If you’re an OG player of Zed or you’ve been around crypto gaming for a while then you’re probably familiar with Web3 gaming’s biggest hurdle to adoption.
Barrier to entry.
Clunky tech that involves way too much learning for the average gamer who is more concerned with just having fun.
Advancements in technology will go a long way toward solving this issue.
I’m talking about games that have most of the blockchain tech built “under the hood” so you don’t even know it’s there.
This next generation of games will offer the Web3 benefits of asset ownership and financial rewards combined with the user experience of their traditional Web2 counterparts.
To many of us in Web3 that sounds like the evolution that takes us to mainstream adoption.
But let’s be real here, gaming is a highly competitive $250 billion dollar a year industry.
In reality, even with these breakthroughs blockchain gaming will still probably only occupy a niche market.
For now anyway.
So how does a blockchain based game breakthrough?
How does Zed Champions build an eco-system or community of hundreds of thousands or even a million players?
The answer is Zed Picks, an innovative plan to bridge the gap between web3 and the mainstream.
So how will it work?
Imagine a layered entertainment ecosystem.
At the heart of it all is the racing layer. A fully functioning horse racing economy.
Here we have the Zed Champions stable owners (mostly crypto native), who, through breeding and competitive racing, provide the entrainment that everything else is built upon.
The next layer is the spectator layer.
This is where Zed Picks comes in, a crypto-less sweepstakes app (Think Fliff) that allows people to win prizes by watching races and picking winners.
Along with providing engaged spectators it also acts as both a player funnel and a revenue source for the racing layer.
Being a crypto-free app with prize incentives it can be leveraged through marketing to draw a mainstream crowd into the Champs ecosystem.
By design I expect player numbers in the spectator layer to be far higher than in the racing layer.
The next layer is a commercial layer.
A thriving spectator layer means large numbers of eye balls on races and that will create a commercial layer.
Advertisers, sponsors and perhaps even bookmakers will join the eco system, injecting money and rewards that will in turn loop back to grow the racing and spectator layers.
(We’ve seen Zed attract big name sponsors in the past such as Netflix, Budweiser and Atari)
Looking deeper into the future of how Zed Picks could enhance the world of Zed Champions and things get very exciting.
If the app can scale, can you imagine the thousands of people who would be looking for an edge on their next “zed picks”?
They’ll want to know who the Zed Champions really are? (Pun intended)
Which stables breed the best horses, who was the champion last season and who is the top earner in the game?
If we see that level of interest, players in the racing layer will have the opportunity to turn their stables in to brands and their horses in to e-stars.
All eagerly covered by a host of new content creators.
The streamers, tipsters and podcasters of the Zed Champs world.
In summing up, horse racing and ownership will be the beating heart of the Champions ecosystem but Zed Picks will be the growth engine.
It all starts on April the 28th with the official launch of Zed Champions season zero.
Word is that Zed Picks will follow shortly after. (by the middle of the year)
I think the app will compliment the game and scale it to heights not yet seen in Web3.
It might just be the secret sauce for a million-player ecosystem.