The Current State of Web3 Gaming
A Recap of the X Spaces Between Followin × Hungry Degens
Hosted by Kriss, Marketing Manager at Followin Global
Featuring GasGod, CMO and Co-Founder of Hungry Degens
If you’ve been in Web3 long enough, you know the feeling. The chart that keeps testing your patience. The token that promised the moon. That collective, almost comedic energy of being a degen. That energy is exactly what opened the latest X Spaces collaboration between Followin, the AI-powered Web3 news platform tracking what’s trending across the space, and Hungry Degens, the gamified NFT collection that turned the shared crypto experience into a brand, a culture, and an on-chain economy.
Hosted by Kriss (Marketing Manager, Followin Global) and joined by GasGod (CMO and Co-Founder, Hungry Degens), the conversation explored where Web3 gaming stands today, what the industry has learned, and where the next chapter is being written. Here’s the full breakdown.
1/ The State of Web3 Gaming: Where Things Stand
GasGod opened with a candid assessment. The majority of blockchain games have already passed their peak. The marquee titles of the 2021–2022 era, the ones that raised tens of millions and captured massive attention, have seen player bases decrease by over 90%. The market became saturated, the initial hype cycle ran its course, and what emerged was a clearer picture of what actually works in this space.
According to GasGod, the core issue was always player psychology. The dominant mindset across Web3 gaming participants has been profit-first: get in, earn yield, cash out early, and move on. That mentality turned every play-to-earn game into a speed race. Once the incentives slowed down, players moved on and projects had to adapt or close. He pointed to data from Delphi Digital showing that Web3 gaming funding declined by over 55% year-over-year.
GasGod emphasized one point above all: even projects with solid NFT integration or well-designed tokenomics still need a nurtured, engaged community to thrive. In Web3, community is the product-market fit. Meanwhile, attention has migrated toward meme token launches, prediction markets, and AI-driven platforms. Gaming is still alive, but it now shares the stage with faster-moving narratives, pushing the sector toward more sustainable models.
2/ Hungry Degens: A Story Built on Community Trust
Against this industry backdrop, GasGod shared how Hungry Degens carved out its own path. Gaming mechanics and NFT utility were always part of the plan, but the starting point was something far more fundamental: making people feel something.
The Degen Story
Every degen in Web3 knows what it feels like to get rugged, cheated, sniped, or liquidated. Rather than building around abstract utility promises, the Hungry Degens team built around that shared identity. Each NFT character represents a lived experience that holders immediately recognize as their own, creating an emotional connection that speculative projects simply cannot replicate. The timing also worked in the project’s favor: the community grew during the height of meme token trading on Solana, tapping into the same self-aware culture already thriving across crypto Twitter and Telegram.
Core Team Persistence
GasGod was refreshingly honest about the journey. Hungry Degens has been in development for over a year, and he openly acknowledged the balancing act of building a Web3 project: maintaining community engagement, shipping product, and creating financial value simultaneously. The reality is that the majority of users who enter any Web3 project arrive with a profit-first mindset. When their sentiment shifts, when a token dips or a roadmap milestone takes longer than expected, their departure can create a cascading effect on long-term development.
According to GasGod, the core team understood early that the critical ingredient was trust in the founders. They committed to relentless visibility and output: consistent appearances on Spaces, active engagement across Discord and Telegram, community-driven content like “Confessions of a Degen” (where anonymous loss stories are read aloud on X Spaces), and a cadence of shipping that demonstrated genuine commitment rather than empty promises. The result was more than degen culture. It was degen trust: a community that believes in the people behind the project, not just the project itself.
3/ Base Blockchain: Proving Community Trust Through Action
GasGod shared that the team evaluated six different blockchains during development. Abstract Chain was nearly the final choice, and the project was on the verge of deploying there, with early materials even positioning Abstract as the primary chain. However, as the team’s requirements evolved and their long-term positioning crystallized, a pivot became necessary.
Hungry Degens migrated its operations to Base, Coinbase’s Ethereum Layer 2, citing stronger alignment with consumer-facing needs: low fees for frequent loot box and accessory interactions, fast finality, and seamless NFT integration through Magic Eden and OpenSea.
GasGod acknowledged the complexity of switching chains mid-development, but emphasized that transparent communication across team and community channels preserved confidence through the migration. The community followed because the trust had already been established.
4/ What’s Next for Stable Development in Web3 Gaming?
GasGod’s closing assessment was measured and ultimately forward-looking. The current phase of Web3 gaming may extend longer than many expected, but he framed it as a proving ground and an opportunity for teams to demonstrate real product strength while reinforcing community trust. This is a recalibration, and it is a healthy one. The sector is evolving past its speculative phase and demanding substance. Teams that build around players first are leading the way forward. And for those teams, the reduced noise actually creates an advantage: less competition for attention, more room to build with intent.
The AI Factor
GasGod highlighted AI as a key emerging variable for Web3 gaming. He sees it becoming a core infrastructure layer for projects, applicable to game mechanics, community management, tokenomics optimization, and user experience personalization. For Hungry Degens specifically, AI represents an opportunity to deepen the ecosystem beyond collectibles and staking, building tools that serve holders with real, ongoing utility rather than one-time features.
Hungry Degens’ Forward Roadmap
Beyond continuing to develop the gamified mechanics already in place (the staking system, loot box economy, on-chain accessory marketplace, and $DUST token loop), the platform is pushing forward on several key fronts:
- Multi-chain expansion: Hungry Degens plans to extend its presence across additional blockchains to broaden community access and unlock new utility layers for its NFTs, meeting users where they already are.
- AI integration with Hungry AI Agent and DeVision: The team is actively developing AI-powered tools within the ecosystem. The Hungry AI Agent and DeVision (an ecosystem AI analytics tool) are designed to serve long-term application goals: smarter community engagement, data-driven decision-making for holders, and AI-assisted gameplay elements that evolve with the community’s behavior.
These are strategic moves designed to compound the project’s core advantage: a community that trusts the team and a mechanism that rewards engagement over speculation.
The Bottom Line
Web3 gaming is in a recalibration phase. Within this moment, Hungry Degens stands out as a team that stayed visible, kept shipping, and earned community trust before chasing token launches. Now positioned on Base with a clear roadmap toward AI integration and multi-chain expansion, the project embodies the approach that the standout builders of this era are converging on.
Because Hungry Degens Never Learn.
Follow the conversation:
Followin | AI-powered Web3 news platform tracking trending projects, AMAs, and breaking news
Hungry Degens | @HungryDegens on X | Discord: discord.gg/9rUcgFmnQn | Telegram: t.me/HungryDegensNFT
