Mark, this is the cleanest articulation of the shift I've been tracking with studios building for 2027.
Era 3 isn't just "community matters." It's that advocacy has to be designed into the product from pre-production. The studios I work with who understand this are building Discord communities 18 months before launch, shipping Early Access as community infrastructure, treating mod tools as product features not marketing add-ons.
"Community isn't just something that forms after a game is successful, it's actually one of the things that produces game success in the first place" that's the diagnostic question we're all dealing with in the industry wiht the calendar chaos we've dealt with as of late. If you had to delay launch by six months, what happens? Era 2 thinking: momentum dies, marketing spend wasted. Era 3 thinking: community keeps building, launch becomes an event in the community not the reason for it.
Gen Alpha's already operating in Era 3 by default. They collaborate to grind, mock FOMO tactics, route around extraction mechanics. They're not responding to personalized targeting. They're responding to tribal belonging and peer verification. The games winning them over are the ones where advocacy is baked into the loop.
Curious about your Era 4 thesis on AI intermediaries. Gen Alpha grew up in algorithmic feeds. They already understand how to game recommendation systems. If AI becomes the discovery layer, they'll figure out how to route around that too.
Glad you found some value! I agree with your takes there.
If players start trusting AI nodes in their networks more than their IRL friends, I suspect they'll be some change in how Discovery works. I'll need to think more deeply about it, but I believe a meaningful portion of players will not avoid or route around AI nodes.
That's the challenge and the thing we fear most. The reliability of AI nodes.
I'm currently enjoying and fearing what's going on with Moltbook at the moment.
Look at AI-generated ads for mobile games on Facebook. A lot of the stuff I enjoy and do for discovery (Reddit, X, etc.) is slowly making it there. The boundary between what's peer-recommended and what's algorithmically inserted is collapsing.
But if players start trusting AI recommendations over peer verification, that changes everything. Discovery stops being peer-to-peer and becomes peer-mediated-by-AI.
The games that win aren't just the ones with advocacy built in. They're the ones that can influence how AI understands what makes a game "good" for a specific player.
That's a different design problem entirely.
But I have faith in Gen Alpha in being resistant to AI Casinofication. They're the kids who are going to do it.
Mark, this is the cleanest articulation of the shift I've been tracking with studios building for 2027.
Era 3 isn't just "community matters." It's that advocacy has to be designed into the product from pre-production. The studios I work with who understand this are building Discord communities 18 months before launch, shipping Early Access as community infrastructure, treating mod tools as product features not marketing add-ons.
"Community isn't just something that forms after a game is successful, it's actually one of the things that produces game success in the first place" that's the diagnostic question we're all dealing with in the industry wiht the calendar chaos we've dealt with as of late. If you had to delay launch by six months, what happens? Era 2 thinking: momentum dies, marketing spend wasted. Era 3 thinking: community keeps building, launch becomes an event in the community not the reason for it.
Gen Alpha's already operating in Era 3 by default. They collaborate to grind, mock FOMO tactics, route around extraction mechanics. They're not responding to personalized targeting. They're responding to tribal belonging and peer verification. The games winning them over are the ones where advocacy is baked into the loop.
Curious about your Era 4 thesis on AI intermediaries. Gen Alpha grew up in algorithmic feeds. They already understand how to game recommendation systems. If AI becomes the discovery layer, they'll figure out how to route around that too.
Glad you found some value! I agree with your takes there.
If players start trusting AI nodes in their networks more than their IRL friends, I suspect they'll be some change in how Discovery works. I'll need to think more deeply about it, but I believe a meaningful portion of players will not avoid or route around AI nodes.
That's the challenge and the thing we fear most. The reliability of AI nodes.
I'm currently enjoying and fearing what's going on with Moltbook at the moment.
Look at AI-generated ads for mobile games on Facebook. A lot of the stuff I enjoy and do for discovery (Reddit, X, etc.) is slowly making it there. The boundary between what's peer-recommended and what's algorithmically inserted is collapsing.
But if players start trusting AI recommendations over peer verification, that changes everything. Discovery stops being peer-to-peer and becomes peer-mediated-by-AI.
The games that win aren't just the ones with advocacy built in. They're the ones that can influence how AI understands what makes a game "good" for a specific player.
That's a different design problem entirely.
But I have faith in Gen Alpha in being resistant to AI Casinofication. They're the kids who are going to do it.