At TOKEN2049, Animoca Brands chairman Yat Siu says poor investor relations are holding back Web3 gaming despite stronger fundamentals. | Credit: Picture alliance / Getty Images.
Key Takeaways
Yat Siu told CCN that many Web3 gaming companies fail at basic investor relations, which has hurt token valuations.
The Animoca Brands Chairman said the closure of early Web3 gaming companies has left stronger players to build richer games.
Animoca’s new MoCA Portfolio token gives holders exposure to its broad Web3 investments.
Web3 gaming has improved in quality and scale but continues to lag in investor communication, Yat Siu, chairman of Animoca Brands, told CCN.
Speaking on the sidelines of the TOKEN2049 conference, Siu also highlighted Animoca’s push into real-world assets, stablecoins, and its new MoCA Portfolio strategy as signs of a maturing market.
Siu said that despite technical progress in Web3 gaming, many companies still fail at the basics of investor communication, a weakness he believes has hurt token performance across the sector.
“Gaming companies have been bad at investor relations, generally,” Siu said.
He contrasted that with projects like Animoca-owned Sandbox, where leaders regularly engage with the community.
“You’ve got someone like Sebastien [Borget] out there, always telling people, managing relations – and it’s still a big ecosystem as a result,” Siu noted.
His comments came shortly after the announcement that AlphaTON Capital had signed a non-binding letter of intent to acquire a controlling interest in GAMEE, Animoca’s Web3 gaming subsidiary in the Telegram ecosystem.
Under the deal, AlphaTON plans to purchase a 51% stake in GAMEE, including equity and token holdings, and strengthen its portfolio with up to $4 million in open-market token purchases.
The proposed transaction highlights the disconnect Siu pointed to between strong fundamentals and market perception.
GAMEE, with more than 119 million registered users and 10 billion gameplay sessions, has a vast presence on Telegram, yet its GAMEE token had been undervalued until news of the potential acquisition sent it surging.
“The token’s market cap was two or $3 million on a company that was making about one and a half million to 2 million or $3 million of profit a year,” Siu told CCN.
Siu argued the low valuation reflected how investors had shifted their focus toward themes like AI.
This he said highlighted a disconnect between the platform’s large player base and the smaller pool of token holders, which meant user traction was not translating directly into token demand.
Despite the shortcomings, Siu said he sees the industry moving into a more durable phase after years of speculative hype and failed projects.
Many Web3 gaming companies that lacked a clear business case have shut down, leaving stronger players to consolidate and improve.
“When you go through these cycles, there’s a maturation, because we’ve also had a lot of Web3 gaming companies shut down,” he said.
He said the progress could be seen by comparing early blockchain games to those being built today.
“When you look at the first version of Axie, basically what’s built on the Ronin blockchain four years ago was good, but today is much better, much richer, much more involved,” he added.
Siu also said the sector was evolving beyond early experiments in gameplay to incorporate the broader financial tools that blockchain enables.
He noted that developers have gained experience not just in graphics and mechanics but in integrating systems like token trading and treasury management.
However, he added that many early companies failed to grasp those possibilities.
“Many of those gaming companies didn’t understand that at the time. Those that did survived and grew, and those that didn’t actually went out of business, right? So that’s an important part to understand as well.”
Animoca has been expanding its token strategy with the launch of MoCA Portfolio, a new product designed to give holders of the MoCA token exposure to the company’s vast network of Web3 investments.
Instead of buying dozens of individual project tokens, holders can stake MoCA to gain access to a stream of assets from Animoca’s portfolio through airdrops.
The initiative is pitched as a way to simplify participation in a fragmented market while rewarding loyalty and digital identity building.
“MoCA portfolio is really the beginning of showing that if you hold the MoCA token, you actually have a way in which you can have an index of Animoca’s investment portfolio,” Siu told CCN.
He said the timing reflects both shifting regulation and the complexity of the current crypto landscape.
“MoCA is the one token you can hold that gives you a basket of portfolios that you can participate and have ownership over,” he said. “The MoCA token is like that altcoin index.”
Siu said Animoca has long been interested in bridging the physical and digital worlds through tokenization.
He pointed to experiments such as the company’s project with a Stradivarius violin, which he said helped reinvigorate attention on real-world assets.
“It didn’t just bring attention to us. It brought attention to RWAs. It brought attention to the potential,” he told CCN.
On stablecoins, Siu argued they could become one of the most important tools for mainstream adoption.
While they can be used in games, he said the greater potential lies in payments and infrastructure, particularly in expanding across borders.
“Stablecoins also have a way of distributing reach,” he said.
