all right hello guys John can you uh can you hear me
hey what's up how are you I'm good good man how are you doing very well thank
you do you have anyone else on your side who is coming on stage I should invite
up well I mean Hugh goes behind play ember if you let him out the mint
might not happen tomorrow so he can he can jump in at any point he wants but
I'd like him not to because if his hands leave the keyboard or he loses
distraction right can't do some cool shit tomorrow but so yeah crack on
with me and I can see some of the team in the audience as well so if anyone
else wants to jump in just stick your hand up but yeah you've got the short
straw ego you just got me so let's go for it well I'm always happy to talk to
another Englishman and yeah let's do it in in crypto there's not there's not too
many of us are still around so actually last night I was gonna say it like your
what you're you're not in the UK right are you no I'm not I'm in the US so
last night we it started as a joke with his shiv on the spaces a couple of weeks
ago when someone asked me if I preferred like Nando's or another like fast food
place and I'm a hundred percent Nando's so last night there was a blockchain
game Alliance event in London in the afternoon which is really cool to hang
out with people but then we had a web 3 Nando's meetup right with like some
serious OGs in this space there was about 20 25 people there some seriously big
hitters and I was just really excited because like you I was just excited I
was like I didn't know this many people existed in in the UK in web 3 but yeah
it made me really bullish just some of these people there last night the you
know the things they've achieved already so yeah I'm pretty excited over here I
felt a bit left out but yeah I'm quite happy to be in the UK yeah well I'm
happy to hear that and Nando's is one of the things I always miss that's that
was the classic kind of stop for my friends and I when we were in school
after sports is yeah straight to Nando's oh you can't yeah you can't you
can't go wrong but oh it's wicked like it's just a great crew of people so so
well I'm very very excited to have you guys there and and I know the people here
are also very excited to to learn more about you guys and obviously tomorrow is
a very big day so this is gonna be a good opportunity for both the people who
are gonna be participating tomorrow and people who I'm sure are gonna join your
your community going forward to learn and and and hear from you guys but maybe
that that's a good place to get start if we could start with maybe who are who is
play ember or the team behind it I obviously I'm pretty clued in on your
guys's background and it's one of the most impressive in web through gaming by
far so I think the audience would love to learn a little bit more too yeah
sure you go so um Hugo and I co-founded play ember about three years ago and who
who goes one of the top free-to-play mobile games devs and what I mean by
that in terms of top in terms of you know I spent a lot of time on the
publishing side there's very there's not a big list of mobile games developers
who've had like repeat hit games in the casual games in the game space if you
take out you know a couple of billion dollar giants in terms of like you know
like developers that you know Hugo's published over 20 games with like giants
people like voodoo's a billion dollar French company back by 10 cent line
studio so they're part of that love in this it on a nasdaq you know quality
like web to gaming and his team that you co-founded code masters so and then yeah
my background I built one of the earliest mobile ad networks working with like
entertainment companies sports companies movie studios in the early days of mobile
that we then sold to a like nasdaq listed listed company and then I joined
the sort of that I moved into actual game development because I was fascinated by
you know mobile game monetization and distribution and then yeah had a spent
a lot of time at building games development and publishing companies and
then luckily met Hugo and that was our vision three years ago which is you know
we love free-to-play games we love casual games multi-billion dollar
industry and web to with not a sign of any blockchain in it but fascinated by
blockchain technology so you know assembled a team of people that we'd
work together before so you know like unity developers 3d artists UI UX
designers like kind of creative creative marketing people and started
making you know initially mobile games but very early on sort of dived into web
three and just came to learn really building on what we already sort of
played around with and just trying to figure out how blockchain technology
could you know fundamentally disrupt the sort of kind of broken web to casual
game model so fast-forward three years had 120 million downloads we have 5
million players we've already got two games on Nintendo switch as well so it's
very much sort of an audience Gen Z play and on the blockchain side been
building pretty quietly for two and a half years getting to know a lot of
people in this space trying to understand yeah perhaps the best way to
approach things what's working what's not working and you know on that side
we're just coming out of phase one and we're already the third biggest blockchain
game we're an ecosystem of games rather than one game and the fifth biggest
blockchain dap overall and just yeah very very excited for tomorrow a lot of hard
work has gone into that for the past couple of months as we then start you
know phase two of our roadmap and welcoming welcoming in you know a whole
load of new community members and you know with the people that have been
with us in the past two and a half years you know them also propelling us
into this next phase as well so yeah it's a little bit of the background on on
us amazing so I'd love to learn a little bit about some of the existing titles
like what are what are some of the titles that are out there that people
can go and check out now yeah of course so I think that's one of the things we
learned early on from some of the feedback is is geez you guys have got a
lot of games like where do I start so the way we think about our ecosystem is
there shouldn't be any barriers right we just want to make great games for
anyone and remove yeah I don't see like the word friction but you know the
simple fact is like some web 2 players it's not they don't like blockchain or
web 3 it's just no one's really showed them like what it looks like in in their
in their world right so unashamedly so like we have these sort of real top of
funnel games that you'd struggle to find anything that all of us here would
really resonate with when you think about what a web 3 game should look like
right you'd struggle to find that in some of our games that's really
deliberate because that's the sort of real entry point for these web 2 users
into our ecosystem now there are some games that have got our web 3
technology sort of built into the you know the unity SDK that powers the
monetization of those games in in web 2 and that's a very light gamified reward
system that again you won't find initially because we don't want to just
force people to create an account as soon as they play a game because you know
we've we've tested that and we've just seen user churn you know significantly
early on so if you if you go in the App Store right now you you may find that
experience once you start enjoying games in games like superhero race in
raft life in food hole for example and then also what you'll find in the
App Store is we wanted to get some exposure to what we call the crypto
curious so people that already looking to play games with some element or
motivation of some sort of financial reward so the clue in those games we've
got about six games now that are deployed on the Lightning Network in
partnership with Zebedee so for example Bitcoin Castaway is is probably the most
popular out of those or Bitcoin cast and the model there is really simple
download the game for free and play the game you don't need a NFT you don't
even need to put any money in at any point if you don't want to and you play
that game and the simple thesis is that you know unlike web 2 where we all get
monetize the shit out of you then get you know a direct reward of you know in
return for time spent versus you know the the advertising revenue that you've
generated and can then off-ramp that directly you know through Satoshi's
directly to Bitcoin and other rewards so that that's been a really interesting
experience for us because those those players in our discord have been a huge
part of almost this next step in terms of once you break through this barrier
of okay right please make sure I get my Satoshi's which you absolutely should
because you've put contribution into the game it's it's then yeah they've
got the same hunger for all us gamers it's like hey like let's you know how
else can we contribute to some you know new gacha mechanics or you know
new game ideas or new game themes so that's been a really positive sort of
started off as an experiment you know those handful of games in a couple of
months have now got 35k daily active users in them already so it's been yeah
a really nice development in our growing ecosystem because our goal is just to
keep expanding and welcoming people into web 3 gaming at different stages of
that funnel whether you're a total noob and you just love gaming and you're
curious about you know playing reward or play and win or if you're already in web
3 gaming and that's a little bit of what's coming next and you know you're
already there and you really love this concept of play and own and where that
can take you yeah you mentioned a you mentioned this idea earlier on about how
web 3 blockchain technology is going to be a disruptive force in gaming and you
mentioned a few areas where you guys have already started applying that in your
games I'd be curious to hear your kind of overall thesis for that like where
where is blockchain technology where is web 3 and the assets composed that
that composes web 3 where does that really come in in terms of that
disruption what is the edge that they're going to provide developers
building in web 3 yes it's a great great question so our thesis has always
been and there's a great great slide from Jonathan a bit craft on this
actually the the other day so our thoughts thesis always been that there
are going to be many different types of blockchain games that play out right
you know you're fully on chain fully on chain games but for us it was like look
we think there's a lot of really great things about casual gaming that we
can build on top of the you know don't suck right there's loads of games out
there that players love and enjoy every day and demonstrating a lot of the great
behaviors we need that believe we can accelerate their adoption eg you know the
concept of putting real money into a game it's not an alien concept to to
people they're already doing that you know like casual games so like the
cool cats game we've got coming out a nice match tree game about eleven point
seven billion dollars last year just in in-app purchase revenue so I think that
that's a really good baseline number to build on top of but some of the some of
the problems that we saw so let's start a developer level so a developer
level what are some of the problems that we were curious on how blockchain
could help well it's it's really hard to retain players in your ecosystem in
web2 because you know that's the downside of ads they they make the
industry billions of dollars but they also move players to your competitors
games because they're fishing they're fishing in your game to try and get
your player that let's say is playing you know hyper casual game or idle game
and they're showing a nice 30-second rewarded video they're trying to get
you to click on that and go into their game and download that and you hope that
your game is sticky enough to get them back having maybe spent a lot of
money trying to get them and then you lose them so we thought well that's you
know how could blockchain technology solve that for developers and so that's
where you know we've been quietly testing you know we totally believe in the
idea of asset ownership but from a player perspective it's it's even more
simple than that they're more likely to come back to your game if they've got
if they own the assets in your game but not only own the assets but they're
able to transfer those assets from game a to game B so there's more incentive for
them to now stay within your games and your whole game ecosystem then sure you
know we can't stop them seeing an admin you can remove ads but you're gonna cut
off you know your your left arm but we but now at least if they see an ad sure
they can go and engage with that game but that you know we've seen they're now
more likely to stay in our ecosystem because they've got you know they've
got a growing portfolio of assets that they can move around between games and
you know they can now sell these assets so I think that that's really powerful
and interesting both for players but also for developers and as we start thinking
about how we can increase retention and the default of increasing retention and
as you start building these open marketplace models is you then start to
increase monetization so that was our second thesis which is can blockchain
technology help us monetize the un-monetized of web 2 and what I mean by
that is in web 2 in this in two areas in the ad model we've got millions of
players in countries like the Philippines and in Brazil for example who put a lot
of value into our game in terms of play time but the web 2 ad model massively
devalues them versus players from say the US or Korea or China for example
that have got much higher ad value so naturally when you're trying to run a
profitable business you lean into markets that you can monetize more heavily
and also in those countries it's not even about gaming it's about you know
for various reasons that we can't control they can't even get a bank
account so they can't even put money into a game and even if they wanted to
contribute to that economy so that's where blockchain can solve that with
access and simply the ability to create a wallet it's then on us to create this
ecosystem and this you know entertaining you know games with social
layers you know UGC collectibles to then encourage them to want to put money in so
I think that's really where blockchain is just incredibly powerful is just adding
on these you know new game experiences for casual gamers in game so they can
move around share assets trade assets and and just some simplicity you know I
heard icy on a space the other day say yeah just this real I think it was his
mum or his nan just you know the idea of just play Candy Crush every month and now
you get five dollars in your wallet and for some people it could literally just
be that simple right some people may not be all in on the open marketplace side
but you know they should be getting a direct reward for their contribution if
they're spending hours on Candy Crush and spending a lot of money a month so
in summary yeah I think blockchain is going to really help solve you know
retention monetization challenges for developers and by default you know make
games more fun for people playing them yeah so I started playing I have a side
of me that's been doing all kinds of trading and crypto stuff for much longer
than I was even doing free NFT and I was very very early in web 3 gaming when it
was really just a lot of on-chain games at first and immediately I was I was
captivated by them I think one thing people under eight which is what you're
touching on with this retention point is that the asset layer adds a whole new
dimension to the gaming experience it's not like a you know a plus one
improvement it's like a order of magnitude difference and I never played
Counter Strike but my brother Lucas is extremely good at Counter Strike and
recently he got me into it and there's a very similar idea in that game with
skins and and now there are people I play Counter Strike with pretty
consistently and some of these Gen Z's especially I was talking about crypto
insane you know talking about different things that I hold and why and and these
guys were basically having the same conversation back with me about
Counter Strike skins like all of their investing over the last three years has
just been skins in a video game and these guys are never leaving Counter
Strike you know it's it's it's much more than just a game at that point it
becomes something much more real when the asset layer is introduced so I think
yeah a hundred percent I mean there's a there's a class action lawsuit in the US
right now against take two over MBA 2k right yeah I mean there's lots of stuff
in there but the fundamental point is you know when a developer just deactivates
their their servers for a pretty big sports game and you know the the players
have put a lot of money in like well then what happens once those servers are
turned off then all that all those virtual assets that people have bought
but don't own are just inaccessible so yeah I agree with you I think it doesn't
this isn't about whether you like have hyper casual games or you like casual
games or you're you know a fortnight player or you're like TCG games I think
you know this is just a you know web to gaming problem that we just see time
and time again right and but yeah like you're saying in terms of that
behavior again yeah I think that it's not again it's not that behaviors they're
in all genres of gaming that we we should look to accelerate with web 3 it's
not this of course there's some nuances that we you know we all have a
responsibility to teach our web to friends about just to help them along
the way but I mean it's not that complicated once you get it I mean the
tech's getting easier and you know we all know how addicted we get to like you
know trading assets so yeah I'm just really bullish on it I think they're more
you know again just I mean I can't imagine my life now without apps like you
know like deliveroo or uber right it's not like it and you know it once you've
used it the first time you kind of get the hang of it and I genuinely hope
that's the way it's gonna go now with web 3 gaming the more the more
intuitive we make these games and experiences for players it's gonna be
that way and I love that point about you and your brother as well because that's
another one of our core thesis a bit like you know the adoption of social media
you've got generations that just don't know I've just grown up on snapchat or
tick-tock I'm seeing this with you know kids who were 13 14 15 16 they're
already looking for blockchain games they love this stuff right and there's a
whole generation that are just gonna grow up with blockchain games just as
the norm and they'll be the opposite they'll be playing a game and be like well
this game's crap why can't I buy and sell stuff in it that's rubbish so I
think we you know we're still at that stage where yeah we're all growing this
space together but fast-forward you know it's no it's weird to still say it but
fast-forward five ten years the stuff we're talking about it's just gonna be
normal and hopefully we'll all be retired yeah that would be nice yeah so
you mentioned also on the monetization point there's something I've seen in the
especially obviously in the kind of bull run of 2021 there's been an
unbelievable monetization opportunity presented by but three games and I think
you know Gabe talks a lot about how ETH is essentially an unlimited processor for
payments you can't you know on iOS there's you know in-app purchase limits
and you've got credit cards to deal with and all kinds of stuff for moving money
around whales have spent an unbelievable amount of money playing where three
games already and if you think about quality of those games it's been very
very low so it seems like there's also a step function improvement in the
ability of the developer to monetize whales in particular people like spenders
who are a very small percentage of the player population that spend you know an
outsized percentage of of the money moving through the game so it becomes
like a much more efficient way to monetize your whales and people who and
one thing you know people are always kind of a bit nervous about
monetization gamers get very angry but the reality is is that people who spend
money in games love spending money in games and it makes the game exciting for
them too so the ability to provide like someone who wants to spend a lot in the
games they play and is going to regardless of whether you offer it or
another game does a much more compelling experience I think is also kind of
underrated in web 3 yeah a hundred percent and I think the I mean the thing
that's always great about mating making games is human psychology and I think
this is where it gets really interesting when you start blending those people like
exactly like you said that love buying gaming assets just generally like they
love buying gaming assets and they just do it for the flex and then you add on
top of that the like the rocket fuel of like the web 3 degen psychology right
and mentality you know and I saw I saw I saw this first hand in the last ball
run on games I was playing right because you've just got that driven
gaming desire because you just really want to find and win in these like gacha
boxes those really rare items and the dopamine and common sense just kicks in
right you completely lose track of the money that you're putting in and you
know I've heard people say that part of the reason they lose track is
because it's not US dollars or their native currency but because it's their
sort of native token of the chain they've been accumulating they just don't
even see it as as real money and just dopamine kicks in because you've got
this brilliant social air and FOMO around it that it just becomes I've got
to get that rare skin before someone else does I'm just gonna open like a
hundred boxes and you've probably just spent I don't know for argument's sake
like $1,000 to get something that's maybe trading for $50 but that's not the
point it's just because the dopamine has just taken over like common sense is
just out the window but you can jump in discord or on Twitter and be like look
look at this this is sick I've just found this you know like flaming sword
so I think for me that's that's also just is what is fascinating about this
intersection of gaming and like web 3 yeah trading and like DJ mentality it
just yeah you it's very dangerous to underestimate human psychology in all of
this so yeah we're certainly gonna be testing something very soon that that
really explores this because you know we we've seen this you know quite recently
in some of these you know like play to airdrop events we've just seen that
that human psychology just just just kick in so yeah it's just fascinating
yeah and to think like an indie developer in web 3 depending on the
timing the market there have been you know sales that take place where 70
million dollars of NFT I can think of two examples off the top of my head
70 million dollars of assets being sold in a day by an indie developer it's
absolutely insane you know that's more money than power world has made you
know it this week and that's the number one game in the whole world and we're
talking about a game that maybe 10,000 people knew about in 2021 making that
much money it's unbelievable yeah I said I think there's just yeah I think the
the thing is is obviously you've got that kind of the psychology we're talking
about but you also mustn't underestimate yeah the the absolute skill of like web
3 like attention marketing that is yeah kind of very different to to web 2 I've
also seen some people that are doing kind of very very clever things like almost you
know like diving into subreddits and and creating and really feeding into that
sort of mean culture and sort of bringing that out into sort of like crypto
means and Dijon behavior but yeah I think yeah they I think if you really
want to succeed in in web 3 and and deliver yeah and deliver that you know
kind of stellar stellar numbers you've got to have that web 3 marketing
machine behind you to sort of operationalize this as well and create some
of that FOMO and and excitement I think that's one of the mistakes I've seen a
few of my friends make which is rock up into web 3 thinking yeah we've got this
right you know we've done it in web 2 we can do web 3 guys you're gonna fail
like that's literally the worst attitude you can have coming into web 3 it's just
incredibly arrogant you just got to come into this space and be humble and
learn but you know once you learn and see this stuff lies then yeah then kind
of start testing yeah I'm this is actually a really good segue because one of the
things we haven't really talked about is is use your acquisition and web 3 now
you guys made the decision to make your NFT free and obviously partnering with us
our whole premise for this for our website in is is basically this idea that
free NFTs are really really powerful ways to grow your audience get attention some
of the things you've been talking about I'd love to hear a little bit now maybe
about you know what made you guys decide to be free partner with us in in giving
some away and and how that fits into your thesis yeah sure I mean I think I
think for us the part of this this next stage one of the key goals has been yeah
kind of you know establishing establishing some new new partnerships
you know on all fronts you know part of it is also rewarding people that have
been with us for two and a half years years now you know some people may have
just discovered us and really excited to welcome new people in but you know
we've had some you know very grateful to have some really you know really big
supporters the past two and a half years you know some some of these are you know
we've not made a lot so far but you know I've mentioned some other spaces for me
it's like just really happy because a lot of people we're partnering with are
just actual friends like friends of play ember that from the start but like
you know how can we help what can we do so that that was that was the point
right you know it's not it's you know we're well funded in that we've worked
really really hard we already have profitable games and and and pretty
meaningful game revenue I'm very fortunate to do a sort of seed round
ons a couple of years ago so I think that you know I think games comes in
a paid mint because that's just part of their fundraisers maybe they don't have
the you know there's the story that we've had whereas for us yeah and it was
more rewarding rewarding people that have been with us the whole time and I
just thought well it's a bit of a weird way to reward people and say yeah you
know but by the way you know gas gas prices obviously you know a bit of a
pain sometimes but you know for you to then ask you to put I don't know $500
in when you've been a supporter of mine is is just a bit of a weird weird
and then yeah why my free neti well you know Gabe you know it's been a bit of a
hero for mining in web to obviously disrupting things like machine zone and
been a real pioneer in terms of like web to monetization and you know was lucky
enough to have some sort of DMS with him early on when we were building and then
yeah obviously you know what what you've been pioneering in terms of you
know making a real stand in terms of you know like you know like crater
royalties right it's just just a super important thing for you know the the
future of what we're doing you know we've all got businesses to run and you know
need to find ways to you know to fund that and also distribute some of those
benefits to holders and so I think yeah for for us it's it's just a real honor
to be able to obviously just be here speaking with with you guys that have
already done so much for this space and I know you've got a lot I know you've
got a lot coming but yeah for us just you know the mint you know of course it's
you know of course there's kind of some stressful things that we've been going
through but yeah I think just really really excited about you know some of
that some of the partnerships that we're going to start announcing very soon and
that have come from some of the new relationships of us yeah since early
December announcing announcing what we're doing yeah and I mean I've seen so many
interesting interesting partnerships you guys have been spinning up I want to
get into those but but first maybe we could talk about the NFT itself the MB I
pinned a thread but I think people would love to hear it straight from you know
what is this NFT what does it mean in the context of your ecosystem yeah of
course so so if we go if we go back to the sort of earlier conversation if I go
high-level like our kind of thesis on on NFTs you know that they are you know
for me they're just an extension of what IAPs have been in web 2 but they're an
important game asset right they should be something that that that does
something and benefits your your game experience now we're literally just
coming into season 2 so some of the some of the stuff we're doing NFTs is
going to be slowly rolling out throughout this year but when we started
thinking about the Genesis collection there were kind of two two points to it
really one one is just a really important gaming point which is that you
know typically in probably half of the games that we build in web 2 IP is
actually important it's actually a problem because a lot of these people
playing our games don't identify as gamers so you know if you see some of
our games we're not trying to offend you that they've got stick men in there it's
just that's kind of important because this audience they love kind of stick
men and these kind of simple environments because it just feels like a very
inclusive game that okay I'm you know I'm not some big triple-a player but I
you know this is a real game for me that I can resonate with but but then
that's also part of the problem going to why we think blockchain technology can
solve it if you if you want something to really you know teach players about this
open marketplace and and this idea of sort of collecting trading and ownership I
can't think of a better way to do it and something you get emotionally attached to
than an actual character so that's really initially where MB came along was
like right we we think a key part of our success moving for this gaming IP
that we hope people are going to fall in love with as a way of teaching them
and moving them around our ecosystem so we did a lot of testing to try and find
out what that character would be so that's actually really thinking from in
MB's importance and you know not just going to be MB there's going to be some
friends of MB that are coming and then we when we think about the Genesis the
Genesis collection what's the whole point of a Genesis collection is that you
know those those people that that decide to you know support us early and and
stick with us should should be you know some of the biggest winners on this
adventure that we're on so if you have a Genesis MB what what what might it mean
for you well you know you're you're gonna get some of the you know by having
this this digital asset you know we already announced the call cats
partnership for example as we start announcing these collabs and we think
about fun ways to entertain and reward people in our ecosystem and our
partners ecosystem well because you've got a Genesis MB some of those rewards
you know of course are going to be going to be coming your way I think the other
the other thing is you know having you know having a fairly a fairly loud
voice in in also what we're building it's it's really important to us when
we've had it with MB already for a couple of months it's really important
that this journey we're on is a is is a shared one so there's going to be some
sort of things that the the Genesis MB holders perhaps have access to before you
know some of the other members of our our community and you know I've seen some
posts today there's a lot of speculation about it you know all I can
really comment on is that you know we are a hundred percent committed to the
power of web3 you know technology so you know we are going to continue to roll
out more you know digital assets so you know having a Genesis MB NFT is gonna you
know is going to help you get access to some of the more things that we're
releasing so I think that's about as cryptic as I can be equal right now
about that to be honest but safe to say we'll be announcing as much as we
can as quickly as we can yeah and on the topic of the cool cats partnership so I
noticed that you guys are actually working on a game on their behalf is
that right yeah that's correct so that that that that deal was signed and I
think did last year actually so we're working really closely with clon and his
team it's a it's a mobile match tree game and you know just love clon's vision
for what where he's taking cool cats building this character IP so there are
three games that cool cats are working on at the moment to you know to amazing
kind of like web what you would probably recognize as much more of a web3 game
where our role comes in is it's much more of a let's say an IP extension
play taking the amazing story of cool cats into that like web2 mass consumer
audience so that's part of the reason we chose like a match tree game it's you
know it's one of the most popular like casual game mechanics that people know
how to do so I'll be sharing more details on that soon because it's due for
soft launch end of March but yeah just I mean honestly I can't on a personal
level the team they've been so involved in the artwork of that game it's
amazing but yeah that that will be launching or with immutable soft launch
end of March so yeah we'll be sharing kind of more about the story of that
and sneak peeks and play testing of course first with the sort of cool cats
community sort of mid mid next month and then yeah like early March you'll
hear a lot more about the story of that game the creation of that game and
we've got a lot of stuff lined up awesome yeah I mean one thing I think
we've all noticed the past couple years in web 3 is that building games is
challenging especially if you have no experience in gaming and a lot of the IP
kind of NFT projects that we know the PFP collections those guys didn't really
come from a gaming background and sort of ended up being funneled into a
narrative where they were going to make games to survive and and I think that's
probably because that's just what the biggest guys were doing in the industry
and and you know capital kind of pushes all the smaller players in the same
similar direction so it's really interesting to see these kinds of
partnerships pop up where a studio like yourself who know how to make
successful games will come in and say okay like let's take this really really
great IP that we love and and make it an experience for the holders and and
other people who are interested in the IP is that something that's kind of a
core to your model like extending the web 3 IP through yeah guys published yeah
I mean that there's a couple of really good points in there that I kind of
learn early on in my career and you've heard people even recently like you
know Disney talk about this which is you know look as a business stick to
your core strengths right making games is bloody hard right you know Disney have
tried it Universal have tried it and failed to launch their own studio and
then just partnered with other companies so yeah I think we we certainly for a
while will stick to our core strength which is we love making games and you
know always be anchored in mobile games but yeah we've got two games on on
Nintendo switch I've already been honest that there's a Roblox game
that's you know probably 80% developed now which we're really excited about and
part of our vision has always been yeah we would we would love to support like
amazing web 3 brands because there's just some amazing visionaries here that
are creating brands in totally new ways that you know is just so innovative and
you know we're here to help them when it fits in with their business model and
timing etc but you know when they're ready we we would love to be one of
those people that they they talk to about you know bringing their content to life
in amazing web 3 and casual games and yeah bringing their their IP out to this
giant addressable market in in kind of casual games so yeah very excited that
the call cats are the first one that are announced all I can share with you is
that we're announcing two more very soon and it's just really inspiring to
you know the more people I talked to in the sort of web through PFP space
especially there's this shared passion and belief in you know cross cross IP
and so you know you're also going to start seeing MB in some other worlds
that you know for me and our our supporters is just going to be really
really exciting you know like for example I love Charles's vision at nifty
island and kind of what he's doing for sort of NFTs and gaming just very
inspired by that you know we're here to really try and champion that for all these
amazing you know web 3 PFB builders now that are starting to think and build out
digital content and and support them in that web 3 you know casual game
distribution yeah that's fantastic to hear it's gonna be interesting to see
over the next like 10 years to what extent web 3 brands break out into your
mainstream audiences there are some which are already pretty well known I'd
say like apes a lot of people even who are not in crypto have seen a board 8
before and maybe a crypto bank but you know how big the kind of IP sector of
this industry is gonna get I think you know remains to be seen I'm very
interested to to see if we're gonna get like wassies and all these like weird
web 3 characters into the mainstream over the next 10 years yeah my bet is I
think you'll see two things if I'm one of these like web 2 businesses that are
looking at web 3 and I can learn you know there's many things you can learn
but I mean if I if I if I dove in what do I see I just see that you see some
absolute geniuses at marketing and and and yeah can can can build attention
economies far quicker than you know perhaps some of their web 2
counterparts that maybe grew up in a different time or a different world so
yeah I mean I would expect to see some M&A here where people are coming in and
and aqua hiring teams of just geniuses to the given like Jesus Christ look at
what you've done with your own collection ego come into my you know web
2 billion dollar company with always rich IP and just put this on steroids or
see what you can do with it so I I'd imagine there's got to be some of
that happening over the next few years yeah or the second things is a bit like
this isn't just about gaming you know you look at just beautiful web 2 brands
and businesses like you know Sam Rio for example you know I refuse to believe that
some of these amazing companies now with the sort of journey they're on and the
treasuries they've they've built up and the vision they have that yeah again
fast-forward a few years you know that there's got to be some of the names
that you know you you've mentioned and some others you haven't mentioned that
that could be you know household names over the next five ten years right so yeah
I'm just very excited for you know not not just web 3 gaming but yeah web 3 web
3 brands and you know creators especially I think there's just a huge
opportunity for a lot of people yeah yeah absolutely absolutely I always tell
you know young people I'm 25 and when I meet people my age younger trying to
figure out what to do which is I think most people in their early 20s still
kind of looking I always tell them that this is the best place to be I mean
there really is the opportunity for someone with no experience to you know
go from someone who no one knows with no experience and and nothing to their name
to to having an audience a product maybe a brand that people care about very very
quickly and it's very intuitive young people to this kind of ecosystem that's
very online right yeah it's just what I said I think I think it's I think it's
great I think that's what in time will just speed this up this generation
coming through that just this needs no explanation to they're like this is
great where do I get more of it how do I build it yeah first isn't you know
we're still at that stage where you know that we're just not quite yet
there yet but you know thousand percent we we absolutely will be so so John and and
to the audience maybe this would be a great opportunity if people want to raise
hands to come up and ask a few questions before we wrap up I think we're gonna
stop at about in about 12 minutes at the hour mark so if you want to start
raising hands now that would be fantastic there's some people with hands
raised but I think you've had them raise the whole space so I'm not sure if
you're still active so maybe if your hand is already raised give us a wave so
I can see that you're still there and and if you have any questions for John
and the play in the team please raise your hands now one of my last questions
John is what can you tell us about 2024 for play ember obviously it you
know don't I'm not trying to pry for things you don't want to share but but
what is the eye they kind of plan for this year that's maybe already public
or things you're you're happy to talk about now yeah of course so I mean as I
said I think the one thing that you can hold us to account for is making making
games right we make three types of games are hyper casual games we can we can
ship a new game in four to six weeks you know hybrid games and we've got a
couple of those in the works it's slightly longer but maybe depending on
the complexity and meta maybe six to ten weeks and then like the cool cats
game you know there's a much bigger piece of digital entertainment but you
know that they can take six to nine months so I think that's the one thing
that we will be doing this year is can continuously to ship games we've
already got around 40 now but continue to deploy more games into our our
ecosystem you know like we said like you know MB's been out there in the
wild for a while now there's absolutely going to be some MB friends that are
coming because otherwise MB is going to get a little bit lonely so MB definitely
needs some friends and I think on the on the blockchain on the technology side
you know coming into this next phase we're really excited to be doing things
that you know maybe are a bit more recognizable in in web 3 you know still
very much in our in our mobile games but obviously now you know adding on this
NFT component is really exciting because it enables us to do some sort of new
things for our our players and you know for me the most important thing is just
welcoming you know welcoming in more you know more members into our community
we're still early building our community so you know excited to be welcoming more
people in and also to the team you know we are we are hiring we are growing very
quickly so you know we're also I'm also just excited to welcome more people into
the play in the team all right fantastic well I think everyone's very
excited I just looked and we actually have 250 people listening which is it's
quite a lot for a Twitter space right now so people are clearly very very
excited John I'm gonna let some people up we'll do it one at a time so it
doesn't get messy I saw you have been had your hand raised for a while let's
see hey can you hear us mop I think it's Monsieur hi sorry yes yes how are some
incident issues how you are doing you're good so just want to calculate the team
I think is one of the fastest mentoring process I've seen you from the launch
to the main two days it looks like you guys trying to take advantage of the
matter which I find quite commendable but there's something I wanted to ask
right I think it has been some of the questions we asked in almost every
community that have been based would it have been better or would you have
considered maybe as a reflection maybe perhaps next time you do a second
period of time that would have been better to announce in advance the limited
spots are located for the particular community in your DC do you think it's
something that will probably change the future I mean what do you think about
that process because I think mostly we're just kind of taken aback by the last
minute announcement that this was in a more sport security your community do
you think that's something that would change you think it's the right
decision what is yeah can you expand on that a little more so you know you
gave out 200 spots hundred guaranteed a hundred first confess wait lists in the
DC right now almost every community I attend they are all talking about like
they think perhaps they should have been given advance notice of the sports
given maybe I'm wrong maybe you did announce it and I missed it but if you
didn't announce it do you think it should have been announced in advance I
mean what you think of the whole yeah so it's a great great question so so like
I said we've been building for two and a half years yeah so there's there's some
people that have been with us for two and a half years yeah so 98% of our mint
is guaranteed right 98% and and who do you think the most important people are
to us right is those people that have been with us since since the start so
I I totally understand your comment but I I think that that was for a very yeah
that that was for a very specific like kind of play to play to whiteness
initiative that we ran for a specific number of spots so yeah I've seen a lot
of debate on Twitter and yeah I can't comment on other collections decisions
yeah yeah I think I think yeah I would be in a lot of trouble if I was doing a
free mint and 98% of my mint was first come first so no no I'm totally I'm
totally in agreement if you have a lot of investors or people are with you from the
beginning for two years you have to catch up to their needs I don't decide the
way that my only quibble my only curiosity is do you think that limited
sports in DC should have been given if you're been notified in advance before
you know it came out that you're going to give a hundred sports or 200
sports to those in DC I'm just look at the the presentation right you think
shabring notes shall be notified us in advance be one of your species or
something so but so there's investors but I get it completely I mean I think
out of probably in the same oh yeah so just just to be clear just to just to be
very clear in terms of our investors I mean very few of our investors have
even got a whitelist because they didn't want one they said give it to your
community so the biggest allocation has gone to our early community like as I
said we've been here for two and a half years so so I think I so I think I
just want to clarify that point like the largest whitelist holders are not
investors because that would just be messed up and you know the you know but
I support us like I said you know the the call cats partnership for example
that was done you know mid midway last year right but no your point your point
is is is correct I think for those for those last for the specific most recent
spots for that specific initiative and again I'll jump back into this discord
to clarify with my my my mod team but I think there's two there's two parts to
you know obviously there's a very small I think it's under 2% based on current
numbers for tomorrow that are first come first serve which is very much against
you know some other percentages I've seen but yeah in terms of communication I'll
check with the mods you know I think it's something that you know we've tried
to communicate really directly about this early on in terms of you know
supply I think we've been very clear that it's it's guaranteed like yeah I
think like 98% is is now guaranteed yeah but yeah you know from from my side yeah
I apologize if that's if that's not been made made clear and some people are now
disappointed about about that so if that is the case I absolutely apologize for
that but I think you know from a current meta perspective we made that
decision early on to be to be guaranteed because yeah I haven't I've like enough
a lot of respect so sorry just because I monster we're gonna I agree with you
right I'm just saying that maybe next time just let us know in advance this
is a locator spot for those in DC that's all that's what I'm saying I agree
with you all your explanation I never can understand that I'm saying maybe just
let us know in advance this is the specific number for those in DC and
whatnot that's all thanks thank you thank you monster we're gonna let
someone else up we appreciate the question John I have to warn you by the
way the next the next part after the mint is kind of the worst part because
everyone who really wants one who didn't get one is gonna be very very upset
with you oh don't worry my my my DMs are full of angry people yeah so this is
not this is not yeah I I understand that you know believe believe you know
people you know people that have unlike other collections that I say like ten
thousand for example you know I wish we lived in a world where I could you know
do you know a collection size of around it around a million right and keep
everyone happy but just unfortunately not being able to do that but all I can
say is yeah thought very long and hard about where those guaranteed spots that
as I said around kind of 98% or so been going so anyway yeah well no matter
what you do people are gonna be upset I mean I imagine you know the position
we've been in giving away spots for like countless projects you know we get
hundreds of thousands of people trying to win these things very few can can win
feasibly so I'm just like biggest villain in web 3 to some of the some of the
people here no no I mean it's like it's a totally fair question that's that's
what we're here to be accountable so I have I have no issues with the
question I appreciate I certainly appreciate the question but you know
again I think I understand the point it's more you know there's some people
that have been you know kind of grinding grinding hard and yeah again like I wish
I could have given more than more than a hundred spots but it's still a hundred
spots that people have the choice to actively participate in or and or not but
yeah anyway I'm just appreciative to everyone that that's been supportive and
even people that haven't been supportive I've tried to take time to talk to them
and you know it's there you know hopefully they'll join postman and as I
said there's more to come and can be more ways to contribute to you know to
contribute and get your hand on a digital asset that might not be the
first MB yeah well I'm glad to hear though it's all in a way like some
the frustration is a good thing because at least it means that you've
delivered something that people are really excited about and then there's
always you know more opportunities coming for people to get involved in the
community you already mentioned a few so all right we've got we've got a couple
more people we're running a bit close on time I will I'll pick choose one and
we'll see what what they have to ask
I'm still you can hear me right yeah you're fine yeah yeah it looks like I'm
not these guys aren't able to to join okay I think I guess some people are
having some kind of connection issue to the space well we went for oh we got
someone no nevermind doesn't work okay well we went for an hour John thank
you very very much for giving us so much of your time to to chat about
playing the today we really appreciate it yeah you're very welcome I said it's
just it's just great to be partnering with with you like just real pioneers of
what you've been doing and yeah hopefully I'll actually I still not met Gabe I around
actually we've had a few DMs we were on like different panels at IVC and Kyoto
and didn't actually get to meet so yeah I'd be around yeah yeah I was on I
think I was in the panel before Gabe but yeah hopefully around GDC you actually
get to meet you guys yeah finally which which would be amazing I think Gabe
tweeted he's going to GDC so I'll probably be there as well so it'd be
great to be fantastic but yeah look I can see a lot of a lot of friendly faces
here just want to thank everyone for giving up an hour of their time and
yeah just very much looking forward to for tomorrow in terms of the the mint
we'll be having a mint party tomorrow just to talk a bit more about what's
coming but yeah I just want to thank everyone for turning up today and yeah
for everyone's you know continued support and contribution it's really really
appreciated yeah well good luck tomorrow I know it's probably one of the most
stressful days you guys have you guys have been facing in a while so we're
here for it like we got we got an Airbnb we're here we'll be we'll be up all
night we'll be making sure everything's ready and making more games maybe playing
some games but yeah we're here for it's all part of the experience so we'll
we're definitely going to enjoy it and yeah we'll be we'll be having a mint
party tomorrow we in discord tomorrow welcoming welcoming hopefully a bunch of
you people in so so yeah thanks again Igor and thanks everyone I really
appreciate it fantastic we're all looking forward to it John thank you so much
for your time thank you guys for being here we appreciate it as always and
we're looking forward to the next one have a great rest of your days all