What a Trip: EA and 3DO founder's on the Web3 Kool-Aid

(Image credit: Getty)

William Murray Hawkins III, better-known as Trip Hawkins, has had a long and incredibly impactful career in games. Hawkins founded Electronic Arts in 1982, and led the company through its trailblazing first decade, establishing certain specialities like sports that the publishing giant was built on. Then Hawkins went on to launch the ill-fated 3DO, a powerful console kneecapped by a high price, before founding Digital Chocolate and spending the 2000s in casual games (like Mafia Wars).

Now, Trip's back! Don't get excited. In a move that has strong 69-year-old executive vibes, Hawkins has announced he's joining a Web3 startup as co-founder and strategy chief. Games for a Living (GFAL) is based in Barcelona and all about that crypto, aiming to create experiences that can compete with famous blockchain games like… err… Axie Infinity (the subject of one of 2022's biggest crypto hacks).

Naturally the company has its own token, the $GFAL, which will apparently launch in March. There will be a total of ten billion $GFAL tokens issued, yes that's billion with a 'b', and as with all these things it will be used to pay for all these services and tools that do not yet exist on the GFAL network. There's also the typical crypto promises of governance: "Users who own $GFAL will get to vote on the products and functionalities that Games for a Living will offer in the future."

GFAL is currently developing two games, Elemental Raiders which is a generic-looking fantasy card-battler, and a match-3 game that incorporates NFTs. Wait, where are you all going?

Well, it certainly ain't Madden. But take it away Trip:

"Web3 is the bridge to the metaverse," said Hawkins to Reuters. "And if we're going to make a metaverse, the economy of the metaverse has to be more like the real world."

Yuh-huh: You've heard of web3.0, now it's time for web3DO!

GFAL was founded in 2021 by Manel Sort, a former King executive, and no doubt will attract oodles of silly money. All I'd say is take the warning at the top of GFAL's website seriously: "Investing in cryptoassets is unregulated, may not be suitable for retail investors and the full amount invested may be lost."

Rich is a games journalist with 15 years' experience, beginning his career on Edge magazine before working for a wide range of outlets, including Ars Technica, Eurogamer, GamesRadar+, Gamespot, the Guardian, IGN, the New Statesman, Polygon, and Vice. He was the editor of Kotaku UK, the UK arm of Kotaku, for three years before joining PC Gamer. He is the author of a Brief History of Video Games, a full history of the medium, which the Midwest Book Review described as "[a] must-read for serious minded game historians and curious video game connoisseurs alike."