Julien Bouteloup (BlackPool): "Fantasy games have the model best suited to Web3".

Which Web3 games work best?

We've found that it's mainly fantasy games, i.e. games that most often feature real-world sports. They draw on communities that already exist, such as football (Sorare or Fan Live), rugby (Oval3) or martial arts (MetaFight). They add a layer of gamification on top. This doesn't require starting from scratch by creating a new universe.

Cross The Ages is getting a lot of attention but doesn't belong in this category. For what reason?

The game is topping the mobile game downloads on the AppStore, which is pretty amazing for a blockchain game. Its success is mainly down to the team's ability to execute and their experience in traditional gaming. They're not the only ones to have tried to make a game inspired by Magic, but they had to do it right! Most blockchain games are simply about giving out rewards, but to be honest they're often pretty boring. With Cross The Ages we're having fun, and that makes a big difference.

You invested in Immortal Game, a chess game based on NFTs, which is now moving away from this technology. What should we learn from this?

The team is effectively reducing its exposure to Web3 to focus on a more traditional chess game model. This is because sales of NFTs have fallen enormously. When your whole business is based on it and the market collapses, inevitably you have to change something.

How do you limit the impact of market fluctuations?

Despite the current economic situation, people are still going to football and other sports stadiums. When you think of Sorare, you might think that it's a new type of stadium where all football fans can get together and play. And it doesn't matter whether there are NFTs or not.

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