Building a Crypto Game in the First Crypto Gaming Winter

This week, I spoke with Rafael Martinez, the founder of a gaming studio and the winner of one of Axie Infinity's builder grants.

His entry into the Axie Infinity universe is called Mech Infinity.

From what I understand, it takes cute, furry, battling pets and puts them into robot suits, prepared for Battle Royal!

All this, during crypto gaming’s worst (and arguably first) winter. That takes guts.

Hailing from Cuba, Martinez is already familiar with how gaming and finance can come together.

We met via Discord. Our unredacted interview is below:

Michael: Thank you for joining us today. For anyone who doesn’t know you, would you tell us about yourself?

Rafael: My name is Rafael Martinez CEO and founder of ConWiro the videogame studio behind the development of Mech Infinity, a passionate about videogames, entrepreneurship and disruptive digital products.

Michael: Has ConWiro released video games in the past, or is Mech Infinity the company’s first game?

Rafael: We have other video games launched although they may not be well known because our team is from Cuba, we focused our work on the domestic market because we were one of the few studios and we had a great opportunity to be market leaders, we succeeded for a while but we gave up because of economic problems in the country. Regardless of the focus on the domestic market our games can be downloaded on google play and apple store.

Michael: Oh great! Which titles have you launched in the past?

Rafael: The most successful was La Pira, which became the first independent videogame to monetize through micropayments, we also implemented a mechanism in which users could earn hours of internet within the game, a very primitive play to earn. We also have Paketonw which is a simulator of a very typical Cuban business. Before leaving we were developing Terra Bot which is an online multiplayer strategy game that was having very good metrics before leaving production.

Michael: Wow, those sound incredibly interesting. What is Mech Infinity?

Rafael: Mech Infinity is a new generation videogame, I like to call it this way because it is my vision of what will be the next step in the industry. It's not going to be just a web2 or a web3 game, it's going to be a fusion of the best of both markets as well as bringing systems and business models that work in the real world into Mech Infinity. It's a big challenge but only those who dare to do it have the chance to make it happen.

Michael: In your first game, players could earn something important, even sometimes vital—internet. As the developer, what was a time you saw play to earn do something good in La Pira? And to follow up, what was a time you saw play to earn take away from a player (a specific example) more than it gave back?

Rafael: La Pira went viral with a simple prototype that we made in a month, the business model did not take anything away from the users, on the contrary it gave them fun and rewarded them for their effort and dedication in the game with hours of internet, the funds to pay the prizes were obtained from sponsors who paid to show their ads within the game, we created in that month a native advertising system, this mechanism will be added in Mech Infinity and is in our white paper. Since I began to study what was happening in the Play to Earn video games I realized that the only way for video games to be sustainable over time is in two ways, one is that to win another must lose and the other is that they must have other revenue streams to distribute to users who can not win such as what they pay the renumbered advertising videos or purchases in IAP.

Michael: Interesting. So instead of Mech Infinity focusing on players buying into the value, it will focus on other revenue streams that are distributed to the players as they play the game?

Rafael: Both, the more sources of value we can bring to the ecosystem the better, for example the pieces of the Mech will be NFT that will have a base value when we create them but the greatest value will be given by the players investing their time and effort in improving these pieces to higher levels also advertisers will see value in publishing within Mech Infinity and these revenues will be redistributed between the treasury of the community of Axie Infinity, purchase of SLP or AXS market to distribute to users and the other part for the development team. Always keeping in mind that the most important thing is to maintain the balance of the game.

Michael: You mentioned you yourself saw that when players buy into the ecosystem, there can be an element of one player winning at another player’s financial expense. Since Mech Infinity has plans to have an element of players buying in to play the game, and risk of loss—do you plan to put any safeguards in place to protect players from over-investing and catastrophic financial loss? Especially in places that have financially vulnerable populations, such as ConWiro’s country, Cuba.

Rafael: We will have two game modes, one free to play where players will be able to practice with real users, advance, test the game and another professional mode (Blockchain) where players will be able to win and lose. In the professional mode it is the user's responsibility to know what to invest and how to invest it. We have thought of some mechanisms that we must test so that users can get rewards without having to invest but taking into account that what is delivered must come from a source of income such as advertising but our main responsibility is to maintain an economy within the game as stable as possible for the entire community and try to mitigate as much as possible the speculative factor to allow Mech Infinity to be sustainable over time.

Michael: As someone who has been covering crypto gaming in its early stage, I’m looking forward to seeing Mech Infinity’s entry into the space. Thank you for taking the time to discuss it with me today. I think we have time for just one last question. Is there anything you’re really excited to speak about Mech Infinity or its release, and when might we see it in an App Store?

Rafael: I would just like to add that we know the road is difficult and rough but when you have a strong, united, committed team, the support of Sky Mavis (Axie Infinity) and an incredible community we will surely make it. In ConWiro we are perseverant and we know where we want to go. Thank you very much for your time and effort in spreading the word about the work we do.

Michael: All the best of luck, and thanks again for joining us today!

Til next time, crypto explorers. Stay vigilant!