left and right were making NFT collections.
Everything you touch turns to gold. They had these whitelist freebies. They had these groups calling themselves play-to-earn experts minting NFTs (non-fungible tokens) with no game development experience. They don’t know how to make a game, but that was the buzzword. The cool thing I could say was, “We’re an NFT group and we’re building a game to make money.”
Now you’re starting to see less and less of it. It has started to consolidate towards more traditional gaming studios. At Wagyu, which develops Undead Blocks, we work with a real game studio to develop the game. But you don’t see that much fluff from NFT collections out there. This consolidation is necessary so that people can identify games and projects with real gameplay.
Which crypto winter?
blocks: Why is GameFi doing comparatively well among crypto sub-segments during a period of macro uncertainty?
Haseley: This whole “crypto winter” is just wrong. I think from a DeFi (decentralized finance) perspective I would probably agree. But GameFi has never been hotter.
If you have a working product in a working game, you will have no trouble raising money and capital. They see some of the biggest venture capital firms in the world wanting to make these games because they see that’s the next pivot and realm of opportunity. A16z recently raised $600 million and Immutable raised a $500 million fund to pay game developers, so it’s not going away anytime soon.
When we’re in a bear market and people are upset that they’ve lost money, they want to distract themselves and have fun. Gaming allows you to do this. People will be looking for additional ways to generate income, and play-to-earn games are the next linchpin for them to do so.
blocks: Do players need to have a special interest in cryptocurrencies to play these games?
Haseley: no I’ll give you a reason why. At Undead Blocks, we give away money for free because we are fully sponsored – liquidity is brought in through sponsorships. For example, Polkastarter Gaming, which is a huge launch pad, gives us $10,000. We’re hosting a free to play tournament where people can get in and earn crypto just by playing the game. Having these sponsored tournaments for us brings in those Web2 players who never wanted to get into crypto or NFTs because we give them a reason to play.
You don’t need to know anything about crypto to enjoy the game and you’re starting to see that with other game studios like Mythical Games, Blankos Block Party or Gala Games developing Last Expedition, another shooter. These games will look so realistic that people will not know anything about crypto but will still be interested.
blocks: Has Undead Blocks been released yet?
Haseley: Our beta is here, it’s fully live and free to play for the public. Anyone can visit our website, download, play the game and give us feedback. If you get a chance to play it, you’ll see that it doesn’t feel like a Web3 video game.
Traditionally there have been two factions of Web3 video games which are either just web browser based games which are decentralized yield farming which aren’t very fun or it’s those AAA gaming studios which promise you a dream and yours, but never give up a fun game. Our beta is fully operational and our full game experiences will go live in about two months. But you can earn now.
blocks: How many current players does Undead Blocks have?
Haseley: We’ve just surpassed 10,000 downloads, and about half of those are playing at least once a day. They are all practicing for upcoming tournaments. We are over 5,000 daily active users. This number will grow exponentially as word spreads among web2 gamers that they can come and earn for free with no NFTs required.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
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