Gangbusters Interview Part 1「Using technology to tap into the “meta” layer instead of the actual gameplay」
In October, Bandai Namco Entertainment 021 Fund announced its investment in Gangbusters Ltd., a producer of a social game that utilizes blockchain technology.
Gangbuster’s has cultivated a very active community of users. By combining their expertise in community management with their many years of experience in developing web2 games, they aim to expand their existing community.
To understand their initiatives and approach to web3.0, we interviewed the CEO of Gangbusters, Mr. Brandon Wu. Please enjoy this excerpt from our discussion.
Part 1：Gangbusters and web3.0
Kazama
Please first give us an overview of your company.
Brandon
Gangbusters is a UK-based startup/game studio, and we produce community-driven social Web3 games. Mike and I founded the company, and we are a virtual company of seven members, with two in Cambridge, four including Mike in Perth, and one more member in Austria.
Our mid/long-term vision is to build an active community where our IPs can organically grow through fan activities. To do that, we need a good, sticky community, which is why we are developing high-quality games with good game designs while incorporating Web3 technology in certain parts.
Kazama
Thank you for the introduction. Your community-driven approach resonates with our mid/long-term vision of “Connect with Fans”, which is also why we invested in your company.
So you’ve already released a game called BattleTabs. What kind of a game is this?
Brandon
BattleTabs is loosely based on the Battleship game.
Battleship is a two-player game where you try to guess the location of your opponent’s battleships on the game board and sink their fleet by shooting cannons.
We took that simple game and added some other elements like deck-building to allow players to discuss various tactics when they are not playing the game. The rules are simple, so anyone can start playing quickly, but the game also has depth as you start thinking of different combinations of ships and tactics. We call this kind of game “casual competitive games”.
Kazama
So you’ve designed the game in a way that promotes communication among players in the community. You mentioned that you also utilize blockchain technology. How exactly did you include the technology in your game?
Brandon
We started looking into the technology a few years ago and spent quite some time on it. We thought about how to improve the gameplay and provide value to our community and saw that ideas like turning in-game assets into NFTs and allowing NFT transactions outside of our community don’t positively affect the players’ in-game experiences. The overall game design, balance, and flow change when we think of the structures and the audience of existing web2 games.
So what do we do?
We think it is essential to think of applying the technology in the “meta-game” or “meta-meta-game” layer of gaming instead.
Kazama
I’m not familiar with those terms. Could you explain the concept to us?
Brandon
This is a term we use internally, so it’s a little abstract… (laughs)
“Meta-game” refers to activities that take place outside the actual game but are related to the gameplay itself. “Meta-meta-game” refers to activities that don’t have to do with the actual gameplay. For example, BattleTabs players discussing different tactics would be “meta-game” because it’s directly related to the gameplay. On the other hand, drawing fanarts of BattleTabs characters isn’t directly related to the gameplay, so we would call that “meta-meta-game”.
These meta/meta-meta activities usually take place outside of the content’s ecosystem, but with blockchain, we can include those activities in our ecosystem.
By using these terms in our discussions, we can understand which layer we are approaching with our actions.
Kazama
I see, so you are always conscious of these things when updating or adding content.
Did your Web3-based approaches effectively hit those meta/meta-meta layers?
Brandon
Yes. As an example, we airdropped NFTs to our community last Summer.
We spent a lot of time communicating with our users, so we didn’t see a lot of speculative activities by investors. Instead, our fans are using the NFTs as prizes for their self-organized tournaments and live events, as well as collecting them as part of their achievements in the community. I believe we were able to tap into the meta-meta-game layer of fan activities.
Continued to Part 2: Future Plans for Gangbusters
■Overview of Bandai Namco Entertainment 021 Fund
Main investment targets
Blockchain, VR/AR/xR, AI in Japan and overseas Entertainment utilizing technologies such as products and services related to, and In addition, Metaverse, startup companies engaged in Web 3.0-related businesses, etc.Target stage
Companies in a wide range of growth stages from pre-seed to later stageScale of investment
Approximately 1 billion yen per year (3 billion yen over 3 years)Ticket size
10million to 500 million yenOfficial website
https://021fund.bn-ent.net/en/ (English)
https://021fund.bn-ent. net/ (Japanese)