Play Intern 🎮

Research & Investments @PlayVentures @PlayFutureFund

[Play Intern 🎮 @playtern]

1/ Playtern Thoughts 💭

🧵 Arbitrum Ecosystem Mega Thread

It has been over 2 weeks since @arbitrum One went live so I decided to do a deep dive 🔍 into the current Arbitrum landscape 🌄👇

[Kenrick ⚡ @KenrickLuneX]

Equity financing is costly for founders and shareholders alike. Cohort based financing fixes this: scale faster, leaner and with less dilution.

We're excited to have led the PVX seed round

If you're a founder reach out! 👇

https://t.co/y2UybpLKsN

[Wassie 🧢 (Lena) @wassiecapital]

Wuu 👋🥺 wish all merry christmas & happy holidays! Excite welcome the 2025! 🎄🎁

— Play Ventures Team

[Ctrl Wallet ✜ is evolving into SecondFi @Ctrl_Wallet]

Take Ctrl from anywhere with the Ctrl Mobile Wallet.

Available now on Android.

[Peter Jonas @pbjonas]

https://t.co/vrx05Coh04

[KGeN 🟩 @KGeN_IO]

WE SECURED THE BAG! 💰

Excited to announce our recent $10M Ecosystem Funding — led by @Aptos, with @G7_DAO and @0xPolygon joining forces 🎮

…and our next leg is where the game is at 😏

[Play Intern 🎮 @playtern]

Happy to announce our latest fund investing in all things gaming + playable apps 🎮

[GamesBeat @GamesBeat]

Play Ventures raises $140M second fund to invest in games and consumer startups https://t.co/G8HG4xtd74

[Wassie 🧢 (Lena) @wassiecapital]

Excited to announce @PlayVentures @PlayFutureFund investment into @darkbrightgames

We're confident in @PurplezSnow & Spooky's vision to build out a cozy life sim game in @smolbound that:

• Leverages @Treasure_DAO's @smolverse IP and the lessons from early attempts at decentralized game building

• Innovates upon live-service games with a UGC-driven ecosystem that harnesses Web3 token incentives to create network effects beyond content creation

smol steps today 🤏 big leaps tomorrow 🚀
wuwu! 💕

[Play Intern 🎮 @playtern]

🫡🫡

[Wassie 🧢 (Lena) @wassiecapital]

Play Ventures will be here in the Singapore Token2049 🥺👋

Look to connect w/ those in the gaming/consumer space 🎮

[Wassie 🧢 (Lena) @wassiecapital]

Play Ventures will be here in the Singapore Token2049 🥺👋

Look to connect w/ those in the gaming/consumer space 🎮

[The Sprawl @TheSprawlGame]

Led by @Delphi_Ventures, a new round of funding has been secured to support @blackblock_io to continue development of The Sprawl.

Here’s a quick rundown of how we think & what we’re up to 🧵👇

[TallyUP! @tallyup]

1/ Tallyup is building crypto’s killer mainstream game.

It is the first and only viable P2E model.

It unlocks crypto & earning to every human with a phone.

Here's how it works:

[Emile @goitbykojiro]

our token should reflect the strength of our new products and brand. to achieve that, some changes were required in terms of tokenomics.

what we aimed to achieve with this structure:

> reduce potential sell pressure from large holders
> significantly deepen liquidity in the new pools
> increase the circulating supply

alongside our top three holders, the treasury, my co-founder, and I will commit a combined 32% of the total token supply into the pools post-migration to $CTRL until August 2025.

I've been working closely with our largest investors for the last few months to make this happen and the liquidity will be moved once $CTRL is live. thanks to

@WarcMeinstein, @daniloscarlucci, @lukedelphi, @YanLiberman, @Rewkang and @ZeMariaMacedo for helping us shape this structure. really appreciate you backing the vision we have for the new brand.

[Phylicia Koh (She/her) @ppphyl]

What happens at Play Summit stays at Play Summit (Chatham House Rule 🤫) but here is #PlaySummit2024 by the numbers:

🎮130+ gaming leaders

🌍From 23 countries

🌲Gathered at Bilnäs, an ironworks founded in 1640, nestled in the beautiful Finnish countryside

🗓️ 2+ days of sharing knowledge, wisdom, and making connections

👨‍🎤1 legendary special guest @Darudevil who unleashed a sandstorm at the Summit in the best possible way

The energy and alpha was unmatched thanks to everyone who came, shared candidly, and made it a Summit to remember.

Special shoutout to the indomitable Eliana Kim (🫶@PlayVentures Head of Events) who made everything run like a dream as well as all the panelists and speakers who brought their A game

Special mention to @offeryehudai from @Arya_fyi , Kai from https://t.co/p7xu41zrX4, and Laurentiu

Taking some time out this week to touch grass, but I’ll be back at it next week and look forward to seeing you all next time at Play Summit 2025 🦾

[Phylicia Koh (She/her) @ppphyl]

Will Telegram become the next gaming distribution Super App?
I think it's got a good shot. Here's a breakdown of why.
​
First things first, what is a "Super App"?
​
My simple take: a Super App is any app that allows users to perform multiple tasks in a single place. Typically the additional functionality leverage the same strengths and features built for the core product.
​
Messenger apps, leveraging their network effects, have been the best example of these:
​
WeChat started with messenger, added wallet, then mini-programs
​
Kakao started with messenger, added KakaoPay, then games
​
Grab started with ride-hailing, added delivery, insurance
​
However both WeChat and Kakao have high single-market concentration (majority users in China and South Korea respectively). They're still insanely successful but never quite became globally used.
​
(@thatguybg did a great thread on Super Apps a while back: https://t.co/VGePIuLgoo)
​
So what about Telegram?

Telegram started as an encrypted messenger app.
​
In recent years, it has followed the Super App playbook: it added support for HTML5 and Javascript games, then wallets, the TON blockchain, and $TON, and now Telegram Stars (for IAPs in Telegram).
​
It's showing early signs that it is a viable platform for games to be commercially successful:
- Catizen: 20m users, 2.5m DAU, $12m revenue in 3 months
- Hamster Kombat: 238m registered users in 3 months, 30M DAUs
- Notcoin: 40m users in 6 months
​
These clicker games mixed web2 and web3. They effectively leveraged web3 incentives to drive user acquisition. They also adopted the best of web2 learnings: games were f2p to reduce barrier to play, and had proven web2 monetisation design such as gacha mechanics throughout, mixed with web3 (with the Telegram Wallet etc).
​
( @JACL_e9 did a great thread on Telegram mini games here: https://t.co/A0TvuOM1ys)
​
Telegram users are young (53% are 18-34yo) and it has a strong web3 user base.
​
Market distribution is more balanced compared to WeChat and Kakao: Asia accounts for 37% of Telegram users, followed by Europe (27%) and then LATAM (21%). Not surprising considering Asia and LATAM are big crypto strongholds.
​
To continue adding functionality to become a Super App, Telegram will naturally run into UX headaches. Its strong Asian user base here is an advantage: Asian users have always been used to or even expect a more 'chaotic' UX. In fact, in some markets clutter = quality.
​
In the west, that clutter has historically been regarded as bad UX design. In recent years though, Western users and players have become more forgiving and embracing of more complex UX design if it is additive to player experience.
​
Just take a look at Century Games' Whiteout Survival. It's arguably more cluttered than prototypical western games. Yet US players are responsible for 19% of lifetime downloads and 37% of the game's last 30d revenue.
​
In due time, Telegram may have more mass-market appeal than the current web3 centric crowd.
​
However, there are some key challenges ahead for Telegram
​
1. App discoverability is challenging

Telegram does have an App Center though it is very buried (you have to search 'Telegram App Center'). Its ad network needs work. Most apps currently drive discoverability through incentive design, virality, other channels (there's even a Telegram Mini Apps account you can follow on X https://t.co/sC5kZ2g0MI), or pray to the crypto Gods.
​
2. Developer support is minimal

There's API documentation, some dev tooling, and the TON foundation awards grants.
​
@0xHoward_Peng who runs dev relations at @ton_blockchain is also a great one to follow for anything TON-related.
​
Generally however you still need to figure out how to get your app up and running without direct support.
​
The easier it is for developers to build in the ecosystem, it's also more likely games will evolve beyond the clicker/idle mechanics dominating the headlines. Still, it's possible and likely this improves over time.
​
3. App Store incumbents want to kill it

App Store incumbents want to kill it or throttle its growth. However given Telegram's non-US dominant user base, their power to kill is diminished, though they can still hurt Telegram.
​
EU DMA regulations for 3rd party app stores are also in Telegram's favour should they wish to build their mini-app distribution power. In Asia, side-loading is common practice especially for Android devices.
​
If all else fails, try to beat them at their own game? Oyster Labs is also developing a TON Phone but this is still early https://t.co/tCN4B9BSfQ
​
4. The SEC

TON is responsible for Telegram Wallet (which despite its moniker is a 3rd party wallet that allows users to buy $BTC, $USDT, $TON). Since May 2024, Telegram Wallet has more stringent KYC requirements before allowing users to conduct transactions so it seems to be ahead of and on the right side of the SEC.
​
Yet while the TON foundation and Telegram are independent, they are invariably linked and the SEC and Telegram has had previous entanglements: Telegram had settled with the SEC in 2020 over its Grams ICO. It returned the $1.2b proceeds and paid an $18.5m penalty.
​
That said, this is crypto regulation so who knows what happens tomorrow.
​
Another exciting question is what happens if Telegram gets it right? That's when things become real interesting. WhatsApp is arguably even more dominant (for now) with 2B users globally. Telegram's ability to build a Super App will surely become a blueprint.
​
As a gaming investor, what am I excited about w.r.t Telegram games?
​
Telegram games was in Phase 1: teams were still trying to figure out if Telegram is a worthwhile platform. It made sense that they'd go for simple hypercasual gameplay that requires low dev investment to test that out. These early successes are great proof-of-concepts and part of a bigger platform shift evolution.
​
- In the 70s-80s, we had Arcade games (Pong, Space Invaders)
- Late 80s-90s: Console (Sega, Sony, Nintendo)
- 90s- early 2000s: PC (Doom launched in 1993, Wow in 2004)
- 2000s: Mobile App Store (App Store launched in 2008, 16 yrs ago)
- 2010s: Super Apps WeChat and Kakao launch games and start becoming gaming platforms.
- 2020s: ?
​
However, long-term value won't happen with tap/click-to-earn single titles.
​
IMO the big Telegram winners will be those building picks and shovels for future game devs and publishers on Telegram. They will have to eat their own dog food first: test out various hypotheses with their own games.
​
Hypothesis A: If game makers have a successful Telegram game, then they will leverage that player base, facilitate cross-promotion, and achieve cheaper user acquisition for new games
​
Hypothesis B: If LiveOps runs on Telegram, then it will be effective in increasing long-term retention and monetisation of players across a portfolio of Telegram games (LiveOps includes content updates, seasonal events, competitive features and tooling, economy and monetisation design, analytics stack and the ability to generate insights with implications on future content and monetisation, etc).
​
Hypothesis C: If Telegram games feature more complex core mechanics that current clickers, then more Telegram gamers will be inclined to play them and the Telegram game player base will increase
​
As more successes happen, the Telegram game ecosystem will have more entrants and fast-followers (we see this all the time in conventional mobile f2p). This surge in competition in the next 9-18 months will probably happen faster than Telegram's dev support and tooling, discoverability improvements can scale up.
​
That leaves opportunity for early entrants who have built these pick and shovels to work with the next wave of developers who are less interested in figuring things out for themselves and more interested in shipping games to market as quick as they can.
​
If that sounds like you, HMU.

[fisher8 Intern (✿,✿) @Fisher8Intern]

did you know you can't spell INTERNET without INTERN? ✨🌸💗💫🫡

Interns Assemble! 💥

[The Block @TheBlockCo]

Castle Island Ventures and RW3 Ventures lead $4 million seed round for web3 cloud firm Nirvana Labs https://t.co/Zb0kLfMrkR

[Play Intern 🎮 @playtern]

👀

[jarindr | ( zentry arc ) @jarindr]

1/n Introducing @MaxionLabs A new subsidiary of @zentry as a game studio and publisher.

We are bringing your favorite IP onchain with your favorite blockchain starting with Ragnarok.

Let me show you how you can make web3 game actually work.

[LegallyBullnde @LegallyBullnde]

@gvrn_ai will be at GMVN!

Hit me up if you'd like to find out more about how @wassielawyer and I can keep you out of jail....or at least try our best to...

#GMVN

[Play Intern 🎮 @playtern]

@KenrickLuneX @LegallyBullnde @gvrn_ai @wassielawyer alfa 🫡

[Hypersonic Laboratories @hypersoniclabs]

We're excited to announce our latest funding round, helping us continue our mission of making HELIX the ultimate open-world roleplaying sandbox game!

Read this interview with our CEO & Founder Jack (Maker) for more details, and watch this space for more HELIX news in 2024 👀🎉