Wildcard - A Game built to be watched

Building a game for players, competitors, streamers and viewers

Dec 28, 2023

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Who?

Wildcard, the latest Games' Choice Award winner, is a fresh take on the massively popular collectible card game and MOBA genres, built by Katy and Paul Bettner on the Polygon blockchain network. The game has been in development since 2017 and both founders saw web3 as the perfect fit for their vision, as it gives the team the ability to share created value with the players, content creators, viewers and holders of their NFTs. Backed by Paradigm, Griffin Gaming Partners and a $46 million funding round, the team has been building for well over 6 years, slowly making the game playable to a small player base since mid-2023 and now letting more people join in on the playtesting action.

What stands out in their approach, is the emphasis on proper gameplay presentation from a spectator’s perspective. The game has been designed to offer the best possible streaming experience since inception, as the team understands how important this medium of content distribution has become. People should enjoy playing the game first and foremost, but watching it has to be equally enjoyable. This is a very interesting angle that few teams recognize the value of and that separates Wildcard from the typical game.

The NFTs

The Genesis Wildpass:

❖ First NFT collection of the Wildcard ecosystem.

❖ 4444 NFTs were minted for 44 Matic each on the Polygon blockchain network in April 2023.

❖ They “provide exclusive opportunities and access to the Wildcard Universe”.

The exact utility of the Wildpass isn’t disclosed but we know a few things that are already activated:

❖ There is a gated holder-only chat with exclusive announcements.

❖ Priority access to gameplay, this will be recorded in the Wildfile.

❖ Exclusive holder events.

❖ Partner promos and giveaways (like 250 Overworld mint spots recently for example).

❖ Forever allowlist.

There are also a couple of things that are listed as “upcoming”:

❖ Holder-only airdrops.

❖ Wildcard raffles and giveaways.

❖ First access to new programs and features.

❖ IRL Opportunities.

❖ And more to come.

All in all, the Wildpass will always be a major component of the Wildcard ecosystem and provide holders with multiple opportunities along the way. It is to note, that Paul has talked about designing an open player economy on multiple occasions on shows like Gamified - by the way, Gamified is the best web3 gaming show in the space by far, if you want to listen to the crème de la crème of founders sharing knowledge and debating various web3 gaming topics, give it a listen. Every Wednesday, 4pm EST on X/Twitter and you can also listen back on Spotify. Also, Lemz and Sam are two of the very best people in this space.

So back to open player economies, Paul went on Gamified #37 to debate pro tokens vs no tokens and ended up on the no token side. He put forth a strong argument, but after the debate when asked what his real opinion was, he showed to be open to the value of tokens in a gaming ecosystem. “If we are calling ourselves web3 game developers and we are not trying tackle this problem, we are cowards”.

He does acknowledge that it is a difficult challenge to build an experience for both, the players playing the game and for the collector/investor that wants to be part of the overall ecosystem without directly interacting with the core game. The financial side of things shouldn’t interfere with the fun and entertainment of the gameplay, the goal is to implement mechanisms that cater to both types of users, without having them collide and break your economy.

The Wildfile:

❖ The Wildfile represents your identity in the Wildcard universe.

❖ It is a soulbound token, so a non-tradeable NFT. You can attach multiple wallets to one Wildfile though.

❖ It is a record of all your achievements, affiliations, collections, your status and more.

❖ You can think of it as a “bio, gamer tag, trophy case and status tracker all rolled up into one sleek, easy-to-use package”.

❖ It is on-chain, so it is a permanent record.

❖ There is a leaderboard that tracks attendance and participation in “WildEvents”. There is a point system and there will be rewards.

Paul has publicly stated that they will track Wildfile activity and reward active members. Having an on-chain record that holds info on activity, participation, collections, etc. can prove to be a powerful tool to reward your community in a fair and transparent (!!) way.

Current State of PlayWildcard

As mentioned previously, PlayWildcard has been in development for close to 7 years now. This gives the game a level of gameplay depth and polish that is very rare in the web3 gaming space (for now). Having emphasized the quality of presentation, the game creates a certain atmosphere when playing. The stadium, the crowd, the sounds, the available camera angles…everything has been put together to create an enjoyable experience for the viewer, while still promoting high quality, competitive gameplay packed with action.

The game has been tested for several months now, with regular playtests for holders each week. The reception is very positive overall and for me personally, it is one of the best web3 games I have ever played. The team will open up accessibility for playtests gradually, so if you want to try it out, keep an eye out for opportunities!

You can currently play with two different “champions” and then can build a deck with various “summons”. Champions are controlled by the player (MOBA element) who can then summon cards (summons – TCG element) to defend the lanes and the goal. The game offers a unique combination of collecting, deck building, real-time strategy and competitive arena gameplay. Defend your lanes, summon creatures, defeat enemies and score on your opponent once the path is free.

More champions and summons will continuously be added to the game and the gameplay will gain depth over time. The game is astonishingly fun and isn’t all too repetitive, even though we don’t have a lot of variety for champions/summons. This is very promising in my opinion, this gameloop should be a ton of fun and offer complex strategies to those who want to compete at the highest level down the line.

The Team

The Wildcard Alliance team is full of gaming industry veterans that have already worked together prior to building PlayWildcard, which is a huge asset when building such an ambitious title. They know each other and have proven production pipelines they can use to ship efficiently and meet deadlines.

Many web3 teams severely underestimate, sometimes on purpose, how difficult it is to build out a real gaming ecosystem. This team isn’t one of those. They know exactly what they are doing and have proven themselves over the years. How many games have minted 2 years before even having the slightest shadow of a product? A proper AAA gaming title takes 5-10 years and eight-digit funding at the very least. To have a team that has ample experience, members that know each other well and have worked together, has a track record in cutting-edge environments and high-level funding, is a very strong fundament to build upon as a gaming studio.

A short breakdown on a few key members of their team:

❖ Paul Bettner. The man gets a section of his own…stay tuned.

❖ Katy Bettner. Worked in Hollywood and has a lot of experience in everything related to the film industry. Her experience is tremendously important to focus on the viewer perspective and creating a special atmosphere for every game.

❖ Chelsea Maag. Business Development Director since 2023, previously worked at Amazon and later Immutable.

❖ Jeff Smith as VP of Engineering, close to 20 years of experience in the gaming industry across various positions.

❖ Mark Stanley Martínez. Board member, Ex Vice President of Gaming at Microsoft (Xbox)

❖ Justin Taylor. Advisor, Ex Nike, Twitter, Activision and WWE.

❖ Ami Defesche. Director of Community, the team has been excellent at communicating with the community, which is a crucial part of web3. I can’t stress enough how amazing an organic community is from a marketing perspective. You won’t get a cheaper and more effective marketing division than that.

❖ Many team members that helped build Age of Empires 2, Words with Friends and Lucky’s Tale.

❖ And many more…

Paul Bettner

Why does Paul get a section of his own? Glad you asked. Amongst all the big builders and great founders we have in web3, Paul still stands out. He has a track record that is almost unbelievable and fits the cutting-edge nature of this space perfectly. I’ll walk you through the important parts of the story:

❖ Paul started his career in gaming very young, immediately joined Ensemble Studios and helped create one of the best games ever (objectively), Age of Empires 2.

❖ In 2008, he decided to found Newtoy and developed Words with Friends which later became one of the most played mobile games ever. Just 2 years later, he sold the company for $180 million to Zynga and became their Vice President and General Manager.

❖ After founding Playful Studios in 2012, the company that is now building PlayWildcard, he created Lucky’s Tale. The game was developed for the Oculus Rift and had a rather positive reception for an early VR game.

❖ In 2017 he decided to start building Wildcard and has been busy intertwining the genres of TCG and MOBA into a real-time strategy game ever since. He was able to keep parts of the team together and secured a large amount of funding ($46M) to build out the ecosystem in a sustainable way, without having to depend on a volatile space where sentiment and availability of funding shifts quickly.

Paul has been successful in everything he does that is gaming related and has shown to be more than willing to dive into extremely promising markets early, establishing himself as a true pioneer. Desktop gaming wasn’t what it is today back in the late 90’s. Mobile gaming was laughed at in 2008. But both proved to be incredibly strong markets that grew quickly and became some of the most lucrative gaming markets out there.

The excellence in execution paired with the ability to understand, identify and cater to high potential future markets very early on, is incredibly rare. Doing so multiple times even more so. Add to that a great feel for the community, a healthy mix of kindness and decisiveness, a lot of transparency and the beard of beards and you basically get Paul Bettner. And yes, before you ask, I am a Paul Bettner Fan. I played a lot of Age of Empires 2 back in the days and it is a real pleasure to have legends like Paul in our industry.

Key Statistics

Wildcard Statistics:

❖ $46 million in funding and a team of over 100 people (may be less now, info is from 2021-2022)

❖ 52,615 followers on Twitter, 113,505 discord members.

❖ After having constant numbers on discord, they started to rise sharply towards the end of October. Wildcard gained over 70,000 new discord members over a couple of weeks.

❖ The Wildpass Genesis NFT is trading around 0.44 ETH (around 1200 Matic at the time of writing), after minting for 44 Matic about 8 months ago, which comes down to a x27 in Matic value.

❖ 478 ETH of volume, 3% listed and about 35% of unique holders.

TCG Statistics:

❖ The TCG market size was evaluated at around $6.39 billion in 2022.

❖ It is expected to grow continuously and reach over $11.5B in 2030.

❖ Between 2023 and 2030 this market is expected to increase at a CAGR of about 7.69%.

❖ In 2022, North America dominated the industry with a 50% market share and this dominance is expected to grow larger in the coming years.

❖ Hearthstone is the most viewed TCG on twitch by a wide margin, having been watched over 3.38 million hours in the last 7 days. Second is Yu-Gi-Oh! Master Duel with 791k hours and third is Magic: The Gathering with 617k hours viewed. As a comparison, Fortnite has been viewed 23M hours, COD Moder Warfare 10M hours and Apex Legends has been viewed for about 4.86M hours in the same time span (Top3 games for Battle Royale over the last 7 days).

❖ There are about 5.82 million monthly active Hearthstone players.

MOBA Statistics:

❖ Honor of Kings had $103 million in revenue in November 2023 alone (!!).

❖ Honor of Kings has well over $10 billion in lifetime revenue.

❖ Mobile MOBA saw $300 million of spending per month in 2021.

❖ MOBA consistently ranks amongst the most popular gaming genres.

❖ League of Legends has been viewed for 22.35 million hours in the past 7 days.

❖ 88,145 creators streamed League of Legends content.

❖ League of Legends has about 135 million monthly active players.

Additional Insights

As a TCG x MOBA real time strategy game, there is a lot of potential regarding competitive gameplay. The team has been very clear that they want to build a game that suits the competitive gaming scene and want to create the optimal experience for players, content creators and especially for viewers. Making the experience more rewarding for the viewer is a clever approach to try and tackle an industry that has gotten into serious troubles over the last few years. The big picture potential for eSports is incredible, but many leagues and teams have recently had serious funding issues. An increased focus on viewers could be a potential solution that brings in more revenue to the entire industry and makes the entire experience more personal.

Creating experiences that feel much more personal is crucial if you want to scale revenue in a sustainable way as a competitive league that aims to entertain viewers. For eSports specifically, most viewers do not have that deep and personal connection that most fans have in sports for example. Sport club fans see their teams as parts of their regular life, and this is the exact feeling that teams and leagues need to recreate, if they want to harness the enormous potential that the eSports industry brings to the table. Embracing the viewers is a big step in the right direction.

The team is planning a big tournament. There isn’t a lot of info out there, but from the way the team talked about it, I expect a sizeable prize pool. Paul spoke about it in Gamified #37 when talking about the owned league and their $1 million tournament: “[…] Wildcard was going to be the first one to plant the flag and have a $1 million tournament […]”.

The Wildfile system will be used to reward players, content creators and viewers. This gives the team a very strong tool to improve user acquisition and increase retention, both of which being key parts of creating a sustainable ecosystem. This is one of the biggest advantages of web3, its infrastructure allows for an efficient sharing of value with your userbase, which motivates players to play more and interact with your ecosystem in a more sustainable way. If you are presented with 2 equally fun games and one redistributes value back to you (the player, the viewer, the content creator, the professional player, etc.), then you will always choose the option that shares a piece of the pie with you. But backing the value through entertainment is essential if you want to have a sustainable, non-extractionary ecosystem.

Outlook

Things are looking good for 2024. We have a playable game that is being built since 2017 and the gameplay is fun and competitive, while having beautiful graphics that make the experience as immersive as it gets. It has been tested internally for a long time and semi-publicly (regular tests by holders and there also were a few open playtests) for the last couple of months. The game has been updated continuously, new elements have been introduced and the overall game has gradually been opened to the wider public.

On top of this, we have two of the most genuine and creative founders out there, with skillsets that are very complementary to each other. Both aren’t building in this space for money, they have had enough success in the past to not worry about the financial aspect. They are both driven by the passion to make a great game, which is an excellent foundation for building successfully and sustainably.

The emphasis on presentation is such a unique feature, that should create a truly immersive experience for the viewer, if implemented properly. Giving them specifically tailored camera angles, integrating viewers in the stands and rewarding engagement through the Wildfile system, creates an ecosystem that brings players, streamers, competitors and viewers together in a fair and transparent way. Viewers are a big part of the success of a franchise, but they are never properly integrated in the ecosystem.

Paul talked about teams making the mistake to picture a customer as someone who purchases something from the game directly. But in reality, the issue is much more complicated than that and has many layers. A lot of value for ecosystems comes from the interaction with the IP, not the purchase of a product and viewers are an integral part of those interactions, even if they have never played the game themselves.

It will be interesting to watch how the team approaches the implementation of new champions, summons and arenas, while working on gameplay balance. The integration of the progression loop will be a fundamental part of 2024 and 2025, as it will give players a reason to play, collect and brag about their collection. Paired with efforts to enter the competitive scene and hosting some tournaments, the next months and years should be packed with updates that help the game mature.

To close this piece, I’ll say this. If we forget all financial outlooks and perspectives of the assets, if I had to bet on one single team and game to make it to mainstream, I’d choose Wildcard. From a casual perspective, the game is pretty and fun, while from a competitive perspective it unifies high-level deck building, fast-paced real-time strategic decision-making and engaging, skill-based gameplay. If you look at it from a consumer perspective, the approach of focusing on the viewer experience is nothing short of genius. The team recently went to DreamHack, one of the biggest events for games to attend to, and the reception was very very positive. This is an excellent indicator for sentiment on pure gameplay and fun level.