Sayonara GOAT Gaming...
SIDELINED ALPHA 84
MARKET TALK
GOAT GAMING IS SHUTTING DOWN
GOAT Gaming (GG) announced this week that they’re sunsetting their products: GG, Gifts.Fun, Alpha Goats, and Amy Bot
For context, GOAT Gaming is AI infrastructure for (TG) games, Gifts.fun is a rewarded play and loot box platform, Alpha Goats are AI Agents that play and earn, and Amy Bot is a social AI agent
Note: Alpha Goats never got off the ground. Anybody who purchased them is eligible for a refund
After the announcement of the shutdown, Simon (the CEO) shared a post to add some context:
“While we saw strong early engagement (on TG), the ecosystem’s structural constraints, including ad fraud, bot traffic, and limited discoverability, made sustained growth difficult, and we ultimately didn’t reach a durable product-market fit.”
The platform is developed by Mighty Bear Games (now called WeAreMighty). Originally, the company entered crypto gaming with Mighty Action Heroes (MAH), a mobile top-down shooter, based on their successful game in Web2, Butter Royale
In August 2024, it introduced GG, and in July 2025, MAH was sunset for the team to focus on their new endeavors in AI
The company was rebranded from Mighty Bear Games to wearemighty only in Dec 2025, even though the pivot to AI already started 2 years earlier. In the letter that was shared at the time, Simon said:
“Wearemighty reflects a broader canvas than games alone. It represents a company that builds both content and the infrastructure behind it”
The studio raised $15M in total. It raised $10M during its first round in 2022, led by Framework Ventures, “through a token sale”. In 2025, it announced another $4M round led by TON Ventures, among others. The announcement mentioned that the funds will also be used to launch their $GG token
Note: I believe the $1M that’s missing here is the grant they received from the Singaporean government
Despite having raised funding through 2 “token rounds”, the GG token was never launched. So, I am curious about what the deals with the investors were, since the token never launched or will launch. With the company’s funding and its estimated burn rate, I don’t think a refund is in the books
On Gifts.fun, players could earn GG currency off-chain. Naturally, the expectation was that these tokens would lead to a conversion to an onchain version of GG at some point
As part of the platform winding down, players can now convert off-chain $GG into Crowns, which are used to buy Gems. Players need Gems to open loot boxes on the website. Interestingly, to be eligible for a withdrawal, you had to play 100 matches in games on the platform
GG never launched a token, but it did launch the GOAT Gaming NFT collection in July 2024. This new collection merged the old collections associated with Mighty Action Heroes. Unsurprisingly, the collection lost over 80% of its value after the shutdown announcement
On this topic, I think bagholding gaming NFTs has been one of my biggest financial mistakes to date, but I’ll leave those stories for another time
Overall, the team couldn’t find PMF and had to close its doors. That’s the reality for over 95% of companies operating in this space
I think we were even “deflationary” (lol) in January, because we saw more shutdowns/pivots than new token launches in this month
24 MORE LESSONS FROM 10 FOUNDERS
As part of our show Sidelined, we interview another builder every week. Every guest is building something different and has a unique story, with valuable insights to learn from
After having our 20th guest this week, it’s time for another recap of the best quotes and takeaways from our conversations. You can find part one of this series here (GC Alpha 73) and on my Twitter (see the tweet above), including the first 10 guests on the show
This segment has been condensed to a top 10 (1 quote + takeaway for every guest). You can find all 24 lessons with video clips in a future article on my Twitter
Connor Kirsten - XBORG
"Right now, we don't have a market maker. We're not listed on any centralized exchanges. So, we don't get affected by some of the unfortunate things that happen in the space. That protects our community quite a bit and gives them a lot more confidence to hold our token"
Early-stage tokens can build stronger trust by prioritizing control (no CEXs and no MMs) over scale
JW - Fishing Frenzy
“The perfect Web3 game is a game that Web3 natives like and enjoy and play, and usually it’s a game that embraces a lot of crypto’s ethos, but there’s a pathway to a larger audience”
What JW describes here is the path between 1 and 2. The game that has a crypto-enabled metalayer that lives outside of the core game loop, but can achieve scale as well. We have yet to see this scenario play out
Ben - Cambria
“Crypto is almost like a bad word…to a lot of people, it means Ponzi scheme...At this point, we're not even a crypto game anymore, can't even use that term anymore...Real-money trading is the terminology that makes sense"
To add, Luke Barwikowski (from Pixels) shared the following on this point in an article: “ads that mentioned crypto rewards performed 5–10x worse than equivalent ads framed as normal real-money rewards.”
There’s a negative connotation to the word “crypto”, so you have to meet users with the language (and mechanics) that they’re already familiar with
James - Galaxxia
"Wherever the eyeballs are, brands want to spend. And that's why gaming, and why we're in a very unique position, because when you sit and speak to brands, they want to spend money in gaming, but no game has been built with this (transition to creators) in mind"
Planet-X is positioned as a marketing platform in which brands are integral to the game loop. The hook of extracting physical items through a digital (game) loop is naturally shareable. Together, this creates an interesting platform for advertisers to spend marketing dollars on (at scale)
Kam Punia - Fableborne
“S4 was actually planned for May, and then we just realized we don’t have the full-blooded experience that we wanted, we don’t think we have the economic layer or systems and features that can support an economic layer around Fableborne…”
One of the key learnings from TGEs in 2024 - 2025 is that tokens should be introduced later in the lifecycle. A product’s ability to support a token launch often hinges on its maturity
Sinjin - MAYG
“A lot of game developers don’t really know about liveops. They know how to develop the game, how to do the lore...and then you look at what crypto is...post-TGE crypto, that is an entire ******* liveops”
In crypto, success is less about a defining moment and more about building momentum over time and turning it into something valuable. Post-TGE, teams need this “liveops mindset” to keep their token relevant and valuable
Skarly - OCH
“The season-based model’s meta progression was hurting us...We found that they (players) never wanted to join something...There are just so many negative emotions attached to S2 and beyond”
A timed season-over-season progression model can create emotional and structural baggage: (1) existing players lose motivations (2) new players feel excluded. Better models are a seasonal wipe (like Cambria) or a consistently live game (later in the lifecycle)
0xmons - StompGG
“It’s going to be difficult for a lot of these long tail things to catch a bid, unless they present themselves more like meme coins, or you have some other reason for people to want to buy it. And utility in games is often just not there”
Development cycles in gaming are long, especially compared to other product sectors in crypto. This means the time it takes for an “investment” to pay off is also much longer, requiring patient capital. CT values fast money, so naturally, this puts gaming at a disadvantage
Tuna - Pandemic Labs
“There are 3 points to crack to go viral. The 1st one is the concept […] you have to capture the attention within 1 second. How? It’s a one-liner. It’s like a YouTube video title”
“2nd point is the pre-launch strategy […] in the pre-launch phase, it’s 1000x easier to get attention than post-launch […] in crypto, people are always looking for alpha, people want to find you before shipping anything”
“The third part is a launch video […] In this attention economy, a launch video really works, because it makes people want to talk about your product”
To condense the first 3 quotes into bite-sized takeaways: (1) virality starts with an idea, not necessarily the product, (2) attention is the cheapest pre-launch, and (3) a launch video is your largest attention multiplier
Andrea - Beezie
“When I look at growth, there’s a direct correlation to how interesting we are stocking up our claws, what’s the inventory that people want at that moment, and then eventually growing categories beyond that”
In the collectibles market, growth is not only driven by scaling UA, but also through demand creation through timing, inventory curation, and expansion to new product categories
Raiden and I are happy to have already had 20 guests on our show and are excited to keep pushing it forward. Will you be the next guest on Sidelined? Our DMs are open
ON THE RISE
Disclaimer: None of this information should be taken as financial advice. My writings only represent my personal opinions. DYOR + I will hold some of the assets mentioned in this newsletter.