On the forefront of pushing Decentraland technology and real-time gameplay forward, as well as innovating community-building techniques, Wilderness is one of the new projects of 2022 that will leave a lasting impression on Decentraland. Building a strong community in a decentralized space is no small accomplishment. The Wilderness team is a shining example of a community working together to change how games are made.

I wish I were better equipped to discuss the technical work the team is doing and why it is fantastic for anyone excited about the future of Decentraland gaming. I still don’t feel adequately prepared to explain the nature of Decentraland SDKs, how the work the team is doing on Wilderness is pushing the platform into the future, and how that will benefit all future projects who want to incorporate real-time interaction.
Wilderness is one of the two Grant Requests I suggest you check out if you are considering asking for a Decentraland Grant of your own. The team is doxed, the budget is broken down, and the benefit to the Decentraland community is made clear. Alongside Vroomway’s Grant Request, I would encourage people to ensure their writeup is of this level of quality, or better, before coming to the DCL community looking for 6-figures of funding.

Coming in at #3 on the inaugural Power Rankings, I am, admittedly, biased in my excitement for Wilderness, the team, and the community. I get pumped for the future of Decentraland gaming every time I hang out on the Wilderness Plot, Stream with Ney, or see the content created by the Wilderness community. You can see the shared vision and the steps being taken by the collective to make it a reality.
The Team

Ryan, Founder/CTO, is the more heads down and in the background member of the Wilderness leadership team. You can find him in discord and around the Wilderness Plot in Decentraland. You probably won’t catch him on Twitter or hanging out at a Decentraland event, he’s happy to talk about Wilderness and hear feedback from people who have invested time playing, but otherwise, he’s busy building.
Neha, Ney as friends call her, joined Ryan, taking on the titles of Co-Founder and CEO at the start of February 2022. Using her engineering education, professional experience, and natural charm, Ney has been at the forefront of Wilderness and its community becoming a cornerstone in the greater Decentraland ecosystem. The list of creators and “influencers” Wilderness is working with, inside DCL and out, is impressive.

The duo has done a fantastic job, not only working with established content creators but also putting the community first and empowering them to be advocates for the project. Part of the Decentraland grant the team received is dedicated to rewarding community members who’ve been creating content to promote the project.
In a previous article, Beginners Guide to Blockchain Gaming, I talked about What to look for in your first Play-to-Earn game, and among the things to look for, I mentioned:
“…you want to find a newer project with a small but active community and creators who engage and listen.”
Since no one has made a thriving Web3 World of Warcraft, or any game economy close to that scale or sustainability, finding a community committed and working toward a shared goal makes the most sense. Eventually, we will have selections of MMOs and massive economies that reward skills and hobbies of all kinds with minimal, or no, investment of our own.
Once people build the infrastructure of web3 and it’s easy to find a Play-to-earn game that suits any style, the real opportunity is gone. You are early if you are reading about web3 gaming in 2022/23. Find something you want to help build, and get to work.
The average miner wasn’t the one who walked away from the gold rush with life-changing money. The people who sold the supplies and ensured the trains ran were the ones who created generational wealth.

What is most exciting about web gaming for me, and what separates it from general crypto “investing,” is that you won’t need much “capital” to invest in this future. Games need players, testers, designers, and community organizers. In this new digital frontier, you can change your life by using nothing but your ability to identify the best opportunities, your natural skill set, and your time.
The opportunity to shape the web3 landscape and help create the future is a genuine possibility. I don’t remember who I first saw say it, but at the end of 2021, I read, “if you don’t see a job for you in web3, that just means no one has made it yet.” By rewarding its community for content creation, Wilderness has started a grand experiment.
The team has identified what areas it needs to augment its skills and is rewarding its most engaged users for stepping up to fill in those gaps. In some instances, community members are stepping into entirely new endeavors, such as Wilderness legend OldGuy who started streaming and hanging out across Decentraland as part of this community initiative.
It’s a fantastic, mutually beneficial relationship. A community building towards a goal that each will be able to point to and explain how they helped. Only time will tell if this model is successful or if it can be scaled as projects grow, but whatever the outcome, they will have moved us closer to the next evolution in decentralized game development.
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