Projects
![]()
No projects found
Investors
New
DAO Treasuries
DATs
Lend / Borrow APRs
Chains
Categories
Spaces
Gamified #116 | Maplestory szn | GTA 6???
Recorded: May 7, 2025 Duration: 1:58:54Space Recording
Short Summary
The gaming landscape is evolving as MapleStory prepares to launch its first Web3 game, allowing players to own and trade in-game assets on the blockchain. Meanwhile, the delay of Grand Theft Auto 6 until May 2026 raises expectations for quality and could align with emerging trends in crypto gaming.
Full Transcription
Thank you. What's up, you beautiful people?
Trike, Filch, Big Dub.
Walt Diz also sliding in love to see
it spike man so many of my
favorites love you guys good to see everybody
i'm trying to let
the silence linger a little bit less
uh as as you guys know i love
leaving the space on
with no audio apparently since it never
works on twitter but
i'm trying to do a little bit better and at least
say say what's up.
It's always tricky managing a bunch of DMs have to go out and stuff, make sure everybody gets on the panel.
But after 116 episodes, people are doing a little bit better.
Shout out Crimson Caravan.
Good to see you, Carrot.
Fake you, Daniel Drogue.
Alex.
Ah, man, great to see you guys.
Excited for today, man.
We have MapleStory coming down the pipeline.
Very, very, very excited to see what the panel has to say about that.
Because it feels like a big deal from where I'm sitting.
But I want to see if the panel agrees.
I mean, I dated a girl.
I didn't think MapleStory was a huge deal.
But about a decade ago, I dated a girl who grew up on MapleStory.
And she was obsessed. She didn't even like video games, but MapleStory was different to her. It was
different. It was just insane how much she loved that game, and apparently 250 million other people
also agree, so excited for that. Wow, look at you fill in the silence like a goddamn pro dude freaking this guy takes feedback in and
then he just goes and he changes himself like a little beautiful little butterfly faces or
something what what a guy what a dude i am moldable i am i am but a vessel uh to take your feedback
and to dispel it into uh better or something. Dub, how you doing,
man? Where in the world are you? Are you actually in Seattle for once? No, I'm still in Dubai,
actually. I decided to stay a week later. I'm in a really weird headspace. I haven't smoked weed
for a really long time. And I just, you know know i've re-found myself i guess i'm an
intelligent person but not as funny anymore wait is any of that actually true are you really in
dubai right now yeah yeah i'm in dubai wow you're stone cold sober yeah stone cold sober in dubai
he's gonna be fucking unstoppable on this face today.
I can confirm
that he was there at least last week,
so that part checks out.
No confirmation on
sobriety of any kind for Dub.
I think Dub's
mental capacity is gonna be way down
without weed than it would be with weed.
Press X.
Glenn says with no ulterior
motive or need for explanation.
This is like when Goku
takes off the weights on his
arms and legs
and is just like a million times faster.
We're about to see some crazy shit.
What is Lem's
talking about?
The two biggest potheads.
It's like when the two fat kids
would argue in elementary school
and be like, no, you're fatter than me.
You know, the two guys that are high all the time
are fucking be like, no, you're stupid.
It's performance.
It's performance enhancing.
Jerry, whenever you're in a situation where the two
fat kids are arguing, the only solution
is to make them race in the parking lot.
That's the only way you can really settle this bad boy.
So we need a big bong in the parking lot.
I did get a vape that has 0% nicotine, so I don't know what I'm smoking,
but at least I still am kind of doing something here.
It's watermelon freeze.
The funny thing is I'm also with you in solidarity, Deb,
because I've been in Cyprus for 48 hours,
and I haven't smoked anything either.
Oh my god, they're going to be unstoppable.
Yeah, this is either about to be the greatest episode of Game of Fight
or the worst, and we're only going to find out by living through it.
It would be hilarious if they were both really boring
and didn't say anything very interesting.
The whole Web3 space was like, you guys need to smoke weed again.
I mean, it would basically be a regular show then.
All right.
From crits to crypto,
this former shark shooter and former pothead
apparently has leveled up and evolved
with a master ball mindset and a megastone strategy.
He planted a rare seed that bloomed
into Glitter Cloud Solutions,
a consultancy that's super effective
against stale game fi.
It's the king of the kill streak.
It's dub.
I love to freaking be here, man.
I'm in a penthouse suite with a private fucking pool on the deck,
just living my best life, you know?
Habibi!
Oh, word.
Now I understand why he decided to stay in Dubai.
I would have stayed, too, if that was my situation.
Up next, he's a revolution on four legs, a trailblazer in the terra incognita of tech
representing the eth lizards this digital demon is aiming to change the rules of gaming
infrastructure welcome back to the panel the sultan of scales it's animositas
yo glad to be back guys and for a remarkable episode too both limbs and stone cold sober uh couldn't have picked a
better one to be back thanks for the invite sammy great to have you yes uh truly a unique episode
that nobody saw coming up next from crafting iconic skyscrapers as an architect of spinning
tracks and producing music videos he's now pioneering a new frontier with eureka the
continent but his next creation lies in virality.
As the king of Reply Corp, he's building a platform to redefine social engagement, blending web 3 innovation with immersive community-driven experiences.
It's the ultimate Reply guy from Reply Corp.
It's Jordan Feinstein.
What's up, everyone?
Sam, endless appreciation for you. I'm the asshole over here doing two companies instead of one.
And every time you make sure to get a nice in about both, you don't have to. That's me, everyone.
Okay. Appreciate you. Yeah, we're all juggling some hats. You know, we got a lot going on. And
Jordan, of course, no, no exception there. Up next, introducing the genius who fuses legal wizardry with digital dynamite,
the mastermind who's behind Andromeda,
and the compliance king who's got loopholes quaking in fear.
He's the knight of Nintendo, the ace of Andromeda,
and the wild card of the courtroom.
It's Michael Christine.
Hey, what's going on, everybody?
Really, really happy to be here.
Traveling today, so apologies if my sound isn't the best,
but hyped to jump into today's conversation.
Great to have you as always, brother.
It's extra exciting every time we have a Nintendo topic
on the docket to have our boy, Michael.
Up next, Forge and Smash tournaments
leveled up in Web 3 War Zones
and with a horn for hype and hooves built to scale,
this ox doesn't sleep, he stampedes.
Call it fate, call it evolution,
but every region calls him the same.
It's Wills, the ox, Spangler.
Hello, hello.
Glad to inform everyone that I'm the world's newest Koreaboo.
All things Korean culture and gaming.
I'm running up the stats on that.
So send me K-pop Rex
so I can laugh a little harder.
God bless. Was that intended for kaido or what's the what's the mo there no i'm just really trying to immerse myself
in in maple story and and the culture around it just better understand it better understand
everything that motivates maple story players so i can serve them better as a blockchain the better is blockchain. Well, good luck and Godspeed.
Fuck.
Up next,
behold,
mortals,
a towering Titan,
who storms in from the abyss of the forbidden,
carving cataclysmic,
God damn it,
that threw me off.
The whole,
Wills is Korean now.
I don't know.
I can't move on from that.
Behold,
a towering Titan,
who storms in from the abyss with the forbidden,
carving cataclysmic chronicles that blaze untrodden trails through Web3 gaming,
building a My Angry Who's a Girlfriend, He's a Behemoth,
of bold tastes and brazen taboos,
the Renaissance rebel who shakes the heavens and strikes fear into the peasants
and gutless wanks alike.
It's the titan of taboo, it's Senjen.
I'm so glad to be here
And my fellow Koreans
And welcome to Korea land everyone
My fellow Koreans
Incredible
I want to know in the comments
Whose Korean is better
Mine or Sinjin's
Answer carefully
Up next
This pack rat legend
Obsessed with curating
The ultimate stash
Hoards treasures like a pro Building empires in parallel and colony alike.
His collecting frenzy is so massive, it inspired a Black Mirror episode this season.
Ruligweb 3 Esports and the reigning TCG king of parallel.
He's a charismatic king, captivating epic crowds,
always draped in his pot of greed Yu-Gi-Oh jacket.
He's the parallel pack rat, the movie-obsessed mogul.
You know I'm talking about Koji.
What's up man it's funny that uh we got some people sober right now because i'm on my way to my dealer at the moment uh but it's not weed it's a the video store but but uh thanks
for having me um i'm uh i'm happy to be here i need this break like this is my one. This is like touching grass for me coming on the show
because I feel like I'm going insane and then I'm here
and it's like as insane as the space is.
It's almost like a stable place for me.
So thanks, guys.
That was very, very thoughtful of you, Koji.
I appreciate that.
I can't believe Gamified is touching grass for you.
I thought for sure you were going to say going to Blockbuster
is like touching grass for you.
It just felt like we were leading that way.
But I appreciate it, man.
It means a lot to me.
I'm doing both at the same time soon.
I'm on my way there now.
That's a sick combo meal, dude.
The dopamine receptors are about to be overwhelmed.
Next, once dubbed the golden fraud, this Pokemon evolved through sheer showmanship and strategy.
Found most often near social arenas and trending tabs.
He's the Alakazam of analytics,
hypnotizing the timeline and putting his enemies to sleep.
Welcome to the panel, the golden god, the Mewtwo of media.
You can tell I wrote this last week
and then he didn't show up for the Pokemon episode.
It's Jerry.
Yeah, I don't know if you guys have ever looked up
like the Pokemon stats, but Mewtwo is a fucking unit.
So it makes sense that I would be Mewtwo.
Listen,
I'm a little bit jealous of the Koreans. I'll just be here representing the land
of people that are half Mexican, I guess.
Our last great export was Rey Mysterio.
Is there... Wait a minute, Jerry.
Jerry, I thought that you were Mewtwo because
you were growing a lab and are emotionally stunted.
Is that not what Sam was going for?
I mean, you know, two things can be true.
Is there a great Mexican game studio?
There's got to be something.
I don't know another Mexican Jew other than Jerry, so the lab theory has legs.
We, you know, we ply our trades in other things, Sam.
All right, we're going to move on before we get too in the weeds.
He's what happens whenever Charmander-level charm meets Dragonair Teardrip.
Weighing in at a sleek 2.4 pounds, it's trailblazing tail flinger.
It's Slytherin straight to stardom, so clap your claws and salute the slinky serpent of the spotlight,
the little lizard legend it's lambs
gm man i can catch my breath after all that laughing holy and god help us all if this is
your safe space koji and we're the sane ones because man this is this is far from that i i
didn't say you guys were saying but but I take comfort amongst the crazies.
Yeah, this is his.
All right, I'll take that.
I love you guys.
All right, let's get through some ad reads, then we're jumping in the deep end.
Up first, prepare to ascend to the peak of innovation with Avalanche, the official blockchain of Gamified.
Oh, you'll love to hear it. With possibilities as high as the Himmelators, Avalanche allows you to build a digital
Everest where your community plants its
flag and your own
token fuels the climb. So whether you're a seasoned
Sherpa or a curious climber, come to explore
the Avalanche of opportunities. Plus, come find
us in London. Yes, I will be at the
AVAX Summit along with many of your other
favorite folks. So be there or be left
out in the cold. And up next,
these aren't just your normal run-of-the-mill developers.
These are the architects of growth, building a better landscape for Web3 gaming.
With Game 7, the official infrastructure of Gamified,
they've got an incredible toolkit with Summon,
a super-powered magnet that keeps players hooked.
Hyperplay, you're fast-lating into Web3 gaming,
making it a breeze to discover and dive into new games.
Shout-out to Game 7, the official infrastructure. Innovators making it come together and the hyper gates are open and now you can
venture into a cosmos teaming with discovery chart unexplored sectors of space-time confront
cosmic anomalies and pulse pounding expeditions and witness the evolution of photorealistic
rendering to acquire your access key and embark on this interstellar journey plot a course for
the star atlas discord and join the fleet of the official game of gamified they've been posting
new star atlas ships every single day for the past week and they look electric man congrats to the
guys over there up first bullish or bullshit grand theft auto 6 announced they're delaying
for may 2026 instead of end of 2025. Once the news was publicly released,
it caused an initial stock price plummet of 10%
for Take-Two, the publisher behind Grand Theft Auto.
But since then, it's returned roughly
to pre-announcement prices.
Take-Two's CEO said he supports Rockstar's decision,
saying it reflects commitment to quality
and the greater vision.
Bullish or bullshit on the decision to delay
till May 2026?
Koji, I'm sending it to you first insanely bullish i couldn't be more bullish about this i don't even know what the exact
reasoning is but like everyone knows what high stakes uh you know the next gta game is and if
these guys are like yo it's not ready yet, like, okay, hold it back. You know, a lesser company would just be like, no, it's fine.
Let's get it out the door.
We're going to, like, make more pre-order money than any game has ever seen in the history of the world.
So it doesn't even matter.
But these guys are like, fuck no.
We're going to make this thing good.
And that's how – that's what we need.
There's too much, like, stuff that's sort of released half done and being like
we'll fix it in post or whatever and so i'm very excited for the decision you know like let's get
it out there when it's right oh as a blizzard fanboy for the first 15 years of the company
the glory years as we know them uh that spoke exactly to my soul jordan had the hand up next
um koji your film nerd is showing with the we'll fix it in post reference that spoke exactly to my soul. Jordan had the hand up next.
Toji, your film nerd is showing with the We'll Fix It in post-reference.
Okay, so one, this is related to our Web3 gaming industry, if and only if there's crypto stuff in the game, right? People think that there's going to be. So let's talk as if that's the case for a moment.
I'm super into this delay for our industry.
Because in my mind, I've been saying this for years at this point, and I stand by it.
Web3 Gaming's biggest opportunity will lie in the next bear market.
Now, maybe we've been in the next bear market for a while now and it's all jover, but
let's also pretend that's not true just for the sake of the conversation and that we're still in
the cycle and there's going to be a peak and then it's all going to die, right? We hold the key to
the one thing that would still drive massive transaction volume on a chain and massive use
of cryptocurrency. People will play video games
just as much in a bear market as they play in a bowl, maybe even more depending on what's going
on in the overall economy and people are just sitting at home. So if Grand Theft Auto 6 is
going to be a crypto including game in some way, what better time for that to come out than, you know, in the next bear market
or near it, right? Which that timing next year is much more likely based on typical
cycles to be the timing of, and it could be like a genuinely life-saving shot in the
arm for everything we're doing. And so this is the world I'm going to live in. There were
eight levels of speculation in there. I hope you enjoy it.
I will eat a picture of my PFP if there is crypto in GTA.
If I had to guess, I'd say there's no chance.
Just to throw that out there.
But I don't know.
Maybe it'll be a new...
Wait, it's going to be a new stable coin.
It's going to be GTA USDC.
It's going to be bullish AF.
Incredible.
Someone get Jordan some weed, please.
Some really strong weed.
All right, let's move on.
We got to go to Tatted Lawyer, Michael Christine.
I'm tagging you in.
Then I'm going to evolve the topic a little bit.
Yeah, so I have to say it's incredibly bullish.
And I got to use Cyberpunk as an example.
Cyberpunk was a game that launched way too soon and it
absolutely ruined a lot of its traction. Even though they did fix the game eventually, it kind
of missed that first bite of the apple. And once you miss the first bite of the apple, your game
is dead. So I think this is incredibly bullish. They're not trying to just nickel and dime
everybody to push a game out that's not ready, that's going to be buggy, that everybody's going
to hate because it's buggy. And because this is such an anticipated title if they did that I think it would just absolutely
crush their overall sales or the lifetime value in terms of what the game could actually bring in
so I'm going to say it's a bullish thing for them to push this back everybody obviously gets
disappointed in the first uh wave of the news but as you can tell the price action on the on the
on their stock is already uh leveled out in a way
that shows that people are like, all right, all right, this was just, we're upset that you said
we have to wait more, but we also completely accept that we have to wait more. And also,
absolutely, there will be no cryptocurrency in that game. Why the hell would they take the risk
of putting cryptocurrency in a game that's already projected to make multiple billions of dollars it doesn't really make any sense the only reason that
you would take that risk is if you're like wow this is going to be the thing that makes us
multiple billions of dollars not the fact that this game is already going to do it itself so
i'm gonna i'm gonna also go with i'll eat my pfp if it launches with cryptocurrency uh maybe in the
future after the game like five years of the game being out,
there could be a cryptocurrency integration,
but I'm going to say at launch, probably not.
Probably not.
So we're getting suited up for a PFP buffet at this point.
If we keep going at this rate,
let's go over to Will Spangler.
And Spangler, I'm going to adjust the question slightly, okay?
You know, bullish or bullshit,
you could still answer that on them delaying GTA 6.
But also, over, under, if you think they'll hit this new deadline of May 2026,
or is this the beginning of a bunch of, you know, medium to long-term pushbacks
until we finally get it in, like, 2028 or some shit?
Ooh, that's a good question.
I mean, what's the date now? It's June of 2026 or something. I wouldn't be surprised if we get to 2026 and they push it back again to like the winter holiday season of 2026. I mean, that would make sense. That's when they were originally planning to do it. I think, actually, now that I say it out loud, I think this is a soft setup for that.
They're weakening us right now.
They just hit us in the knees,
and then they're going to take out the other one in six months,
and it's just going to be the full year delay.
But I'm bullish on this, man.
I mean, big games like this, I don't know.
As someone who does thoroughly enjoy indie games,
I think they deserve more attention. The more sporadic or the more far apart these big game releases are, the better. Because the people who spend their entire lives tweeting about GTA 6 need to go and play other games.
And I hope that these pushbacks encourage them to go do that.
You know, go play indie games on Steam.
Go play MapleStory.
That's what I would recommend you do.
But yeah, go outside mainly because the Twitter community for GTA is insane.
And it is mind-boggling the amount that people can just talk about nothing.
the amount that people can just talk about nothing.
I mean, Rich coming from us, but what do you know?
I mean, rich coming from us, but what do you know?
Jaxi in the comments says he's actually testing Grand Theft Auto
and can confirm it has no crypto involvement to the surprise of none of us.
Sinjin, I want to send it over to you.
Okay, so bullish or bullshit, are they going to hit this next date?
But also we see a lot of founders talking about like,
oh, nobody can uh release their
game or do any marketing around the release of grand theft auto one of the most anticipated
games of all time doesn't this kind of throw a wrench in anybody that was like okay we're not
we're not going to do end of 2025 we'll just push it back to spring 2026 and now gta is like well
we're spring 2026 are you going to move it forward Are you going to move it back to avoid GTA 6?
It becomes this whole like moving target.
Speak to the founder perspective, I guess,
for trying to plan around something like this a little bit.
Yeah, absolutely.
I was going to mention that.
And when I first saw the tweet, my heart dropped
because I just saw a main in like 26.
I didn't realize it was like, you know for uh 2026 so i'm like after i saw
that i'm like oh thank you because if you're gonna do it you have to do it beforehand there's no
fucking way around it and i think like you know like palms are gonna be totally jammed up for at least like i would say even like two months or even three months so
um like like gta 5 even has like m5 as like you know whatever mod and stuff like this like this
game has been played like for 10 years with the hardcore communities and everyone has like a gta
experience of like when they first saw that game and um you know it is going to be mind-blowing how much is going to take
over um the entire space so anyone who's planning on launching in may next year is just totally
they will have to um you know reschedule and rethink about when their launch date is but i
think it's very bullish um overall um and the fact that you know uh take two was very supportive of it
i think uh you know speaks volumes um and i think for web three like any games that are
launching now and i i don't think we should be looking at like one year from now i mean studios
are dropping like flies right now um you know we should be happy with whatever we get this year um and i
think everyone who's in in web 3 myself i'm sure paul bentner and everybody else like that we just
breathe a huge sigh of relief thank god it's next year i would also be curious which pool of players
we think it's going to suck the most liquidity from obviously gta 5 but where where else are all these players gonna
leave oh no everywhere everything it's just gonna take over so much mind share and it's not even
like the players themselves um playing it it's just going to suck up every single media channel
um and once someone gets committed to that game to start off with, they're not fucking playing anything else.
I guarantee you that dub with a couple of thumbs downs.
Let's, uh, let's send it over to you, bud.
Yeah, dude, this is the dumbest shit.
Like the only bullish thing that I'm about is the fact that this marketing black hole
is finally like pushed back and we're clear for 2025.
And I'm going to even say early 202626 because no way in hell do these guys actually hit
the date that they're saying they want to hit i and the fucking trailer sucks like the whole thing
like i get it the world's gonna fucking play it whatever but it just looks like a pile of shit
to me and i'm not even looking forward to any of it can't wait for it to finally happen but
probably in 2027 at this point. This is your friend. The champion of shitty games.
That is a long history of wrong game opinions on this show.
I will say I showed the trailer to my non-gaming wife yesterday
and she said, I want to buy this game and play it.
So I'm going to say absolutely wrong.
Wow.
Koji, Koji, we got to tag it.
It's time for the wife test uh koji i need you
to do it uh let's let i'll show it to sarah singin report back next week yeah thank you
zach d dragoon in the comments he says i don't think gta will put crypto in but they won't be
against a market with tons of real money trading and servers slash systems built around the game
that involve crypto the crypto aspect will be UGC.
That would be really, really, really cool to see how it unfolds.
I'm going to Animal City Toss.
I'm going to tag in the Jare Bear, aka the Golden God.
Yeah, look, I think it's a bullish decision.
At the end of the day, guys, this studio expects to make as much money as a fair number of small African countries, I think.
And so the decision to wait six months to make sure that they get there is entirely justified.
They've got a track record that has proven they know when a game is ready and when it's not.
So I think no big surprise on the delay.
The stock price, I think, also reflects that.
I do think it's super interesting though
that the real alpha that we got
on the show is, as Jordan confirmed,
he has an absolutely
indisputable internal source
that indicates the delay is to put Web3
into GTA 6.
I'm running with that. You guys can join
and make with me as we go.
Breaking news on Gamified as always.
Jerry, I made him wait in bated breath
for clearly the best opinion on the panel.
Over to you.
Well, I thank you, Sam.
Listen, this is bullish for one reason.
I've been doing a little bit of reading
on the history of video games.
I just read this book called Play Nice by Jason Schreier which is about like the history of Blizzard and honestly the book kind
of sucked I'm not gonna lie but one of the things that like he repeats over and over in the book or
like as he's going through the history of Blizzard is that like they refused to release a game that
was substandard for them and this is like Blizzard when Blizzard became the Blizzard that we all love
right this is not Activision Blizzard of today so you know i think we should kind of take a second and applaud
a company in like 2025 that's willing to release a game that's good at launch right because we've
really gotten away from that as a games industry like the the example of cyberpunk has come up
and like the ph Liberty or whatever,
the DLC that they,
they released was actually like lauded and it was like up for game of the year
as a DLC. Right.
But the launch of that actual core game was so bad that people didn't go back
and revisit it. Right. And we know Cyberpunk is being like this failure,
but they released a followup to it that was extremely good. Right.
So I think I'm totally with the other guys who said
like the the delay is bullish i think because like i i just over people launching games and
like the server stock got launched or you can't log in or it's fucking broken on like the first
quest you know so i'm a fan of that i actually think they do hit the target uh because i think
they just like nailed down a a date and i think there's like a commitment
to a date you know and i think it's close enough or uh it's far enough out that they can this
all of this is just going to be polished time right like the game's 90 done and now they're
perfecting it so uh i think they hit the date where i want to talk about Web3 for a second. And I've been kind of shifting my ethos on GTA.
I think they are going to allow crypto just like what Zach D said in the UGC components, right?
I think this game is totally going to be like Roblox for adults.
And I think people are going to build like this is the such so many delays, and this
thing is going to be so robust, that I think you're going to see no need to put out DLCs or
anything like that. Because I think people are just going to build like whole games on top of
GTA six. And I think it's going to be this thing where developers start to step in, and how you
have like these small studios that go and publish on you know uefn or roblox now i
think that's going to happen in gta and i think rockstar is going to say we don't give a fuck
how you take money in if you're an if you're a developer on top of gta just take the money and
we'll take a cut of whatever of it so you know like michael said that is a multi-billion dollar
game this is going to be a huge game probably the one of the best on games of all time you know but i think if you add why would you take away the opportunity
to take in billions more so that's kind of where my head is at with gta 6 is like i think we're
thinking a little bit too small when it comes to it i think that what's going to be able to be
built on top of it is not just bullshit fucking hamlet things like you guys tell me is a great idea but i think there's going to be a whole like you know 100 hour games that
are built on top of this thing and and i think those will take encrypt it i i couldn't agree
more and i honestly i'm struggling to think of a time that a delay was bearish for video games in
particular but actually for all media yeah like if you think about No Man's Sky, released
like dog shit, managed to actually claw it back. Cyberpunk, another great example. Lords of the
Fallen coming out of nowhere lately. They did this whole campaign where they just gave everybody
a game key if you already owned the game so you could send it to a friend for free,
doing the payday sort of idea. And a bunch of new energy has come there like four years after a sort
of botched release. So in all these cases, they would have been better off delaying and then you think about
other media like movies sonic you guys remember how fucking weird sonic looked in the first sonic
it was like this whole thing and then they delayed by a year they redid sonic and now three movies
later you just think of it as jim carrey kills it and it's a awesome movie to like take your kids to. You don't even think about how much they,
they botched it back in the day.
Dude,
Sam.
So if I could just back that up for a second,
like one of the wisest pieces of advice that somebody ever gave me in my
gaming career was super early on.
And it was actually Justin Lucas who is listening right now,
but he,
yeah,
he imparted on me delays are temporary mediocrity is forever
and i always think about that saying right and like i literally i think about that once a week
and i think like it's okay to delay because had cyberpunk delayed like cyberpunk is is known as
this game that's a mediocre game well we just talked about how they released a dlc that was fucking amazing right but because they released a mediocre game but that's what we
know we just know it is a mediocre game right had they just delayed and fucking polished the game
if they delayed that thing by six months or a year we look at that whole franchise differently right
so i think like you know delays can you get mired in delays forever yes i think
do as crypto and web3 do we lean on delays too much 100 i do but i think for the right teens
like delaying is never a bad thing if it means a better end product because like once you get the
mediocre label you don't lose that label it's so hard to go from mediocre to great it's it's easier to just
be great and maintain that right so i don't know part of the problem with the building public ethos
to animal ethos go ahead yeah so i i think jerry hit one really important point at the end which is
uh this comes down to good studios so sam, Sam, to call into question your point,
basically everything Disney has released over the past, like, five years has been delayed,
and it's all dog shit.
And so when a studio becomes bad, it doesn't matter how long you delay.
But if you have a competent studio that understands when the product is,
and most importantly, is not ready,
then the delays are pretty much always bullish
michael christine with the hand up yeah i also just wanted to to to mention a game called skull
and bones from ubisoft that was delayed by i think like 11 years and then when it launches or
it launched like softly it was one of the worst things yeah so it definitely depends on the studio.
And to Jerry's point, the only cryptocurrency I could potentially see ever coming to VTA
would be USDC.
And it's literally just because obviously there's about to be a bunch of regulations
passed towards stable coins in USDC and how they strengthen the dollar.
So if USDC, if these regulations are put into place that give like a pretty clear understanding
of what that's going to mean for companies, what they can accept, what they can not accept,
et cetera, that's the cryptocurrency I could see potentially being in GTA.
But I don't know if you guys consider that a crypto or not, but I don't see them launching
their own token.
I don't see them launching a meme coin.
I don't see them launching a gaming token.
I see them using USDC, but we'll see.
Really interesting discussion around this one, guys.
Appreciate it.
We're going to jump in next to the title topic,
MapleStory, releasing on May 15th,
just over a week from now.
The 22-year-old MapleStory franchise
has 250 million users worldwide, with this PC release marking its first official Web3 game in the MapleStory universe.
They have had, though, some playtests previously.
The new game is going to allow people to own and trade in-game assets on a blockchain, of course, with Avalanche, following playtesting with over 31 million on-chain transactions from approximately 400,000 players.
with over 31 million on-chain transactions
from approximately 400,000 players.
You can also right now mint a Soulbound token
for free on OpenSea,
open until May 12th, I believe,
to get some exclusive in-game items at launch.
There's already been several hundred thousand mints.
I don't know if anybody can confirm the number.
Coop tweeted yesterday that it was 140K.
I saw somewhere it might be like 400K now,
but I don't want to throw out numbers
that might be incorrect.
Do you think that this IP has the ability to onboard lots and lots of traditional gamers or games themselves?
Like, will people maybe fast follow MapleStory integrating in Web3 to get them excited about Web3?
And big deal, little deal, no deal on sort of the whole release of this iconic Web2 IP finally getting a full-fledged release in web 3. dub i think you might have had the hand up first yeah massive deal for sure and like without
a doubt these guys are going to just on board i mean a a solid percentage of their existing user
base which is in the millions of of people and then speaking to your question on like how are
they going to get games and all this stuff or what's gonna have of it?
I think their UGC plans is really gonna shine
and see a lot of opportunity for everyone to start coming
and building their own MapleStory worlds
and experiences on there.
Just on a general thing,
it just, everything's right there for people to do that.
And I can just see every group just there for people to do that and i i can just see every
group just kind of flooding to make that happening even like i could see parallel doing that for
example so looking forward to seeing the rollout and it's been i've been getting to work with the
team um over the past couple weeks recently and i'm just super blown away by their professionalism
and button-upness especially around the web3 elements of this and how they're handling the communication to their existing Web2 users for it.
So literally everything is in the right place for this.
I think it's the perfect game, the perfect genre with the perfect plans for this rollout.
Yeah, I wrote a thread earlier today, unprompted by obviously my involvement with Avalanche, but I just truly believe that this is one of two projects that has established IP that is already successful,
and they were like, Web3 actually just makes that better, so we should go do that, and
I think that's really cool.
Spang, over to you.
Yeah, so the number right now, according to my screen, is 419,190.
So close to that golden 420 that we all know and love.
So that, I think, says a lot already.
And I know some much more educated and old-timey panelists can come on and talk about the history that MapleStory has and that Nexon
generally has in pushing the frontiers of gaming. MapleStory being one of the first and real name,
not name breaker, trendsetter in the free-to-play space and showing how successful games can be in free-to-play and proving that theory out
with 20 million players and you know hundreds of millions in revenue. I think we're going to see
the same thing happen here with this established IP catering to the exact kind of audience that
responds to the woes and the thrills that we all get within this space um i'm insanely bullish
on this project and will be beginning my fourth rewatch of parasite today uh right after this
oh gee that's the movie you should get. Fully immersing himself in the culture.
Incredible.
Parasite is one of the best movies I've ever seen.
Also, to expand this topic even more,
if people aren't aware, 250 million users,
$5 billion in lifetime revenue,
which is as big as Yu-Gi-Oh!,
as big as Mortal Kombat,
as big as The Sims,
bigger than many other IPs that you know and love.
Let's go to Sinjin, then to Jordan.
Big deal, little deal, no deal on this launch.
Yeah, this is absolutely a massive deal.
And I'll say from a founder's point of view
in the sense that they're really showing
what Web3 can do for an in-game economy side.
So in Korea, most of the game developers
gone on the hype train because of the funding and, you know,
the excitement of it, you know, Korea banned, you know,
kind of ICOs or crypto issuances back, I think it was like 2018.
And so, you know, a lot of these companies were very committed
and they opened up subsidiaries in Singapore
and nothing seemed to really work out.
And when I was at korean blockchain week a couple
of years ago i was talking to the other game developers and their understanding of crypto
for the most part because the economy side was so difficult and there wasn't a clear path forward
they just used it basically as like kind of leaderboard rewards right and if you follow
any of the maple story like main game accounts and the developer accounts
and stuff like that,
like the content that they put out, it's wonderful.
It is really goes in depth.
You can really see that they understand the ethos
of what they're trying to do in terms of,
you know, empowering the users
and really solving Web2 issues.
And the other biggest thing too, because the nexon like they know
distribution as well they have a playbook they understand their users and so converting their
users over and reactivating that you know 250 million player base um i think if anyone uh like
i don't even think that anyone else actually has that ability to convert so many players
right away not into just the ip itself but like just um onboarding them and getting them excited
because you know they will have known what these pain points were in in very clearly in uh you know
maple story and to see those things being you know fixed through innovation and stuff like that i think people are just gonna be mind blown i think it's going to change what uh web3 is in in a real
way in the sense that like they're not going to come in with the other biases that you know
everyone else has in terms of this nfts crypto and this is bs they're going to just see it as
a solution and if that experience is really good which i'm sure it's going to be great um this could be a real game changer in terms of onboarding new players who haven't been
affected by the you know the stupidity of our space so i'm very very bullish on it i don't know
how much this is going to really translate to the rest of the web3 gaming space but i'm excited to
see what they come up with just as they are i'm going to
send it over to my co-host limbs and i'm tagging in jordan all right i think this is a big deal
like it looks pretty good on paper i like the way their approach has been but i don't like that
everyone on the panel is just like all agreeing on the same thing that we're all like yeah it's
going to be great so i'm going to play a little devil's advocate and be like what are the odds this goes like we you know we've seen other web two companies
come to web three and then they've flopped or then they've like bailed out and just like ghosted us
like what are the odds that this is a big build up and then no one really gives a
and it just kind of fades out from relevance and then it's just like like all the rest
like i'm hoping that's not
the case but you know i want to play a little devil's advocate here well then can i respond to
that um i don't think that's the case here at all you know like even remember when their white paper
came out it was a comic book and then all you guys were like this is so stupid like what the
kind of white paper this is you know like they understand their audience right and so you know they haven't been
um you know they've been playing a little bit of the speculative game obviously uh just because
they're in the space and they understand it but if you follow their uh socials um they're not like
gm like i'm an idiot and like here be a dgen right they're like really passionate uh thoughtful um you know just go read some of
their tweets from uh some of their um yeah their socials and you'll see i mean uh you know if
anything uh no matter what you know you just have to root for these guys that part definitely feels
true if uh if grand theft auto 6 uh comes out with crypto and i'm getting
a chest tattoo to to support those guys maple story might get a tramp stamp though if they
play their cards right jordan over to you then the tattaboy um i think this is a really big deal
because of the game that it is i know all the user numbers i agree with everything that we're saying
but there is a group of we you know we, we've sat here on these panels for years now and it hasn't been as much recently,
but for a long time, there was a huge amount of debate about whether or not like the web
through gaming thesis even would work even was true. And the entire time in my mind,
I have been like, guys, there are games out there that have been incredibly successful
with our thesis,
just not with the tech yet, right?
RuneScape is one of them.
Something like Eve Online is one of them.
Roblox, hugely successful, fully monetized with derivatives on derivatives on derivatives of economic earning metaverse.
Super successful.
And MapleStory, super successful.
You know, MapleSt story is a game that
had such an organic need for an economy that the players just did it themselves right like this is
the game to to have them say we see crypto we see blockchain tech and this is exactly the what we
have been waiting for it for the lifetime of our
game this is this is the thing to take it to the next level is incredible for our industry it's
it's an incredible thing to see and uh you know i like it because i like this kind of economic
model for a game it's part of why i'm building it myself uh where you know these open economies and
stuff but it's like yet another game that is going to be on the completely opposite end
of the Web3 gaming spectrum from the like, you know, what people want is a degen, they want a
coin flip with a cute interface and a like a 1% amount of skill, which I'm not fighting that
model. I think it's also a great model. But this is I think this is we're going to learn so much from this and it's going to bring in so many people i want to expand the conversation a little bit to ask what are i
guess the consequences for web3 gaming if this is not hyper successful or if it is hyper successful
because we had a lot of expectations around off the grid and that token launch obviously that's
still playing out but people had a lot of day one implications and and this isn't a token launch
it's a game launch thankfully for us uh let's go to the tatted lawyer
test test can anybody else hear him
all right we'll have to to have you leave and come back.
Yeah, thanks, brother.
Let's go to Koji.
Yeah, Koji and then Jerry.
Yeah.
I mean, I'm not going to rehash the points that everyone else has made.
This is obviously a big deal.
But as far as, like, what are the ramifications uh if this succeeds or fails like the ramifications
if it fails i don't think are actually all that large like people are still just going to find
ways of getting other people to part with their money for digital like that's just the nature of
the beast uh and so you know web3 will soldier on but if it succeeds and they are able to do
something interesting it's going to do two
things obviously it's going to drive uh more people and hopefully to singen's point less
jaded people into the space that are willing to sort of uh latch on to gaming and experiment but
then it's also going to drive a whole bunch more developers into space and yes we are going to get
a bunch of slop a bunch of bullshit a bunch of whatever but we're also going to get a bunch of slop, a bunch of bullshit, a bunch of whatever, but we're also going to get a whole bunch of new life and new interesting people looking to experiment and,
you know, could set off like a chain reaction that that like brings gaming back to the forefront.
Now, obviously, that's all wishful thinking. But like, honestly, I don't think the stakes are all
that high as far as failure is concerned. You know, we see people have already mentioned on this panel, like a lot of other properties
have come into this space, you know, done it poorly failed.
And it's like, who cares?
You know, and I think that like enough people are entrenched enough in the success of Web3
that like, well, we'll still be here slinging our nonsense forever.
Jerry, do you agree
um listen i i don't exactly know what koji said so i'll say i i love koji so i will i do agree
with him um because koji is a very smart man.
But no, I just wanted to speak to what you said about, you know, what are the kind of downstream effects of this.
And I think, like, if this goes well, this is, it's huge, right?
it's huge, right? It would be a very big deal, right? To play the game. But I think if it goes
It would be a very big deal, right, to play the game.
bad, I think it's a little deal because this is not like Nexon releasing a new IP that would be
like this colossal failure. It's like something that's been out there for a long time anyway.
And so I just think if this doesn't go well, I think it'll just be like this kind of nothing burger. Right.
But I think if it goes well, people will be like, man, like I, dude,
I used to know this girl who's had spent like thousands of dollars in
MapleStory. Right. And she,
I remember her just like years and years ago before I even knew like what
Web3 was, she was like, man,
I wish I could just like sell these or whatever, you know?
And I think you're tapping into like this, you know,
to some of Will's points earlier,
like this team that understands free to play and like really high scale
monetization and being able to kind of accelerate that or,
or add another, you know, 10 to 15% on top of that,
I think is going to be massive, you know, but I think if,
I think if it doesn't go well, people are just gonna be like, ah, I mean,
you know, it's an old game anyway. So like, whatever, you know, not a big deal.
That said, I do want to check like my bias here. And like, I'm a white dude in,
in the U S who's never, well, half Mexican, as you guys found out earlier, um, who's never been
to Asia. So I have no idea how big this game actually is in Asia. Like this is probably a
Sinjin question. Um, but yeah, you know, I think if it doesn't go well, I mean i i don't think it's going to be like this death knell for web 3 or anything i
think it's just going to be something we go like ah you know whatever we tried our level best but
this one wasn't it like on to the next clearly why are you guys such cowards everyone's like
yo i used to know this girl that played maple story no one's owning up to actually playing
maple story you guys know you played dude oh well well, I will admit that I was a coward, and that
it was like a situationship
kind of thing.
I just didn't want to say that, because I didn't want
the Gen Zs like Wills to judge me.
Yeah, hasn't watched Parasite
even three times. He could never be on Wills' level.
Let's go over to the tatted lawyer, Michael
Christine.
Can you hear me now?
Yeah, I'm good now, brother.
Wonderful, wonderful. Can you hear me now? Yeah, all good now, brother. Wonderful, wonderful.
So I do agree with, I think Jerry said it,
and I think, I can't remember who was right before Jerry,
but the idea here is I don't think it's a huge deal
if it flops outside of, it's just, if it flops,
other gaming studios aren't going to want to get
into the Web3 industry, which right now,
they are at least NFT curious or Web3 curious.
So I think that kills a lot of that if it does flop.
And so that is a pretty major negative. But I think a lot of people here are not considering what will happen if it's actually successful, because if it's actually successful and you're making a game that's like, you know, low to mid quality, which there are unfortunately
quite a significant amount of those in the Web3 space. Guess what? You're gone. You're absolutely
gone because now you have huge studios getting into an industry that make real games that are
fun and they know what they're doing. And so anybody who's by NFC curious, if you will,
into this, into this world. And they're, they're like, oh, let me try to make a game for the first
time. Or let me try to do this for the first time.
Guess what, buddy?
Your rug is pulled underneath you,
not by yourself,
but by these other big companies coming in
with massive games that are fun to play
that now integrate these Web3 elements.
So it's kind of a double-edged sword, I'd say,
for the industry in the sense of it will bring players in.
The ultimate goal of this to succeed will succeed.
But a lot of these founders that you see currently in the industry might be kicked out because maybe their product is subpar compared to like what you actually find in the traditional
gaming space which is why you should be building your games not to compete with other web3 games
but to compete with all games but that's just my take animal Animal Seats, I'll send Sinjin is going to finish up this Eastern-based topic.
Yeah, to expand on what Koji said, I think he nailed it.
This comes down to expectations, and I think the rest of the panel echoed it.
It's the same thing as inflation.
And I think we don't realize that inflation exists because we expect prices to go up.
It doesn't exist because prices are going up today.
It's all about what we perceive is going to happen in the future.
And today, everyone perceives that MapleStory will probably not be successful or it will not have a major impact because it has Web3 elements in place.
If that expectation is met, nobody's behavior changes because of it.
However, when you get a deviation from what people expect, that's when you start to see
things really begin to shift. And so I think this is a case where there's so you're basically
playing with house money where you're not really in a position where you're going to lose because
no one expects you to win. But if you do win, then all of a sudden, you can really change the entire narrative around the sector. So I think we have to consider that this is basically a free
shot on goal as an industry. And, you know, really enjoy the time because you don't get those very
often. Interesting. I think my nervousness more so lies in, I think it could be successful and still not shake up the industry because it's such a natural integration.
Like people will be so unaware of how this is different from just playing the game because it fits in perfectly like a puzzle piece. over the past couple of years people just want some asset class to go to a billion dollar market
valuation instead of like the game to actually be good and have thoughtful web3 integrations
i hope i'm wrong on that though sinjin over to you
yeah uh mabel's story how big is it in asia like it's it's fucking huge but it's like i've never
played it and because it's a kind of a generation away from uh myself
and so the people who started playing it first were really like children um and then um after
a while it caught caught on in the west and you know this is a game that's evolved over many many
years um and i i believe that even uh the youth um online uhVE founder had said this was an inspiration for him and his game economy.
And so you can see where the complexity or the robustness of this is.
But what I want to say is that I think what a lot of people are not getting in Web3 is that this is actually a massive, massive risk here for them so the problem that they were solving was an issue
of item ownership and the item rarity and how that drove incentives within the game um and so like
it's it's not about like ownership okay like they're way way way beyond that um but rather
it's like how do we manage the items for the in-game economy for incentives and so their model is
basically um you know their item supplies integrated into their economy you know you burn
items and it reduces supply for you know mass items that you know reducing the overall set
supply because you know there was this problem where you know you just have items that over a
period of time and we all know this you know as the game goes on for five, six, seven years,
items that were once rare would no longer become rare, even if, you know, they're, you know,
they have a certain like, you know, rarity drop just because the time goes by, right? And so
this model that they're using, you know, to items uh for more better items or you know keep the ones
you like but having the option to you know at least have some value for it is specifically again
about like um you know the longevity of their game and their economy so if this works out it will be
a clear indication to other companies just like back in the day when maple
story first was released that this is a viable model that we can start to now make a framework
over now there are a lot of risks here because what if you know for whatever balancing issue
or like the the actual incentives of what the players really do feel like they want it doesn't
work out or maybe it takes like a year or two years to really tweak out.
And what if, you know,
the momentum really doesn't happen and, and, and, you know,
people are able to exploit it or they're able to, you know,
really focus on short-term exploits and you know, the,
the market gets totally fucked. I mean,
this is a massive fucking risk here and you can tell like how much intellectual investment
they've put into it i think in some ways it's like when the model gets proven out and i'm sure
that they will you know maybe it will take a year maybe it will take two years and then there's
gonna be a big jump into it right uh but i don't think that like a lot of big companies outside
this model are gonna be like okay well now it's all wet threes open.
We're going to figure out these new models.
It can work rather they're going to work off this model.
Because I think at the end of the day with this type of innovation, it doesn't matter
how big of a company you are.
It really matters how much intellectual investment you've kind of put in to really understand
the robustness of this in a sense that like, I this one i had this one uh talk with just friends
um and they work at the the world bank and i said what's interesting about web3 it's not the
ownership or all the bullshit it's really that for the very first time in a business you have to deal
with monetary you know policy and but that also means that in your business model now, right, that monetary policy becomes
part of your, you know, revenue model. And, you know, it's the same thing, you know, you're issuing
a token and people have alluded to this before. It's the same thing like we call it an emerging
market. They launch their own token or they launch their own currency and it flops. And it's because
they don't have like an economic production
where that currency adds to that production.
Sorry, I'm getting a little bit economically nerdy here,
but that's the whole thing.
It's like, this is actually a massive risk for them.
And so I think number one is that when I read what they're saying
and I could see the depth there,
like they have really, really, really, really fucking invested,
you know days hours months
to really understand this very very deeply and to get that level of knowledge isn't like like kind
of like wow okay it worked that model worked why did it work okay fine we're going to implement it
you know teams and are going to really have to now realize okay this is a really big fucking thing
like this is not a small problem
that you know it's just another feature set it's an entirely new engine and a new paradigm of how
games and economies can work so i'm really bullish on it i'm really bullish on the fact that you know
if they show one model that works that might inspire other people to have like other models
as well but i don't think like suddenly all all the AAA games and big studios are just going to come in
and they're going to smash it.
It's about time invested
and realizing how big of an issue this is.
Great stuff from Sinjin.
My biggest takeaway though,
he's the sociopath that leaves his Discord
notifications on.
That was crazy.
I'm glad it's not just me.
I was getting stressed out.
Sinjin's going to miss the next half of the show just replying to all those bad boys.
Good luck.
Have fun out there, brother.
No, awesome to get your perspective.
And, of course, you've got to hold on to your helmets because Avalanche is the king of gaming chains and the official chain of Gamified.
Join us in London for an epic summit to find out how they're conquering the cold with cutting-edge technology in the community that's frosty as it is fierce.
So bundle up, bring your A-game, and craft your very own L1
to service all your blockchain gaming needs.
I just want to be crystal clear, too.
I am rooting for MapleStory as hard as I can possibly root for anything.
I think them winning and AVAX winning here would be one of the best things
that could possibly happen for the industry,
even outside of the fact that, obviously, I'm sponsored by them.
Really, really, really hope to see this go incredibly well for them.
And giddy up gamers, get ready to gallop into the Game 7 nation because they've signed over
150 games, 30 million wallets ready to rumble with their mega MetaMask partnership.
Come join the digital nation and get your citizenship so you can level up your life.
Thanks to Game 7 for being the official infrastructure of Gamified.
And of course, Star Atlas isn't just about spaceships and lasers.
It's about building a community, a galactic civilization
where players write the rules.
So if you're ready to trade your boring Earth life
for a cosmic adventure, join the Star Atlas fleet today
and hop in the Discord to grab a game key.
Thanks to the official game of Gamified.
Where's the love, guys, for NFL rivals?
Shout out to Hunter Solaire for dropping a great post
with a bunch of
information about nfl rivals from mythical games this is arguably one of the most successful titles
we have in web 3 it also integrates a major american intellectual property yet no one
seems to really talk about it we've brought it up once or twice on this show but they broke 12
million dollars in marketplace revenue recently they also had $5.4 million in revenue in 2024.
In-game marketplaces for low-friction trading of NFTs are already integrated, but gamers don't
need to know or care about what's going on on chain. It just sort of works. Hunter wraps up
with a great quote, players don't care about your chain, they want an entertaining game, unquote.
Also, by the way, if you hadn't heard, they have the FIFA licensing now.
So they're expanding how many IPs that they own for sports that are beloved around the world.
So where's the love for NFL rivals and why does nobody on Twitter seem to care?
Jerry, tagging you in first.
Yeah, they don't care because it doesn't it's not reflected, their success is not reflected in like an asset price. So, you know, I think that those of us who are kind of on the inside of the games industry and know, like how this all works, we know that they're successful, right? We know that they're reaching, you know, seven, eight figures in downloads, they're making a ton of money.
you know, seven, eight figures in downloads.
They're making a ton of money.
And, you know, so we're aware of all these things, right?
But like the common blockchain user,
the person who's playing games doesn't know that
because they don't, their NFT prices aren't,
you know, super high
or there's no token associated with it or anything, right?
So, you know, I think we've talked about NFL rivals
like a few months ago
and my opinion hasn't really changed in that why why does web3 not really care about this game and
it's because web3 i'm not saying i agree with this i just think the web3 collective like hive mind
has decided that mythical doesn't do enough with blockchain to to like champion it as a web three title right so like i think the
metrics like for whatever amount of players they have it's like a fraction of a percent like half
a percent or one percent actually trickle down into blockchain right into web three so you know
i think your your common like dub or zack d or or whoever is playing these games is just like, ah, it's not enough, right?
So, you know, why should we care?
Now, they're killing it.
They're really good at the model that they have going on.
They understand distribution.
They understand, you know, how to monetize.
They're obviously great at getting licenses.
So, you know, i think that's important
for like the business success of what this game is but i think just web 3 just doesn't seem to care
because it doesn't benefit like the web 3 user so much to to even be involved in this game right so
um i think the world of mythical i think they're all really smart dudes. I really like them all.
I'm excited about what they're doing with Pudgy,
but I think when you look at where's the love for it,
I think people just are like,
what is it going to do for me?
Where is the financialized game that I'm playing?
Where do I get to win in that?
And it's not clear to people, so they don't care.
But outside of it, they're killing it at what they do,
so hats off to them.
I wonder if part of it,
there's a comment from Doug Hype as well.
He says, I wish NFL Rivals was just more fun to play.
It's a bit of a grind.
I agree.
I tried it for about a month as a diehard football fan.
Had some fun with it, but then kind of hit a paywall that I just was uninterested in passing.
But I also wonder if some of it at this point just feels like unsubstantial.
You know, like we have, we're inundated with messages about Monopoly Go
doing $2 billion in revenue as a mobile game.
And so when you hear that NFL rivals with this license
is doing less than 1% of that revenue,
of course, you're comparing it
to the pent-ultimate mobile game right now,
but it still feels like it's such a big gap
that maybe it's unimportant.
Koji, I'm going to you. to you yeah i mean they don't care they're making a ton of money they're doing
better than most of the web3 games out there uh i echo what everyone else has already said
which is that like it's not a bigger deal because like you know no one's buying a single NFT for a million dollars or something.
You know, we're all, we're all so like, this, this goes back to what I, what I always complain about, which is just like, we're all so bag focused that we're just like, well, I don't
really hold it. It's not making me any money. So I'm not making noise about it. And that's kind of
like a self-fulfilling prophecy because if no one's making noise about it, you're like, well,
I don't really hear about it on Twitter. So it must be like kind of bullshit you know and i think that like uh we're looking
at all this stuff wrong i mean even the last topic somebody and maybe it was even you sam you
asked like you know what what if they just it's like such a natural fit for web 3 that no one
notices and it's like that's what should fucking happen you know like no one should notice if if all the Web3 shit is front and center, then you're doing it wrong because the game should be front and center.
You know, and, like, no one needs to know SQL to play games that have SQL databases in them.
So, like, I don't think that, like, this is the future of Web3.
And if you don't like it, then, be somewhere else because it should just be a low
friction tech stack integration and not really front and center. Great points there. Pawn in
the comments says the quiet successes of Web3, they don't show up on the timeline because no
one in the space is making millions with mints or airdrops. But at the end of the day, IMO,
this is probably what the industry looks like once it stabilizes so similar sentiment
there to what Koji is saying Spang I'm going to you then we're going to go to Stenjen
yeah I'm actually I'm actually curious uh who who plays sports games on the panel like like
Madden and stuff like that is there is there a big
audience for that i used to but it's it's been a while i got pretty frustrated with just how
cookie cutter all of them got but i when there's a when there's a unique approach like i my favorite
game when i was a kid playing with my brother was nfl street and before that it was it was blitz on
the n64 it was always like the ones that were a little more theatrical.
NBA Jam.
Yeah, the ones that were games.
Blitz 2000, baby.
Yeah, NHL Blitz 2002 on PS2, the best hockey game I've ever touched, bar none.
Yeah, so I don't know.
I'm happy to sound like a complete arsehole here, but I've always been under the assumption that the people who are playing
kind of like very bare bones simulation sports games, like aren't like traditional gamers as we understand them and aren't partaking in those markets.
It also happens that a lot of them are dumb as a brick, but that's that's aside from the point.
And I think like at least like from intuition intuition i think that's a lot of the
reason that we don't see a huge amount on the timeline because i i mean you know all all i see
is is gameplay of actual games that are exciting and doing innovative things with their gameplay
as opposed to what i understand about nfl rivals and i think it's a very different market because
you know i think we would see
a lot more posting about it if we were talking about sports betting every week and, you know,
what crypto sports betting is going to be looking like, because that's where I think the tie-in is,
is to those kind of consumers and those kind of players, as opposed to, you know, the hardcore,
and I hate to sound like a douchebag saying it, but like real gamers that we all are.
And that's something I think as well. But I also think that there's a lot of merit to the points that people were making of this is what the industry looks like when it matures, you know,
and we don't see people talking about it because they're not making a bag, but the company is.
This is a very corporate Web3 approach. And I think that this is,
I think it's bullish for the industry still because,
you know,
this is what it's going to look like as companies come in and start
building in web three,
as opposed to individuals.
So I think it's interesting to look at it that way as well.
It is indeed.
Sinjin,
then the limbs and dub.
You know,
if this is what web three is going to look like in the future,
I'm just going to fucking kill myself now, you know, just shoot myself in 3 is going to look like in the future i'm just going to
kill myself now you know just shoot myself in the head you know you guys are just a
dimwit sometimes man like like when when is shit and you're comparing shit to shit i
mean like that's just shit like if you go and you google nf3 rivals and you're like
wow okay this is this is a big deal in web 3 of these pathetic fucking revenues right like
does any fucking like web 2 gaming uh you know media report on like these fucking amazing
revenues that are like one percent of fucking shit no they don't you know the whole thing about
it is like this isn't it this actually proves one thesis okay they've checked off the ownership box
okay they've used the blockchain it's a feature they checked it off and so what the fuck like it hasn't made a massive difference
i mean the fact of the matter is like if you have a new innovative product or a new feature
it should make that feeling of the gameplay or the experience or the user experience like 10x i mean
that's what we're really fucking looking for we're not looking to be the fucking one percent or like the best of the shit right we're looking to really make an
innovation in the in the industry and fundamentally this is a pay to pay to win game um with ownership
and so like yeah the web 2 expectations of for revenue yay they may actually make revenue okay
good well what the fuck ever right but for the
web3 revenues of what we're looking at and which kickstarted the entire fucking industry was
actually infinity which made a fucking billion dollars in three months with no fucking marketing
you know and so like like this is not where it's at it doesn't move the needle okay look i'm a i'm
a game developer in web3 i look at it yeah ownership pay to win game
whoo wow great oh these are the revenues 10 million well i was at a company that made 1.1
million a billion a year with 89 profit margin and that was innovative you know this is
like this is not even table stakes this is like dog shit like kindergarten i remember when pudgy penguins came out i was on the panel
with um uh sam and um he who shall not be named and he was like this is the best web3 company
in the world like 10 million dollars it's like this is awesome walmart pudgy penguins and nothing
to say again luca i mean he's doing ip play it takes a long time but i'm like what the
i wipe my ass with fucking 10 million
in fucking gaming revenues.
That's fucking garbage, right?
Especially of what you put into it
for what it's going to be.
You think fucking MapleStory,
when they launch,
they're going to be happy
with fucking $12 million a year?
You think they're doing that for that?
Wake the fuck up, guys.
Like, I mean, like,
there's got to be a fucking higher bar.
And stop fucking talking about ownership
like this is the fucking holy grail.
Look, they did it. And you have fucking $ have 12 million dollars a year good job for like the whatever
3.4 billion dollars that was invested over the last couple years for this
bullshit man table sticks 89 profit margin is disgusting holy talk about being a filthy
capitalist let's go over the lens then to dub yeah i think uh part of the reason no one talks about it is because like everyone talks about
here there's no big upside like they actually do have a mythical or mythos token and it i think it
went sideways for like three months they launched like two years ago it went sideways for like three
months and now it's down like 90 no one gives a shit because it's just in-game currency that's all it's used for it's got no like speculative upside what's
also kind of wild is like mythical has raised like 300 million so like they gotta produce a bunch of
money to get like for those investors like to what sinjin's point was saying like they gotta
generate a lot of money i am interested to see how fifa rivals will do because it's got more
global appeal
and maybe they'll you know they ironed out some of the kinks on this one and then they do that one
and they get a wider audience and they can churn out some more money but it all comes down to the
fact that on crypto twitter if there's no incentive to talk about it no one gives a shit and no one's
going to talk about it like 100 another post this morning talking about that of like how you know
we've talked about like night crows a couple of times here but no one talks about it
on crypto twitter and they've made like whatever 150 million or what already um and i saw apix
tweet earlier as well saying like because someone had said about like why aren't crypto games more
popular and he's like i think we'll see the same thing in two years with a bunch of hit titles
using crypto but it's all like abstracted and no one knows and they're not talked about on twitter so no one on twitter gives a shit but actually they're
they're working because that's the thing as much as like it's not a a mind-blowing innovation as
like singin was saying they're making it work and they haven't generated like a huge amount compared
to what was invested in them but you know it wasn't just for that one game it was for their whole ecosystem or whatever and time will tell if they manage to prove that out so
i think it's interesting that they've at least proved the ownership sort of like thing for
working and using the tech but it's not all that exciting and it's obviously not you know
blowing everyone's minds with tens or hundreds of millions of dollars great take from lems dub and then jerry yeah i mean i actually did make money on this one and had a good time
during that i mean that stuff is there for it i think the problem really is the fact that like
the average user base on that game is just not on crypto twitter or this like this degenerate that we are and they're
just not talking that and what is really going to be interesting is that when they launch fifa
rivals like i think a lot of those fan that fan base is here on crypto twitter and is going to be
talking about making the trades and trading a messy or whatever and what have you but like
when i pulled the gold star of my homes you know
like fucking Python was stoked on it and then that was it you know like really there isn't that many
people to fan base for that and that's fine and I too used to wipe my ass with 10 million dollars
in revenue sales I mean I sold that much in socks in a year so they can do fucking better uh and looking forward to seeing
that with uh fifa rivals dub the sock magnate as we all know him jerry over to you
um i thought he said stocks and i was like damn i didn't know dub got it like that and then
then i realized it was socks um i they they came with like, they posted a metric and they said like 12 million in marketplace
transactions or whatever.
And like,
I think the question I have is like,
do any of us know what that means?
Because like,
I just don't feel like it's NFTs being traded.
So like,
what,
what is that marketplace?
Can somebody,
and I just,
I'm pleading ignorance here because I don't know what that means but like 12 million if that's like nft trading is
it's not a bad number i'm you know what i mean i'm 95 sure it is nft trading volume but obviously
they're just getting whatever marketplace um fee that is on there i remember when gaspode was
playing before he was saying how there was actually arbitrage between openc and the in-game
marketplace because most of their players are Web2 players.
So you could actually buy on OpenSea and flip on the in-game marketplace and make a little arbitrage that way.
Okay. Well, I mean, yeah, it's not a bad number.
And hopefully they're using 721C because that's more money for them.
Dubb, and then Sinjin has the hand up now.
I don't have shit up singin fucking slaughtered these people you had the hand up until you whispered yes that is the correct amount of revenue and then it took it away but i guess
we'll i digress singin over to you yeah you know i want to put things in perspective you know we
talked about gta having crypto and i
think there will be crypto in it as like a money laundering in content thing whatever but not
actually crypto you know um but like with gta 6 like let's put it this way okay let's say gta 6
makes 2 billion in like let's say six months maybe they make it in three months okay the only reason
that they would put crypto in would be that it doubles that like 4 billion in six months. Okay. The only reason that they would put crypto in would be that it doubles that
like 4 billion in six months. Right. And like, that's like the kind of risk reward here in the
sense that like, you know, why are we going in this space? And we're, you know, there's like
traditionally for gaming, there's no VC funding, right? Like VC funding might be for the studio.
That's going to be a platform, but not for the actual, like just a single game title.
You're better off going with a, you know, a publisher that doing a revenue deal that,
you know, that's a lot more straightforward.
And so like, you know, like what we're really looking for isn't the NFT rivals.
It's something like the MapleStories where suddenly they're going to read a vitalize,
like an IP that's been around for 20 years and it made 10
million over like 20 years but then then they make 1 billion or 2 billion in a single year and that's
what's really going to move the needle here right it's just like okay look i got this innovative new
fucking car and uh it it matches like what this is the same thing with like tesla when the reason why elon made a roadster
first right because he wanted to show the electric car could be a high performance car and not just
a high performance car that matched what was there but like on ludicrous fucking speed it could
fucking be that much better right and so we're not talking about like 5% better or 10% better. Right.
Ultimately we're looking at a 10 X or right. If we can get there or a three X or, but not this
bullshit of like meeting the fucking bottom of the barrel of fucking what web web two is.
That's a great point. You need a proof of concept that is a 10 X opportunity to bring people in.
And then from there, hopefully you get a bunch of the integrations that are maybe less sexy,
but a lot more utilitarian.
Jerry, over to you,
then we're going to move on from this topic.
Yeah, I just want to maybe explain one more thing,
which might be like cold water
on everybody's face here.
But like FIFA has done a Web3 game before, right?
And unfortunately, I know this
because one of my biggest bags
was in a company called Futureverse,
which made an AI FIFA like branded branded game and it was terrible it was genuinely very bad and um like i i want people to just stop assuming that something is going to be a success because
like the name fifa is on it right like it's just a license right and very five second summary of
how licenses work is like
you build an ip and then you go i don't want to make a game but i'll let somebody buy the right
to make a game and they'll send me a five million dollar check and they can make a soccer game
that's called fifa or whatever so like this isn't necessarily going to be like you know eafc is is
now going to be on mobile right there's still's still a lot of, like, legwork,
and this is, like, not a guaranteed success,
I think, that this is going to work.
So it's, like, I think people are assuming
how big this, like, could be.
FIFA has handed out that license
to a lot of game companies in the last couple years,
and you guys never talk about any of them
because none of them have been good.
So, like, just, I mean, like,
I think everybody should pump the brakes
just a tiny bit on this and you
know understand that like this isn't this huge collaboration this is just buying a license right
and and people conflate that all the time dub is your hand up for real this time or you just you
just yeah yeah okay just check well it's just fucking i blame twitter but uh jerry's shitty takes and shitty investments here
uh is the what he's missing is that mythical is has produced more and has has the time under
their belt and i'm very confident that the game loop they're gonna make is actually going to be
fun and that's going to be the difference maker here and that's going to be the key element that's
why rivals is for for nfl isn't that great because the game loop just sucks.
So they fixed that.
And them fixing that is going to be what's going to be the difference maker
and why I feel it's going to be great not because it's just FIFA.
You said their NFL game sucks, but they're going to make a good FIFA game?
What?
Yeah, they're going to learn from their from their shit man like people are here to
build better stuff and like yeah they up on the fact that you can run uh every play and that's
what makes it grindable and they should find a way to fix that in this soccer model like it's just
yeah i i like to believe that people better themselves time time over time and product over product.
Yeah, but the reason they did that was to incentivize more players to grind, right? That was part of the model. It's not like they're stupid, right? So they've made the gameplay to
be like that. So it's a pay to win setup. 1000%. It's a retention hook. And it's a it's a
monetization hook, right? So eat my socks i'm with you yeah i'll eat the
10 million in socks um i know i agree with dub though i think mythical will fit like have an
unlock here but i just did want to like make it clear to people that like buying a license isn't
this like deep partnership with somebody because like in web3 we lose sight of that all the time
and it just kind of annoys me well as always I'm going to take the position of rooting for them.
Like I said, I actually had quite a bit of fun with NFL rivals for a bit.
And then it just ran stale for me.
But that's also most mobile games.
So can't hold it too much against them.
We're going to move on.
Sentiment score, Nintendo's eShop chart revision.
I know that doesn't sound very sexy, but it is interesting.
Nintendo altered their eShop, basically their app store, so to speak, the methodology by which it's ranking
things. Previously, the top 30 rankings on the bestsellers and deals pages were determined based
on number of downloads over the past 14 days. The new changes no longer count download volume
to drive visibility. Instead, it's games that generate higher revenue.
It's purely revenue-based, regardless of the total units sold.
Now, the rankings reflect revenue generated within the past three days instead of 30 days with downloads,
and the new metric is disclosed transparently on the bottom of each page.
The question is, is this an improvement for the end user,
or is this just Nintendo kind Nintendo trying to maximize revenue?
I'm going to send it over to Koji
and then we'll get the Tatted Lawyer's perspective
aka the Nintendo Knight.
Guys, this is bullish.
This is bullish because Nintendo
has basically adopted
the Web3 ethos here.
They don't care about games.
They don't care about anything except money.
The tide is turning in our direction this is i'm excited uh no it's it's bullshit you know like yeah there's there's a bunch of games that make a
ton of money that stink uh and it would be great if things like the nintendo e-shop and other sort
of um distribution platforms actually uh trying a spotlight on something that, like,
there was actually legitimate discoverability there.
This is just going to be, I don't know,
you're going to see the same slop over and over and over again,
and it's going to be terrible.
Let's go over to the Tatted Lawyer, see if he agrees.
So I got to disagree with Koji here, although Koji is a very smart man and I generally agree with him.
But I got to disagree here because I can tell you just from conversations I've had with people at Nintendo that there was a huge issue with like stupid games that could be made that could pass essentially all of their seven different checks.
But the game itself, they would sell for like a dollar. They would pump up those sales. And now all these games
constantly appear at the front of the eShop store, which then would convince retail buyers
to buy these shitty games that didn't actually provide any entertainment or joy because they're
at the front of the store because they were essentially able to hack the algorithm of the
eShop. So they've been trying to search for a way to kind of solve this for a long time.
And I think this is a really good thing for gamers.
However, the one negative is it might drive, you know, normal game prices up because now
if it's based off of revenue, a normal game is going to be like, sweet, let me charge
$10 more because that's been obviously pumped by revenue numbers.
But it will absolutely get rid of the AI-generated crap that
can potentially just beat all the different checks and get listed in the eShop. It's got to lessen
that. So the quality of games should be a lot higher now for the actual end user, which in my
opinion is a good thing. Obviously, every new change and every new strategy, there's good and
bad things with it. But I like that they're trying to go in this direction of being like, listen, we're trying to raise the quality of the games in our eShop.
We don't want this like crap that keeps getting through and people keep seeing this over actual games that are good.
Because if you sell a game in the eShop for a dollar and then they themselves just go out and buy 100,000 copies of that game.
themselves just go out and buy a hundred thousand copies of that game now that game's always going
to trend first in the eShop versus like a game that's actually good that people like that they're
not just hacking the the algorithm to to make sure that it's in front of your face versus like a game
that people are actually downloading for like a natural we like this game we want to play a
perspective so I actually think it's a really really good thing I think it's going to raise
a lot of the quality that we see and i could see other stores uh starting to follow suit i was hoping i just want to say of course the nintendo
fanboy says it's good really really quick though i i agree that like what was done before wasn't
is not good i'm not defending that but like if it's just truly revenue based then like indie
developers are fine but you're done it's all you'll never see another like unless it's like
the most crazy zeitgeist indie game in the world like it won't be in the front of the eavesdrop
anymore and so like what's what's even the point you know i mean it's just how good the game is
right if you have a good game people are going to download it they're going to spend money on it to
play it it just it just because like i said everything comes with good or bad sure some indie games are going to definitely get phased out uh
but like but those price tags are lower right indie game price tags are by nature are lower so
they're not going to make as much revenue as the big boys like it's just not going to happen
like if anything it's just going to shine more of a spotlight on Nintendo's actual Nintendo game.
Do you have a suggestion, maybe Koji, for how they would adjust it?
Because I heard this claim as well that they were adjusting based on sort of people gaming these top charts
in a way that was sort of malicious.
And I think it's a good excuse for them to potentially do something
that will end up driving more revenue for them at the same time.
But I'm curious if there is another layer,
like a different approach that they could have taken that was maybe a little
bit more even footed between the two things.
No idea. I haven't even thought about it, to be honest with you.
Like I think it's a smart business decision on their part,
but I think it's going to suck for anyone who's not, you know, whatever,
like Ubisoft or whoever else is making triple a games or whatever triple a version of games that come
on nintendo we're seeing uh jerry throw the thumbs down and then michael the tatted lawyer has the
hand back up so we'll go jerry then back to michael yeah man i i love koji but i i couldn't disagree
more with with his take because and i think this is just the mindset of somebody who builds product like Koji and somebody who markets games like me, right?
And I think this is actually a pretty exciting change because it's based off of like last 48 hours, I think it's 48 or 72 hours, I can't remember which, revenue, right?
which revenue, right?
So what Koji's saying is right.
And what Tad Lawyer's saying is right
is like some teams will go,
okay, we're not going to sell our game for $60
and we're going to sell it for $70
and we'll sell less,
but our overall revenue number might be higher.
But it's like,
if you've ever been on a Nintendo eShop,
you know that that like 99 cent price point game
is just all over the place.
It's a genuine problem, right?
And the games aren't good.
They're very slopped. It's like genuine problem, right? And the games aren't good. They're very slop.
It's like AI slop, right?
And, you know, I got yelled at by everybody
a couple weeks ago for saying
I'm very against these games.
But, like, this is...
I think we don't think about the, like,
downstream effects of, like,
what AI will do in games.
And, like, I think this is Nintendo
getting ahead of a problem, right?
So... But what I think I'm excited for, personally, as somebody who, like, I think this is Nintendo getting ahead of a problem. Right. So, but what I think
I'm excited for personally, as somebody who like markets games is I think this puts innovation,
and it puts a little bit of power back into like a publisher or a marketer's hands. And
like all these algorithms, whether it's steam, whether it's running programatics on, you know,
Google or whatever, they can all be gamed and they can all be juiced right and this is what i do all the time right and i just see this huge
opportunity now for a game that's trying to publish on nintendo and trying to you know do a platform
launch to activate spend against that like window and time right so if you're competing against like
the gta's of the world where you know revenue is going to be high you avoid those times right but can you say look
here's a seven day window in time where we can target our spend we can target our streamer
activations we can target you know content whatever we need to do to get in front of and
juice the algorithm that's now in place they're telling you what the algorithm is and people aren't
using it to their advantage it's like it frustrates the fuck out of me because we do this in web 3 all
the time we don't use the numbers that we have and the info that we have available to help us win
and i think nintendo is telling you this is how you win right so you can get your game higher up
on the boards by just marketing a little bit more in a more clever fashion. And I think so it unlocks for indie developers,
a huge opportunity to stay away from that $60 price point game,
but target, you know, 15 to $20,
like that medium range price point where we saw a huge success with Helldivers
and Palo World and ship a game like a Hades or Bellatro or whatever in that
price point,
and then activate your spend against it and get your game to the top where you're then you will create a flywheel of your game staying on the top for like 7 to 14 to 28 days.
Right.
So I get where Koji is coming from, from like a high level.
sleeves up and you look at it as somebody who's like publishing or marketing i'm like licking my
chops at trying to like get some games that are you know shipping on nintendo so i can
i can prove this thesis out right because i think now that's easy to prove over time right jerry
like you can do that with you know if you miss on one game you might hit on another but like
as somebody who makes games you only get the one you know what i'm saying
right so like if you miss on my game then i'm fucked yeah but then you're also fucked with the
old system too because you're getting out you're getting flooded by 99 cent price point games so
you're you don't have the amount of sales again i'm not defending the old system i'm not but i'm
saying this this new one isn't any good either yeah but in a in a time where distribution and like getting people to play
your game is harder than it's ever been i think you're getting and like visibility is harder than
it's ever been you have a chance now to get your game seen whether your game's good enough or not
you know that's the game developers problem you know the the the person who ships games it's it's
to get them get the eyeballs on it and get the download in through the door you know the the the person who ships games it's it's to get them get the
eyeballs on it and get the download in through the door you know what i mean what do we think
koji has three games yeah what do we think about steam and and wish lists being the primary driver
which we know are heavily botted but also the fact that steam maybe sort of hedges this by the fact
that they have like a bajillion different ways
to sort and discover plus all the fest the festivals the steam steam next fest summer
games fest winter sale whatever and that's maybe how they they approach this same problem is like
we just have more channels of distribution so if this one's gamed that way and that one's gamed
that way whatever you just find a different sort of way around it koji jerry before i move on to hands any any take on that approach i mean i think steam
is an amazing example because if it wasn't for seeing games like balatro or blueprints or
whatever wouldn't get the notoriety that they are like it wasn't as if those were appearing at the
top of the store and some of these other places and they actually cut their teeth in like a bunch of the next fests both those games in fact um so yeah i
mean i think steam is doing it right it is a bit of a confusing interface but it does allow for
more discoverability dude one of the most frustrating things sam we're having like dinner
later so i'll talk to you about this thesis I have in person.
One of the most frustrating things that I have is I think Steam actually has the most gameable algorithm to kind of juice in your favor, and nobody's doing it.
And it frustrates me to no end because Koji said it's right.
Those guys cut their teeth through NextFest, but all the numbers of game conversion from
wishlist
to purchase are very public it's they're not hard numbers to find and you know that the game on steam
is high number of wishlists will equal x amount of sales right and and we'll walk you through the
math but like it's i i think people over complicate it because Web3 teams have a weapon that they just don't know how to use.
And this is the most frustrating thing that I think I've seen in the last year.
But I think Steam is actually one of the easiest to kind of game and to kind of get around.
Sam, you heard it here first.
Jerry's got the keys, the GameShark for Steam, apparently.
Yeah, I'm looking forward to
having dinner with you later today but we'll dive into it i want to go back to michael christine
real quick and then we're gonna circle circulate the hand sorry boys that have been waiting for a
little bit yeah i just wanted to to uh kind of build one thing off of jerry's point is a uh i
understand any developers might feel like oh my god this is gonna hurt us but it's really gonna help you because now you can differentiate yourself from the dollar slop the 99 cent slop
how jerry was saying between the the 15 cent price or excuse me 15 dollar price point and like a 30
dollar price point that's still a very attractive price point because we're still living in the world
that oh we live in the west we're so rich rich, da-da-da-da-da. Not everybody wants to pay 60, 70, $80 for a game.
And that's where a lot of indie titles get to come in and shine.
So if you're one of the greater, better indie titles,
then you're going to crush it.
And the fact that it's only three days that it's counting these revenue sales
and not 30, that should give indie titles so much of an advantage here
because now they're not competing for that 30-day long timeframe
because sometimes it is hard to sustain a marketing competing for that 30 day long time frame because sometimes it is
hard to sustain a marketing push for that long of a time versus a three days if you get on there
after three days and now your game's crushing it I actually think that it's to the benefit of the
indie developer versus like the big boys the big boys are always going to be the big boys they're
always going to be able to push product they're always going to be able to push marketing that's
their job that's why they have the big treasure chest. But the indie developers, them having to compete with these
idiotic slop AI games, I personally think that was actually hurting indie developers for such
a significant portion of time. So I view this as a win as both a publisher and an indie developer
myself. I think it's such a win for people who can have nice visuals, have a sexy game and not have to compete with these AI slops anymore.
I couldn't agree more.
And I think like, I just real quickly,
I think this move puts power back in the hands of like the indie developer
more so than takes opportunity away from them.
I think the innovation now is going to go into like,
how do you publish or
how do you market or how do you distribute and how do you activate like the game launch? And I
think it gives indie developers who are like more creative by nature than like the AAA publishers.
I think it's the power is totally back in their hands to try something new and unique and do
something different and find success here. i totally agree with tata lawyer
great stuff guys all right let's work our way around the rest of the hands and we'll squeeze
in one more topic if we can at the end of the show here spang i've been waiting for your opinion
then we'll go to animal c does yeah i mean i just want to say one thing really quickly i think
there have been a lot of very intelligent points made so i'll start with that but like are we
really looking at the n eShop of some
kind as some kind of free market utopia where you know there's definitely no interest to push
certain games to the front like I think and of all of the eShops that are out there Nintendo's
has got to be one of the worst you have to log in every single time. It takes like eight minutes to load up. And it's
just not a pleasant experience. I think it's good that they're making some efforts to improve it.
But I think the categorization, the way that they're categorizing on the eShop isn't
what's holding the Nintendo eShop back as a marketable platform. And, you know, it's got interests on pushing games
to the forefront. If it's not their first party games, then it's the games that they've
done partnerships with. Like, I doubt anybody's going to be seeing anything, but I think it's
Duskblood, the new FromSoft game, when it drops, it may not be a first-party game, but they have a big incentive to push that.
So, like, I'm not sure what...
Well, just to maybe have you think about it differently,
I think functionally, the way that eShop works
isn't going to change for the big players.
In Nintendo, it can fucking fart in the wind
and put the Nintendo TM sign on it and people will just
buy it just because so like I think the the top players functionally don't get impacted by this
who who gets more impacted is like the mid to low level players but I think it's a more of a
positive impact if you can ship with some creativity and like with some, with a well-timed plan that's, that's cohesive. Right.
But I think like the Ubisofts, the Nintendo first party games,
those are all going to get downloaded anyway.
So those are always just going to be at the top because that's the nature of
the brand.
Yeah. But I, I, I, like you, you listed Ubisoft as an example,
like Ubisoft, it like when they make an eShop, it's not like
isolate, like they don't own a platform as well. Like the Nintendo eShop is the only eShop on the
Switch. You know, you can go and download other, other games. Like you've come to Nintendo for
Nintendo games. And I think that, you know, I, I look, I, I think it's a good, I think it's a good
thing that they're doing to try and potentially make things interesting for these games.
But at the end of the day, I don't think it's going to have a huge impact on who's buying what games on the eShop.
Dub and then Lem.
Yeah, I'm excited about the way they're doing this but I have a really
funny example from my sporting goods history where this type of model can go severely wrong
so if you're not familiar with decathlon we sell every sport inside one store we have a bunch of
aisles you walk through main aisle and you'll see a bike a a scooter, a soccer ball, a hiking thing. You know which one is which.
And our CFO at the time had this brilliant idea to switch to prioritizing product placement based off revenue.
And we switched around a couple of stores to be that.
And we quickly ended up with stores that had socks literally in every front of every aisle.
And everyone thought we were a sock store
and that we didn't even sell sports anymore.
So like this has to still have the finite touch to it.
You can't just let that algorithm run
because you'll very quickly end up losing
what you're speaking to the customer
and go south really quick.
Is that how you sold $10 million in socks though?
No, that was a Walmart deal.
But yeah.
All right. I'll try and like bring it back to the core thing and wrap it up.
But from a like binary standpoint of like, is it better now than before?
I would say like a nine, it's probably better to go on revenue as opposed to like just downloads. wrap it up, but from a like binary standpoint of like, is it better now than before?
I would say like a nine, it's probably better to go on revenue as opposed to
like just downloads because people can bought the shit out of those things as
we've learned in this industry.
Um, but it was like, there was, this was dropped in the wolves and friends
telegram chat and that was a good, interesting discussion there.
Like shout out Justin Lucas had a lot of good points on like, there's a reason
you want like editorial, uh uh feedback on these things and because
you can showcase these like indie titles like we're talking about steam and that sort of thing
where you actually get good discovery of these titles so it's an improvement but it's far from
the the best thing and jerry i definitely would like to chat at some point and pick your brain
on some of that steam stuff because i remember talking to like peyton before when he was at like
champions and he was saying how it was like, you know, he got some stuff going with
the, but the fighting genre just wasn't as good on, um, on steam and like to gain tractions for
wishlist versus like Josh from the born list. And like horror is like a really good popular,
like horror and shooter are popular steam genres. So like for them them they were able to like really hijack the algorithm
and like you know they've gained a shit ton of wish lists so i think it also comes down a little
bit to genre fair enough there great discussion guys uh excited to see how this kind of shakes
out we should check back in on this in like a month and and sort of compare the the before and
the after one more quick one that we're going to squeeze in before the end of the show. What's the word?
Boomers versus Zoomers in esports.
Japan has a senior Valorant team now with an average age of 67.
Yes, you heard that right.
An average age of 67.
The Matagi Snipers currently have 16 people on their roster,
the eldest being a tender 75.
To join the team, you have to be 65 or older and while you can join at 60 you have
to be classified as a junior player until you hit 65 and can really start playing with them
there's also a counter-strike team called the silver snipers with an average age of 72 the
boomers are coming for you what's the word for the senior esports teams in valorant counter-strike jerry i'm going to you first dude have you guys ever seen that the guy who's like the sniper who
plays battlefield and he's like relives his war stories and this guy just dome pieces people from
like hundreds of yards away it's it's awesome and you know what i what i really appreciate about this before i shit on it
is that like i love that we're always like hey i can't win at fortnight i get no chicken dinners
in fortnight because i'm playing against 12 year olds who just you know have nothing wrong with
them i'm gonna not say what i was gonna say and um you know they they just have time to play the
video games and uh you know i i just can't
wait to see old people be better at video games and not give people excuses i'm tired of fucking
excuses in the games industry so when these old fucks are running around killing people i'm just
gonna love to see it also on the flip side of it who watches like the the fucking senior tour when they do the masters for the
fucking 65 over people tell me who won so if somebody can tell me who won i'll fucking eat
my pfp you know what i mean you guys are gonna go google it but nobody knows fucking there was
like fred couples or whatever so who gives a fuck shout out to fred couples dude dub over to you
yeah for me the word word here is natural evolution.
We're finally getting along in the timeline
and the history of gaming where older people love to game
and we'll have a massive amount of gamers
inside that age demographic.
I mean, gaming started in a world
where my parents would never fucking play
and we're going to finally, in a couple generations here, get would never fucking play and like we're gonna finally in
a couple generations here get to the point where we see that and i think this boomer versus zoomer
or old versus young is going to continue to be a growing thing in this as we see
more and more old people essentially gaming and being good at gaming at the same time
lambs over to you what's the word for the silver snipers essentially gaming and being good at gaming at the same time.
Lambs, over to you.
What's the word for the Silver Snipers?
The word is fuck yeah, even though it's two words.
I saw a clip of one of the guys playing Valorant,
and he was actually pretty cracked.
He was wrecking everyone, and I was like,
damn, I complain that my Twitch reflexes suck,
and that's why I can't play shooters anymore, but's clearly a skill issue like these guys are like fucking solid and then I remember also seeing like recently a like old guy playing rocket league as well
And I was just like what the fuck like rocket league is such a twitch game as well when it comes to like the flying and stuff
And it's like yeah, we have no excuses anymore as jerry says like we if we suck
We just gotta own up that
we suck and we can't blame it on our age anymore guys guys the word is retirement plan this is
going to be me and the boys for sure playing probably probably world of warcraft classic
again uh michael over to you yeah i'm going to say use two words uh cognitive functionality i
think this is a wonderful thing.
There is so many studies that prove that if you game above a certain age, your memory is better.
It helps reduce the effects of Alzheimer's.
Your hand-eye coordination that starts to go after a certain age is a lot better.
So I think this is going to be a huge benefit as more and more silver foxes, as you say,
start getting into the game world. I'm actually talking to a few people right now who are very,
very interested in the health side effects of what gaming can do, both in pediatrics,
so children, as well as old people. So I think it's great. I want to see more of it. I hate the
stigma that, oh, hey, you can't be an adult and play video games. Why aren't you, why didn't you grow out of this?
So I think it's wonderful.
I can't wait to see what it does for the human brain as we continue to develop.
Man, I was just talking to my dad about this, not specifically towards video games,
but apparently sauna-ing as well is like incredible for reducing your risk of Alzheimer's,
which after that stutter i might
already have syngin over and heart disease just throwing it out there yeah uh sign me the up
just 15 more years ago and i won't be a junior member at all no but you know when we're at gdc
and i was landing with the guys uh we were playing starcraft and dota 2. and um you know
you know the the honestly the the twitch thing is is the real thing like you get older and i
you know obviously i know like the first second generation of um esports pros from like quake and
starcraft and they've told me you know they just can't compete at that level as you get older you
know there might be some exceptions and stuff like that but i think it's fantastic and i think you know being 50 now
um and still being a hardcore gamer like most of the people uh meaning my uh kids parents my
kids friends parents or whatever like that they come over to my house and they see how much gaming there is i even have like a 4k gaming
like rig like chair um uh like set up and they're like what the and the kids love coming
over here but i think you know that that thing with the age and the video games still very much
uh you know it's still a thing and i think this is fantastic for the future especially for old like me whose twitch skills are definitely on the down koji over to you i mean i hear a lot
of people talking about how gaming is good for the brain but then i listen to this panel i'm
like there's no way that's true i i also think that like uh it's pretty it's pretty amazing uh
uh it's pretty it's pretty amazing uh you know like I think that when we think about people
competing at stuff we think like they have to strive to be the absolute best at a certain thing
but it's okay if you're you're you know you're older you're competing and you're still just
better than average like that you can still have fun doing that and I think that like I mean the
word is hope you know like I hope that when I get to that age,
I still am able to play game and have a good time
and find the same enjoyment that I do with gaming now.
Because I do, I will say that I have found that as I get older,
it's harder and harder for me to really get sucked into a game.
So that I hope by the time I'm, like, in my 70s, I'm still, you know, locked in.
Let's hope.
I'll consider you and Sinjin bronze snipers.
You could be silver snipers in another 15 or 25 years.
Excited for both of you.
We're going to do the MVP votes in just a sec.
So lock in who you have.
I'm going to do the ad read real quick.
In the meantime, Avalanche, the official chain of Gamified is more than just a blockchain.
It's a winter wonderland of innovation within a hundred million dollar ai fund and partnerships
with gaming giants like gunzilla games t1 esports and solo leveling avalanche is breaking the ice
and setting the standard for the future of web3 gaming at their london summit starting may 20th
i'll see you there so whether you're a seasoned pro or a curious newbie come explore the avalanche
possibilities and discover a world where the snow never melts and the fun never stops.
And I'm calling all cosmic crusaders
and spacefaring scoundrels
because Star Atlas is about to ignite the gaming galaxy
with its pulse-pounding space races,
master the maneuvers of magnificent spaceships,
mine marvelous minerals,
and build an empire that spans the stars.
Join the Discord, get a game key,
and play the preseason to prepare for a year
of stellar surprises in 2025
and get ready to grumble with the gaming gatekeepers
that are flipping the script and giving the power back to the players.
They're the ones that are turning the metaverse
into a melting pot of ideas.
They're the ones that are empowering players
to take control of their digital destinies.
Grab your game pads and get ready to conquer
the next era of gaming with Game 7,
the official infra of Gamified.
I'm going to Lems first.
Lems, who's your MVP?
Jerry, you came back with a vengeance.
You actually, you know, you impressed me.
You came out of left field there, Jerry.
So, you know, come back with the fire and get that MVP.
Jerry, who you got?
Yeah, thanks for saying I actually impressed you for once.
That means very touching to the heart, Lems.
I'm glad you picked up that.
I'm going to go with sinjin uh sinjin had uh i i love when he gets fired up and pissed off at people because i think he just dropped like it pushes sinjin to just drop knowledge on people
that i think only sinjin really has in the space or is one of few people that has so uh sinjin for
me the juice is loose sinjin who you got as mvp today bud
um i was gonna pass it off to jerry as well um i think it's uh good that he has uh the insight
that he does and um you know it's good to hear on the marketing side i think a lot of game devs we
just if you haven't been on the executive of the marketing side, it's just totally for me
And so I think it's I think it's just fantastic
Let's go to double who's flaming the down thumbs down who you got besides yourself
Yeah, I'll be damned if I ever vote for Jerry for fucking MVP
I sing in for sure here
I stole the show and freaking nailed it really proud proud of the guy. I believe he fucking torched everyone here.
The flamethrower.
Animal Cetus, who you got?
Yeah, look, I'm going with Sinjin as well.
Also, I just hope that he lets me into the squad
because I'm, I think, somewhere between Koji and his age.
So, guys, I'm totally shit at most of these Twitch Reflex games,
but maybe you can find it in your hearts to pull on someone that you can carry.
Maybe not the silver sniper, but could be the bronze tank.
Somewhere in between there.
Let's go to Wills.
Wills, who you got?
Yeah, it's going to be Sinjin for me as well, my Korean brother.
Tatted lawyer, Michael Christineine who's your mvp yeah it was a pretty close race between jerry
and sinjin but because sinjin's birthday was the other day it's gotta be sinjin here
oh you love to hear it belated birthday president koji who you got i mean i think it's already a
four-month conclusion but uh i'll vote for singin just because
uh he slapped us all in the face myself included and uh i like when things get a little bit heated
i like when when when the when the blood boils the mvp the legend the titan of taboo the founder
who can't be bought tilting the scales in his favor singin with the mvp 60 seconds of facetime what
do you want to plug big dog that i'm a complete fucking failure and an idiot um yeah no i mean
i'm in the middle of fucking like dev launch hell we're doing like a soft launch is supposed to be
done by um april we had three months to prepare and uh like just to give you an insight like
so we had this new model for our game 3d model and so we're like you know we should be able to
do within three months and then we got close and we're like oh no like these bugs are starting to
come out and then the new animations are like creating like too much load on the on the on
the performance so on so forth so like three weeks right before we're gonna launch
like um our launch build internally or like to our community we're like okay go back to the
branch we're gonna scrap the the the new model for the moment because it's like making the game
too unstable and like i'm on calls with dev right now and they're like trying to slack call me right
now give me an update so we should have it out in like the next like 24 hours or whatever like that but i've been in
fucking hell so uh you know this is uh also me touching grass with you guys and i know i call
everyone on the panel a peon i don't really mean it all the time uh but i want to say for uh you
know the the rest of the community here in gamified um you know if you're listening in and you're one of the
5 400 people or whatever that that do listen and i don't know what the stats are like for overall
but let's say like seven or eight thousand um you know i really appreciate everyone showing up at
the end of the day um there are so many intelligent people here and my litmus test for any new
industry and i've been you know in esports since like 98, I've been there with,
you know, the advent of mobile.
I've been in there for like online casinos, online poker, um, you know,
social casinos.
And like I was in FinTech before it was called FinTech, like payment processing.
And the thing that always, um, has stood out to me is when you have a lot of people who are very
passionate and intelligent um and insightful and who are really pushing it forward i mean there's
definitely something there and there's something definitely here i think any of my frustrations or
whatever it's not coming out of actual frustrations it's kind of like guys there's just something more here let's not kind of dumb it down so it's kind of the easiest of what we can attain but let's
keep our eye kind of really on the prize here and i think something like gamified um also encourages
me every week that you know we are in the space, in the right time with the right people and real
revolutions and real innovation. It doesn't come from consensus. I mean, that's, that's the total
opposite of what innovation is. It really comes from a core group of people who really believe.
And I think what Gamify did with Sam and with Lems and all all the panelists and you know i love animal ctas and koji and jerry
and dub and i didn't like tatted lawyer a couple weeks ago but he's okay this week
that you know like that's where it it will start and and come from and it's always going to be
contrarian um and it's oh it's and that's where the alpha is so you know thank you
sam for you know setting this up because this gamified really changed the trajectory um of
where web3 gaming was and i don't think people realize this if you haven't been from the beginning
but like when we first started we had like 50 listeners or 100 listeners at best right and you know i
remember when we had broken like a thousand and and sam was like really ecstatic about it and he
was like wow you know we got a thousand that's good and you know there was a cabal you know
people look at wolves down we're like oh you guys are cabal you guys are a bunch of but like
we were not in the the mainstream we were very much on the outside looking in.
And I think, you know, not the cream rises to the top,
but I think authenticity and being genuine and being passionate
and being driven for something a lot more than just short-term transactions.
And friendships, I think that's what really makes it.
So good luck to you fucking peons.
And, you know, don't fucking play my web 3 game it's not
for you and have a good week guys you guys uh to that point change my life every week whenever you
show up and i'm eternally grateful i owe all of you a drink including you guys in the audience
you ever see me at any of these conferences you go hey i listen to gamified i'll go all right
right this way i'm grabbing i'm grabbing you a beer. Koji, see the hand up. I just wanted to say the way you know Sinjin is
a real game dev is he referred to himself as a failure and an immediates. And I can really,
I can really feel that in my soul as well. So I love you, brother. Yeah. I too am a failure.
If anybody knows a therapist that gives group discounts,
uh, we could really, we could really use it. Uh, we'll see. Can all eight of us just walk in and
sit on a couch and be like, we got some shit to talk about here with you. We just set up a zoom
call and like nine people all log in at the same time. I think we could probably get away with that.
I love you guys.
Thank you so much.
And we're all failures until we're not.
Okay, don't forget that.
One day, one day the narrative will be different.
And I'm excited to be at the top with all you guys,
no matter how long it takes to get there.
Big love, big hugs.
We'll be back same time, same place next week
for another episode of Gamified.
I'll actually be at ConsenSys live from the hotel room
in Knox territory up there in Toronto.
So I'm excited for that.
If anybody's going to be in town,
feel free to hit me up.
We'll do a little event for something.
Love you guys a whole bunch.
And we'll see you next week,
4 p.m. Eastern every single time.
And Monday, of course,
Simplified will be back too.
Sorry for the little hiatus last week.
Too much traveling for the boys.
But we'll see you then.
Long live Gamma-Fi.
Hey, English is my second or third language,
okay, you fuckers? Thank you.
