On-Chain Games Don’t Have a ‘Secret Sauce,’ YGG’s New Advisor Says

Most crypto games still chase breakout hits as if they’re guaranteed. But without a system built to test, discard, and repeat at scale, the industry might keep mistaking hype for progress.

That’s according to Quinn Campbell, a former Sky Mavis and Voodoo executive now working alongside YGG Play, Yield Guild Games’ publishing arm.

“Gaming is an extremely hits-driven business. There’s no secret sauce to finding a hit,” Campbell told Decrypt. “You just need reps. It’s a numbers game.”

Brought on by Yield Guild Games (YGG) as its third-party publishing advisor, he’s set to help the group test what kinds of crypto games can actually work at scale.

In conversation with Decrypt, Campbell recounts how many early crypto publishers approached the space “as though they were tastemakers,” believing “every game they picked would be a hit.”

That’s one of a few reasons why YGG Play is leaning into volume, testing how far a single monetization model can stretch across different formats, themes, and mechanics, Campbell explained.

“If we can get this engine up and spinning, it gets really exciting because we can scale this model.” he told Decrypt.

Campbell recounts that with his previous projects, teams built thousands of prototypes a year, killing nearly all of them after just a few hundred installs. Success wasn’t predicted: instead, it was observed.

That level of repetition doesn’t exist in blockchain-based gaming yet, he admitted. Developers often launch slowly, handle everything themselves, and stay committed to a project long after the data says otherwise.

‘Casual Degens’

Campbell’s thinking is helping inform how YGG approaches third-party publishing. Rather than betting on individual games, their team is building a system to test, learn, and scale, in a way that could begin with what it believes to be the right kind of audience.

“There are a lot of people in crypto,”   Gabby Dizon, co-founder of Yield Guild Games, said in a statement—but while not all would “call themselves gamers,” many are open to playing if the experience is “fun, casual,” and if it proves “rewarding at every turn.”

That audience has been overlooked by studios chasing traditional gamers or speculators. YGG calls them Casual Degens, crypto-native players drawn to short, rewarding game loops that fit their existing habits.

Campbell believes the model offers a clearer path to economic sustainability than past approaches. “What we have with YGG is this model that works in terms of a monetization model,” he said.

The goal now is to test mechanics, themes, and formats that fit that model and find patterns that can scale, not just prototypes that survive.