For this episode, we had the pleasure of hosting Michael Rubinelli, Chief Gaming Officer at WAX Studio - Worldwide Asset Exchange, now Tyranno Studios.

Michael is a 25-year gaming industry veteran having started his career in the early 90s with Electronic Arts. While at EA as a producer of various sports titles, Mr. Rubinelli's main focus was overseeing the production of John Madden Football. In 1993, he garnered the "Rising Star" Award and in 1994 he was honored with the "Top Producer of the Year" and the "Fast Tracker" award. Currently, Mr. Rubinelli is the GM, Head of Studio, at Worldwide Asset Exchange (aka – WAX) Studios. WAX is the number one blockchain in the world based on daily transactions. He oversees the development of all internal and external games in their play-to-earn gaming portfolio. Mr. Rubinelli has also worked at The Walt Disney Company, THQ, Take Two, Esports Mogul and P4RC in an executive capacity.

What will you listen to in this episode:

1. Games in Web3: how is WAX different, why is retention so high in these games, why is onboarding so important and more.

2. The importance of mixing qualitative and quantitative analytics for creating the optimal user experience.

Minute 8:00 - "You have to blend the art of instinct and creativity with the science of empirical evidence and analytics and cohort analysis and once you have those two things, working in concert with one another, you can deliver an unbelievably well performing product that you know, has your audience in mind."

3. How does player feedback influence the games at WAX.

Minute 12:00 - "What we've done at WAX is we've taken kind of five or six different really prominent gaming genres, and we've applied that thinking of ownership to those things and we're bringing it to the masses, and we're bringing it out, not when it's completely done, but when it's close to being done. So, again, we can get that signal from the audience. Do you like this? Do you not like that, you know, where do you what resonates with you, and what does and we've kind of live operating to coming out with a full game that really performs unbelievably well relative to their behaviors."

4. The top player insights that bring Michael's team the biggest impact (hint: it's not retention).

Minute 17:30 - "I think is really important to keep in mind is player onboarding. So, if you look at Web3 gaming, it's filled with a ton of friction [...]. It's just friction everywhere you look and so one of the things that we measure really, really closely is what does our conversion funnel looks like."

5. WAX's mission: player ownership of assets.

Minute 32:30 - " So, the vision of WAX and the mission of WAX is to help subsidize at a minimum subsidize that players spend and if you subsidize that player spending, you remove that stigma of I can't quit. Now, I don't own anything. I'm committed. This is really powerful thing and we're gonna go from, you know, 3 billion gamers to three and a half to four to five fairly quickly, because now more people are going to come in, it's like, oh, I feel comfortable spending, because I know that I have a means to let go of these assets to other people who want them."

How player feedback influences a Studio Director at a gaming company