As the co-founder of Wolves DAO and Chief Marketing Officer of Farcade, Sam Steffanina is helping to shape the future of player ownership economies, whether hosting founder-centric Twitter Spaces or continually pushing the limits of no-code tools; Sam is always the center of discussion.
We sat down to talk about the unique model of Wolves DAO, the work Farcade is doing to eliminate friction in game creation, and why web3 gaming is inevitable.
Note: This record has been edited for brevity and clarity.
OpenSea: How did you first become interested in gaming and digital communities?
Sam Steffanina: My background started at a very young age when I was an avid (World of Warcraft) fan. I was homeschooled and spent too much time gaming. Later, I and my brother found some success on YouTube; his name is Matt Steffanina, a dancer from a small town, and we started filming dance tutorials.
We used to have to spend a lot of money on DVDs or fly to New York and Los Angeles to take classes because no one in Virginia taught hip-hop. We created the largest dance channel on YouTube, which lasted for about five years, with 15 million subscribers, and a secondary channel with about 3 million subscribers. We also expanded to other social media platforms.
Later, I got sick for a few years and couldn't work. When I returned, dance was no longer what I wanted to do. I reconnected with my gaming roots and discovered blockchain games through Alex Becker's videos, immediately realizing it had great potential. I spent four months learning about cryptocurrency and eventually met Payton from Wolves DAO, and we co-founded Wolves DAO, developing the concept together.
OpenSea: What an interesting story! I've always wondered how Vitalik created Ethereum after losing everything while playing (World of Warcraft), so whenever someone asks about common use cases for blockchain, I always say gaming.
Sam Steffanina: I love it; this is the language I love - people recognizing real value propositions rather than just talking about symbolic prices.
OpenSea: It can be challenging to explain this world to outsiders, but once you relate it to things like gaming or immutable public records, it becomes clear.
Sam Steffanina: That's right, my mom hates using Western Union; she hates using it for international transfers. I told her that blockchain can do it in seconds, and now she's using XRP Maxi.
OpenSea: Love it! It's slowly permeating the baby boomer generation!
Sam Steffanina: A little bit at a time.
OpenSea: You mentioned being homeschooled and gaming; did that make you feel lonely or influenced by the outside world?
Sam Steffanina: This is actually a form of alternative education called 'unschooling,' where the high-level philosophy is that children design the curriculum themselves rather than adults designing it for them.
It made me extremely adaptable, able to handle things alone with ease, even though there were a few years in between that were not so smooth. My mom worked on cruise ships, so I often traveled with her and made friends around the world, and I got used to trusting people I met online from a young age.
It ultimately led me down the path of cooking, and cooking in restaurants introduced me to a group of friends and developed my social skills. For two or three years, I was a bit awkward, unsure of which direction I wanted to go, but it made me very adaptable; everything is vibrant, and I'm not afraid to learn new things because I have always been trying.
Fast forward to the Web3 era, I suddenly realized: I understand the digital economy, I have friends all over the internet, and my trust in others is based on what they say online and how they present themselves, which is difficult for many people.
OpenSea: So what moment or project got you involved in web3?
Sam Steffanina: That was at the end of 2021, during the bull market, when I minted the second season of Neo Tokyo and believed in its vision, although I knew many things would take years to realize. I lost some money, but I found the real value: people. Wolves DAO was born from that time. I met some business partners and friends, and we are still collaborating to this day.
OpenSea: Did you immediately find Wolves DAO?
Sam Steffanina: Not entirely. I went through an awkward 'Web3 adolescence' first. Eventually, I joined a community then called Cyberwolves, which was a derivative community of Payton's YouTube channel. A nurse in Los Angeles knew my brother's YouTube channel and contacted me.
When I joined the voice chat, everyone was excited, and I immediately realized they had something special, but needed help packaging it. Crypto content in 2021 was a bit rough, based on my experience, the early content market was a golden opportunity, so I started to help out.
OpenSea: Wolves DAO has always been very community-focused, how do you maintain that spirit?
Sam Steffanina: Exclusivity has become the core of our brand, no need to purchase NFTs, limited to 300 members, by application only, which creates loyalty.
We are constantly looking for ways to add value. We have hosted Twitter Spaces, online events, and now we're launching offline events. We just held a five-day GDC event in San Francisco.
We are developing a companion app to alert holders, for example, when their tokens are about to unlock or when they are eligible to mint NFTs; that's exactly what we want, so we are developing it.
OpenSea: I love its organic nature and that it was built together with team members. How would you describe the mission of Wolves DAO to someone completely unfamiliar with this space?
Sam Steffanina: Our founder Payton would say it's 'kaizen' (continuous improvement), treating each other like family. We believe in the existence of differences ('iron sharpens iron'); when differences create benefits, it makes everyone better. Personally, I think everything I'm doing now is to find the 10 to 20 people I will work with in the future and collaborate with them in my career.
OpenSea: How do you balance content creation, work at Farcade, Wolves DAO, and everything else you're doing?
Sam Steffanina: Live performances keep me honest, which is good because they are live-streamed twice a week. I realize I am very creative, but lack analytical skills. I think the key is finding ways to unleash my hyper-efficient creativity and touch on all the different aspects I need to reach, like my personal brand, Farcade brand, Wolves DAO brand, etc.
I am working hard to learn how to better leverage AI to enhance productivity and streamline management tasks; this is really difficult, especially as you add more and more brands, maintaining everything becomes increasingly challenging.
OpenSea: What role does AI play in your work now?
Sam Steffanina: It's everywhere, we have an AI robot that can analyze vast amounts of data and post insights on Twitter and elsewhere, and the accompanying application WOOF AI for Wolves DAO will also incorporate some AI and send updates to people via Farcade.
AI is a pillar of the entire business, so we allow people to essentially develop video games on their own without writing code; this is really exciting. I think we've eliminated about 98% of the friction, and there's still about 2% left, but that 2% is really hard to eliminate.
OpenSea: Many traditional gamers still haven't ventured into Web3 gaming, what do you think their biggest misunderstanding is?
Sam Steffanina: People mistakenly think that everyone in Web3 is a scammer. Like anything, this black-and-white thinking overlooks the nuances.
Games like (MapleStory) showcase the right model: they have successful business models and recognize that blockchain can enhance player experiences. I am very confident about the prospects of real-world applications.
Players want to find truly valuable rare items, and Web3 makes all of this possible; we just need more 'net positive' experiences without a sense of predation.
OpenSea: Thank you very much.
Sam Steffanina: You too, goodbye!
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