Let’s talk about Web3 gaming. This might be the lowest sentiment point I’ve seen in a long time but now is the time to be lighthearted. There are teams in Web3 making amazing things and Pixels has had a high uptrend on Return on Rewards Spend (RORS). We’ve seen things that indicate we’re working towards sustainability. The signals over the last few weeks have been quite positive and it seems the sentiment in Core Pixels is the best I’ve seen in the last 6-12 months. Everybody in our community sees a positive uptrend with gameplay, where things are going and the direction of Pixels because of a couple of different things:
Building out sustainable earnings models.
The team has been building better content and gameplay (Merchant Ships update and Chapter 3). Initial MS and Chapter 3 feedback have both been very positive.
Targeted earnings and rewarded offers.
We’ve changed strategy over the last 6 months. In 2024, Pixels saw strong traction but wasn’t sustainable. Spend vs. Earnings was lopsided and we gave out far more rewards than we brought in. To fix this, we brought in experienced people from Web2 and adopted monetization best practices, like Live Ops events with micro-transaction style mechanics. By early 2025, we realized this approach wasn’t working. Spend spikes were high, but not balanced with rewards, showing Web2 practices wouldn’t be sustainable long-term in Pixels. Now, we’re focused on building features players actually want. If we stay on this path over the next year, Pixels can reach a point where Web2 players find it genuinely fun.
It’s fair to feel nervous about the future of Web3 gaming, but we have a plan on how to turn that around. There’s no belief in any alt coin right now and I just went into this on the Blockchain Gaming World podcast. I explained where I think the market is at, why we’re not seeing belief in alt coins and what you might need to do to change that.
Chapter 3 Updates
Chapter 3 is doing a lot of what we intended it to do. There are some tweaks to be made and those are in the works, but sentiments have been positive:
We’ve had around 7,000 active players in just the last week!
The last session had 45,500 Sabotages and 35,000 Deposits.
Member percentages per Union this past session:
Wildgroves: 50%
Reapers: 30%
Seedwrights: 20%
Questions from the AMA
How do I know when the next session is?
There’s an hourglass in Hearth Hall that you can click on. The next one is tonight at Midnight UTC.
Any chance you are going to make it so Ch3 is not everyone and their grandma joining green team and actually have some competition between 3 Unions?
There’s ways we can balance it. If a Union loses we can give them a boost or advantage for next round. There’s a few different mechanics we could potentially add, like when a Union loses we could give them a head start next time, or if a Union is lagging behind we could give them a boost halfway through.
How about explaining the color of gems above the fireplace?
It indicates leaderboard placement: first (blue), second (yellow), and third (red).
It’s all good but you need to nerf Flints by TB and increase the Verdant and Hollow stones. There are too much Flint that we are getting but can’t use because there is no health to them
We looked into it and the taskboard is balanced.
It would be nice if those who participated in the Union will get notifications if the session has already started or ended. What do you think?
It would be awesome to and we will see if it’s possible.
The sessions are too short
We agree. We thought it would be at least a week. After every session the team has been taking a look, and there’s been live updates already. The team is continuing to do balancing and it’s feeling better each time. There’s also self-balancing that will come out of this system.
I AM EXCITED FOR CALYPS HOSTING PIXEL SOCIAL DUNGEONS^^
Congrats to Calyps! We will let everyone know when it’s happening and we should all go participate when it does.
When are we going to see the next big thing in the Merchant Ships store? Also can we see rewards in MS like Tiki’s?
We’re thinking about tying in Union gameplay into Merchant Ships. That would be a little time away for the team to work on it. There are no more Tiki’s.
What would be the other endgame features? Will there be some upcoming events or games that’ll give some $PIXEL rewards?
The competition strategy and mechanics of Chapter 3 have been popular and we want to see if it’s something we should keep doing. We will double down on this type of direction (competitive elements) for Chapter 4 if things continue to do well. We also want the community to help us decide how Chapter 4 will look, so we might have you vote on that. The strategy of shipping smaller releases that we can build on top of more often also might be the way to go.
What about the pets app?
Chubkins is a social-style Tamagotchi game. We aren’t pushing it at the moment but it is free to download and play. We want to run ads and target Web2 users to see how they play the game so we can understand how to acquire a Web2 user base and to see how it performs without any earning mechanics. The game without earning mechanics is performing okay and trending in a positive direction, but there are a lot of tweaks needed before adding an earning mechanic. We want to improve the game with data first before pushing it into the community.
My pet died like 50 times
This is part of the feedback we’ve received and we agree. This is the type of stuff we’re testing first in the early stages. This is why we’re not releasing it everywhere in the world until it’s balanced.
When will $vPIXEL fully replace $PIXEL in-game?
We have an interesting $vPIXEL mechanic. We’ll share more in the next month or two and will integrate it into the game a lot more soon.
Is Neo like Ronin Arcade?
There’s a lot of differences. What Ronin is doing is great but the offers aren’t as targeted and precise. You have to make sure you’re getting the right offers to the right people (i.e. each person has different spending abilities).
At this rate of extraction from the game, it will likely die. Do you have any plans to make players more and attract new players?
Tokens across Web3 aren’t performing well, and $PIXEL has followed the trend. There are no retail buyers right now. Web3 gaming needs to prove it’s sustainable and capable of attracting a Web2 audience. That’s why we’ve introduced new gameplay mechanics, Chapter 3, a reward offer system, and soon, Web2 user acquisition. The ideal outcome is for $PIXEL to become a stake-only token: no emissions, still play-to-earn, and with real utility through staking. We’re making the right moves and starting to see results. The goal is to keep the game sustainable with RORS between 1.1 and 1.5, grow daily active users, and scale revenue through games and products that strengthen the ecosystem and token.