Everyone is rushing to build their own AI game and become the next LagosLife.

Here's why that's the wrong game to play, and what to do instead.

AI has made building a game so easy that you can go from an idea on Friday to something playable by Sunday. And everyone is doing exactly that.

But that is the easy part.

Getting people to play is hard.
Getting them to come back is harder.
Keeping the game fresh, stopping hackers from ruining it, and making money without driving players away? Those are entirely different problems.

Rovio made 51 games before Angry Birds became a global hit.

Among Us launched in 2018. It took another two years, and a wave of popular streamers, for the game to explode.

AI has made it cheaper to build a game. It hasn't made it easier to build a successful one. And everyone's looking in the wrong direction.

What you work on is just as important as how hard you work.

This is a gold rush, and in a gold rush, most people spend their time digging.

Most find dirt. Some find gold dust. A lucky few strike a vein and become very rich.

But every single one needs tools.

You should be selling shovels

During the California Gold Rush, Levi Strauss recognized the opportunity wasn't in the mines, so he bought all, not some, ALL the shovels and picks. The profits funded his denim business.

He didn't need to find gold. He needed people who were willing to keep digging.

That's the game to play.

Don't build another game and hope millions of people fall in love with it. Build the infrastructure that turns games into businesses.

Build the tools that help studios understand why players leave.
The systems that make payments work.
The technology that keeps cheaters out.
The platforms that help developers create fresh content without spending a fortune.

When a thousand people rush to build games, you have a thousand potential customers.
You don't need to know which one will become the next LagosLife.
You need to solve a problem they'll all have along the way.

In chess, this move is called a fork, where one piece attacks two or more enemy pieces at once.

That's the play. Build once, serve many.

Some games will become massive successes. Someone will strike gold.

The opportunity is building a business that wins regardless of whether they find gold or not.

Checkmate.