📰 Pixels AMA Summary (13 May 2026)

Pixels AMA Recap — Web3 Gaming Economics, Paid Funnels & Chubkins Update

Luke and Heidi hosted a chill AMA this week, playing the new Lily's event live while answering community questions. Here are the key takeaways.

Web3 Gaming — Where Things Stand

Luke gave a candid overview of the cycles they've seen since 2021 — NFT hype, the 2022 crash, the FTX collapse, the Pixels revival in 2023 via the play-to-airdrop and Binance listing, the 2024 boom, and the current lull. His view: it's all cyclical and always has been, and each new wave brings new innovation.

Return on Reward Spend (RORS) — Updated Definition

The team has tightened how they measure RORS — removing vPIXEL and anything not tracked in USD. Current numbers: ~1.12 over the last 30 days, ~1.18 over the last day. Both are sustainable (above 1.0 means more is being spent in-game than given out in rewards). They want the margin higher before running paid ads profitably.

Paid Funnels Are Coming

This is the big push. Current day-one retention is around 20–25%, day-seven around 5% — not competitive with top mobile games. The plan is to improve first-time user experience dramatically, then run paid ads. To do this compliantly, crypto rewards needed to be separated from the core game — that's why Stacked exists.

Credit card and G-Cash payments are coming to the core Pixels game. The team has already been working on making Pixels function as a standalone product so a payment processor will approve it.

Stacked — Purpose Explained

Stacked's job is to make sure rewards go to real engaged players, not bots or extractors. It uses data science and targeting to determine who gets what tasks at what amounts. Long term, Stacked may split into two products — one crypto-facing, one not — to allow full App Store compliance without abandoning the token ecosystem.

Chubkins — Sneak Peek

A big UI overhaul is coming. The current build is functional but visually inconsistent. The new version will be cohesive, polished, and cute — Heidi showed a preview of the new direction. New egg hatching mechanic was briefly teased. No launch date given.

Pixel Dungeons — Steam Native

The new Pixels Dungeons game will launch on Steam (not mobile). The monetisation model: one-time purchase, then play to earn. Luke described it as unlike anything he's seen in Web3 gaming so far.

Ronin Migrating to ETH L2

Luke said this makes sense. Cross-chain liquidity was genuinely painful as a sidechain — moving to ETH L2 makes it much easier to pull in liquidity from other chains. He also noted that the network effect and protocol layer matter more than which chain you're on.

Security

Pixels was heavily targeted by North Korea's Lazarus Group and other state-sponsored actors in 2024 — and they held. Multi-sig wallets require 4–5 signatures on hardened separate devices. All new features are pen-tested by white hat groups before shipping.

Stacked Upcoming Features

A store is coming to Stacked where you'll be able to spend Stack points or PIXEL on in-game items. Gift card and PayPal cash-out options are also in development.

Fun Stuff — Quiz Giveaways

The team ran a few trivia questions live with in-game prizes:

1. Farmland mint year: 2021 (mint started Dec 2021, completed 2022)
2. First avatar collection integrated into Pixels: Pixel Beasts
3. Second NFT integrated: Lazy Lions
4. First UGC minted and approved in Pixels: the bonsai tree from Eve

Remember to use code: DOJO for 5% discount (and 10 years Good Luck!)