Skill Tree #14 - April 09

Apr 9, 2023

Shorter newsletter this week because travelling + jetlag + working + exploring Tokyo. Sorry~

🔥 Insight of the week

Building psychological attachment - not just ownership [🔗 Link]

Psychological ownership → loyalty, word-of-mouth, higher willingness-to-pay.
How to drive psychological ownership:
Ikea effect: people value something more if they invested time and effort in
Sense of control
Familiarity breeds liking. For example, when people feel like they master an app
Fitting the user’s concept of themselves
See how many points fit with gaming? Players invest a lot of time playing, watching streams, reading tutorials, creating content etc. Player agency is an important concept in game design, allowing players to control their experience within the rules set by the game. Lastly, mastery is key motivational driver along a player’s journey.
Crypto can alleviate this if used strategically. Stronger ownership rights through NFTs and tokens can motivate people to invest more of their time.

📚 Blog posts

The hybridcasual gamble [🔗 Link]
While hybridcasual games come with the potential of having low UA costs like hypercasual games but better monetization due to their progression systems and therefore higher retention, they also have longer development cycles, meaning longer time frames to break even (= higher risk).
Native hybridcasual teams may be at an advantage here over hypercasual studios making the switch now.
5 lessons learned from 10 years of Ingress [🔗 Link]
State of Blockchain Gaming in Q1 2023 [🔗 Link]
Overall activity as measured by active wallets (note: noisy data point) decreased ~9% QoQ.
Investments slightly up