AMA Recap July 2 2025

The last 6 months at Pixels, we’ve done some things right and some things haven’t moved in the direction we want. We’ve changed some things recently. We want to give people who have proven knowledge of the game and are a bit closer to community to take steps/ownership over some of the things in Pixels. We’ve switched up team a little bit and have begun working on Chapter 3. Very optimistic about the changes.

We’ll dive into what it might look like. Might tease the high level of what we’re thinkign and maybe next week we can go into the vision of Chapter 3. We’re finalizing timelines, when to expect things, how to move forward, and figure out the pace of the team. We’ve already started changes withthe TB. We need to reset what the game feels like and looks like. Earlier in the year we had objectives and KPIs. We were trying to optimize RORS and strategically that felt like the right thing to do. But now we need to take a step back and focus on gameplay before we focus on our metrics. We will still release some monetization stuff, like a new VIP system, but the main focus will be to upgrade the gameplay, complete some game loops, etc. There’s no future if we cant close up the core loops. The key objective is to make sure when you’re earning resources, there’s something fun and compelling to do without just turning in Taskboard. We will finalize Chapter 3 - we have new people on the team who are working on these things.

With taskboard we fixed some things where higher levels were earning less than the lower level players but now it’s leaning too much so we’re trying to spread the progression a bit more. We’re going to introduce some new systems for earnings. Also we’re looking more into the offer wall system - this is some of the cool backend stuff we’ve been working on. We’re trying to more efficiently target earnings than through taskboard. The TB is getting stale, players have been doing it for over a year. We need to focus a little bit more at Pixels. Some of our stuff will be more community-oriented.

This quest board system we’re working on is going to QA now and will change some of the earning structure inside the game. It’ll work with any Pixel Ecosystem game. It’s kinda like a new ad model or in a way it’s rep where other games can know who the best players are to target in the ecosystem. Potentially, if a new ledger were to drop and they wanted to give incentives for people to check it out, they could use this platform and run an ad through it. The offer platform can surface ads, rewards, tasks, quests, integrate into gameplay to see if you did a task inside the game, etc. It’s a really cool system. It’ll probably be a couple more weeks before it’s out and live. It’ll be to just core Pixel players at first, and then roll out to everyone. This will also be the way to earn through the Pets app too.

Except early access to the Pets game relatively soon. It’ll be wrapped up by early August. It’s looking so much better and a lot different. I’m really excited about the things we can do with it.

Chapter 3 - high level premise. Basically the high level - the objectives are: it’s not monetization or making people spend even though that’s a part of the game sustainability but that’s not the main KPI. It’s finishing the game, making it fun, making it more of a forever game. We want to make sure we have real use for T3-T4 Resources in Chapter 3 and build the gameplay centered around that. We want to make sure the $PIXEL token is still burnt, we want to replace the grind with skill-based gameplay. We want to foster competition and cooperation. We’re going to implement a faction system that’ll work in harmony with guilds. Faction system - high level - is you choose between 3-4 different groups - we decide those groups. There’s factions you join and have a natural affinity with. It’ll work with guilds, not against guilds. We’ll go into more details in the next AMA or two. We also want to build it with you guys too. The people who are taking care of Ch3, they’re very involved inside the community so they’ll see your feedback. We want to build something you guys want/will enjoy and we want to build it with you guys.

Expect more hotfixes and feedback towards you guys. Now when we’re getting feedback from all of you guys is we’ll need actual helpful feedback. Early Pixels we had a pretty good filter for the right type of people inside the community. We did some counter-cultural stuff like not talking about FP, and we never built for people who wanted to see the FP pump and then abandon the game. We want to build long-term value, and build for fun gameplay, and using the current assets inside the game. If your feedback for Pixels is “how does this make my assets pump” or “how do I earn more” but truthfully good feedback is how do we make the game more fun.

Part of the goal of Chapter 3 is also to get it out in less than 6 months. So we can’t do drastically new stuff, like Runescape style combat in the 4-6 month time range. We’d have to write a lot of new engine work and code. People who are closest to the engine knows what it can or cant do. So as we discuss with you guys about Chapter 3, there will be some constraints - but we can do something compelling and interesting. Speed is also something we need to bring back into the ethos. We cant spend 6 months developing something like Merchant Ships. It has to be much more needle-moving and much more interesting. Expect that and give us some feedback as we start to reveal a little bit more. If you’re listening to this AMA, you’re more than likely a good user that we want to hear feedback from.

Pixels has had some semblance of pseudo market fit but we’re not there yet and that’s the most important thing for Web3 to figure out. How can we compete against Web2 games and what are the things we need to do to build out an amazing experience to attract players again. One thing we’re missing out on is how do we build out a Web2 audience a little easier and make it friendlier for players who don’t know about Web3.. The pets app is going to be mobile native, we’re not going to require a wallet, and we’re going to monetize within the pets app rather than doing a bunch of crypto things.

I know we said we’re not going to do crazy live ops events anymore, but the next few months are going to be more community oriented while we build out Chapter 3.

Usually these AMAs are filled with Luke spilling the tea behind the scenes about everything, while I give high-level updates but just to dive into more about what Luke was saying about our roots - I feel so excited and energized by these changes we’re making. Even I have the opportunity to dive back into a lot of community live ops stuff. In the past, our team has been planning out core game features/updates and I build out a calendar and fill in the gaps. But I’m so excited about this next chapter and this movement of team members. I’m doing a lot of live ops style work right now. And there’s a lot in the works.

Creator Codes - every 3 months, they expire. officially it has been 6 months. This has been a successful feature and they will relaunch on the 10th. They’re going to update monthly now. We wont have big downtime gaps between them like this time around. We’re getting a process going. Guild codes will also be updated. There’s a little bit of a change on the Content Creator side - you’re probably aware that there will be a tiering system in the program that’ll define your percentage you get back. It’s a way to encourage our content creators to level up. They should be launching next week. Nothing changes for players getting the discount.

UGC Fair is in the works. Can’t give a date - don’t know yet. But this is an example of a really fun live ops event that’s community-oriented and will be wholesome. If you are a UGC Creator and have 3 or more approved UGCs in the game, please fill out the form.

Q: What does UGC mean?
UGC stands for User Generated Content - and that can mean so many things depending on the company or game. But for us, 99% of the time, it’s decorative assets in-game that users have drawn themselves that they mint inside the game and sell/giveaway in the game. So that’s just what UGC means for Pixels

Forkast: It’s a prediction market. Kinda like polymarket. We’re partnering with them, and we’re excited about what prediction markets can do for our gameplay. You’ll see more prediction markets for Pixels soon. They’re building out prediction markets that’ll introduce some interesting gameplay soon. It’s a real marketplace inside of Pixels and you can probably have some influence on this. If someone’s hoarding a lot of it, you can influence this.

People can probably do things about this and change the outcome. There’s interesting gameplay that’ll be had here with these markets. It’s not built by us. But be aware there’s a risk you’re taking when betting against something or not.

Q: Why do I feel like it can be manipulated by multiple account people or a whole community?
It can be. It’s a live market. Just cuz something seems like a sure thing here. The marketplace can be changed by people coordinating. I’m not sure if everyone’s playing it that way but know that it can happen.

Q: Is that kind of betting in game which can cause legal issues? Just my concern if I look at european legal stuff
We don’t own Forkast. This isn’t happening inside Pixels. This is happening outside of Pixels, we’re not officially endorsing it, but we’re just showing you something interesting about Web3 - if you wanna participate, that’s up to you. It’s outside of Core Pixels and it’s another entity doing all of this.

They do have a few Pixels related things. If you guys have ideas, maybe we can do some more funny ones. Like “Wen Chapter 3” or “Will Luke wear his bass pros shop hat again” - there’s some funny ideas here. A lot of you guys probably ready the Pixels Post yet and with that, I promised a 5 USD code. There’s only 100 uses of this code available and there’s 700-800 people watching right now so be fast to claim this on your account. Land owners, you guys all got a discount already but you can use this one already.

Code: CLAYUM

Q: Wen Neon Zone?
It was almost there. And then there were some tweaks we wanted to do, and it was happening at the same time we were having heavy internal conversations about team shifting, chapter 3 planning, etc. So focus was not 100% on the Leon’s Neon Zone. So I cant give you a date, it will be published, but that’s the complete honest truth. It’s the same issue with merchant ships - why are you doing it? This gets easier to solve when

Chapter 3 will add new rarity on top of items. What are more things you might want inside of the game aside from just $PIXEL. When we can answer that, both of these things become easier to solve. Why would you play beside trying to earn $PIXEL.

Luke, explain it to me like I’m 5/10. What does “Endgame” mean in Web3? What is the worst case scenario for a web3 game if it experiences an endgame? And if that happens to Pixels, what would you do?
Endgame is basically the content for players who are playing for a long time to do. If you’ve been playing Pixels for a year, 2 years, 3 years, what are you trying to do? What content is unlocked for me when I’m playing for a long time? A lot of the time the endgame in an MMO, my endgame is PVP. Sometimes with Runescape endgame, people participate in merchant guilds. Sometimes it’s just social. So what’s the content when you’ve been playing for a really long time. It’s the most important thing for us to solve when we’re trying to exist for a long time. Most of the time if you play a hit-mobile game, people play it for a year, then you see drop-off. In Web3, that gets tricky. That’s how games operate. They build, they get a lot of users, then the game gets stale and most studios build 2nd or 3rd or 4th games after that. It’s very hit-driven. Web3 players probably dont wanna see that because there’s NFTs. So there’s a lot of things you need to build for that. There’s not a lot for people to do except to earn $PIXEL - Taskboard is the only thing and that’s not really a sustainable gameplay. If we remove $PIXEL, how many people would keep playing. We’d probably lose a lot of users. That means the gameplay alone doesn’t stand where it needs to be. The original thesis of core pixels was we’d build a game, increase RORS, and do Live Ops events to make up for some of the lack of endgame. We bruteforced it. But it wasnt solving the core problem where you need that new loop at the end of the game to attract people. There’s no competition, no collaboration, nothing except turning items into the Taskboard. To be good stewards of the game, we really need to narrow down on core game. Merchant ship is something we’ll tidy up, but it’s not our priority. In order to successfully build something great, you cant be so scattered. Right now, if you lose in Pixels it’s cuz you had a bad Taskboard day. But you want better gameplay - you want to lose cuz someone else was better against you.

Q: Pixels need different way to win resources beyond taskboard or farming. Again, for example a mini game that a few player need to coordinate for everyone to get them and is limit time.
This is basically the premise of Chapter 3

Q: Hi guys, are you planning to create social farming core feature for the next chapter. Pixels need a different way to earn valuable resources, unique seed, NFTs, booster, etc.
Yeah you’re kinda on the nose. We’re building out things to make features more fun

Q: We need mailboxes on our plots. PLEASE PLEASE it would be so cool to give your friends gifts even when they are not online
I love this but it’s so bottable and abusbale. If you can think of a way to make it not abusable, let us know

Q: Make Pixels Great Again. Why should new players join Pixels and why should old players keep playing Pixels?
We talk about retention and stuff quite often - but it’s truly been a testament to our community and culture. Giving a home and a safe space for the metaverse and communities. We could do aggressive marketing but it’s not where it needs to be. Really we should be making a game that feels good to them and makes them want to play this versus anything they’re playing. If the game is fun and good, that problem should fundamentally solve itself and then we can push on the growth. When the game is sustainable, and economically sound, we can start to do a little paid UA and all of these things have to kinda come together. There’s a few things that happen all at once when you solve these. Until the gameplay is a bit more compelling, we cant do major growth push. So there’s time we need to invest to make the core game fundamentally sound and good.

Q: Does Chapter 3 guarantee that there will be no bots?
Bots are everywhere. They’re smart. Esp in Web3 since it’s a direct path to making money. And I think we’ve done a really good job at managing it so far. We were bullish on INFOFI but it’s not really bullish anymore. You’re incentivizing the wrong thing. Wiht INFOFI, you’re incentivizing views and impressions. The best content anyone can create about a game is when it’s authentic. INFOFI should be rewarding players who create organic content.

Q: So maplestoryN fixed bots in 1 swift move, from one day to the next, from thousands of bots to less than 10 server wide, please check into that
100% This is not true. Pixels has done a lot of work on bot detection. We’ve churned a ton of bots. You can look at the stats. One of the issues in web3 gaming - even in Web2 gaming, bots are a huge problem where there isn’t an economic incentive. When you start to add Web3 elements, the botting becomes 10x harder. Maplestory is one of the teams I was most bullish on when it comes to tokenomics. But they’re running through a lot of the same issues with botters, cheaters etc. I know a ton, they have not solved it. This stuff comes in waves. Here’s the thing with anti-botting - you’ll do a change, you see bots drop off for a week, then they come back. To stop bots, you have to think about why are they botting. In a lot of games, in Web2, there’s still secondary black markets. Web3 makes it a lot harder, but you have to solve for the user experience aspect. How do you make it easy for players to come into the game without making it super difficult. In Pixels it looks like making it a lot harder to earn until you have trust. One sad thing we saw in Pixels is - the cheating in Web3 is really bad. A lot of loyal players were cheaters and we stopped a lot of thatin the last bit. Especially people you see in the community with lots of thoughts and opinions, and you find out they’re cheating. It’s very sad. We’d go through a lot of bot ban waves and it’s interesting because when you ban a big bot farm, they have nothing to lose, and they’ll go on Twitter, fud the game, and it’s tricky. We had bot farms in certain geographies for a while. We banned some industrial bot farms. They were employing hundreds of people to go bot Pixels. We caught them eventually, then they sent death threats, fud on Twitter about how the game sucks, etc. It’s this weird thing there. It’s a tricky problem but we have the most control over it than we’ve had in the last couple years by gating features. That’ll probably be the approach we’ll keep taking. We’re so aggressive on the bot protection, we do need to figure out how to make it friendly for new users. We’re going to introduce some new systems to earn and make it a lot easier to deliver earnings.

Q: Pixels team def did amazing on bot reduction, sorry again if I came off rude or wrong
You weren’t rude - we’ve seen newer games make big claims, and we know this is a big problem in Web3 games and we just want to be transparent. Is the game you’re investing your time in doing something about it? And if they are what is it?

Q: The VIP Prices are increased as Pixels prices are down but why the task board rewards are still low relative to this?
We’re introducing a new VIP system - there will be VIP tiers. There will be lower entry points into VIP, and it’ll be based on how much $PIXEL you spend to get into a new tier. It’s a cool system.

We’re going a back more into our roots - back into startup mindset. We’ll be listening to you guys a lot more again. Focused on completing core pixels. Narrow our focus. Ch3 will be highest priority. Now’s your time to give more feedback on ch3 and what it will and should look like. We’ll reveal more over the next week or two.