Rafael Morado is a product builder and strategist who has been developing products in the web3 space for the last 8+ years. He recently joined 1kx as an EIR, where he will focus on games, incentive systems, and consumer products.

Most recently, he spent a year at Lattice, where he worked on strategy for MUD and Redstone and was the product lead for Sky Strife. Prior to that, he spent five years at Dapper Labs, from the early CryptoKitties days to the release of Flow and Topshot. Before web3, Rafael was a game designer with CCP (Eve Online) and Ubisoft.

We sat down with him for an informal Q&A to get to know him better. Here’s that conversation.

You were at Dapper Labs during the last bull run. What was that like?

Intense. When Topshot got full traction, everyone had to level up very fast just to keep up with the market. I never learned as much as I did during that time. It was proof that some of the issues that blocked wider adoption were, within that context, solved.

What issues are you referring to? And do you still think this is the case today?

At that point in time NFTs were really cool, even beyond the expectation of financial returns. There’s a lot of subtlety here in this value prop (being cool) but there was this ‘Supreme drop’ vibe around TopShot drops, and the wallet creation and credit card payment mechanics were stellar. Because consumers were interested, brands also became interested. As we all know, that didn’t last.

In any case, I don’t think big brands are the next necessary step to expand the user base. Small innovative teams that are crypto-native are probably in a better position to generate interest with unique functionality stemming from the technology. Dozens of companies are working to solve UX issues. The value prop side of things is something that will require “shiny playful things” or “super useful things”. While convenience is necessary for mass adoption, there’s a lot of room for growth even as things remain a bit cumbersome.

That’s a perfect segway to our next question. Who are some of those web3 gaming projects & teams you are most excited about right now?

Project Awakening, since CCP is probably the only team that has had the same game running with a proper player-driven economy for more than a decade. The way it works is that all items in the game are made by players. When you want to buy a ship, there are different options/prices because those are all set by the players. This creates a lot of opportunities for players (arbitrage, exploration of rare resources, ambushing convoys, etc). The fact that players can trade amongst themselves is not usual in multiplayer games and most game systems would break down with free trading.

But truth be told, I’m more excited about the ecosystem, innovation and learnings coming out of small projects than I am about any one larger game. Small Brain Games has done words3, an infinite multiplayer scrabble for actual money, which is very interesting. Fomo3D, and specifically its ending, was really fun back in the day. I’m interested in any projects that focus on the fundamentals of blockchain and go beyond things like “own and trade a sword” as player motivation.

What are the main blockers you see to the adoption of web3 gaming?

One of the most fundamental mistakes some teams make is to think that gamers care about new technologies. Traditional gamers are very conservative and don’t tend to try out new things just for fun. It took self-identified gamers way longer than developers expected to start playing games on mobile for instance, as compared to more casual game players.

I also think there are many “bad” games out there, and by bad I mean games that are not focused on longer retention or providing a fun recurring experience. The whole wallet setup to interact, fueling the wallet with gas from an exchange, all of that is really annoying and a significant hurdle, but I believe there’s a lot of room to grow even without completely fixing that.

Technical limitations such as perfect information, no easy randomness function, and slow tick are also frustrating, but I don’t think they are the biggest blockers right now.

In a way, it’s the powerful distribution mechanics that can be the biggest barriers to sustainable adoption, because by creating a spike of interest, which then more often than not plummets, you sacrifice later cohorts and long-term retention.

How were you first introduced to 1kx, and how did this opportunity come about?

I first met Peter Pan at a gathering in Lisbon organized for people interested in Fully-On-Chain applications, which eventually became the Autonomous Anonymous group. Many of the teams I already knew through my work at Lattice, because they were using MUD. After Sky Strife was released, I was invited to take on an EIR position within 1kx. I had always been curious about the VC world and their perspectives on the market and I specifically felt like 1kx would be an ideal ground for experimentation in onchain gaming.

What will you focus on, and how can people get involved?

In the short term, I plan on helping ideate with teams from the current portfolio and vetting and probing new projects. In the longer term, stay tuned! To get in touch, you can reach me at @nagual_ape.