BGA brought together three gaming experts to tackle the biggest challenge in Web3 gaming: how do you actually get and keep players in 2025?
The speakers know this problem inside out. Alexander Jivov runs global partnerships at SKALE Labs, the world’s largest gaming blockchain. Timothy Tello founded 3thix, an ad tech company recreating lost mobile advertising tools. Heidi Christine is CMO of Pixels, one of Web3’s biggest success stories.
Their message was clear: the old playbook isn’t working anymore.
Why Community Beats Growth Hacks
Most people think growth works like this: run a campaign, get users, celebrate. But Heidi from Pixels says that’s backwards.
“People always want me to tell them ‘do this one thing and you’ll grow like crazy,'” she explained. “But if you put all your resources into campaigns and there’s nothing sticky, it’s just wasted resources.”
Real growth looks messy. It goes up with a campaign, levels out, goes up again, levels out again. The secret isn’t the campaigns – it’s what happens between them.
The “Farmer Friendly” Approach
Pixels built something they call “farmer friendly” culture. It means welcoming, family-friendly, no swearing allowed. Sounds simple, but it works.
They do weekly AMAs every Wednesday for an hour. Live stream. Answer questions. Talk about what’s new, what’s coming, what their goals are. They’ve done this for three years straight.
“Trust me, it can be nasty in that comment section sometimes,” Heidi said. “But what it has done is really bring us to our users in a pretty unique way.”
The result? They’re now technically one of the biggest podcasts in Web3. And their users become evangelists.
Giving Communities a Home
Three years ago, Pixels started integrating NFT profile picture collections as avatars in their game. Back then, this was weird. Now everyone does it.
“I used to joke that we were giving utility to JPEGs,” Heidi said. They gave NFT communities a place to hang out beyond Discord.
Now they see communities either building inside Pixels or creating new collections just to represent themselves there. They’re strengthening micro-communities and giving them a real home.
The foundation works because it’s authentic. Players feel like they belong somewhere, not just like they’re being sold to.
When Advertising Stopped Working
Gaming used to have a simple formula: spend money on ads, get players, make money from those players. That formula is broken.
Timothy from 3thix explains the damage: “990,000 people have lost their jobs this year because they can’t monetize in video games anymore.”
The culprit? The death of IDFA – Apple’s Identifier for Advertisers.
What We Lost
IDFA let advertisers track everything. What you typed on your iPhone. What you searched on your MacBook. Where you went online. It cost about $32 to find a paying player, but you could target them precisely.
When Apple killed IDFA for privacy reasons, that targeting disappeared overnight.
Now three to five big games hold 70% of all ad money. Why? They’re the only ones with enough users to make AI assumptions about who their audience is. “13 to 17-year-old males, 22 to 48-year-old women, whatever,” Timothy said.
For everyone else, ad values dropped from 10 cents or a dollar to less than a cent.
The Trust Problem
But the real issue runs deeper than targeting. Players don’t trust ads anymore. Publishers don’t trust advertisers. Advertisers don’t trust the data.
“No one wants to see an ad,” Timothy said bluntly. “The only value to an ad right now is Mark Zuckerberg gets all the money.”
The current system takes your time and data to make ads valuable, then keeps all the money. Meanwhile, indie game developers can’t compete with the big studios who have the budget and data to make advertising work.
This is why the industry needs a completely different approach – one that gives value back to players instead of extracting it from them.
Players Get Paid for Their Data
Timothy’s company 3thix found a way around the broken ad system. Instead of tracking people, they track wallets.
“We don’t ask for their identity,” he explained. “I look at it very similar to social security numbers. The government doesn’t know me as Tim – they know me as a nine series of numbers.”
Same principle with wallets. They don’t need to know you’re Sarah from Chicago. They just need to know what wallet address bought what items.
Reading the Receipt
Here’s how it works: they take every payment receipt from games they work with. Apply it to a custodial wallet. Then advertise directly to that wallet.
“We never know who you are. We know who you play with, what games you like, what things you transact with.”
The data is actually better than the old system. “I Google random things,” Timothy said. “Google means nothing to what a person actually cares about. But what you buy? That matters.”
The Football Example
Say you’re playing Madden football. You buy a Dallas Cowboys jersey and an Emmitt Smith trading card. From just those two purchases, they can guess you’re probably from Texas and definitely over 30 years old.
“If you aren’t over 30, how do you know who Emmitt Smith is?”
AI takes those micro-level decisions and builds assumptions. No name needed. No personal data collected. Just purchasing behavior.
Players Get Paid
The biggest change? Players get the money.
“It’s your time and time is the only thing of value in this world,” Timothy said. “If it’s my time and my data making that ad valuable, I should get the money for that.”
They work like affiliate marketers. Make money only when someone actually converts. Give the ad revenue back to players who watched the ads.
“If you’re watching the ad, you should get paid for it. And if you want to go play Pixels with that money, you have every right to do so.”
Mark Zuckerberg has no right to take money from your time and data.
Turn Players Into Creators
Most gaming companies think they need influencers. Find someone with a million followers, pay them to talk about your game, hope it works.
Pixels took a different path. They turned their players into creators.
The Creator Program That Actually Works
“We haven’t really done a lot of paid KOL marketing,” Heidi said. “But we have an extremely successful content creator program.”
Anyone can join. Don’t matter how many followers you have. Follow the guidelines, create content about Pixels, get rewarded.
They just launched creator codes. When someone buys something in-game using your code, you get a kickback and the buyer gets a discount. Both sides win.
Growing From Within
The best part? These creators grew organically from their player base.
“A lot of our creators are users that have been around for years. Their friend created a video and they’re like ‘that’s cool, I want to do that.’ Then they start doing it and tell their friends about it.”
It becomes this natural cycle. Players become creators, creators bring friends, friends become players, some become creators themselves.
Real Creators vs. Paid Promoters
Timothy was blunt about the difference: “Every KOL I’ve ever met – it’s money first, promotion second. That’s not who you want to work with ever.”
Real creators love the games first. They play because they enjoy it, then share because they’re excited. KOLs see dollar signs first, engagement second.
“There are 4 billion gamers in the world. We need to focus elsewhere” instead of chasing the same paid influencers everyone else uses.
The Mr. Beast Model
Timothy’s previous company used what they called “the Mr. Beast model.” Give people money to give away in tournaments.
“We were getting people for like three cents a user and retaining them forever. Getting the largest Fortnite tournaments in the world. The world champion won one week, next week he’s playing in our tournament and losing.”
No paid influencers. Just players who loved competitive gaming and had fun giving away prizes to other players.
The lesson: authentic community beats bought promotion every time.
Games Work Better Together
Alexander from SKALE Labs sees a bigger picture. Instead of each game fighting for users alone, what if they worked together?
“People naturally gravitate to similar style games,” he explained. “I play Minecraft, then I’ll play everything Minecraft-adjacent, then just go in that circle for a while.”
That’s normal gamer behavior. So why not build around it?
The Hub Strategy
SKALE consolidates games at the technology level. All the gamers end up in one place. This creates what Alexander calls “a rising tide lifts all ships situation.”
Players explore new games. Join new communities. Learn about blockchain through different games that each have interesting takes on the technology.
“We’ve had gamers in our network for three-plus years, longer than I’ve been there. That’s a miracle in this space.”
Natural Cross-Pollination
The creativity happens organically. Blockchain enables things impossible in traditional gaming.
“They’ll design their own shared collections. Have shared events across different universes that usually aren’t related to each other. Shared airdrops. Things that are not possible in the web two space.”
Players rent intellectual property between games. Share NFTs as profile pictures across different worlds. Create collections that work in multiple games.
This draws both Web3 natives who understand the tech and Web2 players curious about what’s possible.
The Retention Advantage
Most games see retention drop like this: sharp decline after launch. But when games work together in an ecosystem, players cycle between them instead of leaving entirely.
“If you’re having games in silos, the moment their retention drops, that’s it,” Alexander said. “We’re really lucky that we have some of the best retention in the space because we can keep communities basically cycling and trying new things.”
Pixels Opens Up
Pixels is experimenting with this approach too. They’re opening their ecosystem to more games so different types of users can all use the Pixel token.
Heidi mentioned they did their first publishing deal in December. “In two weeks we saw revenue of around $54,000 Pixel. We were like ‘ah, this works.'”
Now they’re building an app and other projects they can’t talk about publicly yet.
The beauty of having a token? You have capital to experiment with that you probably wouldn’t have in traditional gaming.
Stop Chasing Crypto Users
The panel’s biggest frustration? The entire Web3 gaming industry is hunting the same tiny audience.
“We’re all chasing the same 30 million bozos around,” Timothy said. “There are 4 billion gamers in the world. We need to focus elsewhere.”
The Web2 vs Web3 Mistake
Alexander thinks the whole Web2 versus Web3 conversation is broken.
“The moment you start subdividing your market between Web2 and Web3, your model is broken. Now you’re running two different organizations for no reason. You’re shooting yourself in the foot.”
SKALE calls itself “the invisible blockchain experience.” They’re not trying to change games or force them to become “blockchain games.” They’re infrastructure that enables new capabilities.
Build Games First
The winning approach? Build a great game first. Make sure it has engaging story, mechanics, and gameplay. Build community while you’re building the game.
“You build a game. You decide from the outside what you want to accomplish with blockchain. But you’re not using it as part of your user acquisition unless you’re specifically going after Web3 gamers.”
For most games, the message should be simple: “We have digital collectibles. This is what it’s going to enable you to do. These are the gameplay elements. Here’s the game. Enjoy.”
The Friction Problem
Timothy has been saying this for years: “We’re way too DeFi in Web3. We need to stop.”
“I’ve gotten kicked off stages from people who were like ‘we need non-custodial wallets.’ No gaming company uses non-custodial wallets to this day. They’re not going to.”
Make Life Easy
“Think of everything that’s been a billion-dollar company over the last five years. You no longer have to get up to answer your door. We have to make life easy. If it’s not easy, no one’s going to do it.”
The Roblox Example
Timothy’s favorite example? Roblox switched to a single currency model in 2015. They doubled their revenue every year for seven years until they hit a $59 billion market cap.
“When Visa came to America and we had credit cards, the GDP of America went up 40%. Why do you go to a casino and use casino chips? Because if you were betting with a dollar, you probably wouldn’t bet as much.”
Creating an economy of scale works. Blockchain has this capability built into its core.
“We can create token models around gaming economies. We can create publishing models. We can subsidize indie developers to have one token model across 30, 40 games.”
“It passes the mom test. Moms will buy that token, turn around, give it to them, and then it’ll scale from there.”
The answer isn’t chasing crypto natives. It’s making blockchain so easy that regular gamers don’t even notice they’re using it.
Key Insights
Growth isn’t linear. It goes up with campaigns, levels out, goes up again. The real work happens between campaigns – building something sticky that keeps people around.
Community beats marketing. Pixels turned players into evangelists through weekly AMAs and authentic culture building. That works better than any paid campaign.
Transaction data trumps browsing data. What people actually buy tells you more about them than what they search for. Google searches mean nothing. Purchase receipts mean everything.
Players should get paid for ads. If your time and data make ads valuable, you should get the money. Not Mark Zuckerberg.
Real creators love games first. Every successful content creator program grows from players who genuinely enjoy the game. KOLs care about money first, games second.
Games work better together. When games share ecosystems, players cycle between them instead of leaving entirely. Higher retention for everyone.
Stop subdividing the market. There’s no “Web2 vs Web3 gamers.” There are just gamers. Build great games first, then add blockchain features that enhance gameplay.
Make it invisible. The best blockchain games don’t feel like blockchain games. They feel like great games that happen to have some cool digital ownership features.
4 billion gamers exist. Stop fighting over 30 million crypto users. Build for the massive gaming market that already loves spending money on digital items.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you build retention without paying for it?
Start with culture. Pixels built “farmer friendly” – welcoming, family-friendly, no swearing. Then be accessible. Do weekly AMAs where leadership talks directly to players. Give communities actual homes in your game, not just Discord channels.
What’s the biggest mistake in Web3 gaming marketing?
Chasing other blockchain games’ players instead of going after the 4 billion regular gamers. You’re fighting over scraps when there’s a massive market that already buys digital items.
How does wallet-based advertising work?
Track wallet addresses, not people. Look at what they buy in games, not what they browse online. Use AI to make assumptions about preferences based on purchase patterns. Pay players for watching ads instead of keeping all the money.
Should we pay influencers to promote our game?
No. Build creator programs from your existing players instead. Give anyone tools to make content about your game and get rewarded for it. Players who love your game make better advocates than paid promoters.
Why don’t non-custodial wallets work for games?
Too much friction. No successful gaming company uses them. Players want to play games, not manage private keys. Make blockchain invisible to users.
How do cross-game ecosystems help with user acquisition?
When games share technology and tokens, players explore multiple games instead of leaving entirely when they get bored. Your retention problems become shared retention benefits.
What’s the “mom test” for blockchain games?
If a mom can’t easily buy your token and give it to her kid to use across multiple games, you’ve overcomplicated it. Think Roblox’s single currency model.
How do you compete with big studios who dominate advertising?
Don’t play their game. Build authentic communities, turn players into creators, and focus on retention over acquisition. Big studios can’t replicate genuine community relationships.
What should indie developers focus on first?
Build a great game with engaging mechanics. Create community while building. Use blockchain to enhance gameplay, not as a marketing gimmick. Keep it simple and player-focused.