In this week’s Startup Show, I talked to Quinn Kwon from DeLabs Games. She’s helping rethink how we make, launch, and grow games. And it doesn’t look anything like the traditional model.

Instead of throwing money at ads on Google or Facebook, DeLabs is building games that grow inside messaging platforms—Telegram, Line—and reward users directly for helping spread the word. This is Web3 gaming, but without the jargon. It’s about incentives. It’s about community. And it’s about meeting players where they already are.

Their newest game, Boxing Star X, launched on Telegram and Line, two apps people are already using every day. No installs. No logins. Just a link, a tap, and you’re playing. Since February, they’ve pulled in over 700,000 users. Not from ad budgets, but from shared links and organic network effects.

The idea here is simple: marketing budgets should go to players, not platforms. If someone brings a friend into a game, why shouldn’t they be the one who gets rewarded? DeLabs is doing that through token rewards and referral incentives, but they’re also trying not to let that mechanic overpower the game itself. If the only reason people show up is to earn 50 cents, the game dies fast.

There’s a tension here between financial motivation and creative integrity. Quinn’s clear-eyed about that. Right now, most of Web3 gaming still leans speculative. But they’re working to build systems where both types of players—the ones who play to compete and the ones who play to earn—have a place in the same ecosystem.

It’s also a reminder that markets are different. A $1 reward might mean nothing to a U.S. player. But in other regions, it’s a real incentive. That shapes behavior. And DeLabs is designing with that in mind, from leaderboards for high-spenders to basic play modes that reward steady, daily engagement.

What stood out to me most was how they’re building games like Boxing Star X not just as entertainment but as a community layer inside existing social platforms. There’s no jump from app store to app. The game lives where the people already are. And the reward system is built into that layer—native, social, and real-time.

For game developers, especially indie studios, this offers a playbook that sidesteps the algorithm arms race. For players, it’s a signal that gaming can feel less extractive. And for anyone paying attention to where the internet is going—especially at the edges of tech and culture—it’s a case study in how things might grow from the bottom up instead of top down.