Matthew Wolf interview: Why Zynga is diving into blockchain games
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Matthew Wolf started a new job and a new studio at Zynga to make blockchain games back in November. Then Take-Two agreed to buy Zynga for $12.7 billion in January.
Was it a coincidence? Who knows? But Wolf is excited about spinning up the new business to build games that take advantage of blockchain games and nonfungible tokens (NFTs) for Zynga’s customers, who are older players who embrace casual and midcore games on mobile devices. They’re not the typical hardcore console and PC game players who are allergic to any mention of NFTs.
Wolf, a former Coca-Cola game executive and former exec at Electronic Arts, is excited about experimenting and creating games that can take NFTs — which use the transparency and security of the digital ledger of blockchain to authenticate digital items — and give players new ways to play as well as ownership in games.
I talked to Wolf about his plans, and how he hopes to overcome the resistance of hardcore gamers, and why he’s still forging ahead with his plans even as Take-Two prepares to acquire Zynga. Wolf is hiring for key positions, including alead producer,creative director, and technical art director.
GamesBeat Summit 2022
Here’s an edited transcript of our interview.
GamesBeat: Have you had to deal with much resistance? Is there a certain communication style you’ve used to handle things like that? I’ve seen the hardcore folks run into lots of trouble. Ubisoft, Team17, GSC Game World, they all backed down on their NFTs. Troy Baker as well. But then Netmarble announces that 70% of its new games will be NFT games and nobody bats an eye. The mobile game space seems more
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