A few months ago, I saw someone mocking Pixels on Reddit, saying it was 'just another dead chain game.' At that time, it really did look bleak—on May 13, 2024, daily active users peaked at 1,000,000, only to drop to 250,000 by June 19, a decrease of 74.2%. Later, I understood what had happened that year.
The CEO finally admits early unsustainability
At the end of last year, CEO Luke Barwikowski was particularly frank on a podcast, saying that in early 2024 they were basically 'giving out rewards far exceeding the money earned.' This sounds like a self-criticism, but actually, it's quite an honest attitude for a project.
In most chain game projects under such circumstances, they either run away or continue to inflate fake data. But Pixels' choice is to stop and make changes, although this means that active users will continue to decrease in the short term. This sounds a bit crazy, but it makes some sense in retrospect—at the beginning of 2025, the CEO said in another interview that this was the worst market sentiment since he established it, but 'the sentiment of the core community is the best it has been in 6 to 12 months.'
What does this indicate? It indicates that, in the absence of retail investors and outsiders, those who remain truly believe that this project is being repaired.
The shift from vanity metrics to real metrics
Throughout 2024, the industry was crazily chasing DAU, chasing transaction volume, these vanity numbers. At the peak of Pixels with 1 million DAU, an analyst directly stated—'Perhaps 70% of this is bots or opportunists.' The CEO himself admitted that real players might only account for 40%.
At the end of last year, they completely changed their mindset. They no longer looked at DAU but shifted to RORS—'Reward Outstanding Return Rate.' Simply put, it's about how much they can earn back from the 100 dollars spent on rewards. This metric is particularly brutal because you can't cheat using bots and fake data. The projects that truly survive are all competing on this.
Recently they launched something called Stacked, which the CEO described as 'the Appsflyer of the P2E field.' Translated, it means: an independent reward distribution platform that can span different games, allowing players to earn $PIXEL across various games in the Pixels universe, but without pushing cryptocurrency onto ordinary players who do not care about Web3.
This line of thought is particularly interesting because they finally understand: most people do not care about token prices; they care about whether they can really make money and whether they can withdraw smoothly.
Chubkins, Stacked, and the compromise with mainstream players
This year they also launched Chubkins, a mobile pet-raising game. Simply put, it is made to be relatively light, lowering the threshold for players. You don't need to understand what blockchain is or how to use a wallet; you can play and earn.
This sounds simple, but in reality, it represents a significant shift in the CEO's thinking. In a recent interview, he said—'The only way to save crypto games is not to make games just for crypto players.' The implication is that their biggest mistake previously was making the product too 'Web3.'
Stacked is also a reflection of this logic. It is not only for @Pixels; the CEO said this platform is even open to all game developers—whether you are a Web2 or Web3 project, you can use our reward system. This can gradually draw traditional game developers in, allowing them to see that P2E can be played this way, rather than being overly fixated on the term 'blockchain.'
Behind the data: A project supported by Filipino players
Search engine data shows that 18% of the traffic to the Pixels website comes from the Philippines, making it the largest single country source of traffic. Brazil, Thailand, and Indonesia each account for 9%. In other words, the core users of this project are actually in Southeast Asia and South America, rather than in the U.S. and Europe.
This actually highlights a reality—there is real demand for Web3 games in emerging economies because people in these places need such income channels. However, this also means that the price fluctuations of PIXEL have a particularly significant impact on Filipino users.
Precisely because of this, Pixels' recent strategic adjustments appear particularly targeted—enhancing the pure gameplay of the game (not driven by token prices), while reducing the complexity of Web3 (without requiring every player to become a DeFi user).
Staking features and the critical period of these two months
The CEO recently announced that PIXEL will introduce a staking feature, describing it as a 'quite novel' mechanism. The community's reaction has actually been quite calm, without any particular enthusiasm or skepticism. Everyone is waiting to see how it will be implemented.
But from the project team's perspective, staking is likely the next economic adjustment—it might be a bit useless to increase PIXEL.
These two or three months are actually crucial. If the staking mechanism is well-designed and can truly attract users to buy and hold, it indicates that the project team has found the right direction. If it's just another trick, then Pixels might really not be able to hold on.
Finally, let me share my current perspective
A year ago, I viewed Pixels just like other chain games, as a gamble on whether the CEO could succeed. However, the changes over this year have led me to reassess this person. He is willing to admit his early failures in the worst market, willing to give up vanity metrics in pursuit of real sustainability, and willing to change strategies to embrace non-crypto players. These are not particularly easy decisions.