Interview with StepN Founder Jerry: What Should Web3 Game Creators Keep in Mind?
TechFlow Selected TechFlow Selected
Interview with StepN Founder Jerry: What Should Web3 Game Creators Keep in Mind?
Product positioning should ultimately return to the level of user needs: what kind of needs make users happy and drive their willingness to pay, and whether the pleasure derived from paying can positively correlate with the amount paid.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsJerry Huang, founder of StepN, shared insights and latest reflections based on his firsthand experience with 55 Web3 application ecosystem entrepreneurs. As a veteran who participated early in the 3G mobile internet era and has over a decade of entrepreneurial experience, how does he洞察 human nature and desires behind players? How does he view economic cycles and business cycles? A retrospective on StepN's successes and setbacks may offer significant implications for Chinese entrepreneurship.
Below are selected highlights:
1. Product Selection and Thinking: How to Find the Right Positioning?
It mainly comes down to analyzing and understanding the demand side. Why do people play certain games, why are they willing to pay, why share them with others, and why do they spark social discussions? Behind these phenomena lies one word: "desire."
When I developed my first game, I tried to identify what truly mattered most—technology, storyline, or art? Ultimately, I concluded it was about fulfilling user desires, which is the source of joy, payment, and sharing. So we mapped out all human desires into a comprehensive "desire tree," recognizing that different age groups, genders, and professions have varying desires. Once we summarized this, we could define our product positioning: which group’s desires were we targeting? Some desires bring enjoyment but cannot be monetized; others can generate revenue. We believe any game must deeply understand desire before predicting player behavior. Desire is the soul, the game system is the skeleton, and art/story are the skin—only by defining these layers can you build a complete product. Desires themselves are not tied to Web2 or Web3, but different technologies amplify specific desires. For example, gold farming existed in Web2 but affected only a small segment; with Web3's assetization, earning money through gameplay became far more significant. Additionally, asset ownership intensified users' desire to show off.
For instance, when 3G networks began spreading widely, I transitioned into mobile online game development. At that time, most games were simple offline titles. Using the desire tree framework, I considered what new possibilities 3G enabled at the psychological level. With broader user reach and richer gaming scenarios, we focused on amplifying comparison and social interaction within game design. This approach led us to capture 20% of China’s total game market revenue and maintain the No.1 spot on App Store for over half a year.
Now, as blockchain technology spreads, I ask: what desires can tokenization maximize? The same applies to AI—what types of human desires can it amplify?
Therefore, our product positioning always returns to fundamental needs: What kind of need brings users joy and triggers willingness to pay? Can the pleasure from paying scale positively with the amount spent?
2. What Should Web3 Game Creators Keep in Mind?
First, create a Web3-native game, rather than trying to retrofit a Web2 game onto the blockchain. Your starting point shapes the final product’s identity and form. It's not impossible to upgrade a Web2 game, but approaching from that angle often results in distortion—a hybrid experience that retains Web2 mechanics with added Web3 elements, which rarely succeeds in the Web3 space. Just like if your goal is to build a video platform better than YouTube, you're unlikely to succeed from that mindset. TikTok didn’t start aiming to beat YouTube, yet ended up competing strongly against it. That’s why I believe true innovation starts with being natively Web3.
For example, in our upcoming game, our principle is to put everything possible on-chain as long as technically feasible. What does this bring to users? Returning to the desire tree: in Web2, users pay solely for experience and recognition. In Web3, we introduce a new "impossible trinity" of fame, profit, and power. Thanks to blockchain integration, players take on richer roles—not just resource creators, but also managers. They gain not only fame and profit but also influence. As the platform, we provide only a self-sustaining internal economic model and intervene as little as possible—even allowing players to shape the world’s rules and evolution.
Second, cultivate an authentic community. In past ventures, I always emphasized launching operations before perfecting the product. My personal style is to release a product at around 65% completion—to kickstart the market, find paying users, understand their needs, and grow alongside players, involving them directly in development.
This would have been difficult in Web2, where players see themselves as customers entitled to polished experiences—they won’t accept imperfection. But in Web3, co-creation is expected. Players help build the economy together. StepN was conceptualized in September 2021 and launched within three months by November. We included running mechanics, GPS anti-cheat systems, built-in wallets, and integrated marketplaces—achieving a lot in two months, though inevitably imperfect. Still, I boldly released it. Over 1,000 global players signed up for testing. There were complaints—we fixed over 100 bugs on day one—and surprisingly, we updated twice daily, resolving massive feedback quickly. Within days, issue reports dropped sharply. The visible improvement over a month gave early adopters strong engagement, turning them into loyal users later.
We ran many operational activities on Discord, some of which are still referenced by other projects today. After placing third in a Solana hackathon, over 10,000 users flooded into our Discord—but 95% were whitelist farmers, not genuine users. I made a bold move: removed all suspected bots—anyone inactive for days got deleted. For sustainable growth, what matters is a clean, motivated early community, not sheer numbers. Coinciding with Lunar New Year, when WeChat red packets were trending, we wanted to try something similar on Discord. But with so many opportunists, we hesitated. So we devised a quiz based on our whitepaper—users had to answer questions correctly to win a pair of Genesis shoes. To participate, each user had to invite three friends. This single event organically grew our Discord from a few hundred (after cleanup) to 100,000 members—even while I kept removing suspicious accounts. The remaining users were almost entirely real. As the event gained momentum, requirements escalated—from answering one question right to ten consecutive correct answers—forcing users to study our whitepaper thoroughly. This campaign earned us tens of thousands of high-quality, deeply engaged users who knew our project better than I did. Their genuine belief and active promotion played a pivotal role in our explosive growth to five million users.
Finally, go global from the start. We spent considerable time debating which market to enter first, then decided—why choose? Let’s launch everywhere and let the markets decide. Focus on wherever gains traction. Our instinct proved correct: Japan became our largest market, followed by France and other European countries. We still gain one to two thousand new users daily. Our initial global rollout allowed organic market selection, after which we accelerated growth in leading regions.
3. How Should Founders Navigate Economic Cycles?
In Web3 gaming, I don’t think macroeconomic cycles matter much. Games differ from DeFi apps. DeFi is highly sensitive to cycles—during downturns, both users and capital vanish. But games can operate as independent ecosystems with their own pricing, tokens, and economies, less dependent on external conditions.
Also, while bull markets bring more users and capital, they also attract fierce competition. StepN launched near the end of a bull run—we faced numerous competitors. But building during a bear market allows you to establish your own ecosystem with fewer rivals, keeping attention focused on your project.
4. When Should a Project Hire a PR Team?
Honestly, we didn’t handle this well later on. For Web3 gaming projects, the priority is making players feel you’re authentic and present among them. Early on, we hosted weekly AMAs—even before launch. The first session had only十几 people, but we persisted weekly until attendance grew. People sensed our sincerity. Only when overwhelmed did we hire a PR team, but in hindsight, we should’ve continued doing it ourselves. PR agencies can manage crisis communications, but brand building and ongoing influence require direct founder involvement. Our communication with users *is* our best PR.
5. Should Blockchain Game Startups Prioritize Web2 Newcomers or Web3 Natives?
Internally, we agreed our focus should be converting mass Web2 users. Features like embedded wallets and in-game trading platforms in StepN were designed precisely to lower barriers for Web2 users, letting them enjoy the game without noticing the underlying technology. This has been and will remain our core strategy. Future games will enable decentralized login, transfers, and gas-free transactions—all aimed at bringing more Web2 users into Web3. At least half of StepN’s users had no prior exposure to blockchain before playing.
6. How to Handle Users Who Play Solely to Earn Money?
You need to distinguish between pure freeloaders and professional gold-farming guilds. The former must be filtered out. Regarding the latter, opinions vary. Some games welcome guilds—even inviting them—because they rapidly boost traffic. StepN, however, was resistant and declined cooperation with such groups.
7. How Can Web3 Games Sustainably Generate Value?
The key remains creating joy through gameplay. If users feel happiness while playing, that alone constitutes sufficient value. Don’t overthink abstract definitions of value or external judgments. Games are fundamentally part of the experience economy—users pay for the experience they want, and that transaction itself creates value. How others interpret or evaluate that process—whether it’s “truly” valuable—is subjective and varies per individual.
Join TechFlow official community to stay tuned
Telegram:https://t.me/TechFlowDaily
X (Twitter):https://x.com/TechFlowPost
X (Twitter) EN:https://x.com/BlockFlow_News
