All right, who are we missing?
All right, I see we have Vlad, we got Ryan on the open-ended couch.
All right, I see Christians here.
Okay, we have Christian, Boss Fighters, and we have Nedas.
Is that the right way to pronounce it?
Feel free to call me Ned.
Well, I live in Copenhagen, Denmark, but I'm originally from Lithuania, where is the founding
studio in Shadowpoint located.
I think we're just missing one person, right, Michael?
No, I think we have everyone, right?
We have big time in here, we have stratosphere games, we have block games, and of course,
how could we forget Boss Fighters?
Vlad, how are you doing today?
Hey, Michael, I've been great.
I hear you loud and clear.
Right now, I'm in Budapest, but yeah, it's a little rainy here.
I don't know what's the weather at your location.
I hope it's better than here.
So, I hope this conversation will cheer up a little bit my mood, because it's really
Oh man, I'm sorry to hear ya.
So, Ryan and I, we're in Texas right now, and it's actually not triple digits, so we're
not melting, which is good.
Oh, Houston, this is probably the best weather that we've had all year round.
So, Houston, the winters are mild, but the summers are scorching.
So, we're in this nice middle ground where it's not too cold, not too hot.
And Christian, where are you calling in from?
I mean, I listened to quite a bit of these Twitter shout outs, but I didn't join one
Yeah, I'm here in Berlin.
The weather is like always in this time of the year horrible.
So, the only thing that we do is like work, which is a good thing.
It's like you get a lot of stuff done, but it's like, yeah, summer is definitely over.
We have like seven degrees, solstice and rain.
So, yeah, let's say like that.
Well, winter is a great time to build.
But that said, I think we're now four minutes in, which is great.
Ryan, why don't you tell us a little bit about Openloot and why don't you tell us a little
about this Twitter space?
So, welcome everyone to Openloot's first of many Twitter spaces, where we'll provide
insights from the ecosystem and updates on what we are building.
So, Openloot is a, it's a GameFi platform where gamers are able to interact and get ownership
while they play their games.
And these games, so BigTime is the first game and we've had a very successful launch.
Michael, do you want to tell us a little bit more about that?
I'm the Chief Marketing Officer here at BigTime.
BigTime is a, we're a video game company for a PC.
We started our company in April of 2020.
We released our early access version in 2022.
And our game is a MMORPG.
It's very similar to a game like World of Warcraft or Diablo.
You battle your way through procedurally generated dungeons with six different character classes.
And the game focuses on, the game focuses on crafting.
We have a super unique player-driven economy focused around crafting.
It's been a huge week for us.
We just started pre-season last week.
It's been a huge success.
And we're super excited to keep building and keep growing the game and the player base.
Anyways, back to you, Ryan.
And then, so we have Christian here.
He's with Stratosphere Games.
Maybe, Christian, do you want to tell us a little bit about Stratosphere?
So, yeah, Stratosphere Games is an eight-year-old game studio.
We're building games for eight years.
Quite an interesting group of people.
Worked at big companies, small companies.
And, yeah, we were first mostly on the mobile space.
We just released last year together with Homeworld, with Gearbox, publishing Homeworld Mobile,
which is a pretty big mobile game based on a big IP.
And, yeah, and then over the years we grew more and more.
We have now three active teams.
And last year we started a little bit later to the game.
I think late, like mid-22, we started our journey to Web3.
For us, especially the ownership aspect was super interesting.
Coming from Web2, I think that was one of the things that I always missed.
And so now we are developing a new title together and we'll work together on it with Open Loot.
And we'll announce it very soon and have our first, we'll have a big announcement trailer and everything.
Yeah, it's a pretty crazy and really cool time of the year to launching something like that
because I think with Open Loot we have a strong partner on our side.
And we have Boss Fighters.
Boss Fighters, do you want to make a quick intro?
I'm founder and creative director at Boss Fighters.
So Boss Fighters is a cross-reality VR and flat screen action game.
It is a multiplayer game where VR player controls the boss and it fights against a team of flat screen or like PC players in intense and creative wacky battles.
We've been on Open Loot for some time already.
We launched our first collection.
It was like the alpha, alpha passes collection in the form of battle passes, mini battle passes.
It went super successful.
We also translated our initial mint to the Open Loot.
We transferred from Solana our initial mint that we did a year ago.
So the game is in a closed alpha right now and we're getting ready to launch the game in early access next year.
It will be available on meta quest platforms, on PC, on Open Loot launcher.
It's on every other PC launcher, basically.
And last but not least, we have Ned with Block Games.
Can you make a quick intro about it, about yourself?
Happy to be here on the call today.
I'm Ned, head of partnerships at Block Games.
So, you know, just not to bore you with too long introduction.
We are originally coming from the mobile gaming ourselves.
The company was co-founded by Astotti, European developer with 40 plus on average mobile games and 50 million MOU across this catalog.
And I mean, working with this hyper casual mobile game developer for the last 12 years, we've basically noticed the impact of IDFA leading to reduction of revenue.
And actually, the main reason Block Games was established in the first place was to tackle this IDFA problem.
And we found that rewarded traffic works really well for us.
With that in mind, with Block Games, we took a step even further, becoming a very interesting user acquisition channel and Gamers Hub with amazing rewards.
That would be us in a nutshell.
By the way, I love that your company has such a strong background in user acquisition.
I'm sure you know that Ryan and myself, that's really where we focus too.
We're very happy to have a strong marketing partner in you guys.
With those intros, let's get to some of the questions that we have for today.
So what does it mean to take blockchain games to the next level?
What metrics would lead you to say blockchain games are officially mainstream?
Christian, what are your thoughts on that?
Yeah, I mean, I mentioned that quite a bit before coming from Web2.
And I mean, I'm like 24 years now in this industry.
And I think we had some amazing tech coming up over the years.
And I think blockchain itself and all its possibilities is one of the coolest ones.
Nevertheless, I think, I mean, this is probably one of the coming from Web2.
For us, it's a technology.
It's a technology that allows better ownership, that allows better interoperability and allows better security.
And this is, I think, I personally think that was one of the issues we had with Web3 so far.
It was too much talk about the tech and not enough about the games.
So I think making it mainstream means blockchain should become the reliable foundation.
And we should talk and we should focus more on making great games and having blockchain as a foundation.
I think that's the, that's for me, there's less talking about tech because most gamers, I mean, like I said, I do this forever.
Gamers don't care that much what kind of foundation, like hardcore gamers don't care what kind of foundation the game has.
They want to have a fun game, which they're excited about.
If that is run on blockchain or not, or if what kind of engine you use.
And so it is probably for very, very few people.
It's interesting, but at the end, just care.
And how well it's, it's connected and do have any issues with it?
What is your perspective on that?
Yeah, I completely agree on all this point.
So I think two most important things that to make blockchain games mainstream accessibility and enjoyability, if I can put it this way.
So first thing is accessibility.
Yeah, we have all this amazing tech, but we also have to think about barriers that user have using this tech.
So that's why we actually partner with open look because they have like an amazing technology built really simplifies all the access to traditional gamers to blockchain stuff within the games.
So accessibility is number one, it really like we live in a winner world of tech talk, like we live in a world where users used to like they always two clicks away from purchasing something within the game.
Like they own the mobile phones, like they own the mobile phones and you have all these shops, all these propositions, unique stuff.
You click the button and you've got this item.
So they don't need to worry about the tech.
They don't need to worry about all this with the wallets, seed phrases.
So we have to simplify all this stuff and focus on user experience.
And obviously games have to be fun.
Like we we saw like a big surge of play to own and play to earn games last year, two years ago, and it didn't work out mostly for the reasons that there were not games at all.
We're like game gamified financial products.
And yeah, we have to right now.
I'm really happy with what's happening in the industry.
So big players are working on really good titles.
And once those titles are shipped and players start blocking to them, we're going to see a lot more players in the blockchain space.
I know a lot of people listening in on this are really waiting for the adoption of blockchain games.
Ned, what are your thoughts?
I mean, I will probably reiterate some of the points because I totally agree with the rest of the speakers.
I think that the game should be fun and engaging, right?
A lot of studios are still focusing on some of the quick wins, low hanging fruits, so-called, rather than, you know, playing a long term game, which should definitely be the focus.
Also, a lot of studios are still using a token to maybe generate extra funds, which might not be the best scenario.
I always advocate for using a token properly and making it in a sustainable way.
Then again, we have in-app purchases, which are probably the most important part of every mobile game if you want to make it a business case rather than a game or a project.
If you want to progress and be sustainable in-app purchases are just inevitable, then retention metrics should look good.
I mean, if day seven metrics show significant decline in engagement.
So probably you need to rebalance the game and there's no way you can, you know, you can push it further if an engagement drops like that.
And of course we have to remember, always remember that after we develop a game, we still need to have enough marketing funds because even if you have the best game in the world, but you don't have the marketing budget, you will not be able to push it globally to the market.
And in order to make it mainstream, you know, you have to make it visible for everyone.
Michael, what are some quantitative metrics that would lead you to say blockchain games are mainstream?
Looks like Michael might have some...
No, I'm here. Sorry, I was muted. Sorry about that.
So yeah, no, 100%, that's definitely where our mindset's at.
And I definitely agree with Netis thinking about retention metrics.
So I'll agree with everything Netis said, and I'll add to it that looking at retention metrics based on different user segments is really probably going to be the indicator that we have all made it.
And the thing that I would look at would be looking at like the free-to-play cohort who's not pulling a lot of money out of the game.
I think when we have good retention there, I think that we can sort of, we'll be able to say we've made it.
When you think back to Axie in 2021, I'm imagining their D7 retention would have been like 98%.
Their playtime per user would have probably been in excess of six to seven hours per day.
And these are metrics that are too good to be true.
So we really need to look at our metrics based on user segments.
And when the user segment, which is free-to-play users who are playing for the love of the game, have good D7 retention, then I think we'll be able to say we have made it.
So that leads us to our next question.
What was the initial promise of incorporating blockchain into gaming?
And what has been done and what is yet to be done to realize that vision?
Yeah, I think the, I mean, for us, this is the funny bit.
It's like at the beginning when everything started with Xe Infinity and a lot of these other games, which are very focused on play-to-earn.
I always had this disconnect, I have to say, because for me, earning and fun is not always the same.
You know, it's like, don't get me wrong, I have a lot of fun working.
But in my spare time, I like to have pure fun.
And so for me, the promise of earning something on the side was never as, but I'm probably also, like I said, a little bit older.
And that was what the thing that drove me forward.
So I never understood that.
And it took me like quite a bit and talking to a lot of much cleverer people that are much deeper in Web3 that the real promise of what they saw at least was this ownership element to it.
And I think the blockchain becoming really mainstream, I think, is the point when players understand that the ownership that they have in a blockchain game is on a different level.
I think there's still quite a bit to do on our end as well when it comes to, and this is for me, the bigger picture going forward is like, at one point, I would think myself more of like providing for the community a game.
And we make our money with that, don't get me wrong, but at the end, the ownership should not just be in items. At one point, it should be even games.
I worked back in the 10 years, I worked at Splash Damage, and they had a game where Activision Blizzard back then was called Enemy Territory, decided not to publish it as a full game.
Instead, they gave it to the community.
And so the client was the community of server code. And so the community, until now, and this is, I think they started that in the early 2000s.
Since then, the community was driving the game forward, hosting their own servers, and basically pushing the game forward.
They basically owned it. And I think this kind of ownership, we're not there yet. I mean, this is for me, it's quite a bit in the future, don't get me wrong.
But that would be for me, the really cool bit is like, if the players understand with this blockchain games, with blockchain as a technology, we could make games that are transcending that old model of, okay, I just own one item, or I just own, but you can really be part of the game.
Especially coming from MMO games myself, this ownership was always wanted from the players, but you could not nearly never provide it. And I think that would be for me, the real point where it's in the mainstream, if you can provide that and also make players understand what that means.
Awesome. Boss Fighters, what is your promise?
Yeah, I really like what Christian was saying about the initial promise of this like play to earn aspect of the game. And I can only say that 100% agree that it's not a sustainable model.
I read multiple studies about how rewarding, like monitor rewards for playing activities, actually detrimental for the playing experience.
So it's never gonna like, it could never work in the first place, this whole concept of paying users to play the game. So like, you can only go so far with this concept, and it will inevitably crash. So basically what we saw, instead, it has to be done like in a lot more clever way, I would put it this way.
So the ownership aspect is something that I'm very interested in that what we are implementing in boss fighters game, specifically like having the game, such a unique game as as we have.
So the aspect of owning assets within the game, and maybe even expanding it to like, like what Christian was saying to a governance form of some sort of governance for the game, this is what blockchain can can do for the gaming industry.
And I also think not all the games comparable with the blockchain. So MMO super like think of like even line, like ownership, the governance, it will work amazingly in the game like even line, in game like a big time, it works amazingly.
But maybe you don't need all this ownership and governance, and play to own play to earn options in some other types of games. So we have to pick our tools appropriately for the game genre that we're building.
But yeah, that these are my thoughts.
Ned, do you have anything to add to that?
Sure, I mean, good, good comments, very nice inputs.
I mean, the main promises, for me, the way I see it was was, you know, to incorporate, as the previous speaker said to ownership, meaning players do actually own their gaming essence, and that they are rewarded for their time spent grinding the game.
I wish blockchain was becoming popular when I was playing, let's say, love. So so much time just wasted. Don't get me wrong, it was fun to play well, but still memories is the only thing that I've left from that phase of life.
The other thing, data ownership, very important. I always was this guy when you know, a website or whatever is asking me to accept cookies, I try to avoid it as much as much as possible.
So it's just really nice that as default blockchain technology ensures anonymity or at least if a data is used for marketing purposes, right, you are being rewarded for it.
So we take blog games example, you have a lot of, let's say, verticals where you get really nice juicy rewards for your data being used. So that's, that would be something also very nice to see in other projects as well.
Great answer. That leads us to our next question. Can true asset ownership be enough to attract mainstream gamers? Besides asset ownership, what other aspects could attract traditional gamers to blockchain games, boss fighters? What do you guys think about this?
Yeah, I think we already touched a little bit this topic. So just reiterating ownership is cool. This is the foundation of the blockchain gaming, but governance, this is something that might be established in the blockchain gaming, based on the it has to suit the genre of the game, the maybe multiplayer online games.
I think another thing is interoperability. So the ability to use your in-game items within other games, maybe like set up avatars and transfer them. So I think this is also a really important aspect.
I really like the concept of owning the data, because we live in the information age and data is everything, specifically with the advent of AI tools, they feed on data. So I would really love to own my own data and decide whether I want to disclose it or not. Yeah.
Christian, what do you think is more important than asset ownership then?
Yeah, I mean, now I give it back to you, Valim. I see quite a bit what he said, and I think I'm completely on board with a lot of these things besides governance, having data ownership, I would potentially just extend it to at least the promise of security.
I mean, I mean, something like the Xie Infinity hack showed that doesn't mean you're not automatically secure just if you use blockchain.
But per se, I think having another security layer is also important, again, coming from MMOs, there's like quite a bit of issues on our end when it came to security before.
So we had leaks or hacks or stuff like that. And I think per se, the technology, if you do it right, should be better and should be more secure with the personal data and everything.
I think these kind of things would be interesting for the users. But again, you can't go, it doesn't make sense to scream, oh yeah, we use blockchain, you are secure. And then something happens.
So I think, again, it's something that you have to talk about when you're really sure that it works like that. It would be bad if you tell everyone how secure everything is. And then at the end, you get hacked.
I think for Xie Infinity was quite a big thing. I don't think any user data was stolen and so on. But nevertheless, I don't think it helps with the feeling of security if the domain company gets hacked and gets robbed by so much money.
Yeah, definitely. There's a lot of the space is very new and we definitely need to solve that issue before we're able to really make this ready to be adopted for the masses.
So other than asset ownership, what are ways that blockchain technology can be used to enhance gameplay experiences and create unique value for gamers? Michael, what are your thoughts on that?
Or we can really quickly shift this over to Ned. What are your thoughts on, oh God, I muted myself again. I'm so bad. Sorry, guys. I was interested in the question.
But anyways, so when I think of what blockchain can do to a game, the traditional game that I like to look at is EVE Online.
EVE Online, while it's not blockchain, they have a level of immersion that expands beyond the game.
If anyone has looked at EVE Online, they are organized in what are referred to as corporations.
They're the first game that popularized the term sandbox.
They're the first game to hire an economist.
And this is a very old game.
This is a game that came out in 2003.
They have about 25,000 DAU.
So I think we can learn so much from the EVE Online community.
And I think what you're going to see in games like Big Time is you're going to basically see groups come together and to find niches within the player-driven economy.
And again, it's going to extend beyond the game.
They're going to have Discord servers.
They're going to have strategy sessions.
They're going to work together to craft what we call the unique.
And I think that this level of immersion is something that we're going to start to see in Web3.
When you start playing the Web3 games, people won't want to play traditional games.
Ned, what do you think can enhance...
How do you think blockchain technology can enhance gameplay experiences?
Well, I would say probably transitioning Web2 players into Web3.
I believe that Web3 is still very fragmented.
So, I mean, if you discover a game, right, then you kind of view what it's all about and you open up a game.
And then if there's some wallet connections, etc., then it can become very fast, very messy for a Web2 player.
Because they are not crypto natives.
They don't know what the wallet is all about, what they need to do.
So, blog games really helps to eliminate all those kind of things.
If it's free to play, free to own game, there's no problem.
The kind of transition is very smooth and very intuitive for Web2 players.
But I just wanted to add one more point.
Something very unique for Web3 that is, you know, nowhere even close visible in Web2 is community.
And being part of the community that can shape the game itself and have direct access to co-founders is something that amazes me and should amaze every single player.
Because, I mean, imagine, you know, you, a single player, telling Blizzard co-founder how to shape their game.
That would be, you know, incredible.
So, I mean, Web3 empowers you as a gamer.
Yeah, I definitely think traditional gaming is in trouble.
So, in five to ten years, do you think the lines between Web3 gaming and traditional gaming will blur?
Or will they continue to serve distinct markets?
Vadim, what are your thoughts on that?
Well, it's a difficult question because I actually think some of the game genres will have this line blurred.
Like MMOs, like huge space simulations, the games where it happens a lot of social interaction.
This is the perfect medium to install the blockchain tech and empower gamers through blockchain.
But I don't think, like, this is, like, the necessary step for really simple games, like mobile games, like match tree games.
Yeah, it just doesn't make sense to add this stuff there.
And what I think will happen in five to ten years, these big games that rely on the big community, that build their worlds, that try to create this immersive worlds for players to constantly be in these worlds.
Or even create their own worlds, like Minecraft or other things like Fortnite, Unreal Editor for Fortnite.
This type of experience, they will hugely benefit from blockchain.
And they will incorporate more and more blockchain features as the technology matures.
And the user experience regarding all this hurdles, like hurdles, as they eliminated, these types of games will be massive.
And they will use blockchain.
Yeah, we already see some features of previous games, such as, like, CSGO, where they have those features, but not exactly so.
Christian, can you share your vision of what the next five to ten years looks like?
Yeah, I mean, that's the big question.
It's like, do we need a match-free blockchain game?
I mean, for me, blockchain is a technology that is unique in its form of engagement and what basically drives players.
I think, by the way, for the original question, I would say, per se, blockchain is not enhancing gameplay.
But instead, it enhances the user's view on the game.
I think that's even more powerful than just adding something to the gameplay.
It's like, they see themselves even more as part of the game.
They become really, like, a part of the community.
They are becoming part of the governance, potentially.
I think that's the key component.
And I think for casual games, I mean, I worked long enough in mobile games.
And I think for casual games, blockchain is just, I mean, I never understood something like Dookie Dash and these kind of things.
I understand it from the marketing perspective.
I understand it from a lot of other perspectives.
But for me, per se, the blockchain is something that is very useful on becoming, like, basically part of the game.
You are basically a part of the game.
And for me, it never made sense to have a match-free game or something very, very simple where there's ownership.
Because for me, it's a fantastic way of basically including the players into what a game means and a game community means.
But again, I'm coming from this more community-driven, massive game perspective.
That's why for me, it was always more about that vision that basically drives a player really deep into the community.
That makes it possible that BigTime has hundreds of thousands of Discord viewers.
And they're really excited and part of it.
And I think that it's just much, much harder if you have that on a match-free game where you just, which there's millions out of there.
We've definitely seen some big strides in blockchain gaming.
With Axie Infinity first leading the way and now BigTime with their token launch.
What does BigTime's latest success mean for the Web3 gaming ecosystem as a whole?
Michael, can you tell us more on that?
So, I think that there has been, I think everyone has been waiting.
So, actually, a really good way of explaining this is a mobile comparison.
So, I spent a lot of time in the mobile industry.
Everyone remembers when Angry Birds came out.
Angry Birds came out in late 2008, early 2009.
And everyone looked to Angry Birds and they said, this is the model.
These guys figured it out.
But then there's this period that exists between Angry Birds and Candy Crush.
And in this period, everyone was looking for the playbook.
Everyone was looking for the model.
Everyone was trying to copy Angry Birds.
But Angry Birds didn't really have customers.
They just served people ads.
And the people buying the ads, they weren't making money.
It wasn't a sustainable model.
But then Candy Crush came out.
Before Candy Crush, there was two types of mobile apps.
There were mobile apps that had ads.
There were mobile apps that said you have to pay $5 to play.
Candy Crush was one of the first games to have the app be free to play, but have in-app purchasing, and to have deep, deep, deep embedded monetization so that they could get to a revenue per user where they could afford mass advertising.
A hidden secret of the mobile app ad industry in 2013, every advertising company in mobile was getting about 80% of their revenue from Candy Crush.
That's how profound Candy Crush's effect was on the mobile space.
From there, the model was figured out.
And once the model was figured out, everyone knew what to do.
And there'd be other models, hyper-casual came next.
I think that this is a very good description of Web3.
I think our Angry Birds was Axie.
I think Axie came up with a model.
I think the shortcoming in their – well, their model was really impressive.
I'm sure most people wouldn't be on this Twitter space today if it weren't for Axie.
But the thing is, Axie didn't have really customers.
That was sort of what was missing in the equation.
No one was buying the stuff because they wanted the stuff.
They were buying the business opportunity.
We have a different model.
We feel like this is sort of a move in the right direction to not have investor tokens, to not have team tokens, and to have a game product that's fun to play by itself.
So I think that what Big Time's success sort of does is it sort of spells out directionally what the model should look like.
But that's really the signal.
So Big Time is built on OpenLoot.
What do you guys think OpenLoot is doing differently in order to grow a vibrant Web3 gaming community?
Yeah, I mean, let's start directly with the base promises.
Like, it's directly offering a marketplace for – and this is exactly the perfect way of – especially fast as coming from the Web2 side is enabling us on the technology side to quicker and faster get onto the space,
allowing a marketplace where not just one game is there, but there's different games offered, and allows directly to fight a little bit of the fragmentation that you have on a lot of other places when it comes to Web3.
I think this is already the good start for us, and it was the perfect way of getting us from the Web2 side over to Web3,
because for us, like I said, while we are seasoned game developers and doing this for many, many, many, many years, and did big, big games.
I mean, Homeworld is a massive, massive multiplayer game with tens of thousands of players each day.
But for us, the whole Web3 part is always a learning curve, and a partner like OpenLoot enables us basically to do this without focusing still on the game
and don't have to dive into the depth of all the different NUCs to make a Web3 system and a marketplace secure and easy to use.
Ned, what does OpenLoot mean to you?
Well, I was closely following your communication style specifically and interactions with the community, and for me, it really felt that, you know, you really care about each and every one of your community members.
I think that's, you know, very important to deliver on what you promised and what you have in communicating, and, you know, the style in which you deliver the message is very important.
And, you know, for me, OpenLoot brands really resonates with sustainability, loyalty, which is the most crucial part in the gaming industry, and fairness.
So, you know, by taking this into account, you know, someone would ask me if I wouldn't be part of it already, I would, you know, probably join it instantly.
Awesome. It's great to hear your kind remarks.
So that was actually our last question, everyone.
So let's give a round of applause.
I know we're on spaces, but we can give a round of applause for Christian from Stratosphere Games,
Madim from Boss Fighters, Ned from Block Games, and Michael from Big Time.
So if you guys haven't already, please make sure to follow their Twitter, join their Discord, and get involved in their community.
Because, as we know, being early is everything.
Michael, do you have any last remarks?
So I was really hoping you were going to ask me the last question.
My answer was going to be, I really like the marketing campaign at OpenLoot.
I really like this access code thing that we've been doing.
And Ryan, wouldn't it be a fantastic idea if we told all the people on this Twitter space that we were going to drop some access codes immediately after this on Twitter?
All right, I'm going to generate them right now.
Give me two to three minutes, and we will push it out.