This is the boomer in me.
We're having a good time.
Oh, and Jeevav, man, the fact that I can't do this on my computer rubs me, grinds my gears in a way you cannot understand.
And Jeevav, I have sent you an invite, I have sent you an invite, but I'm going to cancel that invite, but you should come up.
You should request, and I will accept you as a speaker.
But we have everyone hopping up here.
But we have everyone hopping up here right now.
We'll start breaking into this.
And then everyone, this is a call to arms.
Share this in every group chat you're in.
Share this across the ethos.
Share this on the internet.
You know, he doesn't, I know he's dealing with Apple today, but maybe he'll get over it when he jumps in and talks about competitive gaming and Web3.
He was just streaming Destiny 2 and watching a young boy the other night.
I did not see that, but that's awesome.
I know he's got the gaming blood in him.
But, again, shout out to Jeevav and Sheena.
Request to speak, and we can get you up here because I know you guys are supposed to have up here.
And excited to jump in with everyone.
Excited to talk about all this stuff.
And I went around and I got in touch with some folks.
Unfortunately, some other folks did not respond in time.
But I wanted to introduce this illustrious panel, as they like to say.
As we kind of dive in here.
And I'm going to start off with the wonderful Fred, who has helped set this up for us.
But Fred, he's been in the biz since 21.
He's incredibly passionate about spaces, and he's happy to help teams looking to get more live media out there.
So if you need to get live media like these spaces, go talk to Fred.
I also asked him what his favorite game was.
And he said, Final Fantasy X on the PS3.
And then he also addended back in the day.
Which goes to show how old I am.
Because I remember playing a game on the PS2.
So not to double boomer myself right out the gate on the spaces.
Next up is Sheena, who, again, Sheena, request to speak.
And we can get you up here.
And we'll make sure that you can chat with us.
She's been in crypto for 10 plus years, which is a long time in this day and age.
But she is a general connector in the Web3 space.
And sometimes she has to shout out her good old employer, LBank.
So she does token listings there.
So if you ever need a token and you need to get that token listed, Sheena is your woman.
I asked her, what's the last game that she played?
And she said, The Division 2.
And that's because we all know there's not a Web3 game that's good enough to keep us hooked.
And next up is Sir Senior Choice.
They are building the Web3 Discord alternative.
Make sure to check out Thrust.
I asked him ahead of time, if you could tell your 15-year-old self one thing.
He said, Keep doing what you're doing.
Things happen the way that they're supposed to happen.
Just keep smiling and chasing your dreams.
It would be terrible advice to give myself as a 15-year-old because my only dream at the time
was trying to get redheads classified as a minority race.
Clearly, I have not succeeded in that goal.
And then I also invited up OBS, Jeevav, and Castle Blackwater as well.
But I gave you three questions.
So you guys are going to have to answer those questions live right now in front of everyone
without a prepared answer.
But OBS World, we'll call you up first.
One person, dead or alive, that you would invite to dinner, what would you say?
And then also tell us who's behind the account so we can see.
I think he just got ahead.
Then Jeevav, we'll go with you next.
Jeevav hasn't requested to speak yet.
And then Castle Blackwater.
Castle Blackwater is always here.
Thank you for jumping in.
Who's behind the account right now?
And then also, what is your favorite flavor of ice cream?
So this is LM behind the account, as always.
And favorite flavor of ice cream.
So, I mean, maybe you people don't know this, but it's a flavor called Bueno.
So back in my village in Greece, where I grew up, there was this ice cream shop that used
to take the Bueno chocolates and then just, with magic, make them into ice cream.
And then also give a quick shout out, I guess, of what Castle Blackwater does.
So, again, this is LM behind the account.
And Castle Blackwater is a 2D social deduction game, kind of like Among Us, which most of
In our game, we have three factions.
The protectors, who are the good guys.
The satanic, who are the killers.
And we also have introduced a hybrid class, which is basically a combination of both.
For the protectors to win, they have to do tasks and complete a XP bar, as well as
they have to be smart enough with each other to find out who the killers are and vote them
So, the satanic, their job is just to murder everyone and trick them into voting each other
out so that they can win.
And the forgotten, who is the hybrid class, their job is to complete one easy, one medium
and one hard task, as well as during the night, they become a werewolf and they have to kill
one protector and one satanic.
The unique thing that we bring into our game is that once you die, you don't just become
You become a cute ghost and you collect these things that we call soul points.
And with them, you're able to purchase abilities that allow you to help the people that are
So, if you were a satanic that died with, let's say, 10 ghost points, you could purchase
a stun, which would help your teammate be able to kill people easier.
And that's us in a nutshell.
Thank you for sharing that.
I finally got you up on stage, which is perfect.
I'm the VP of partnerships at scale labs.
We're one of the largest gaming block chains in the world.
And I just saw your questions, Rex.
Number one, you want everyone to know about you.
Love everything as it relates to gaming specifically was one of the best shadow priests in the
world and world of Warcraft all the way back in 2008.
So I've been doing this for a while now.
And if I'm going to bring anyone to a deserted island, it'd be John Romero.
For those who don't know, made Quake, Doom, pretty much all of the hits of modern gaming.
So would love to hang out with him and maybe play some old Nintendo 64 on said deserted island.
So super excited to be here.
And if I were to invite anyone to anyone alive or dead to a dinner, it would be my ex-girlfriend
And we're here to talk about competitive gaming in Web3.
What a place to talk about this.
What a group of people to chat with it about.
I'm excited to kind of dive in.
And then also, you know, I'm also here with one of my wonderful co-hosts.
We're going to be doing this.
We're kind of trying to spin this up as much as possible.
And I'll be jumping on with Falcor on a regular basis.
So Falcor, if you wanted to quickly introduce yourself and, I don't know, get ready to jump
into all this wonderful fun stuff.
And yeah, I have been within eSports my entire life.
Jumped into Web3 about three years ago.
And yeah, I'm really excited to talk about competitive gaming in Web3.
It's going to be awesome.
I am also Fred's pet at times.
So if you guys know Fred, I'm his pet.
And so I sit around and scream at people about gaming on Twitter and sometimes stream.
So catch me online, play video games.
And then I also sometimes work on projects like owned and battle tech.
So but we'll dive into the fun stuff.
But before we dive in, Ben, if you wanted to lay out house rules to set the stage, let everyone know what we're doing and rules to live by.
We're safe space for ideas and friendly debate.
Let's do this, you know, but let's be respectful to one another.
Spicy takes are welcomed and encouraged.
But, you know, let's not insult people.
Always be ready for quick fire questions.
Connect with one another.
We're all in the industry to make it better.
But most importantly, let's have fun.
And we're going to start it off because I think setting context, right, I think is a good way to do this.
And I'd like to just call out and see if anyone has seen great competitive games that are building in the Web3 space as a good way to start and why you feel like they're doing some good stuff for competitive gaming or for Web3.
So I'll open that up to the panel.
And I don't know if I can raise hands.
So I won't mention our game.
I'll just be generous here and humble.
So there was a project we collaborated with back.
I think it was a few weeks ago called Shockwave AI.
And what these guys did was that they basically created a first person shooter, like, for example, CSGO or Valorant.
The game itself, though, each of its assets were entirely made of AI.
So like the map design, the characters.
But the unique thing that they had in their game was that so basically there was a soundtrack playing in the background during the whole game session.
And the soundtrack had specific key points where essentially if you were to jump on rhythm or let's say shoot on rhythm, you would then get bonus advantages of that.
So, for example, there was a little line on the bottom of the screen that was basically a rhythm counter or whatever you'd call that.
It's like beats per minute or whatever?
And there were little lines.
And then if you clicked, for example, space on time, you would get a double jump instead of the usual jump.
And I just found it really interesting because, you know, with games like, let's say, Valorant released, I think, two, three years ago, whenever it was that.
But these first-person shooters, you know, they've always been focused around you being able to have good aim, right?
Like being able to sort of sniff out your opponents, have good movement, have good crosshair tracking.
But what if you just mix that up with interesting mechanics, right?
I mean, Overwatch existed before Valorant.
So there was already this notion of first-person shooter with abilities.
But now these guys have come in and said, you know what, what if we used music in that and just enhance the whole experience by making it a FPS rhythm game instead?
So something like Osu, but it's kind of more closer to CSGO.
And so I just think that it's an interesting mechanic because instead of being sweaty to kind of hit the enemy's head or whatever, now you also have to be wary about the rhythm of the music that's playing in the background.
And that, for me, because I got to play the game, adds, you know, adds some really spicy excitement when it comes to that.
And it just feels different, the satisfaction of hitting your shots alongside the music or whatever.
It just feels satisfying.
And, you know, in my opinion as a gamer, it's very interesting.
That's like a really crazy game mechanic to toss in there, which is really good.
Also, forgive me, but I realized that I invited EasyBucko up and then I didn't send him a pre-read and I didn't give him a question ahead of time, but he is the co-founder of Pro League.
And I'm sure he might have one or two thoughts on some competitive games that might be coming out.
So if he wants to jump in, but also introduce yourself real quick, I think that would be it.
Yeah, I'm EasyBucko, founder of Pro League.
You know, Pro League is just a social gaming platform.
We have three technologies, you know, regarding the competitive gaming stuff.
You know, I like what Parallel is doing, getting the community involved.
They have a strong community.
I think that's going to be the next huge game besides Hearthstone and card trading games.
You know, I like Nyon Heroes.
I like the competitive spirit that they're building.
And I like to have a cool, cool story and lore.
Anyone else see any good competitive games?
I know we're we're right now in the own kind of greater groups.
We're playing Haven's Compass and Bloodloop right now.
So some good ones that are up and coming.
Haven's Compass was very fun.
It was a lot of fun to absolutely destroy ADOM for an hour straight.
I don't think he likes me anymore, though.
But see me in League, bro.
Waiting for that first, you know, that first Web3 style League game.
I think for me, like the game that I think there is bias as I own one of the NFTs.
So I'm going to put that out there.
I really, really appreciate Bloodloop.
Um, just because it, it hits like 99.9% of my traditional gaming needs, whilst still having, um, those Web3 elements, which I think is the way that Web3 gaming is supposed to go, you know, have it as a back end objective, not like the main front focal.
That's a, that's a really good, uh, time.
I think to segue into kind of, uh, now that we got some good things to think about and couch our, our chats.
And, um, I think taking it on to the next question, which is, um, so with.
Blockchain with NFTs, an element of kind of player ownership and digital assets and new, um, new mechanics, similar to, you know, jumping to the beat or shooting, uh, headshots to the beat, um, kind of comes into play.
And so I guess like, as you guys are thinking about what the potential is, um, what are some of the like benefits or, uh, on the transfer side, negatives.
If we want to do some spicy takes of that players have, or that games have coming into the space when you can put kind of collectibles or actions, or even, you know, in some instances games fully on chain.
I'm curious, um, what people think about how that changes the dynamic.
And I see the hand raised, but I think it was from before from classical black water.
Um, yeah, first of all, I have to point out that serendipitously, everyone on this beautiful panel has some orange elements, whether that is the minority, uh, ginger race, or, you know, it just happens to be this way.
This is, this is looking.
I will say, so I'm going to put this out there.
Just before we jump in, the reason I say this, and I want everyone to, to think about this, right?
You go, and this is, uh, you know, I hopefully don't get cancer for this, but you go into a subway, right?
Imagine you're hopping onto a subway, um, and you're in New York city, right?
And every single person on the subway is black.
You wouldn't think twice about it, but now imagine the same subway and you hop on and every single person is a redhead.
I would think you would think something is up.
This is, this is my stance.
I will live and die by it.
Um, but, uh, we'll let Fred back, get back to talking about the real stuff, which we're here for.
So I was thinking this the other day, it introduces financialization, which can overpower genuine playing motivation.
Sometimes I think, and it can, it can bring people into this, um, based on a temporary hype.
But then if there's a new shiny object like meme coins that produces a higher return financially, then maybe the attention fades away and wasn't genuine in the first place.
And I think that's, yeah, that's something that we deal with if we bring in ownership and financialized assets into this.
Do you think crypto has a shiny object syndrome problem?
Whatever do you speak of, sir?
Um, but no, that's a really interesting take.
But Jeevo, I want to see what you have to say and make sure I'm pronouncing your name right.
Um, so I think that it's a really good evolution into how we were already doing back in the day with achievements, right?
Competitive gaming's always been super important because you're not just playing to win against other players, but you're also playing against the game, right?
You're getting the next achievement.
You're getting sort of a thousand truths.
Now those things have an extra layer of meaning behind them because you have these real collectibles that actually live with you.
Um, so I think it's something that's a really, really important evolution in the gaming space.
But what I would love to see is someone take a real crack at bringing kind of meaningful collectible achievements back.
So not necessarily kind of collectible items, but actually achievements that can live across games and live across universes.
I think that's going to be a really interesting next step in the space to really increase the next level of ownership here.
So that's, that's something I'm looking at quite, quite frequently.
I think that that opens up like the idea around like questing or like cross pollination and interoperability, this word that everyone loves to throw around, but doesn't actually know how to put that in place.
Um, but no, I, I a hundred percent, uh, agree.
I think I, I often think about too, like, there's not just like collectibles that you get in achievements, but there's really interesting things that can happen when, cause I think, um, uh, you can start to put NFTs as different things into the game where I was, I heard someone talking about this.
I think it was like one of the pitches for Sui about dynamic NFTs that they had.
Um, but like you can have NFTs be specific bullets in magazines.
Right. And so like, if you're in an e-sports competition and it's like the final round, it's, uh, there's like a sniper shot.
That's a headshot that like wins the game, right?
Like that specific bullet can now have, um, information appended to it.
And it's like, this was the bullet that so-and-so shot for the finals to win cinch the thing.
And that item itself becomes a collectible in a, in a way that, um, couldn't really happen before.
And I, so, so I think those are just like really cool things that can engage the fan base, the people in the, the, um, the industry, the people who aren't necessarily competing to and really, really fun and exciting new ways that I think.
Um, I think that's, uh, one of what I, you know, I think about a lot is like, how do you unlock the people who aren't going to win?
Like myself, like again, moon frost came out.
I was highly competitive in moon frost.
I will not hold the water in stuff like Haven's compass or first Russian shooters.
Um, so it's really nice that I get to feel like I'm involved with a lot of these things now, um, because I'm, you know, getting to take part in a lot of stuff.
Uh, but I will stop waxing products.
You have your hand raised.
I'd love to hear what you have to say.
So, uh, for the first question, I wanted to mention that web three games doing it great on the competitive side.
I would say that most of the games that the wardens, paladins, catalyst wolves are playing, but I did want to give a shout out to BR1 because, uh, the way that it works, you know, you're, you're really playing with your money there and your skill is the one going to help you green.
So definitely being the competitive spirit to our next level.
And about the, the competitive pocket of the topic of the day.
Well, I used to own a gaming son with 30 gaming computers have like 2000 users and, uh, never close, but it was 24 seven.
And we have people stay in there for days.
You know, you need to tell them sometimes, Hey, go home, take a shower and then come back because they only stopped playing games, uh, either to have a cigarette or to eat something or go to the bathroom.
So I did have the chance to, to firsthand experience the competitive spirit of gamers.
And I think that, yeah, that's what drives us.
You know, you want to be, uh, to beat your friends.
You want to be better than them.
You want to show them how he's done and you want to prove yourself better.
So it's definitely one of the things that drives gamers and keeps them coming back.
Even sometimes people got tired of the game, but they had their friend telling them, you know, I keep pounding you.
So they will come back just to get better and say, you know what, I'm going to pound you back.
So I love that competitive spirit and I wanted to bring something that, uh, Web3 technology is doing.
You know, we are now able to, to have the future on chain.
I wish that all of the thousands of hours that I spend on titles, like what a Warcraft or League of Legends will be recorded somewhere that I could take with me.
As you know, as my record in history of every achievement and everything that I accomplished, keeping the challenger brand or things like these and actually get a value from it.
Now at Rust Hubs, what we're building is the Web3 Discord alternative, but we are going to allow community builders to actually, you know, reward roles that will stay on chain and reward points that will stay on chain as well.
So you can start identifying and then gamers kind of start building their profiles and it's going to be all in a place where it's going to exist forever, which is on chain.
And it's not just going to be belonging to one of the big IPs that knows what they're going to do with all that information or just, you know, close at some point and everything was gone.
So I wanted to bring that to the table. Yeah. Happy to connect with all of you. Thank you for having me here and lovely topic.
Yeah, man. We like to think so too. Ben, I see your hand raised. Jump in.
I have two. I got two things. I'm going to give a negative and a positive, right?
Ooh, thank you for book ending this. Thank you. Let's do this. Okay. Negative.
Uh, is I'm trying to. Yeah. Yeah. All right. All right. Line it up. Right.
And make sure to call out every one of you. I'm being very careful here.
My negative is, um, publishers using statistics that are inherently inaccurate.
Right. In my opinion is a massive negative. For example, daily active wallets does not equal daily active users.
What are you talking about? Bots don't exist. We live in a world where AI is not a thing.
So I'm, listen, if your game has bots, that is fine. Give me the daily active users. I don't care.
I already know that there's bots. Stop giving me daily active wallets because there's like through like, okay, how many wallets do I do I have?
I got like eight wallets right now. And if I was one of them people that like, there's the airdrop grind in.
Did you get your ZK sync, uh, airdrop? Was it nice and cushy or did you get sibbled out?
I didn't, bro. I do not have the time to do airdrop farming.
But you know what I mean? Like, let's, let's, let's stop trying to paint, um, a world in which is inaccurate when we're still in the early stages of an industry.
Because it just gives us a lot further of a drop to fall from when something bad happens.
And the good thing I want to say is flexing, right?
I, the web three inherently allows us to flex on each other, our friends, our family and everything.
When it's Xbox put in achievement points, dude, I was grinding like all of the cooler duties going 100% getting every single, getting every single achievement.
Halo again, every single achievement.
Me and my brother were having competitions on who could reach 20,000, uh, game of school first.
Um, right now, me and the wife are playing through a game called the quarry.
She's played it four times, one because she's weird.
And the other one is because I want the achievements, right?
And within web three allows us to actually, yeah, she's odd.
Um, it allows us to take all of these achievements and collectibles and present them outwards and flex upon our friends and family and have this competition.
The only thing I wish that we did have, and I'm not going to give, um, the likes of, you know, OpenSea or, uh, Blur or whatever.
I don't count them, but a way to easily showcase collectibles.
And I, and I, I feel like that needs to, somebody needs to work on that.
And this is a, this is a reminder halfway through, by the way, that we, uh, we would love you to like retweet, smash that, subscribe, whatever, you know, you say as a content creator in this space.
Um, so make sure to get that out there.
Um, but those are two really, really good points.
And thank you for throwing a negative our way, but Jivo, I saw that your hand was up from before.
So I don't know if you want to touch base on one of the points that you had a moment ago.
So I just wanted to double click.
I think it's a really important point when we've been taught, having these conversations about bots in the space.
Bots are a universal issue, both in classic gaming and here.
So it's really important to focus on.
You have to detect bots, obviously, but just to reinforce that, like, yeah, get us the unique active bots, get the real players.
There's always going to be the core gamers that are going to be playing the game.
And then you're going to have this, this ring of bots that are going to exist.
It's just a fundamental problem that people have tried to solve, but I really haven't seen a key issue in yet.
So you really got to build to the gamers first and foremost.
So just wanted to reinforce that when I heard it.
I saw your hand raised as well.
And then we'll go to the OBS world after that.
I don't know what it was, but earlier my mic was completely running.
Couldn't actually press it.
So I'm super happy to be here, guys.
I see some legends amongst the speakers here.
So choice, Castle, we got Alex, Ben from back in the day, Rex even.
So super, super excited to be here.
I'm just going to give a quick intro maybe because I didn't get to speak yet, but I'll keep it sweet and short.
I'm head of community over here at OBS world.
And we are the ecosystem for car enthusiasts to be able to connect, socialize, and basically, you know,
capitalize on various different kinds of opportunities, whether that's becoming a real-world racer,
whether that's, you know, improving your connections worldwide, joining different car clubs,
all of that becomes possible.
And we use Web3 as our back-end because, I mean, who doesn't love blockchain, right?
Did you have any thoughts on Web3 Gaming?
I think, can I use, I'll actually, my positive and my negative are actually the same thing, I would say.
Ooh, two sides of the same coin.
So the positive, I think, is, guys, we are super early in Web3 Gaming, right?
I mean, we are nowhere near a mass adoption.
I think that, like, plenty of us building here for multiple cycles realize that, but this is an amazing opportunity
because we can really figure out and have that first mover's advantage.
I think the disadvantage is that we do not 100% yet fully know or understand how to properly, you know, market or onboard users
or create that loyalty loop as we have within the Web2 space and within existing platforms.
So being able to operate within this space and amongst all of you guys is an absolute blessing,
and I'm just super happy to be jumping more and more back on the spaces and connecting with you all.
And I have, so this is one thing, too, it's tangentially related, but talking about kind of Web3 Gaming,
I think one thing that is probably a net negative as of right now for the space is when we try to get,
and I say this full well knowing that I've run a platform trying to court esports teams and esports players.
But honestly, right now bringing esports teams into Web3 has failed pretty much every single time.
It's been a large money suck for a lot of organizations.
I don't know if you guys saw like the Alluvium when they mentioned that they were like partnering with a bunch of folks.
Sparkball, if anyone remembers that team, I think they're just now coming back as well,
but they spent too much money on a gigantic esports activation.
And like, I think they had like 16.
I have no idea what the actual numbers are, but I felt like you look at these activations
and then you look on Twitter or you look on Instagram and look at all of the comments underneath the content that is being put out.
And it is 99% people hating on the fact that this game has NFTs.
It's like, what are they even doing?
Why are they wasting their time turning into a shill fest?
And then there's the 1% of people that are commenting that are just all of us being like, no, but it's fun, guys.
And so I think generally, yes, yes, yes, yes.
Which really solidifies our stance and whatnot.
And so I think like I know that there's a couple of hands up on this point, but I do want to move on to the next point,
which is talking about some of the things that we think this kind of transitioning.
Some of the things that I think need to get in place to put kind of a more competitive lens where some of these larger teams,
some of these larger maybe some of the ideas are swayed.
Like, what are some of the things that need to come into place at maybe an infrastructure level first or like it's 1030 at night for me.
So my brain is not all the way working from a like a mental perspective of what needs to a context shift or a mental shift that needs to happen.
What are some of these things that need to happen for really like a true like, you know, people spinning up discords that are purely just for competitive play.
Like I jumped into the overwatch to one recently and it's just got 20,000 people and all they talk about all day long is how they want to like find groups and teams and do that kind of stuff.
I saw a couple hands go up.
So I think it was easy bucko first.
So I'll call on you to jump into this question as opposed to calling on people with leftover hands.
Thanks. I think, you know, we need to get more better infrastructure where it streamlines the process for these new oncoming on onboarding players.
And, you know, another another thing that, you know, we just we need better infrastructure and give them a reason and like to onboard these bigger teams as well.
We need to like, you know, from a business standpoint or B2B side, we need to have like a clear plan, you know, for for growth for them.
And, you know, we need to have the and most importantly, we need to have the connections that they have in the Web2 world to just cross pollinate the cross pollinate them in proper proper distribution channels.
Okay. Can I, I know, no, no, no.
And I know everyone's got their hands up and I just want to say, I just want to I'm going to I'm going to quickly hype myself up.
I worked for Alliance, 100 Thieves, G2, a bunch of other esports organizations throughout my time.
And I'm going to say this. Everyone is doing it wrong. Everyone, you're all doing it wrong.
If you are a game that is specifically going and partnering with an esports organization, congratulations, you just burn all of your money.
It's completely pointless.
Genuinely, it is completely pointless.
If you were to go to a content creator that is a variety streamer or a variety content creator, you might get a little bit of an ROI there.
But if you are a Bloodloop or a Nyan Heroes or a Haven's Compass and you go to a G2 or you go to a Cloud9 and you give them, you know,
give them $400,000 for a for a for a two, three week activation, you're going to get nothing in return.
You'll get five players if that because esports.
Viewers, community members care about one thing and one thing only, and that is the game that they play.
It's very rare that you'll find somebody that is very cross pollinated across all different esports. Right.
That's why there's a massive feud between CSGO players and Valorant players and League of Legends players and Dota 2 players. Right.
So when you're an FPS that's going to 100 Thieves and going to their CSGO, they don't have a CSGO roster anymore, going to their Valorant roster and going, hey, play this game.
They're going to see that big old check because everyone knows esports money is dead at the moment. All the VCs have dried up.
No one's investing. Web3 in and itself is the new VCs of esports investing, which is great for them.
They see that big old check. They're going to go and take it, but you're not going to get any you're not going to get any any ROI on it.
And that is that that's my mic drop.
Mic drop moment. And then I think Castle of Blackwater, you were the next hand up.
Yep. Yeah. So you asked about the infrastructure in Web3 in Web3 gaming.
Yeah. Just like what's needed to make esports or competitive gaming like a much more robust community than it is right now, which is purely just like leaderboards or play to airdrop kind of competitions.
Yeah, mercenary. Yeah, I got that. So the thing is, you asked about that, but we haven't talked about one core thing when it comes to games themselves launchers.
You know, so during this past two, three months, I've worked in Castle of Blackwater and, you know, I've gotten a pretty good look about launchers like Elixir, Hyperplay, etc.
And right now, I think that from my perspective, at least, there is a bit of an issue when it comes to that.
So in Web2 gaming, you don't have that many launchers.
It used to be just Steam, then games, then companies like Ubisoft EA started pushing out their own launchers and then Epic Games can along.
But in total, I can count how many launches there are now with my with my one hand.
Big launches when we talk about it.
But in in the Web3 gaming space right now, there are so many launches, especially startup launches and the ones that are making it big.
For example, I'm talking the size of Elixir, Hyperplay, etc.
They are kind of unreliable. So what do you mean by that? I mean, Elixir in one a month ago, right?
In order to update a game, you had to literally delete and reinstall the whole game.
So then they added an update button.
Then they started pushing out various tournaments, which, you know, based on a lot of people that I spoke with that are on Elixir, they had issues.
They they had implemented their SDKs and then they had all sorts of trouble.
And then Elixir would like kind of delay the responses.
Then you have the competitive the competing platform, Hyperplay, which is also good, but also like a few things that, you know, could make it much better and much more accessible.
So in order to not start waffling on and on, I'd say that one thing that we need to improve when it comes to infrastructure wise is that we need a launcher or platform sort of like team that is big, that is reliable.
First of all, reliability is the first thing you want when it comes to launching your game somewhere.
And and for it to be able to provide adequate support to the creators that create and publish games within it.
Right. Because especially in Web3, because we we are sort of, quote unquote, a new space.
Right. I mean, we Web3 gaming in general is increasing at the moment.
And when you have a new game, say, like Castle of Blackwater and there are and players are facing issues which are, you know, platform based, you need to be able to resolve them quickly or else people will go.
And jump ship elsewhere. So we need a real we need more reliability when it comes to platforms and launches where games can be published.
Yeah. And one quick thought on that, too. One of the things that these larger launchers have that come with and granted, it's not the best in the world.
We can all attest to that. But like they come with a lot of services and tools like anti-cheat capabilities and things that are built into the launcher to help spin up some of these games where you don't as a game have a lot of things.
You don't as a game have to think about everything from the ground up about how to like help market or growth or tools or user acquisition funnels or anything like that.
And so having not just a place to that's safe to download a game, but it's all the additional services that come with it.
I think that that's like a really important point that I don't think a lot of people talk about.
So thanks for bringing that up. And then I think it was easy bucko was next and then we'll go sure choice and then OBS world.
I thought you had your hand raised, so I thought you were going to jump in and retort on a thought or question from before, but maybe not.
Oh, no, I didn't have my hand up.
All right, sir, choice. Your turn, sir.
So I've been thinking about it, and I just realized that I think that not just me, but a lot of people, the personas that we currently have on Web3, they are not the consumers that we need for the gaming industry.
We have a lot of vegans, flippers, whales, some are gamers, but the majority of gamers, it's not aware of Web3 or if they are, again, they are just still afraid of transitioning, or they don't know how to do it, or they believe the bill gets scammed.
And it doesn't really take a AAA game to move the masses on Web3. You see, look at the meme coins or these famous people launching their meme coins, and they're going crazy, and people are dumping their money on them, and there's no value on them, but yet they love it.
Like, it's the gambling spirit of the Web3 that we are trying to get it into gaming, and by doing so, we change the mindset of people.
Like, I used to coach for Liberty Gaming, the guild backed by Animoca, and I know Owned also has origins as a guild, and what I saw is that gamers were turning into grinders because of the financial opportunities that Web3 brings, right?
And it's nice. I love the fact that Web3 has the potential of giving financial support to people that most need it, especially people in Southeast Asia, Latin America, so far, so on, Africa, right?
But what we are doing with the way we are onboarding users, I believe is the wrong way, because money cannot be the reason why people join or play your game, or else they're just going to be there to farm your a-drop, to get your tokens, to sell them as soon as possible because they lose price,
and then walk away. So we just need to create experiences and games for the audience that we want, bring them from the real world, and transition them on the best possible way into Web3, so that they are not traumatized or scamming the way, and then further along the way, reward them for their efforts and the time that they spend on your project.
I saw gamers, myself included, spending money on games because we love playing them, buying schemes, buying weapons, you name it, right?
So monetizing games was done even before Web3 existed, but right now the Web3 overall community or, yeah, like the different personas that we have on the industry are not entirely gamers,
and we know and we are aware that gaming, it's what's going to bring the masses, but we need to do it on the right way.
I just wanted to bring those takes.
Yeah, I think, I don't know if you guys have checked out Noor at all, I think Noor and Brooks Brown, I believe his name is,
he has a very, very delicious take on how you can have everything that Web3 wants to bring, which is speculation and stuff around the aspect of the game,
but you shouldn't allow money to affect the actual game that's played.
It's very similar to like a soccer match, right? You have jerseys and sports betting and all of the stuff that happens and the plethora of all of the stuff around it,
but the actual game, every single person, regardless of where they come from, plays by the same set of rules and they don't pay, I mean, you know,
unless you have like Ronaldo on your team, so maybe you're paying to win, but you know, everyone still at the end of the day has the same set of rules that you kind of follow through,
which I think is really, really interesting, but I wanted to go to OBS World, yes, apart from Barcelona, we'll call that, but I want to go to OBS World, jump in,
I know you had your hand raised.
I think he said, I think he's a listener, I'm not going to lie.
Yeah, he's now, he went to listener.
He went to listener, I'm so sorry.
I'm not looking at my phone right now, I'm looking at my phone.
It's like the air, spaces on desktop, be weird.
Never trust your PC on X, always cell phone.
I'm pushing the check mark again.
You can now speak, apparently.
Jump in when you have a second.
Okay, but then I saw that Jeevav, your hand went up while OBS is jumping up, but then you can weigh in OBS.
I didn't see the speaker, I'm sorry, but 100% nail on the head.
The most important thing we also need to focus on is retention.
But retention as it relates to not turning everything into kind of meme coin rampage in the gaming space.
Some of the biggest games in the world in the last year during the bear and the end of the last bull market, they had a ton of players.
But their players would last for like a day and a half to come in, make some money, and then leave.
So, there was no real retention in the space.
We were kind of just in this loop of churning through the human population.
And it's a real problem in the space that we have to focus on more.
And then OBS, sorry about that, but weigh in.
Now I see you're a speaker on my desktop.
You guys can still hear me?
You're a robot to everyone else.
You're a little robot-y, but we should go for it.
Well, as a true car enthusiast, I hopped into my supercar and I'm driving.
But I'm loving the conversation, guys.
Please ask me the question.
Your Honda Civic supercar?
So, the question is, what are some things that need to go into place in order to kind of set the stage for a competitive level of play within the kind of Web3 ecosystem?
What are some things that are missing today that we need to put in place?
I think that's a great question.
And even though I might sound a little bit robot-y, I'll do my very best to answer it to my best ability.
We ourselves actually here over at OBS World, we've been quite involved in professional e-sports.
For those who are unaware, we are very much involved in sim racing.
We have our own sim racing school.
And sim racing is literally having a steering wheel and pedals connected to a PC.
Very much so like what Formula One drivers are using to actually train and practice before they drive on an actual track.
So, a lot of people are actually driving like this worldwide.
E-sports is a market that has been growing year after year now.
And we ourselves have been organizing international championships in which both amateur as well as professional teams have joined us.
These would be a whole endurance cup championship.
So, it would be multiple races in which these teams participate.
They have to change the tires as in real life.
And what's really cool is we've had teams such as even Fordzilla, the official e-sports team from Ford Jonas in there.
And we have, at the end of these races, brought these people to the track to showcase how we can actually translate these virtual skills into the real life.
But to talk a little bit more about your question, because this was just to give you guys a little bit of background information.
I believe that, in general, the sports industry has always been one with a little bit of secrecy, right?
A little bit of where people really, they want to kind of gate these championships.
They want to gate, you know, the different people that even would be allowed to participate.
And I think once we see a change and can open this world up more, I think that's when things are really going to start to change.
Now, a good example is we do have our beta life.
And for sim racing, virtual stages do not exist.
I mean, if any of you have watched the Formula One recently, for example, where Charles Leclerc won, you know, it's an amazing, amazing feat of, you know, emotions that get shared across other drivers, teams.
And this is something that we have, for example, created for these guys after each race to be able to come and join in the virtual stage, talk to the sponsors, talk to one another.
Another big part of the whole, you know, competitiveness and being able to bring that more and how with Web3 is very much through the use of smart contracts.
Because being able to showcase, you know, from the get-go, what people are getting into and how rewards would be distributed, et cetera, et cetera, just lowers the barrier of entry and just brings such a new level of trust into the world of esports, which I think previously was not really imaginable.
So I think that's my two cents, but would love to dive even deeper.
I was just going to say, I really do like the idea of smart contracts, especially for amateur esports, right?
Coming from like a Call of Duty background, I can't tell you how many times I have seen quote-unquote event organizers begin to put events on.
And then like two months before the event or a month before the event, oh, it's canceled.
We literally had one for a female Call of Duty tournament like four or five months ago.
She like used it all to pay her rent and stuff.
Everyone was like, congrats, you've admitted to four months.
And they say crypto is a scam.
No, to be fair, esports was the scam before crypto.
Everybody was talking about how esports is a scam.
Like it's the exact same kind of mentality.
But the thing that is super important for us as an industry to stop doing is just get rid of the come and play, like play as your job onboarding messaging, right?
We want people to play, to enjoy.
And then the monetary benefits are just that, a benefit.
I really appreciate the time.
Unfortunately, we got about five minutes left and I have to hop to a real work and real job right after this.
I'm actually hopping into another Discord to do another talk.
But I'm really excited to have everyone.
Real quick, I'm going to go in order of Easy, Bucko, Fred, Sir Choice, Castle Blackwater, OBS, and then Jeevove.
So if you guys really quickly give like one word or two words about what people should do to check you out and see how fine you're looking in the mirror, but also like check out your project and whatnot.
Really quickly, if you guys want to share what's going on in your world.
We just entered in the Bonk Hackathon, did a submission for that.
We're pushing out a new update that has five new games, as well as we're adding an additional eight, a web three games.
It should be live in the next week or two.
All right, Fred, what's up?
Yeah, just appreciate, Rex, appreciate that we get this moment.
So Xcohost.com, if you want to check it out, if you want to host spaces that are as fun as this one, we can help you out.
All right, Sir Choice, last minute.
So we're looking for the great community builders and gaming projects.
That would like to give it a shot to the new Web3 Discord, where they can explore and find new revenue streams and enjoy with their community while they build their presence online, on-chain.
Thank you for having us here.
And sorry I'm hopping into a Discord to go have a talk after this.
So apologies, doing that right in front of your face.
All right, Castle of Blackwater.
So we host weekly minigames, everyone.
Make sure to go into our Twitter profile, join our Discord, and give our game a try.
We also have a weekly minigame on our Telegram, which, you know, we give a reward to the user with the highest points every week.
And before I close off, I have to say that Final Fantasy VII Rebirth will get the game of the year this year.
So make sure to vote for that.
You heard it here first, folks.
I just want to say one love to all of the amazing builders and people down there in the audience who joined us today.
If you guys are interested in ever joining us on the Real World Track Day, join us.
We have an active campaign now.
All you got to do is jump in our Discord or Telegram.
And in about two weeks' time, we'll be holding that giveaway.
And then, Jeevove, any last thoughts?
Wow, just finishing it out.
Yeah, great to be here, guys.
If you want to check out Scale, it's scale.space.
Or if you want to stick on crypto Twitter, just follow me.
We'll be posting a lot of exciting stuff soon.
And I'm sure I'll see you all again on another Spaces soon.
The one thing I've learned today after talking to a lot of people that are kind of plugged into the space is...
I don't think we're ready.
But we are talking to the people who will make it happen, which I think is the most important part, right?
You know, we got to give it the old college try.
Because if we're not doing it, no one else is.
So thank you all for being here and talking about these wonderful thoughts and wonderful ideas.
And keep fighting the good fight.
Can I just say one quick thing?
Because we've got 60 seconds.
We're getting started in 60 seconds.
OBS World, if you ever get paddock passes for Silverstone, please DM me.
I want to go, you know, for the F1.
But then the other thing is, if you are interested in esports and, you know, you have a game or you have something that requires, like, tournament infrastructure, hit us up.
We are here to help you guys run your esports events and tournaments, right?
We will have white label.
We will help you set up brackets, rules, and everything.
So if that is you, I will shill.
If that is you, message owned.
Do we have, like, a sales email?
You might want to make one of those.
It's just rexgg at Twitter.
Messages will help you set up your esports events.
I love all of you individually and equally out there on the internet.
You all have a wonderful rest of the day.