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Block by Block: A Show on Web3 Growth Marketing
Each week, I sit down with the innovators and builders shaping the future of crypto and web3.
Growth isn’t a sprint; it’s a process—built gradually, step by step, block by block.
Let’s build something incredible, together. All onchain.
Block by Block: A Show on Web3 Growth Marketing
[AUDIO] Heidi Christine: Retention Over Hype and How Pixels is Building for the Long-term
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Summary
In this episode, Heidi Christine, CMO of Pixels, shares how the team prioritized retention over hyper-growth to build one of the most active communities in Web3 gaming. She breaks down the philosophy behind Pixels’ “farmer-friendly” culture, the strategies used to onboard Web2 players, and the importance of meeting users where they are. Heidi also reflects on her own path—from engineering to leading marketing at a major gaming project—and the lessons learned along the way. The conversation touches on the role of blockchain in enhancing (not complicating) user experience, the decision to build on Ronin, and why fun, not financialization, must stay at the heart of game design.
Takeaways
— Retention is more valuable than raw growth in Web3 games
— A strong, welcoming culture builds sticky communities
— Web2 players can be onboarded when the experience feels familiar
— Blockchain should be additive to gameplay, not a barrier
— Heidi’s non-linear career path highlights the value of diverse backgrounds
— Transparency and communication strengthen user trust
— Ecosystem support from a layer one like Ronin can be transformative
— Game design must prioritize fun over financial mechanics
— Collaborating with gaming guilds accelerates community growth
— Listening to players leads to better product decisions
Timeline
(00:00) Intro to Pixels and its vision
(02:55) Why retention > growth
(05:58) Building a farmer-friendly culture
(08:46) Bringing Web2 users into Web3
(11:54) Heidi’s journey from engineer to CMO
(20:04) Leading one of Web3’s biggest games
(26:05) How blockchain fits into Pixels
(28:05) Why Pixels chose Ronin
(30:32) Guild partnerships and community building
(34:21) Using community input in dev
(36:35) Ronin’s impact on growth
(40:34) What’s next for the Pixels ecosystem
(44:40) Inspiration and humanity in game design
Follow me @shmula on X for upcoming episodes and to get in touch with me.
See other Episodes Here. And thank you to all our crypto and blockchain guests.
Heidi Christine, CMO of Pixels. Welcome to the show. I'm so happy to be here. Thank you for having me. Now we've had other gaming and metaverse type projects on the show. And I think what's unique about Pixels is you guys have a ton of players. I believe the last time I checked there were 10 million total players. So I'm gonna start there. How did you guys get to that level of those numbers? That's pretty amazing. Yeah, it's pretty remarkable for a Web3 project, that's for sure. um You know, I get asked this question a lot. I get asked, how do I grow? What is your growth strategy? What is the growth hack? And I have a few answers to that because it's not as simple and linear as people want it to be. They want me to give them the golden ticket to how to grow your period, your project, no matter what it is, right? And what I think a lot of people... don't recognize is, first of all, retention matters more than growth. It's easier to retain an existing user than to get a new one. So you can do all the growth hacks in the world, but if it's not sticky, if there's not substance there that people want to spend their precious time uh participating in, then they're just going to move on to the next project. it's almost like wasted um time and effort and money um if there's no retention there. So instead of growth, usually like start, let's start with retention, right? For us, it's been community and our game and all of that. um The other answer I have to growth questions is um it's not linear at all. I think a lot of people just think, It goes like this, like, you get users and you just keep getting users and that's just like how it happens, but it's not at all. It goes like this, right? And it might go down a little bit and then it goes up, you know, ideally. um So you do your growth hack and hopefully they stick around with those sticky retention bits. And then you do your next growth strategy. I don't like calling them hacks either, but you your next growth strategy and then hopefully they stick around and then it plateaus again until you're ready to maybe grow again. Hitting those numbers was just like a lot of the right moves. And we've done some wrong ones too. I'm definitely not here to say we're perfect. But there were a lot of strategic moves that we took that worked, strategic partnerships that worked. Timing was great. And it's been a journey. Now you said em that you start with retention. And so I think that that takes a very uh long-term view, um unlike most crypto projects. Most crypto projects have a lot of like, they're front-loaded with incentives to get in new users. um But then retaining them becomes really, really hard. And a lot of these users are kind of predatory a little bit or... Mm-hmm. You know, they farm something and then they leave and go to a new thing. And then the cycle continues. And breaking that cycle is really, really hard. um How do you start with retention? So I would say it started when we started. So I was the first full-time hire at the company. were like a couple contractors here and there, but there was a period of time where it was really just myself and our founder CEO, Luke, and we... Honestly, I was hired to write tweets. That was my first job with them was like part-time marketing contractor Hey, can you run our Twitter account? And I was like that got it great um obviously it It exploded from there But Luke and I were on the same page of the kind of culture that we wanted to build which is a bit of the Antithesis of what was going on in the kind of crypto sphere at the time and we wanted something that was like wholesome You know family-friendly Kind no swearing. No nothing bad and you know the kind of like crypto bro mentality of the time was not that and and you know one thing I tell people also is that if you like something other people are gonna like it too so, know, I I hopped it at the beginning and we honed in really hard on this culture and it turns out there were a lot of other people that liked it too and they found it safe and they found it welcoming and homey. And after a couple months, I came up with this term farmer friendly, which has kind of become iconic as the name of our culture. That's not farmer friendly or be farmer friendly, and it kind of just like encapsulates everything that we stand for. And that is where the retention. strategy, even if we didn't call it back it that it back then. uh That's where it started. It was really about, okay, we've created this community that agrees upon a culture and like a safety that we all want to share. And then from there, you start to you get to know these people. These people become your friends, your family. Like I'm in it all the time, 24 seven, I'm on Discord, I'm hanging out with these people. So they become really close friends of yours. And then you start to kind of lift them up and almost like promote them. So, you know, we created different roles to encourage our users to share this farmer friendly culture and um protect it. And they felt ownership in it too, because, you know, we... We gave them ownership. We utilize their ideas. We trusted them with this thing that we've created. And then it kind of just slowly trickles out. that's also a huge reason why we actually have a lot of users from Web2 is that they came for the culture and the safe space. that kind of, that was our sticky. That was our retention was this like farmer friendly vibe amongst the chaos that is the crypto world. um So that's kind of like where it started for us, I would say. You know, excuse me. You know, one of the holy grails that I've heard is, you know, you want to be able to play like a Web3 or crypto game, but not know that it's crypto. And so if he has like a Web2 experience, how have you guys at Pixels achieved that and have attracted so many Web2 players? So that's actually an interesting point because I think maybe two years ago that was the meta. It was like, we're gonna create this game and you're not even gonna know that it's crypto. And then we kind of came to this conclusion not too long ago of like, well, why do we wanna hide it? Why do we wanna hide it? What's wrong with that? Why you know, like why shouldn't people know and I think the whole the whole mentality behind it was So that it's easy to onboard newbies and then we can start to introduce them to crypto things And I think that makes sense make the onboarding really easy and then once they like it we can be like hey, here's this like You know this blockchain thing this with this it's an FT thing this crypto thing and like slowly teach them that way so that's kind of the approach that we took um And so what happens a lot in our game is word of mouth someone hears about it They'll start playing someone's like their girlfriend their boyfriend their friend their family their mom They'll they'll like that looks like a fun cute nostalgic game. I want to play that and they start playing it and um They might know it's crypto related. They might not great whatever Oftentimes the very first thing that happens on the web three side is that they see avatars. So I'm not sure if you know this, but we've integrated tons and tons of NFT PFP projects. You picture an nft you picture like a little animal dude sitting there posing whatever So what we have done is created, you know pixelated animations for that specific nft So if you own that nft from that specific project, you can walk around the pixels Metaverse as that avatar so that is that is blockchain, right? And that's the first thing a lot of new users that have no idea what crypto is They see that they're like wait that avatar is sick. I want that I want to walk around with that hot dog or that chicken or that I don't know, we have the most insane things. And then they start asking questions. They're like, okay, how do I do that? How do I get that? And a lot of the most successful projects we have integrated are the like affordable ones, you know, they're like five bucks maximum. And, and so they're like, okay, I need a wallet. Okay, so they go get a wallet. And then they're like, okay, I need to go buy this $5 thing. So they buy $5 worth of whatever crypto blockchain, you know, it is. And then, okay, suddenly they and then they buy this NFT. So they've got a wallet, they figured out how to buy crypto and then they've purchased this NFT so that they can walk around the pixels metaverse. That's a lot of steps for a newbie to take in this space. And that's like such a huge learning curve that in a way was hidden, which it goes back to what you were saying before, right? It's not like we were like, Hey, you need to learn what the blockchain is and this NFT thing and these token things. You need to learn all of this super crazy stuff. Look at this chart. It's none of that. It's like, hey, you want to look cute? There you go. Here's how you do it. I like that approach because it also you meet the user where they are and when they're ready for the blockchaining stuff Then you're also ready to take them in that journey Is that something that you guys stumbled upon or or had you guys planned that? since the very beginning Um, bit of both. would say the very beginning was a bit of a stumble upon. So pixels used to be a web two product. It was called mesh way back in the day, like three years ago. Now, uh, I wasn't at the company when it was called mesh. and it was just Luke, he built this events platform where companies like Uber would rent it out as a place for all of them, uh, their employees or whoever it was to meet online. Very COVID vibes, right? But it wasn't it just wasn't a sustainable business model because you don't know how often your space is going to be utilized, right? But there was this NFT project at the time called pixel beasts that was using it every week they would meet up and the The project begged Luke to integrate the avatars and Luke had had some some existing interest in background in crypto um And so this kind of sparked the interest and that was the first collection to be integrated. And early, early days, and then I joined the team shortly after that. And it was quite interesting because I would say back in those early days, we used our platform. That was a marketing strategy for us. We would reach out to collections and be like, hey. Do you want some utility for your JPEGs? Do you want a place to hang out together? And then it eventually switched to now projects reach out to us to launch their NFT collection and be able to say, hey, you can use our NFT in pixels. um And our player base loves that, right? um Especially those accessible, the most successful ones. If anyone's wanting to launch a project here, they need to be accessible to our broad player base. So if you're going to, they have to pay to mint, make them a couple bucks and then you will have a huge success on your hand. Also the cuter the ones, better. Yeah. So I'm pretty active in the Pudgy Penguins community. I wonder if there's a, and Pudgy Penguins are not, you know, affordable by any stretch of the imagination right now. But I wonder if there's a way where, you know, it's quite aligned to the community and to the vision, right? It's like wholesome. mean, these, it's a penguin. I mean, these things are cute, but they're just super expensive. So how do you deal with that kind of situation where the NFT is just not? affordable. So Pudgy Penguins are integrated, actually. There were a few collections that we just did. um I would say in that case, honestly, there will be a few people that will hold them and walk around and use them, but they might not be the most popular collection within our community. It's just as simple as that. Yeah. Now, to walk around in the community, uh or in the Pixel metaverse, it's not like you connect your wallet and then it recognizes, forgive me if I have this wrong, but I believe you connect your wallet, it recognizes you have an NFT, and then um it's able to use kind of the likeness as your PFP inside of the metaverse. Okay. it's, mean, it is a manual process for us though. We don't just like look at it and make things up. wish that would be really cool. Um, we have, we actually make the art, we make the animations and for, you know, all of the traits of a collection will have, um, like a sprite file associated to it. So it's, is, it is work to get these integrated, but it's worth it. Got it. Got it. Well, we kind of jumped into uh Pixels. Maybe you can share with us kind of your journey, how you got into crypto. I believe you studied electrical engineering. um And then how did you end up as like the chief Twitter ex-manager uh of Pixels? And then maybe take us through kind of your gaming journey. Yeah, I have a kind of chaotic background, I would say or path to pixels. And I'm going to start by saying, if anyone is in a place right now, and you're kind of feeling that chaos, just follow it. Because everything I have done, I look back, I'm like, that's when I learned that skill. That's when I learned that skill. Who would have known? Like, I had no idea. I studied electrical engineering. So yeah, we can go back high school. loved math and science, but I knew I didn't want to be stuck in a research lab all day. I wanted to be out doing something. So I was like, okay, engineering it is as simple as that. Maybe should have looked into it a little bit more because electrical engineering. stands up to its reputation of being incredibly hard. It was very, very hard, but so applicable, so interesting. just learned everyday things. And one of my favorite topics was nanotechnology and we toured nanofabrication labs and we're, you know, we're looking at how they're building uh microchips that we rely on, you know, for everything and also power. And I learned a bit of coding, which I famously say I will not code. Again, we're done with that. That's past tidy. We don't do that anymore. But it's just so interesting learning the most applicable things. And it was very hard. But I learned how to problem solve. And that's really what engineering teaches you is how to problem solve and communicate about technical things. It really helps me day to day to understand what the devs are up to or why is this hard, um those sorts of things. After high school, I, or sorry, after university, I moved uh back to Vancouver and um I actually struggled to find an engineering job. I landed at a tech company that was involved in grocery distribution. Very niche. I know a lot about how the groceries get to the grocery stores and to your, you know, your tables in the end. um But I was doing more client services things. So I would be flying down to grocery store distribution centers all over the United States and teaching people on our product and how to use it. um So there's a skill that I learned, right? How do you, cause I, at the core of my job, marketing community, whatever you want to call it is to teach. I need to teach people what is our new, what is our latest update? What is our game? Why are we doing this? And it needs to be. digestible to every single person. They need to fully comprehend why and what and why they should like it. Also, I need to sell it. There's sales in there. I've done some sales work in the past too, right? There's a lot here. um So then I did that for a few years and um I just honestly, I had to stop at one point. had uh like an anxiety attack. I was like, I can't do this anymore. I need to do something creative. I need to do something creative because I was always really creative growing up. And then engineering and then tech was like, not for like a long time. So I quit my job February 2020. It's a very good time to quit your job because we all know what happened in March 2020. The world shut down. em But what my plan was, ended up being an extended plan was to just download the Adobe suite. I downloaded the Adobe suite. I started filming YouTube videos em so I could learn how to edit videos. I I bought an iPad and I started illustrating. I started managing some of my friends' business Instagram accounts, learning how to create content. And then I ended up working with a design agency as like their lead contractor where they were just handing me any design work. So I started editing podcasts. I was illustrating more. was managing social media accounts. I was just, I just wanted to learn digital marketing. I just wanted to do all of that fun creative stuff. And eventually, um someone that was at the company that I'd been contracting a lot with met Luke and Luke was like, my gosh, I really need marketing help. Do you know anyone? And she was like, yep, I do actually. And she connected Luke and I, and I remember I hopped on a call with him. It was a week before Christmas and I was freelancing, right? So I said, hey, yeah, I'll do 10 hours this week and then I can give you 20 hours a week moving forward. He's like, great. Um, just need some help with like creating content for social media. That was really it, which was exactly what I was doing. So I was like, yeah, I can definitely do all of that. And then, so the first week is 10 hours. Second week was 20 hours. The next was 30 and the fourth I was in Miami with Luke for trying to hire uh engineers. The first thing I ever said to Luke in person was why are you here? Because he showed up to the house and he was supposed to be talking at an event. So that's kind of like the weird path I took. to my job now, but like I said, I look back and I'm like, that's when I learned that skill. That's when I learned that skill. And um yeah, I've done a lot of different random jobs along the way, but I think, yeah, don't be afraid to try something weird, because it might lead you to something pretty cool. I love that because it shows some fortitude and even though you're going into areas that were unfamiliar to you like digital marketing and learning how to use the Adobe Suite, it shows that you're willing to take a risk. I think the one main threat I see in the story that you shared is you weren't afraid to reinvent yourself. and you weren't like pigeonholed into, you you're this electrical engineer person, or you're like a math and sciency type person, like you're willing to do whatever. um And I think there's a lesson in there for, especially for people that are coming into crypto or web three from the web two space. It's actually okay. Like, like jump in and, and we'll let's, let's work together and figure things out together. And you're going to have to learn a lot of things, but that's okay too. Because we all are and I think that's that's pretty cool that you have that reinvention kind of thread in your story um Because it's something you'll have to continue to do, you Mm hmm. Yeah. And then, you know, a couple things there is like, I never really fit in in one place because I was the girly girl that also played sports was also getting straight A's in high school in science. And then I was studying electrical engineering, while super into fashion, you know, it's like, I never really fit in anywhere. And yeah, it kind of helped in a way. And then also, Yeah, don't be afraid to get your hands dirty. You know, I'm CMO of the biggest game in web three. Sometimes I'm doing the most rudimentary work guys. Like I, I have edited 99 and created 99 % of our release videos. And no, I did not know how to do that. How that came about was a few years ago. Um, I was like, we really need to start making videos. Like we need to do that. And Luke was like, cool, hire someone. So I hired a couple of people from Upwork and I won't say too much about their abilities, but I was like, my god, I could do this. And so I just went and did it. And I was like, here, Luke, I did it. And he was like, oh, okay. And I'm still doing that today. Right. So it's like, just get your hands dirty. Like, don't be afraid to do the thing. Nothing's above you. Nothing's below. Nothing's below you. Nothing's above you either. Figure it out. And if you can't figure it out, find someone that knows how, right? hire someone that can do it for you. That's really good at that one thing, right? um Don't have an ego. my gosh ego is ego will kill you. That's my opinion And I think in that situation of hiring someone from uh an agency or Upwork, you you also, you saw that and you said, that's not good enough. And then you decided to just do the work yourself and you did it with, may not have been perfect, but you did it with love. And you did it with uh knowing who the audience is and having been part of the Pixels community for a long time. Like you kind of get it. And I think that that says a lot too. like doing something with care and thoughtfulness. uh Going back to Pixels, it's the largest Web3 game. us about, maybe give us a sense of what that means in terms of number of users, that type of stuff, uh especially for a Web3 audience that may not be gamers. Give us a sense as to what that means. Yeah, so um we have over 10 million lifetime users. It's probably higher now, honestly, I haven't looked in a minute. um At our peak, we had close to a million concurrent, or not concurrent, but um daily active users, which was pretty wild. um Yeah, it's amazing. I will say though some of them are bots like I'm not we're not here to lie and Transparency has always been at the forefront of what we do to we're not here to be like, yeah We have a million da you it's like yeah, some of them are bots, you know um And then we killed all the bots and our da you dropped him people are like, huh? Really? Well, do you want us to keep them right? um What it means is managing an incredibly active and passionate community um building friendships and love is honestly the core of everything we do what you said there actually it really hit hard. um If you don't believe in what you're doing and if you don't love it, it's not going to work out because shit gets hard. It gets really hard. um The hard times especially in web three. the hard times come hard because you're impacted by global, you know, international markets by Bitcoin going up and down or, you know, disaster happens somehow always affects the crypto sphere and it's your fault. It's your fault. Everything is your fault. um If you mess up too, oh my gosh, you're the worst person that's ever existed. eh The death threats are real. The uh sexism that I experience is real. Luckily, our community's pretty good. The farmer friendly vibes works, but I still get microaggressions all the time. Like the other day, someone was like, one of our mods was just standing up for what they should be doing as a mod. And someone else was like, what do you even get for this? A meal with Heidi? And it's like, that is the sexist microaggression. Right, like just belittling me to that amount People always think Luke and I are dating Mike. He's my boss ah So we add there's like a lot of good and incredible things With having like the biggest game in web 3 we we the highs are high The lows are low too because if you're the best you're the biggest you're the whatever people label label you as as soon as you like aren't who? pixels is dead You know, it's like, no, we're not. What do mean? Just because you're pissed. So it means a lot of things. It's been just the ride of a lifetime. Honestly, I feel really blessed to be involved with something so dynamic, if I'm being honest. No, that's great. That's great. It's important to have passion and love for what you do. From a blockchain perspective, tell us about Pixels and what is the blockchain component of the game? Yeah. So, at the moment we have our token obviously, and we launched staking very recently. That's kind of like one of the biggest things that we've just done, um, which I can get into in a minute, but, we also have an NFT collection of farmlands. We have an NFT collection of pixels pets, and then obviously all of our integrated avatars are NFTs. So that's all blockchain components. you can earn our token pixel through the game also. uh That's that's the majority of the blockchain component which might seem Minor right some I think the idea of blockchain gaming back in the day was everything needs to be on the blockchain And we were doing that for a moment Every time you harvested a pot berry that pot berry went on the blockchain Every time you did anything in game, that asset went on the blockchain and we gave everyone their own wallet that they didn't necessarily see it, but we were doing all of that. And you know what? No one cared. No one cares. You do not need your potberry on the blockchain. Why? Right? No one cares. It's a waste of money and energy to put that stuff on the blockchain. we took it all away. We're like, no, no, no, this is not the path we're taking here. um So that's kind of like... where we're at now. Yeah. And I think that's wise that you tried something and decided upon some reflection that doesn't make sense for users. It might add more transactions, but then again, like most users don't care. just, yeah. you have a bunch of daily active users and they're 90 % bots. Great. Like that's a terrible data point. No one cares. You know, so. And I believe Pixels is on Ronin, is that correct? Okay, tell us about that. um As you guys were looking at on which chain to call home, what was the decision to decide on Ronin? Yeah, so we were on Polygon way back and we were doing pretty well. um But we weren't really getting a lot of support from the Polygon team. And Ronin was closed. Ronin didn't have games that weren't Ronin at the time. And Luke met Gio um at a conference, I believe it was in Japan. And he approached the team and said, I think we should join, we should be on Ronan. And it was like this big kind of conversation. And I think it just clicked. It made sense. Our farmer friendly vibes match AXI vibes, right? So I always say that when we partnered with them, it was a marriage of communities because our communities just worked together, which like I said, was kind of rare, you know? The crypto culture isn't always like that. So it just worked really, really well. And our farmer friendly, nostalgic, cozy, comfy, multiplayer, also, um community building aspects, it just worked with what Ronan was doing, what Sky Mavis was doing, know, uh AXI, all of that. And their team is amazing. They were incredibly supportive and just wonderful. And that was a huge growth moment for us. We blew up that I remember that week. It was crazy. We blew up and it was major news. And yeah, was very, it was a, it was pretty beautiful moment, I would say. I think the choosing Ronan was definitely the right decision. It's a perfect fit with the vibes that you get from Axie and Sky Mavis, um the entire community. It just feels like a good fit. um What about, um I haven't had uh Jiho on the show yet, but I met with Gabby from Yield Guild. In terms of like working with guilds, have you guys worked with uh other gaming guilds, perhaps even yield guild? Okay. I love Gabby and Owl. They're just the most amazing people. They're doing such incredible work in the Philippines and internationally. think they're some of the kindest, most just like beautiful human beings. We have worked with YGG. We've done some... uh guild super quest kind of, you know, just interactive engaging events for our users. then Luke and I actually, went to the yield guild, uh, game summit in Manila in November last year. That was like, I don't even know what words to describe it. like a life changing moment for Luke and I because we met so many of our users. Now Luke and I go to conferences all the time. We speak at conferences, we, you know, might host an event and we do we do a lot of that kind of work. But a lot of those conferences are B2B they're we're meeting other builders in the space, which is great. It's lovely to connect like I love going to GDC for instance, it's a game conference in San Francisco, you meet all these other builders and it's so lovely to meet them in person and connect and have those those vibes and then sometimes you go to conferences and it's just people shilling things at you and it's like Some people are rude. That is exhausting. I don't like those conferences. I'm like, just stop. They're like, hey, let's partner. I'm like, what's your name? Who are you? Do you know who I am? The YGG Play Summit was users. It was all of our users. And they were so, I don't think anyone said. any business or mean things like at all. It was just the most lovely experience Luke and I have had. It was so wholesome. People would come to us and be like, because of pixels, I did this or I met this group of people and we all met up here. Here's our guild and they're all wearing their guild t shirts taking photos together and they give us a t shirt and then we take pictures with them. Luke and I at one point we felt like NPCs because we were like signing people's t shirts and like taking photos with them and we were like That's exhausting work. You think that that's chill because you're not doing much. Do that for an hour and you want to pass out. That was the most one of the most magical moments for us. So we're going to be going again in November. Hopefully we can bring a couple more team members to just to have that experience. feel like you just you're meeting the people you're meeting the people that you talk to every day. People come up and be like Lemonhead, which is like my my in game name. And then then I know that they're like, this is my user tag. This is my name. You! I've talked to you for years, you know. Anyways, so yes, we have work with YGG. I love them. um And guilds, we have our own guild system in the game also. So we support... um Well, okay, backjack. We have a guild system in the game. And what we've seen is new guilds be created and existing guilds create a guild in pixels to support, you know, provide more utility for their guilds. So we're kind of like at a moment where we're kind of working on that system. um, we might pivot a little bit with that, but yeah, we've done a lot of guild work. That's cool. I guess what difference did it make for you to have met, to have worked with and interacted with folks in the game for years and then to see them in person? What new things did you learn that perhaps you took back to the home office and maybe made some improvements to how you guys did things? I think it really solidified that. One of the most magical parts of pixels is the social and community building components. And I actually don't think that we've done enough work there in the last, like since November, since that really, that message really hit hard. I remember Luke and I talking about it a lot when we came back and we've had some like team changes and stuff and some pivots and I, and we keep coming back to know we need to build out this social features more. So I would say we actually haven't done the work yet, but. That was like a huge thing. It's also like when you're building a web three game and you kind of mentioned this earlier, a lot of the users you get are purely there to extract value and leave, right? They are playing pixels to earn pixel to sell it, for fee it and profit. And there's nothing wrong with that, but it's up to us to create a sustainable. pixel ecosystem, right? It's up to us to try and make it work for the pixel foundation. And so in your head a lot, you think a lot of our users, they're gonna, we were kind of like, we're like, my gosh, are people are gonna get mad at us? Are people gonna like, you know, get mad at us because they didn't profit or something went wrong or something's gonna happen? Not a single user. There was not one person that said anything like that to us. It was all. This is the magic of Pixels. This is the community I've built. This is the community I've found. This is my family that all played together. My mom that watches my live stream every day. This is her. You know, it was just beautiful. was really magical. And yeah, it was a life-changing moment for us. You mentioned earlier when you were looking at chains on which to call home that you felt a lot of support from the Ronin team, from Jiho and the team. What is that for others that, for other applications that are perhaps looking for a layer one to call home? I guess what are some lessons that you could share from your time in your search looking for a layer one to call home? What kind of support did you guys feel like you received from Ronan that you didn't maybe from others? Ronan the Ronan team they did a lot first of all, they met us I die there was no like we're the chain and you're the game there was none of that it was like you're immediately was hopping on a call with me and I remember the time being like, my gosh, you know, my gosh, because let's not forget none of us would be here without AXI. Right? AXI set the stage for all of us. So to partner with them meant partnering with a team that has been through it. So when we needed help, when we needed advice, when we needed just a brainstorm group or whatever, they were always there and they still are. They're still always there. Um, and we're there for them. You know, we, we recently partnered with forgotten universe. We hopped in a group chat with a couple of their marketing team. We're like, Hey, we're doing this partnership, can you support it? And they're like, absolutely. And they're preparing documentation and they're pushing our partnership. Because obviously it benefits them too, but there's just there's always support. It we're always helping each other. And yeah. I would say back in the early days that meant the world, you know, to have someone to lean on, to have support from a very prominent company also. Yeah, it really meant a lot just to be able to like DM, know, any of them be like, hey, and you know, Okay, actually I'm not gonna get into that, but yeah, was magical back then. It still is, they're just lovely people. I talked about this on our AMA today, so Luke and I do weekly live streams every single week. We've been doing it for three and a half years, it's actually crazy. I mentioned this on our live stream today. We partnered with The Forgotten Root University, the most wonderful people. We have partnered with a lot of companies in the past. There are a lot of companies that I will never partner with again. There are a lot of people I never will work with again. Not everyone is great to work with. um I don't need to dive any deeper into that. Teams that have been absolutely incredible to the point where I see them as an extension of the Pixels team, Forgotten Runeverse, the Ronin team, Moku. I'm sure the list could go on, but those are probably my top three. That's awesome. I've heard the same thing from other application developers where they didn't feel a lot of support from the layer one. And so they decided that became kind of their incentive to actually move on. you see this a lot in the Ethereum community where there is no team at Ethereum that really supports its application developers. um which is fine, because that's kind of the model that they chose to go with. But um there is a certain kind of set of developers that kind of need more support, and that's okay too. And so finding that fit between kind of like what your needs are versus what the layer one is able to provide is pretty important. And I don't think it's talked about enough. I think I've been to tons of hackathons and it's the same thing that I see over and over again, especially as there are new developers coming into crypto and web three, they're going to need some more of that kind of handholding and that's okay. And so as a layer one to be able to provide that handholding is pretty important. I'm glad that Pixels was able to receive that type of support from the Ronin team and certainly feels like looks like a really great fit and has led to tremendous growth since. Yeah. um Let's talk about the future of Pixels, maybe in the next 6 to 12 months. What are some things that the community can look forward to maybe get involved in? What can you share there? So I say the biggest thing that we have been working on is the pixel ecosystem. So pixel is our token. Obviously we had our TGE over a year ago and we just launch staking and we launch staking in kind of this revolutionary way where you're not staking to a validator, you're actually staking to a game. um And so we have three games at the moment at launch. We have the pixels core game, we have forgotten universe, and we have pixel dungeons, which is like a publishing deal under pixels. And so you can earn the pixel token through all three games and you can stake to all three games. And eventually the plan is that you're betting on which game will be the most successful by staking. eventually all the rewards or all of the pixel that is spent in those games by users will go to stakers, right? So it's kind of going to become this organic cycle, I guess you could call it, and you're betting on which game. So right now we're focusing on bringing on more games into the pixel ecosystem. And what's kind of cool is we're getting a lot of teams that are interested. Some teams that I'm surprised that they even wanted to partner with us because there's been, you know, maybe they weren't fans of us before and now they're like, Hey, actually we want in, which is really cool because You know. Where was I going with that? First of all, it's going to give users a lot of opportunity to choose what kind of game they like, right? If we can bring on tons of different types of games, that's really cool. um And then, I'm sorry, I'm totally blanking on my point that I was heading to there. You're talking about the growth of the ecosystem moving from, I mean, sounds like, know, pixels started out as a game. Now it's like an ecosystem of games and it's becoming a publisher of sorts. Is that correct? Yeah, in some ways, yeah, we're building more games. So we have like a pet app called Pixel Pals that's in development. um We're looking at other ventures, um things that might even borderline games, you know, they might be more like tracking systems of games or stuff like that. Like we're looking at kind of everything of different, just different games, different ideas that we can bring into this Pixel ecosystem. And then, you know, the Pixel token will really represent like gaming and Web3 and it'll be kind of like this fun way to get involved. Cause not everyone likes the same type of game. Not everyone likes gaming, you know, but you can still stake. You can still do some fun things there. also just, it creates em a lot of utility and more sustainable model for Pixel as a token. um So yeah, it's pretty exciting. em Bringing on. m more projects. just, I'm so giddy. I was on a call with some earlier and it's completely different from what we're building their game. was like, wait, so how is this a game? You know, like, um it's going to be very interesting. So that's kind of like what we've been focusing on. um And then on the pixels core game closing a lot of game loops um that really need to be adding social features. We've created an entire team internally for LiveOps. So we're building out consistent LiveOps features along with other sort of temporary games and stuff. There's a lot going on, which is really, it's really fun, honestly. It's a very different time. like, I get nostalgic sometimes thinking back to when it was just Luke and I, and it was just, you know, it was totally different. In the, we near the end of the interview, I have some rapid fire questions if that's okay. So if you're looking to look at web three and crypto right now, like what are some like under appreciated kind of projects that you admire that you think should get more attention? Ooh, that's a good question. I know it's gonna sound kind of boring for me to say this, but I... I do think Web3 gaming is under appreciated and undervalued because it's really cool. And I think it is the easiest con, like conceptually, it's one of the easiest things to understand when being introduced to the Web3 space, right? um Maybe you don't even realize there's a Web3 component. I wanna buy that avatar. Like it's very easy onboarding. And I think a lot of the communities are really welcoming and lovely. And so I know it yeah, it's kind of lame for me to say that but I would say just like the web 3 gaming thing thing In general, I think it's undervalued underappreciated and I know a lot of web 2 gamers Will try to argue differently, but it's it's just technology. That's okay. It's just technology I think a lot of people put this like weird culture wrap around what crypto and web 3 gaming is and all guys. It's just blockchain like it you know, the internet was revolutionary and other things are revolution, it's just technology. I think, yeah, I don't know where I was going with that. But I would say Web3 Gaming, which I know is kind of lame. What, um I guess what sources of inspiration do you um look to when you need that? You may be stuck at work, you're trying to solve a specific problem for pixels. I guess what are some sources of inspiration you go to to get you out of that? You know, I usually just dive in deeper into our community. I just go to discord and I chat with her with our community. I hop in game and I play the game. Maybe I'll drop an energy party down, which I don't do often, but I'll do it occasionally just because it's fun. It's just hanging out with our community, socializing. These are people that these are people. And I say this in probably every interview, but We only have 24 hours in a day and we've got to eat, sleep, and work and do all the things. So why are our users spending their precious few hours with us? And I never forget that. So when I need inspiration, I go to our users. I ask them what they want or how's it going? What are you up to? How was your weekend? They're human beings, um which you can't forget. I love that and not taking their time for granted, like treating it as holy. And I love that. And there's so many things that we can learn from that. And you can apply to really every DeFi, every crypto project, right? It's like, there are more than just, there are people that are like using their time in ways that are important to them. And it's not just for farming or making money. Like it's actually for enjoyment. I'm guessing like, and that's really cool. Yeah. I think, uh, I think that a lot of project leads and web three need to step back and realize that a lot of their user base aren't there just for profit. You know, this is going back to the play summit. didn't strongly believe that a lot of our users were there for profit necessarily, but it's definitely like an underlying thought. And I think a lot of. projects just period think of their users in that way. And do know how often we'll launch something and players are like, okay, we don't care. We just want you to like fix the winery. And we're like, okay, sorry, you know, like, why are you working on this? That we just all we want is like, to be able to harvest the scarlet that I use or planted, you know, it's like, yeah, okay, you're right. uh So That's, love that. And I guess remembering kind of getting down to those, fundamentals that games are meant to be fun. And we've kind of almost over-financialized a lot of these, a lot of games in web three, but some of them it's like the missing, really the missing ingredient is like fun. It feels like pixels has really kind of found that and your users, you know, agree. Yeah, I mean, I would say we're still working on the fun aspects. We're always working on the fun aspects, but um yeah, fun does need to come first. Yeah. Well, Heidi, thank you so much for taking the time. um This has been a ton of fun. I hope the audience learns more about Pixels, participates, and becomes part of the community. Yeah, thank you so much for having me. Thank you.
