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Gamified #137 | Tokens VS No Tokens | RAID BOSS
Recorded: Oct. 1, 2025 Duration: 2:01:54Space Recording
Short Summary
In a dynamic discussion, panelists explored the implications of token launches, the strategic growth of Game Pass, and the evolving landscape of blockchain gaming, highlighting both opportunities and challenges in the crypto space.
Full Transcription
Thank you. Hey, Dub, we got receipts from what you said two years ago.
Are you prepared?
Dude, no.
I have no idea.
Don't.
How dare you?
It was fun.
Dub, you've never been one to backtrack.
I wouldn't worry about it.
I can't remember like three weeks ago, let alone that.
That's insane.
It was actually a pretty cool time capsule
kind of thing of going back and listening to the show
and just seeing how some things have changed,
but some things have remained pretty much the same
as the core part of the show. It was cool.
Yeah, I mean, I'm back and I'm playing parallel
while on the show again.
Yeah, we're going all the way back.
I love it.
That was very true in the last show, too.
You could not stop shilling parallel two years ago.
So there you go.
So consistent.
This is why we love you, man.
You're right 100% of the time.
percent of the time how'd you know i was born with it
How'd you know?
I was born with it.
we got big koji nagata speaking of right off the the fresh off the presses with the deception
launch koji you guys got to be stoked sold out in less than a minute congratulations yet again
dude i'm so knee deep in colony stuff that I already forgot that that even happened
yesterday
it's
crazy how
the pace
at which Parallel
whips its employees and I guess its founders
into like getting shit done
I need a vacation boys
yeah
Dick speaking of my colony is in peril
because I didn't spend as much time on it yesterday
because I was playing the fucking TCG.
So you need to find a way to integrate this.
Get it on Slack already or something
because I'm going to die from a water crisis
and lose my five Iron Man suits that I've built, so I'm
pretty pissed.
Get it on Slack.
Jesus Christ, Dub. I didn't know you turned
64 last year.
There's talk about
integrating it into wherever people speak
to each other so you can just talk to your colonists.
We have the tech. We just need
to get the game dialed in just
right, and then we can do crazy stuff like have it bother you on Slack or Telegram.
Telegram and just like regular text message would be dope.
I guess texts, though, are still like a cent to send basically every time, right?
Or have we figured out how to make that cheaper?
I mean, we could probably do WhatsApp.
Apple users have found a way to make it cheaper, but that ecosystem's not open for other people
to use. So, fuck us, I guess.
What about on non-airdrop phones? Come on, some of us don't have these magic cell phones.
I mean, if it makes me feel any better, I can't play it either, because I don't have one.
I don't have one either.
Wow.
Called out by Dub immediately.
I assume you had like 40
airdrop phones, Dub. You have all the airdrop
devices, you know.
That would have been my guess.
Only the Sui Play, baby. I got all
40 in the mail.
It's hyperbole.
Okay.
I just, it speaks to your character
dub that I thought that was a legitimate
number. Yeah, it's actually believable with you.
That's incredible. Alright, Jerry and Will's are running a little bit. Yeah, it's actually believable with you. That's incredible.
All right, Jerry and Wills are running a little bit late,
but let's go ahead and jump into the introductions.
We've got an absolutely packed, packed show today
because the second half of the show is going to be a raid boss.
Like I tweeted out just a minute ago,
it's going to be games with tokens versus games without tokens.
A hundred episodes ago, which is two full years ago,
we did this debate and I'm super excited to revisit that when then for the first half of the show we're going to try
to pack in as many topics as we can as like a bunch of different quick fires so we're going to
do 30 to second 30 to 60 second responses from our panelists covering some of the pirate nation stuff
we have ea getting acquired We have a sentiment score on Microsoft
hiking up the Game Pass,
which I'm excited to dunk on you guys for
because some of you have said that I was wrong
and that this was brilliant marketing
just in time for them to raise their price by 2x.
So I'm excited to get into that.
But before that, up first,
he was built in the tournament lobby.
He's raised on rage quits,
baptized in broken controllers.
From sporting goods to soul-bound NFTs, he's conquered the slopes, shootouts, and shrapnel alike.
Every meta tried to break him, but every patch just made him stronger.
The Redemption Arc is alive and well with Dub.
Dude, I'm so glad I'm not in Singapore.
I feel like I pro-play going to Korea and then ditching all that mess in Singapore.
Let's freaking go. Stoked to be here.
Yeah, surprise.
I got on a call earlier today,
and somebody was like,
I heard it's kind of dead over there.
Not nearly as many people going,
which is disappointing,
but at the same time,
you know,
it makes the FOMO feel a little bit less FOMO-y.
Up next,
once trained in the SEC dojo,
forged in Founders Fire,
he learned to weaponize words
and wield Loll a longsword.
Now he channels that same fury into Andromeda, where your agentic AI companions evolve with
you until you find your AI gaming soulmate.
Welcome back to Lethal Lawyer, the ace of Andromeda.
Back from his travels, it's Michael Christine.
Hey, what's going on, everybody?
Happy to be here.
I'm actually, Dub, I couldn't agree with you more.
I'm kind of happy I'm missing out on Singapore because I've also heard lackluster things,
and that saved me about, you know, maybe five, six K in terms of travel fees.
So love the savings. Let's get it.
Not to mention the sleep as well. Shout out.
Up next, he didn't climb the corporate ladder. He piled, drove it into the pavement at Twitch.
He commanded a hundred million dollar arsenal and rewired streaming.
Now he's
turned his firepower into glitter cloud solutions torching templates detonating dullness and leaving
scorcher strategies in his wake he's the incendiary innovator the hype hurling heavyweight the
combustible commander of cloud it's tony let's go boys stoked to be here thanks so much excited for
the topics and uh sorry sam you ruined my day i didn't actually know that game pass was getting an increase in price 30 now yeah it wasn't on the docket i think it literally was announced this
morning and i'm excited for it we also have some quotes from tony on his uh on his takes back in
the day about gaming tokens so excited to dig into that up next he's kicked down corporate castles
crowned himself in chaos and built gaming networks across asia while casually calling half the industry gutless wanks now he's drifting into
web three like a final boss encounter steering my angry yakuza girlfriend it's the rebel ruler
the founder who can't be bought the titan of taboo it's singin david joe good morning everybody or
good afternoon i didn't make it to singapore i guess that's why everyone's very bored i'm
was thinking of flying in just for karaoke for tomorrow but uh man i can't i'm just like slammed with marketing but
i'm happy to be here happy to do the raid boss and uh just uh eat some souls where are we checking
in from now are we back in thailand yeah i'm back in thailand yeah but i just have so many
marketing events that i just can't leave so I mean
I've been waiting for this moment for the last four years
So even three days going to Singapore is just it's a two-hour flight flight for me, but man
I just can't spend the spare the time at the moment
Are you going to Manila?
Ah, hell no. Have fun, boys. At that shill fest.
Hell no
Have fun boys at that show fest
Is Fingin exhaling what I can only imagine was a vape pen, as he said that?
Absolutely.
That's how I wake up, boy.
Thanks for waking up early for us as always, brother. Appreciate you.
Up next, he's battled Infernos. Now he inflames every conversation.
He reigns over spaces and rules the arena as the consummate gladiator, As always, brother, appreciate you. Up next, he's battled Infernos. Now he inflames every conversation.
He reigns over spaces and rules the arena as the consummate gladiator,
which is fitting because standing at 6'5 and sculpted like Zeus,
if Zeus lived exclusively on queso cheese dip,
it's the GameCube gladiator, the golden god.
It's Jerry Singer.
Yo, I have no idea what I said last time a year ago, so I'm excited.
You and me both, brother.
This man conquered Climes, created
card kingdoms, and still found time
to start a social media street fight with a Hollywood
heartthrob named Jared Leto. He's the co-founder
of Parallel Bending Packs into universes
and universes into economies, and yesterday
he was late to his own expansion launch.
Was this negligence performance
art given the deceptive theme of the new drop?
You decide.
It's the card crusader turned chaos creator, the prince of parallel.
It's Koji Nagata.
Yeah, thanks for having me.
You know what I'm never late for, Sam, is this show.
That should tell you something.
Also, I have a family who likes to travel, and so I had to pick them up from the airport.
Unfortunately, their flight was delayed.
And as much as I would love to just be on stream and have a good time with everybody opening packs,
unfortunately, I had spent the day doing some other actual work.
There's a lot of all heads down on Colony stuff, so get ready for some big changes.
But I'm excited to be here.
I can never miss this. This is like my therapy,
you know, without this, I would go crazy.
That makes me so happy, man. That makes me happy.
I missed Paul Bettner too. They told me a few months ago, they go, look, Sam,
Paul's going into what he calls beast mode. Okay.
And so if he doesn't respond for a while, we're sorry in advance.
And I can't wait,
can't wait for him to exit beast mode because we missed Mr. Bettner on the panel.
But glad that you guys are still able to make time for it.
I know it's absolutely hectic for all of us trying to get these, what are otherwise startup projects out the door.
And I just tremendously appreciate everybody that makes the time for it each week.
Up next, he sculpted sandboxes where kids became kings and queens
and conjured castles in the clouds of our collective memory.
From Club Penguins, Chili Citadels, to the galaxies that glow with Disney stardust,
his career is a constellation of cultural icons.
And when projects faltered, he forged wisdom instead of wounds.
Now he's the host of the Plus One podcast where curiosity levels up.
It's the bar to brands, the champion of play, the sworn defender of fun.
It's cool.
Chris Heatherly. Hey, guys. How's the bar to brands, the champion of play, the sworn defender of fun. It's cool. Chris Heatherly.
Hey guys,
how's it going?
I'm, uh, I'm glad to be
here and not on the deconstructors of fun.
I love you, buddy.
Chris and I were having a
yeah, we were having a good time
yesterday. I appreciate you and all the kind things that you said, Chris.
Great to have you back.
I wish we had you 100 episodes ago so I could pull some quotes out of the archives for you on gaming tokens.
100 episodes ago, what do you think your take would have been?
That they're bullshit.
All right, well, we'll double back on that today.
Excited to dig into it.
Last but not least, he is the pint-sized prophet of panel banter,
the reptile who rewrites reality one hot take at a time.
At 2.4 pounds, he's small enough to sit on your shoulder,
but big enough to own the stage.
It's the littlest legend. It's Lemm what's up everyone and uh hey jerry we're going back
two years not just one year and i got receipts for things he said so be prepared for it and
on the deconstructor of fun thing man if anyone has like missed that video sam put
like go check it on his profile because that thing is a masterpiece. Like, it is hilarious.
I love you, buddy.
Thanks, man.
And got to give a huge, huge, huge shout out to Avalanche. We are 100 episodes deep of Avalanche sponsoring Gamified, and I could not be happier about that.
And Avalanche is the arcade etched in ice.
It's the cathedral of consistency, the coliseum of creatorsors, the Frozen Forge that's fueled 100 episodes of Gamified.
And if you're building,
Helica has teamed up with AVAX to launch a gaming accelerator
with analytics sharp enough to slice steel
and up to $150,000 in funding
for more for projects that crush their craft.
Excuse me.
So let's show some love for 100 episodes
of unwavering support.
Avalanche isn't just the official chain of Gamified.
They're the catalyst for creativity in the cold.
Thank you to AVAX for my favorite 100X of all time.
And people who know how good I am at trading
will probably point out it's my only 100X of all time.
But if you've ever enjoyed an episode of Gamified,
please give them a shout out in the comments.
Write something nice.
Just help me show as much love as possible for being such an anchor for this show and for my entire life and business.
It really truly means the world to me.
And got to give a huge shout out as well to Remix.
Vibe coding turns chaos into content.
Your wildest whims, your half-baked ideas, your midnight butterings all materialize as playable platforms on a scrollable TikTok-esque feed of games.
The mobile app is now
live on the ios store so create today your games can become gladiators in the global feed search
remix games in the apple app store or click the pinned tweet to check out the official ai studio
of gamified we just announced 1500 live games some alpha 2 we have 8 000 games as works in progress
on the app which is just absolutely insane.
Charlie tweeted a few minutes ago, he said,
our goal was to just get one game released per day at the beginning of the year,
and now we have 5X to that, and there's still an entire quarter to go.
So that's pretty cool for the Remix team.
Quickfire, EA gets acquired for $55 billion.
Seems like there's a little bit of a debate.
Maybe it should be 65.
We'll see how the shareholders feel about this.
But the question is, is this a net positive or a net negative for them as a game company?
A, they're going to be private.
So no more stockholder.
We have to do what's right for the shareholders sort of bias in their decision making.
Maybe that's driven some of the microtransaction bullshit that people haven't been a big fan of.
Maybe that's part of the reason there's been very little risk taking in most of the titles that
they release. But B, now they're going to be co-owned by the Saudis from Saudi Arabia,
from the UAE. Does going private with no more expectation debt of serving shareholders mean the game experience is going to be more improved than maybe the drawback of being co-owned by a region of the
world or a people that are known to be a little bit more conservative. So more beneficial or less
beneficial to the end users, this acquisition reminder, quick fire, keep your takes to 30 to
60 seconds. If if you can let's
tag in mr chris heatherly off the jump i think it's bullish i mean uh games were considered
dead you know or a shitty category you know let's say 12 months ago um stock game stocks have done
well this year i think for anyone to deploy this amount of capital into games at all is positive.
The more I've dug into this, the more I've come away with the feeling that the reason behind this is to give them a capital structure that allows them to truly scale against the Chinese and against Activision owned by Microsoft.
So I think this is bullish.
I think a lot of the FUD out there is overwrought.
Short and sweet, just how we like it.
Koji, over to you.
Okay, I actually think it's terrible.
Maybe one of the worst things ever. I'm just going to read
a little bit. I don't say I never do any background, but this one's for you, Sam.
So the investors also include firms managed by Jared Kushner and a private equity firm called
Silver Lake. And basically, they're band-aided to pay back a billion dollars every year uh for the foreseeable
future which means that like if you thought microtransactions were bad before it is gonna be
horrible horrible because it's not just like these companies need to make some amount of profit for
the shares to go up it's like no they need to hit these dollar values on a very regular basis. And I don't know about you guys, but when things get sold to private equity firms,
either it just goes hyper-financialized or they sort of default on their deals,
and then the company just gets sold off for parts.
So I think that ultimately, if you cared about these games,
you're in for a pretty rude awakening.
Koji with the research.
That was a doozy.
I used to care about these games.
I can't say I do anymore.
Dub, over to you.
Yeah, I mean, I'm all for it.
Hearing what Koji's research just laid out, though, like, I mean, that leads them to going to crypto and trying to scale all that shit, too.
So, Dub, all for it, even if it is screwing everyone over. like i mean that that leads them to go into crypto and trying to scale all that shit too so
double for it even if it is screwing everyone over i stopped playing nba 2k whatever when 24
i think came out so yeah i mean long time coming looking forward to change up and
you know change is good in my point of view for this industry right now
it's going to be interesting let's's go to Tatted Lawyer. Tatted,
on the legal side, any chance you think that maybe this merger doesn't go through or maybe after
we get to the next political administration, maybe there's some issues around here with the
shareholders or is that just not at all on the radar no i i highly doubt it and the reason
for it is the the people in saudi arabia are buying everything from golf to basketball to
now obviously video games i think this is just a very very long plan for saudi arabia to kind of
gain more uh pop culture relevancy with a lot of very very popular entertainment products so i'm
not surprised that they're venturing into gaming now now with such a prominent brand like EA. In terms of will it hurt the end user, I'm going to agree
with Koji. I definitely think it's about to become very hyper transactional the same way,
if anybody's familiar with Southwest Airlines, they used to be America's top rated customer
service airline. They sold to private equity. Now everybody hates them because
obviously the company is very different now. They're charging on all these things they never
used to charge for. We're going to see a lot of that in the gaming side. And I'm going to say,
with the current administration and Jared Kushner involved, there's no way this deal is going to
get blocked. And just how much that we owe to the Saudis as a country, I'd be very, very surprised
if even the next
administration, if it was the most liberal administration ever would block it as well.
Wow. Yeah, that makes sense. Let's go over to Lems, and we'll tag you in Jerry. Lems,
what's your take here, bud? I think it's probably net negative, right? Like,
I haven't liked EA for a while. I think a lot of us sort of share that sentiment
around them in general and they monetize the fuck out of things but if a private equity firm is like
spending 55 billion on this which 20 billion is debt then you can be sure they're going to want
to monetize and start to you know make money on their investment they're not they're not just like
saints going oh we'll just like throw this money because we want games to be better like they want to make a return on their investment
and if it's already based on like ea's current financials like i don't see how there's going to
be a massive change in that if not like making it more financialized to try and you know have them
squeeze the the juice out of it so unfortunately i don't see how it's going to be like better for
the creative freedom
of the games. I would love to be proven wrong. And like Chris's take was actually really interesting
because I didn't expect to have someone come out right off the bat with that perspective of
being positive. And I hope his optimism is right. Man, I was really hoping this wouldn't tell me
that, you know, shitty company gets even shittier. Jerry, are you willing to tell me that it's going to be a golden era for EA?
we just shit on right and then bane capital took it over and like dunkin donuts is the fucking
you know uh every northeasterner i know is uh probably gonna get a dunkin donuts tattoo at
some point because they're feverish about it you know but um like i i don't i think generally just
like i think private equity in games is probably not the most native of Fitz. You know, I don't hear the name Jared Kushner and think,
yeah, this guy's going to make this video game better.
You know, I think, yeah, this guy likes to make a lot of money
and has been pretty fucking good at making money his whole life.
And he's probably just going to try to do that more, right?
And, you know, I know we joke about, like, the PIF coming in
and buying things to give them a lifeline, but, you know, that know we joke about, like, the PIF coming in and buying things to give them a lifeline.
But, you know, that can't happen endlessly, right?
At some point, these companies are going to have to make money.
And, you know, you can't always get, like, the flashy esports World Cups.
Like, at some point, they're going to have to make money.
And, yeah, there's, you know, a strict payback window on this.
And I think ultimately EA is something,
all those IPs are something we all kind of bitch about anyway.
And I think, I'm kind of with Koji here,
this is just going to make it much worse.
But yeah, I don't know, whatever, fuck it, man.
Like, you know, games still get to live
and hopefully try something out.
But, you know, this isn't going to be like a return
to like punk rock roots or
anything for games you know this is just more corporate suits getting involved and you know
i'm pretty against that
let's eat some souls here brother uh what do we think of this merger or acquisition i think it's
fantastic for ea actually um you know it's going to help them maybe get back engaged with FIFA.
I mean, they lost the license back in 2002, right?
I mean, the Saudis, if anything, they have that negotiating power.
You know, gaming needs cash.
Like, the situation right now is like whether it's being public or whether, you know, it's
these AAA games or whatever like that, a lot of's what the developers want to do and what you know
the corporate wants to do is really based on this like need for cash and when it comes to the saudis
even though i would agree in a typical like private equity deal um yes it's all about debt
repayment but the purpose of why saudi engaged with this even like before with like savvy games and stuff like that right is because they're doing a form of um capital investment tourism image remake right
um there it's like lots of controversies obviously with esports and stuff like this where
you know they're basically like brute forcing their way by you know offering x amount of
tournaments uh remember there was the the live uh what it called golf tour, which causes all this controversy,
but in doing so, um,
they definitely shake the foundation up and especially with these older
industries or more mature industries, you know,
having this massive injection in cash with, you know,
basically a principal who doesn't give a shit about using the money.
If there's going to be an impact, you know,
I can't see that not being
positive um for them and then i think in terms of the culture gaming culture i think like the
people who are involved with it i mean um like some saudis really like gaming they just you know
the entire like esports private coaching thing was basically funded by rich sa Saudi junior sultans who just wanted to play Starcraft better uh and poker
and so on and so forth so there is a lot of like actual real love for gaming in the region as well
I think it's positive because in the end of it like if you just look at where EA's trajectory
was going anyways like was it really on any other trajectory other than like a slow burn down no so
I think it's extremely positive for them.
And going private when in creative industries, always positive.
Interesting.
Okay, two more quick takes.
Let's go to Spang and then Tony to wrap us up.
Yeah.
So I'm going to strike a bit of line here.
I think EA first needs to pay for their sins.
There's a reason that the stock has been going down. There's a reason that
people are upset with them. And frankly, if this was happening to a company you cared
about, everyone would be pissed. But no one gives a shit about EA and everyone thinks
that they've been shitting the bed for the last four years. So that's why people are
excited because they're the, they're like, oh oh at least it's not the same thing that's been happening um but i i do think it is
it does signify kind of a broader like shift in you know how we pursue value in gaming and and
what we understand about what it takes to make gaming companies successful because the public model hasn't been working
it's been showing massive amounts of you know instability you know inability to generate the
returns that investors want at the rates that they want them and counteracting interests between those
investors and the people making and playing the games and you know as sinjin said you know creative
companies going private good thing but i don't believe that that's going to like, that's, we're not going to see the ramifications of that for a long, long while.
First, they're going to get the money back and that's going to be EA paying for their sins.
And then once that money is paid back and they actually have the opportunity to do some cool stuff without having to, you know, squeeze every dollar out of a lemon, then we're going to see some really cool stuff.
squeeze every dollar out of a lemon uh then we're gonna see some really cool stuff but i hope people
learn from this and i hope that this is i hope we we stand against taking these companies public
when they don't need to be tony you saw the acquisition of justin tv turned into twitch
uh up close and personal curious yeah everyone other than sinjin and Chris are fucking crazy. And I say that as someone that ruined Twitch.
But, like, throw up some emojis if anyone knows what the Esports World Cup is.
Anyone?
Anyone?
I'm seeing a couple, two people maybe knows what the Esports World Cup is.
It's crazy that no one knows what it is because the $70 million tournament
that happens in Saudi Arabia every year over the course of seven weeks they don't give a fuck about making money
guys they are they are as Sinjin said they are importing culture they are bringing in movies
and music and they don't give a shit how much money they make they want Dragon Age made by a
bunch of Saudi Arabian people but in in five years, that's what they want.
And they are going to get that. I mean, they're lighting money on fire every year to drive
entertainment into this space. And like, I think they're going to win. Like, as Sinjin said,
the space needs money. And everyone knows how I feel about money, right? Show me the money.
These guys are doing it. And like, say what you want about the, you know, I don't want to get political. I, you know, I'm not out here defending Saudi Arabia is
like a place that we should be elevating. But the bottom line is they got a shitload of money
and they are clearly spending it in a way that is not financially responsible,
but, but has a, you know, a larger strategy behind it. And so I just, I can't imagine a world
where these guys aren't like saying like, Oh yeah, Hey, why don't we bring back mass Mass Effect and like spend an extra hundred million dollars on it to make it the coolest Mass Effect that's ever had, ever, ever been before.
Like, I, I think that's a universe that's not even hard to squint and see.
Yeah, so a lot of people, sorry to break in, but a lot of people are reacting to the private equity side of this.
But the two funds, the two private equity funds,, US-based, are smaller parts of the deal.
This is really a sovereign wealth buyout, which is kind of a different thing. If you look at what
the Saudis have done with Scopely, I mean, they bought Scopely for a bunch of money and then
turned around and spent a bunch more money to buy Pokemon Go. So these guys have shown a willingness to go
long term and flash the cash. Yeah, it does seem like their eye being on the prize and their
willingness to do this over the next like two or three decades and not worrying about the immediate
results is prolific throughout their entire strategy. I mean, with Live Golf, right, is a
great example. I think Tony, you meant,
or maybe Sinjin mentioned it.
It's like that strategy took five years to play out
and then it's going to take even longer
for them to have all the culture
sort of permeate and integrate.
But I will say,
if they had the StarCraft IP from Blizzard
and then made StarCraft 3,
I'd be like, what the fuck?
I love oil barons now.
I'd probably buy a place in Riyadh if I could afford it.
Jerry, over to you.
Yeah, I'm just going to play to my audience for a second, Sam,
and speak to the moms of the listenership.
And they will know that there used to be a great kitchenware brand called Pyrex, right?
It was known for having the best Tupperwares and glass containers and and kitchen gadgets right
and then what did pyrex do right sold to private equity and it became shit right and now pyrex kind
of fucking sucks right you're your local your local well because i grew up in the ghetto sam
and i'll make a point right here your local meth cook used to cook out of pyrex because it was the
it was a great tool for them because it was reliable, right? And they sold to private equity and they had to go find other stuff.
So, you know, all the moms out there hear private equity and they go,
oh, this fucking sucks.
And, you know, I will say, yeah, man, like you guys are all pro sports washing.
You know, you guys are all in for sports washing.
And, you know, I both applaud you guys for being able to defend sports washing,
but I also am disappointed in all of you.
Why are women in Jerry's life cooking meth, apparently, though?
That's what I want to know.
Yeah, that's what I was going to say.
You guys were salivating over Mon monopoly go and whatever like that where do
you think that money came for for those advert buys right like the the saudis like and just
what chris mentioned you know like the private equity is like a smaller partner in this anyways
for a typical private equity deal basically if if people are not familiar with what happens is that
they'll target a very cash flow essential business,
something like mattress or something like this, right? And they'll look at the earnings and
they'll realize, okay, we don't really need to reinvest here. And they will basically acquire
the company with a ton of debt. And they will basically pay off the interest with the revenue
that comes in for that particular business, right? This is not what's happening here, right? And so just to label
it a private equity deal is missing the entire point because that's not the MO for the Saudi
fund, right? So if you want to talk about Scopely, well, that's Savvy Games, right? If you want to
talk about like Live or you want to talk about what do you call the EA massive fucking $70 million
tournament a year right that's
these guys here right so yeah again they don't mind to burn and they will burn and if you look
at like all the teams that they have bought like in football and how much money they've burned
the reason why the prices for european football teams and whatever globally have gone up it's
because they don't give a shit about how much they pay their players as long as you know it's it's
you know pushing for their own culture and their own agenda for the region.
So I don't know,
like,
that's not,
it's not a solid take.
It's like missing out what the real context is here.
Great quick debate on that one.
Appreciate everybody keeping the take short,
but I loved it.
We're going to keep the quick fires going.
Sentiment score pirate nation.
After the admit episode that we had last week,
they've announced a massive overhaul
from their previous strategy,
from their previous announcement, really,
of burning the NFTs.
The rewards are completely overhauled.
They've updated the plunder event
that's still ongoing,
they 5x the prize pool for that.
Like Amit said,
they weren't necessarily able to just go back to the treasury and give everybody like a thousand dollars instead
of 50 but it does seem like largely this announcement was pretty well received i'm curious
what the sentiment score is from our panel before and after this announcement lem, I'm going to you first. I ain't reading all that. I'm happy
for you, or sorry that happened.
That's the only thing I thought
when I saw that announcement. It was
a hard thing to read.
I think they're doing damage control.
It's good they did damage control. I'll give it
a 6 or a 7.
It's more just...
If they had done this originally, it would have
come off better, whereas now it's always harder when they had done this originally it would have come off better whereas
now it's always like harder when you're going against the grain of like you're trying to go
and fix the thing that you did and you already have disgruntled people so you almost have to
like overcompensate whereas if this was the original plan it would have like been probably
received much better and then the damage is already done because some of like people are
like annoyed they they burn their pirates so i think it's a good step in the right direction.
But I just think they're going to they've already like lost the trust of so many people.
And that's the sad reality of it.
Yeah, it seemed like a lot of the original criticism was it felt like they were just,
you know, cutting any expectation debt that they might have had.
They didn't care about the opinions
of their community anymore. They were just going to completely move on. But after this announcement,
it does feel like they are trying to rectify things and bring the community along with them
to the next projects that they have. So, Dub, I want to hear from you, a man who's known for
participating in a lot of communities, your sentiments when you made this announcement.
Participating in a lot of communities your sentiments made this announcement
Yeah, I mean before I was definitely like leaning pretty negative like a three
but after seeing all this and these like quick quick
Recepts and correcting everything and also getting to spend time with Adam in person in Korea
Like I'm more like a six
I don't I don't buy until like I'm an eight
so you know we'll see what happens there but yeah it's it's good news and
they're definitely taking the right things quickly and excited to see like a
product or something that's that's just where my head's at I want to see like an
actual fun game to play that's what I've always wanted from them.
I'm sure they got something cooking in the background.
Tony, I want to hear from you next.
What do you think?
Send them a score.
Ten, baby.
Ten.
Proof of play.
They did it.
They showed us the money.
They got a bunch of it.
They recognized that they needed to do something different with it,
and they're pivoting real hard.
And God bless them, we should all respect that.
You know, I think that this space is filled with the corpses of companies that couldn't
figure out that NFTs were not going to be a viable business or, you know, that perp
trading wasn't the right thing to do with your treasury.
So I think that being responsible and pivoting into something reasonable
they think is going to scale is bullish as hell.
Wow.
Ten, I didn't see that coming.
Tatted, what's yours?
I'm going to, you know, don't jump on me, but I'm going to put it about a three.
I kind of just think this is damage control.
I think they had to do this damage control.
I know that everybody here thinks that a lot of startup founders have a plan in this exact
instance.
I would highly disagree.
I think they're just trying to figure, I think their plan was what we saw that everybody
hated and then everybody hated it.
And they're just like, oh, just kidding.
You know, we're doing something else, you know, playing damage control. We're we're gonna fix it we're gonna fix it but also you know that's that's in itself a speculative
statement because how are they gonna sit how are they gonna fix it how is pirate gonna go up is
are people actually gonna get what they want out of this are they gonna fulfill the promises that
they've been making over the last four years i I personally don't think so. And it's just because, to Tony's point, we've seen so many founders, so many games, so many projects, etc.,
die a very, very slow death. Even though they're trying every single thing they can to survive,
they're still dying as if it's quicksand. I don't think that the people at Pirate Nation or Proof
of Play, whatever we're calling it now, are bad people at all. I just think it's very hard to run a startup.
And I think people vastly underestimate
how hard it is to actually run a startup.
So my sentiment score is low
because I don't think they had a plan
because I think the plan was the one that everybody hated.
And now they're just playing damage control.
Jerry, you mentioned last week, you know,
to admit that he could reach out and show you the plans and maybe have D-Gen help him through how people might receive it on this end.
Curious what your sentiment score is after seeing this.
Yeah, I'm at like an 8 or a 9 with it.
I think that, yeah michael is right this does seem
like a little bit of damage control but i think damage control isn't the worst thing to do in in
times like this and i think like there's damage control for damage control's sake and like pr's
sake and then there's damage control being being like hey i think we actually really fucked up
and um i think we we can make it right. And I think we can make it right.
And here's some things that make it right. And yeah, you know, I'm it for like, as much as we
all come up up here and talk about stuff, you know, like, he actually took me up on it, right?
He was like, hey, dude, I'd love to actually kind of talk to you about this and maybe see how we can
kind of get some of these things out. And we had a great, really good conversation and back and forth about it. Right. So
I think to me, that shows that like somebody is willing to listen to the people who do have their
boots on the ground a little bit more. Right. And so I listen, you know, I I'm of two minds and
I've like I think I've like debated different parts of this where it's like
I'm all in I like that
they're moving
they didn't think the game could really sustain the business
and so they're looking at other things
you know I think that's a good thing for a business to do
I think the way they went about it
and the announcement was very poor but I think
they learned some really hard lessons
and had to eat a lot of crow right
so but you know if you read that announcement, there's some really, really nice silver lining in that,
which is like stablecoin regulation is unlocking,
and they are one of the leading people who can lead that implementation for games, right?
That's going to be a net benefit for all you who want to go happily spend more in any EA game on the private equity takeover.
You know, it'll be easier for you to send these corporate suits your money and then they can just get a percentage of those fees.
Right. So like the marketplace thing that they're talking about, again, very good.
These guys have built very popular games in
the past right and was pirate nation you know that no but were they still early zynga do like
a lot of those guys still know how to build a good captivating game and they did it for a brief
period of time they did it for like six to diamond dude like two years of pirate nation people were
like playing that game right it's just it kind of hit the end of its life cycle, right? So with the mobile game, I think them going back to maybe their
roots a little bit, which is let's not go and do fully on chain, but let's make a good mobile game.
Let's seed that with our own infrastructure to show people that monetization can go further,
that, you know, this infrastructure can benefit the user experience within that.
I think that's a really
good thing. And I think there's still a way for pirate holders to benefit from that long term.
And I think they're, to me, it seems like they're committing to doing that. So I still think they're
one of the better position teams to actually make all that happen. And, you know, I think their
mobile game is probably going to be pretty good. And, you know, it has a chance to do all those things.
And, you know, I think there's a very good likelihood that we sit here, you know, a year from now and revisit the topic or 100 episodes from now and say, like, yeah, these motherfuckers pulled it off, right, when it looked like they weren't going to.
So, yeah, I'm at like an eight or a nine here.
So, yeah, I'm at like an eight or a nine here.
And just so you guys know that I'm not full of shit,
go look at the comments of all the moms agreeing with me
and all the meth cooks agreeing with me about Pyrex.
And I would just like to say thank you for letting me win that first topic.
If Sam's mom is agreeing with you, Jerry.
Jerry watches three episodes of Breaking Bad.
Yeah, mom, send me a text.
We'll follow up on a couple of days.
I think Jerry is just watching Breaking Bad and just live tweeting it.
I do want to expand the topic just a little bit.
I see three more hands.
I do want to get to you guys.
The next topic was going to be another quickfire around Pirate Nation.
Raven Quest announced their quote-unquote shipwrecked pirate relief fund.
If you still hold or burn to your pirate,
you can claim an annual premium subscription
and in-game items for Raven Quest.
And then Loot Realms followed up
by offering free claims
for their on-chain game Loot Survivor
to give holders free dungeon keys to play.
Is this an effective strategy
to potentially scoop up upset players
and acquire them for your game
on this sort of vampire attack
method. I want to go over to Chris Heatherly and we'll tag in Koji. Whether it's successful or not,
we'll see. But isn't it cool that because of the blockchain and because of open composability that
you could, and permissionless composability, that you could do this? I mean, you know, if we tried
to do this in mobile, you would have to do some kind of API
integration and a code system. And it would just be it like by the time, you know, it's the last
thing that a company that's shutting down a game wants to really spend a lot of time on is helping
other people steal their players. But especially when they're pivoting into a new game. So I think that this, to me,
is one of the kind of silver linings
out of this whole thing.
It's just, you know, and hopefully it works,
and hopefully there will be more offers like this
so that people who are bag holders
can transition into other projects,
into the other projects.
and that can be done in this decentralized way.
And that can be done in this decentralized way.
This is one of my absolute favorite use cases for crypto
is people don't need to own your assets
in order for you to market to them.
They just need to own whatever asset
you want to market to.
Koji, over to you.
All right, yeah.
I'm not going to answer that second part,
but I'm going to address the first part for sure.
My sentiment score is a straight up 10 out of 10.
We were on this show not that long ago,
arguing about white papers and mission statements and all this shit.
And now a company is like thrown out a Twitter thread and everyone's like,
yeah, maybe I've changed my mind.
And I'm like, let's go, baby.
That's the kind of degeneracy that I want.
You know, I don't need proof.
I just need a long thread about the shit that we're going to do.
And then that's it, man.
Like, let's just let's just change hearts and minds right now.
You know, that's the crypto that I was raised in.
And that's the crypto that I want.
Bring that shit back.
Degeneracy all the way.
I've changed my mind.
I used to be like, let's be safe and nice and whatever.
No, I'm done.
Guys, it just like throw keep selling out parallel card sales and whatever the fuck else buy buy uh uh avatars and whatever other shit that we have to sell you i don't even remember
but like let's go let's go full degeneracy baby dude if that sale didn't go well yesterday he'd
be like let's be safe guys now congrats on the sale, Koji. But hell yeah.
You sell 60 worth of packs and all of a sudden it's like, fucking put it all on Blackboard.
Yeah, this motherfucker was AI building another pack right now and be like, whoa, we're back?
If this season again, let's fucking do another one right now.
Let's fucking do another one right now.
You can just launch another one?
You can just launch another one?
What?
What?
Yeah, you know, when these situations happen at the beginning, again, as another founder, I don't want to throw stones at a glass house.
But to be honest, like my sentiment score at that time was a one.
And right now it's a 4.5.
so like for me there's a like a big jump here but fundamentally like how they like dealt with you
So like for me, there's like a big jump here.
know um you know the shutdown of the game was fundamentally like leaving your fiance at the
altar with a pile of and a big you right and so like i've read through what they've
written and it's a real sincere attempt it's it's a legit attempt uh but you know this should have
been obviously how they did at the first time and it's attempt. But, you know, this should have been obviously how they
did it the first time. And it's not about being like, you know, hindsight's 20-20. I mean, this,
like the way they did it was horrible. And I think it had admitted to that level. And, you know,
and when you do this and you can go back to your fiance and say, look, I'm really sorry on your
hands and knees and, you know, do all the things that you need to do. But that trust really is broken, especially if your fiance and their besties
were like, oh no, he's like the best guy in the world. He would never do something like this.
Like he's going to come back. Like this pile of shit is like left by somebody else. And then
people realize not like this guy actually said, fuck you and left a pile of shit at the altar.
But I think what's more concerning is that, you know,
Amit has like said that, you know, they have all these realizations now, they're really talking,
and that's fantastic. But it really did expose their positioning in like their mentality towards
Web3. And while, you know, on the surface, there was a lot of Web3 and stuff like that. You can't help but come away with seeing a mid really as a Web2 builder using Web3 tech.
Right. And that's a nuance that I think was really shocking for a lot of people who are really following them and looking at them as like a kind of flag bearer.
So, you know, again, 4.5 for me is actually a really positive score for them.
I think there's a lot of trust building here.
And the other thing is like a majority of their business is going to be B2B from now
on, like business to business.
So in terms of what they're going to do to make things right, I think a lot of it is
going to happen like on the revenue side, but not necessarily on this kind of asymmetrical
like upside where people who had first invested in it were you know looking to kind of build around
and build that culture around so anyways good luck to them i'm glad they made such a sincere attempt
i applaud them for it but yeah my sentiment score is a 4.5 sorry sam i just gotta jump in here real
quick i just want to be clear like i'm i'm being sarcastic i actually want this space to be like a
real respectable space that we can actually build things in and that people can
operate in with like confidence and i i don't feel like we're that yet so don't i'm not actually full dj just you guys know appreciate that clarification dub gets the last word then we're moving on
yeah don't worry i got enough dgen for the both of us, Koji. And for the, for the airdropping, the Rex ship pirates, like this is what we're fucking
here to do.
I love this meta, but I wish they would like do it better.
Like we're still doing version one of this where we're like, oh, okay, well, if you still
hold a pirate, you know, you can come sign in.
And then after, you know, some five minutes minutes of gameplay We'll give you some shit like go fucking look at the motherfucker who like spent the most lost the most
Whatever and then give them 2x what pirate nation gave them just airdrop that shit and be like
Look, this is what we did. You're welcome. You know like that that we can do here and I want to see it
I just I'm glad to see version one but like I'm ready for version 2 of this whole meta. No, no
Dub, I love you and
you know, I'm not
I don't like to disagree with you just for fun
anymore but no
you can't do that because then that person is just going to be
like well I lost all this money on Pirate Nation and these guys
just gave me all this free money
so now I'm like at net even, you know
like no, don't airdrop that motherfucker
stuff just for the sake of it.
Make him go, you know, give him a little bit of love.
But don't be this, like, don't give this guy exit liquidity or anything, you know?
But, you know, like, with all the vampire attacking, I think it's fantastic.
And it shows the strength of the Pirate Nation community, how it's valued within the, you know, community.
And if it's like, hey, your fiancé left you at the altar and gave you a big,
fuck you. He's coming back on his hands and knees, but you know,
I'll fondle you for free and you know,
buy you a dinner and give you makeup sex. Fuck it. You know,
I'm ready to go. And I think that's fantastic. And if, you know,
that happens to you and you want to fuck around a few times, you know,
to get it out of your system before you come back, I think it's great. I applaud all the games that are, you and you want to fuck around a few times to get it out of your system before you come back.
I think it's great.
I applaud all the games that are giving the breakup sex here
and putting out.
Well done, studios.
Yeah, step up to the plate to hit the home run, Jerry.
That's a very good baseball reference.
Yeah, Jerry, where's your free fondling?
That was a very good plug of Dub and his new sponsorship.
Well done, Dub.
Lems, what do you want to chime in with us?
I'll just come on to Jerry's point of like,
you don't just give them like free tokens or something
just that they can instantly dump.
But if you'd like target in Vampire in a way
where you're targeting someone who's in the same genre of game
and you give them stuff in your game
that you might actually use for user acquisition,
like that's like something like I wish we saw more of in the space because people often like to
shit on nfts and being like oh when the game shuts down you have nothing like it's just like
a thing that points to nothing anymore and i think it really undervalues what receipts are because
you still have those receipts of what you did on chain and people can target you based on that
like dub was saying like oh the guy who spent the, like maybe they get the most in-game items and stuff.
Like that's something we can actually leverage blockchain in a useful way.
And it feels like it's just been totally missed for the most part up to now.
So I want to see more of this.
Like as Dubb said, it is, this feels still like early, early stage,
like V1, maybe V1.1.
But man, like when this gets to a point when
people are using this for proper like acquisition, I think it gets a whole lot more interesting.
Yeah, I agree, man. It feels like this is sort of the next era of actually using blockchain to
do marketing whenever it's done well, which might take a while. I don't think sending people like
$400 for free is the way to do it. But I think you guys touched on some interesting stuff there.
Last quickfire before we move on to the spicy topic of the day, tokens or no tokens. We're
going in to Microsoft Game Pass price hiking to $30 a month. They 2x their previous price point.
Some of the panels previously defended Xbox Game Pass saying that it was wise marketing spend.
However, it feels like an admission
that the previous price point was unrealistic.
Some people have called out the $30 price point per month
as too expensive because it's roughly
five full-priced video games per year at that price point,
which you don't necessarily get to choose
which ones are part of the Game Pass.
So it's maybe worse than just buying your five favorite games of the year.
I've been critical of Game Pass since the beginning, especially regarding games like
Call of Duty that are near automatic purchases for Xbox owners that they lump into this fucking
program for $15 a month.
It made no sense since the beginning, but people told me that it was wise marketing spend.
So what is your sentiment score now that we've seen Microsoft price hike?
Jerry, over to you.
I'm just here for everybody to individually apologize to me when they said that Xbox was the great, you know, that Game Pass was the greatest business innovation in gaming ever.
So, yeah, this is always going to come.
You know, this is this was always going to happen, you know, this was always going to happen.
It just wasn't sustainable the way it was. You know, it's probably still good value for like,
yeah, it's like five full price video games, but you get access to like hundreds of what would
otherwise be full price video games. So like, you know, it's probably still good value. But yeah, you know, this was, to use a quote from one of my very dear friends, inevitable.
Because there was no way it was going to work.
And, you know, people now, like Microsoft and Xbox are in this unenviable position of just being fucked no matter what.
Because, like, you know know the service hasn't been
working you know you've been bleeding money off of it and now everybody that's like a gamer also
hates you because you had the nerve to raise prices on them and and try to make a little bit
of profit so um you know it's like they're fucked no matter which way they turn right now and that's a really bad position I mean dude Microsoft is just so boned when it comes to gaming right now like
there's so much work to be done and so far to go for them to be able to like
redeem any of this and so yeah I mean it was always going to happen you know I don't really
give a shit about the price hikes you know'd say overall, my sentiment on anything that Microsoft is trying to do is really low because everybody is just
kind of mad at them now. And when you're in that position, it's so hard to come back from. So yeah,
I'll say like a two. Jerry, quick fire, you've got got 10 seconds give me the first thing that microsoft needs to
do to unfuck themselves in in gaming real quick um i don't know make xbox is cheaper and more
accessible i guess you know that'd be better than whatever the fuck they're doing with game pass
chris heatherly over to you. Same question.
All of it.
What's your sentiment score on the price hike?
And yeah, if you want to take a stab at un-fucking them, I'm welcome.
One, I mean, it's like the world's biggest rug, Dave.
You know, Ed Freeze, who was very big
in the early days of Xbox,
posted a couple of years ago that Game Pass was going
to destroy the games industry. And he's, you know, not been proven wrong. I mean, it's definitely
put a hurt on the console industry. I think if you look at the streaming business in Hollywood,
you know, the streaming model has been the same thing where you promise everyone everything that Disney is coming out with for $9.99 a month.
And then a couple of years later, it's $15 a month.
And it's just not possible to condense entire catalogs with live operated games that need massive budgets and teams to keep running into a low, low monthly fee.
It was always predatory pricing to try to drive the Xbox.
And I think that, you know, the reality is that Microsoft has lost this round and there's
probably not going to be another hardware generation.
And so, you know, the best thing, in my opinion, and maybe some people won't want to hear this,
that Microsoft could do is drop the fucking hardware and just be a software publisher.
100%.
Yeah, that would be crazy.
Tony V, over to you.
10 out of 10 here, boys.
I happen to agree that they should absolutely get out of the hardware business.
that they should absolutely get out of the hardware business.
But I also think that a lot of the rebuttals about,
or the I was right and you were wrong that I'm hearing here.
And by the way, Jerry, you get no apology from me.
I'm doubling down.
I think that this type of move speaks more to the way that people are consuming content,
increasingly consuming content, right?
Everyone gave examples of services that we're all paying for, right?
They're like, oh man, Disney up the subscription.
And now there's HBO Max and Netflix and Amazon,
but you're all fucking subscribing to them.
Cause if you weren't, then they wouldn't exist.
And so that's the way people are consuming content now, right?
People go and they find the show they want and they subscribe to apple tv for a month they watch it they binge it with their wife
they they eat their ice cream on the fucking couch they borrow netflix from their buddies so they can
watch the walking dead and and then they move on to the next service and that's like the way people
are consuming content now when i hear you guys talking about lamenting the way that the games
industry currently makes money all i can, all I can hear is Littlefoot
crying at the comet in the fucking
land before time, guys.
We've got to start embracing the way people are
consuming content.
But are they making
money? Aren't all of these companies operating
at a loss? They have the infinite money glitch, yeah.
So there's going to be some amount of time
where they're like, what, loss leading, whatever.
They've never made money on the fucking Xbox ever, ever.
They've never made money on that thing.
They drive like a car off a cliff every hundred of those things they sell.
So like, it's another way they're going to acquire customers.
That's a great point that actually Tony makes, right?
It's like, if instead of losing money every unit on Xbox, and they do what Chris says says where it's like hey we go we're going to
like digital publishing or whatever there's maybe a path forward for them right because like the
xbox got fucking rinsed this cycle you know they didn't sell enough xboxes to like make the games
you know the game sales where they're going to make up that net loss on each unit worthwhile
so i mean maybe there's something there tony you know maybe i maybe me being a little foot here is um you know we blend a couple of these ideas and uh you know xbox has a profitable path forward but
you know yeah it's like losing money on each unit and then game pass not scaling the way that they
need it to is you know it's just the recipe for like this continued slow death. Look, the hardware business is incredibly capital intensive.
You have all that inventory.
Like it takes a large development team.
Like that business would shit cash if they got rid of the hardware, honestly.
Especially with some of the acquisitions they've made recently.
Let's go to LEMS and then to SPANG.
All right, I'm going to split this in two parts.
Like sentiment score as a user is a one because obviously like the thing went up by 50 but from a business perspective it's like a nine
because all of a sudden they're going to make way more money which we on the thing what we all knew
was not really working in the first place like i was looking at the the pricing so you could have
had the 15 tier limbs may i for a second oh fine fine. We didn't all know that because some people spoke against me when I said that.
So I just want to clarify one of your points is no, we didn't all know that.
Okay, well, I feel like generally there was a large amount of people who figured they were probably losing money on it.
Okay, anyway, so there was a $15 tier and a $20 tier.
But the $15 tier didn't get you the brand new games.
You paid an extra five bucks a month
and you got like the brand new game
when it came out on launch day on day one.
It was like, who would buy the $15 tier
versus the $20 tier?
It made no sense.
Now there's like more of a clear divide.
It's like, hey, you want the older library?
It's $15.
You want to be like cheap about it?
You have that one.
You want the brand new game on day one?
Just pay the goddamn $30.
It's still a pretty good price point for what you're getting out of it like new games are like 60 80 bucks whatever depending on what it is and you get those on day one yes you
don't get to pick them but like if you don't like it don't buy the fucking subscription like it's
simple as that um like i was listening to a podcast with alex hormosi before and he had a really
interesting point he was saying he needed to get the profitability up on his gym. And he's like,
I was just charging way too little for these gyms. So I just decided I tripled the price
overnight, like literally just made it 3x. He goes, I pissed off a bunch of people. What happened?
I lost one third of my customers, but I charged three times as much money to the remaining two
thirds of my customers. So I was now generating twice as much money and my costs went down because
I had less people in my gym.
And he was just like,
he was like, what the hell was I doing in the first place?
Like, that's pretty much what Microsoft
are kind of realizing here.
You're going to piss off some people,
you know, whatever.
They can just either get the lower tier
or they can kind of fuck off.
They tried to just lose money
to try and like vampire PlayStation users,
but it didn't work.
So, you know, they got to switch things up.
Dirty Capitalist Lems was not on my bingo card today i want to go to koji another filthy capitalist over to you yeah i mean these guys covered what i was gonna say so i'll just say
limbs is 100 correct and tony should be mvp for what he just said and that's it
all right back to spang then no i just think it's so funny especially coming coming off the back of
the pirate nation topic that we just had which i got bits and pieces off between getting lost in
the nyc subway like we look at pirate nation and and they make a massive pivot and they change
course and everyone's like oh you know that's that's good you know they're cutting their losses
they're making a change and meeting the market where it's at that's exactly
what xbox is doing right now they they tried to sell it for 15 bucks they weren't making any money
all right let's how much do we lose exactly what lens is saying i think the gym analogy is
absolutely fucking perfect like it's still a lot of value that you're getting frankly
i i think like all things considered it's not that bad i'm so excited to see the numbers on on like
whether this actually put a dent in um in game pass subscriptions because i don't think it will
i think this is a this is a necessary readjustment this is a coming back down to reality. They tried the vampire.
They tried to, you know, let's make it as cheap as possible.
As, you know, every mega corporation does when they come out with a product like this.
They put it on the market super cheap to drag everyone in.
And then they bump the price to a point where it's sustainable.
Is this that price?
We'll find out in, you know, 12 to 24 months.
But, you know, I think it's, i don't think it's bearish at all i
think you know if you look at what xbox has been doing that someone mentioned this is them pivoting
into the software business i think that's absolutely correct i think you know xbox as we
know it has been dying for a very very long time and now they're at a point where they're confident
enough to be increasing prices like this where they where they see a strategy to see a long term.
Because if this really wasn't working, it would be shut down.
They would stop doing it entirely.
But that's not what they did.
They raised the prices.
And I think that that's a vote of confidence and not weakness.
That's a great point.
It's more like a it feels a lot more like a planned strategic move instead of
like panicking and just axing the entire thing i do want to move on to the next topic but i want
to get through these hands first let's go to tatted tatted i think you were in defensive
of this program previously yeah no absolutely i personally think this is exactly kind of what
will spang just said par for the course they first you got to remember when you launch a new product
let's think of uber uber used to be the thing ever. You should be able to get an Uber for like $2.
Now it's like $50 to go like 20 miles or whatever. So what they did was they launched a very low
price product. They had a lot of people onboard into it. They had a slight price increase where
people were like, you know, that's fine. I'm going to pay for this higher price. And now they're
like, okay, sweet. Enough people paid for this. If we increase it again, $ know, that's fine. I'm going to pay for this higher price. And now they're like, okay, sweet.
Enough people paid for this.
If we increase it again, $10,
I bet majority of our customers are probably going to stay and continue paying for this.
So to me, this isn't at all a sign of weakness or anything.
I think this is a brilliant business move.
And it shows that Microsoft has a ton of confidence
in what they're doing right now with their Game Pass strategy.
And also, oftentimes, we know how subscription tiers work. We know how the subscription market
works. A lot of people, when they buy a subscription, totally forget that they bought
a subscription. There's going to be so many people out there who bought that $20 subscription,
not even realizing that it rose to $30 because it's just being automatically debited out of
their account every week. Xbox knows that, or excuse me, Microsoft knows that.
So I personally look at this as a huge, huge, huge bullish sign or signal for what Microsoft
thinks about Game Pass.
I don't look at it as a way, or excuse me, as them losing money.
I think if they lost any money, it was a calculated loss.
So they could get to this point of being like, hey, by the way, we're going to raise prices a little bit more, just like we saw Netflix too
over the last two years, just like we saw Disney plus too. They all raised their prices. They're
all crushing it with record profits right now from their streaming services. It's crazy to me
when people see profit go up and think, oh,'s in trouble so yeah i think they're doing a great job my last word on this is just i have to imagine whenever microsoft was drawing up this playbook
they thought that they would get more market share than 100 percent you know they they were
probably like we're gonna crush them and then they were gonna need they were off their projections
for how many people who were gonna sign up for this by like 60 you know so like yeah you can
double prices you're they're still not gonna be where they need to be and where their initial
projections were also like there's no like the the gym example is a is a good like almost comp
lens but like you can do that if you're a gym,
because like what happens at a gym,
like,
you know,
fucking uncoordinated people go and they break your elliptical machines.
Right.
There's no,
like,
there's no material,
like,
you know,
there's no gym equipment to break in this scenario.
It's an online subscription.
And like,
I think even the Netflix examples are like not the best comps because
those people are raising they're raising their rates like two to three dollars at a time they're
not doubling the cost of it so you know we'll see when the financials come out but i think this is
gonna they're gonna lose a ton of subscribers over this you know this is uh i would i'd expect to
see a pretty substantial drop off here it's a 50 increase not a double so like you know this is uh i would i'd expect to see a pretty substantial drop off here it's a
50 increase not a double so like you know important new take there one more quick word from uh tatted
and then we're gonna yeah i just i just want to mention xbox is also releasing something that i'm
picking up on on october 25th called the xbox handheld which everybody who has a who has this
game pass subscription who has a handheld is probably a who has this game pass subscription, who has a handheld is probably gonna have this
game pass subscription. So I think they're trying to pair
this price increase with the fact that they have a huge
product coming to market that they put a lot of money behind
and they think a lot of people are gonna buy including myself
because I need it for these long damn airplane flights that I
always go on coming to Manila with an Xbox handheld. But I
think that has to play into like the timing of all this
because that's like I said,
expected to drop October 25th.
I think a lot of people are going to buy that
immediately by Game Pass
and then be on their merry way
with their Xbox being along with them
everywhere they go.
And the double down on being wrong
is very strong.
It's very, very admirable for you guys.
Chad, it is unshaken. he's unshaken i want to go
over to chris heatherly real quick he said he has an update on pudgy party which i'm i'm super
curious to hear what you have for yeah so i did a look today thank you uh and uh pudgy party's
doing a lot better so um their uh app magic has them at the number 11 download in the party games category and the number five in the US.
And importantly, they've now passed Eggie Party, which is another game. And it's made by NetEase,
which is the second largest Chinese publisher. And they passed them on a global basis. So, you know, it seems really,
it seems much more encouraging than it did after launch week. Also, I looked at their revenue per
download and it's around 20 cents, which is around where StumbleGuys appears to be. So it's possible
if you just look at the momentum on that, it's possible that they will wind up with
a higher revenue per download than StumbleGuys. And if that is true, which could be because of
the trading, and if that is true, then it could put them in a really good position to scale. So
I may have been premature in my harsh criticism, but hey, I responded to the data and I always said
I want those guys to win. It looks like
the game is scaling. They're at a million
so far,
which is great progress, but
it's small in mobile terms,
so they got to keep scaling, but
it's bullish.
Chris, does the App Magic show that?
Show what?
Like UA spend or anything?
I can't see UA spend um but i think they are spending because um it suddenly just started
going up and i don't think that's being driven organically i think they got a lot of their
organics and now they're starting to scale with ua yeah that was gonna be my question was maybe
we were judging it based on the organic and before ua and now here we are like yeah i'll still say
that if that was that if that's true that it was weak organics relative to what I would have expected for Pudgy on the first week.
I still stand by that.
But look, I mean, through some combination of whatever, they're scaling now.
And let's pray that they keep going because it could be the first mobile game that breaks through, guys, in crypto.
Lord knows, regardless of where it comes from, we want to see that happen.
And it would be awesome if Pudgy could lead the way with that great IP that he has.
Also, Remix is doing an activation with Pudgy right now.
A bunch of our creators in the Discord are integrating Pudgy IP into Remix games, which is fucking phenomenal to see.
We've already had some really cool ones made
just in the past few days after we announced it.
So super excited for that.
And Chris, would you mind sending me some of that data?
I'm actually very intrigued to maybe do a write-up of it.
If you could maybe screenshot it
or send me some of the access.
I would love to support them in this
because at the end of the day,
I say it about everybody.
I said it about Pirate Nation last week.
If one of us wins, Lord knows everybody wins here in Web3 Gaming,
and we really need to champion somebody or have them champion us, really, at the end of the day.
But with that being said, I'm going to give a quick shout-out to our incredible sponsors,
and then we're going to move on to the biggest topic of the day.
Got to give a huge shout-out.
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Remix Games at the App Store, it will be the number one search result on iOS, which I'm super
stoked about. Thank you to the official AI studio of Gamified. Okay, guys, we're jumping in. Raid
Boss, games with tokens versus games without tokens. Okay, right now, as it stands, me and
Lems are actually going to pick the teams.
In the past, we've done drafts.
I'm going to pick the four tokens team and Lems is going to pick the against tokens team because I feel so confident in my side.
I'm going to give Lems the first overall draft pick.
Lems, who you got?
All right. All right.
I'm going to go with Chris Heatherly because he also opened with saying how much he hates tokens,
so I feel like it's a good one for the against side.
It's been a long time since we've done a raid boss.
In my head, everybody knows everything about the show.
I should say, raid boss is a special topic.
Basically, we pick something as the subject of the day.
We separate people into two sides.
They have to steel man
their side against the other team. Each person gets one chance to speak. And then at the end,
we give people an opportunity to clarify if this is really what they believe or if they're just
debating healthily to help the show out. But with that being said, I'm team four tokens in games.
That means I'm going to pick my first overall pick. You know I got to go with
the titan of taboo, Vic Singen.
That's right.
Fuck, man. I'm getting rugged, but
I'm coming to eviscerate you little fuckers.
So gird your fucking
loins, Chris.
Keep them safe. I'm coming for them.
Lemz, who you got for number two?
Alright, I'm going to flip on his head uh tony was a hardcore
pro tokens last time but he said that he's uh his tune has changed he was saying in telegram
earlier so i'm gonna take him for the against side now but i'm still probably gonna quote you
on some of your funny quotes from two years ahead tony go ahead establish the morale of your team i mean i was really just
jumping in with let's go boys in the parlance of our times
in the parlance of our times uh well what's a team without the week over week unified unanimous
back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back MVP self-voted it's
dub dub welcome holy shit I thought I was gonna get picked last all right let's go
let's do you got all right I guess oh Chris Chris actually wrote raise the hand Chris
so I'm picking I'm picking who do I think flipped
oh no Lem's is gonna continue to pick your pick your team for you you're on team against So I'm picking who do I think flipped?
Oh, no.
Lemza's going to continue to pick your team for you.
You're on team against.
Lemza's picking number two now. We're going to poo-poo on the tokens, Chris.
We're going to tell them why tokens are shit in games.
All right.
I got who they got left.
All right.
Give me Tatted.
Let's go Tatted.
We're going to shit on tokens.
Fucking go. on tokens. Let's fucking go.
Fuck tokens.
And, of course, what's a Sinjin without a Jerry?
Jerry, welcome to the squad.
Oh, I'm with Sinjin?
Hell yeah.
Well, let's eat some fucking souls, Sinjin.
I am undefeated and undisputed in this game category, so
congratulations to my team.
I think a Sinjin
without a Jerry is what you call triumphant.
I'm going to say Sinjin better off.
Yeah, I think
they're going to have a civil war. That's giving us
a leg up. Oh, fucking Chris over there.
Chris over there, the data guy with two people
who never listen to data.
All right. Chris over there, the data guy with two people who never listen to data. Alright, I'm taking Wills and that's my squad.
Big Wills.
Damn, I'm very much on the no token team, but I was kind of hoping to get drafted to the token team.
So my whole argument could just be role playing as a guy who didn't know about Pirate Nation.
Saboteur! Thank God, Lems. Thank you for that layup. I appreciate you taking the Saboteur.
Last but not least, I got to take positive, optimistic, ever-present, ever-locked-in Koji Nagata.
Sam, I wasn't locked in enough to find the unmute button,
but that's because I was taking notes.
Tokens all the way, man.
As a project that has tokens and is reaping the rewards,
I don't know what the fuck you guys are talking about.
Okay, so with this being said,
if you guys want to raise your hands,
if you're ready to go,
if not, you can keep them down and raise them eventually.
But I am going to go to each person at some point.
Tatted was the first hand that I saw, so I'm going to go ahead and send it to Tatted
to kick it off for team against tokens in video games.
Raid Buff starts now. Tatted, take us away.
Yeah, so, I mean, as our opening statement, I just wanted to point everybody's attention to the entire Web3 gaming industry over the last three years and what all each and every one of those tokens, I'm going to say 99% of those tokens have done, which have been dying.
They've all died. They've all died a glorious death that nobody ever wanted them. They really took the attention away from the game itself, really made the game all about a speculative instrument.
And in my opinion, it's what slowly started to kill
what we knew of Web3 games,
the spirit of Web3 games as we came to love it
and know it in 2021.
So I'm going to say tokens have been possibly
the worst thing that's ever happened to Web3 games.
And if we could start to shift away from the token meta
and focus more on the distribution meta and the user onboarding meta,
I think the game would be a lot better for it.
I love the idea of play to earn, but play to earn is also a Ponzi scheme.
Win to earn can work.
But again, you don't technically need win to earn,
or excuse me, you don't technically need a token to have a win-to-earn game.
You could easily use USDC.
So I'm going to say tokens have effectively been the downfall of the industry.
It's why nobody believes in Web3 Gaming anymore.
If it was just about the gameplay, or even if it was just about the NFTs,
I still think that there would be a lot more optimism and optimism related to Web3 gaming than there is.
But the token meta killed it.
Everybody considers these tokens to be meme coins.
And meme coins already is the bottom of the barrel in terms of how people think of assets in the crypto space.
So I think the evidence speaks for itself over the last three years in terms of what's happened to the space and why so many people have left it.
You're on a clarifying question.
I picked a lawyer for my team.
Sam, Sam.
Pro-threat.
So just when we're talking about tokens in games,
are we talking about any tokens in games
or games having their own tokens?
Because I think there's nuance there.
Or if it's all tokens in games, that's cool too.
That is an interesting uh nuance because especially you could start to lump in stable coins i i believe and maybe lems you can you can check me here as my my opponent but if uh if i was
picking i would say this is strictly about a a game launching their own token as a currency
within the ecosystem i see the 100 emoji am i
am i correct here yeah i'm with you there like uh any like stables and majors like eth i feel
like don't really count it's more like teams launching their own token to use in game
all right on my team i see both uh koji and dub have the hand up you know
you know i gotta go to optimistic Koji,
the man who's never been negative once in his life.
Yeah, I'm absolutely positive that what Michael just said is completely wrong.
Like, you're exposing yourself.
You're exposing yourself here by saying they don't work.
Because what you're saying is the number isn't going up.
And if that's, like, all that working is, then we're we're this industry is doomed like it's not
just about how much is this shit worth right it's like saying nft does don't work in games
and we just fucking sold out an nft sale like what are we talking about like as long as you
make them integral parts of the gaming experience then it works if as long as people use them and want them and and do whatever nfts or
tokens then it's fine because it's in service of the game but if all you're looking at is like
hey is this worth you know it was worth like ten dollars and now it's worth 20 and now it's worth
eight or whatever like then we're we're we're doing it wrong man because like at the end of
the day we all talk about all we want is like fun games and whatever but that's bullshit right like all these like all it seems that the other team wants
is more money so like fucking just trade meme coins assholes
oh by the way i meant that with as much positivity as possible
let's go tony you had the hand up but it went down are we are we rugging are you ready for uh
for your team team against wow let this be a let this be a smudge on the record of team against
lens i'm going to you oh tony don't be showing us up right now okay um i think you can't
bring nfts and tokens into the same category like they're fundamentally different they work
differently in the game different argument nfts are more like a collectible they have good use
case i'm not going to go on the deep end of that tokens are different tokens like if you give people
a way where they can optimize to earn something it it destroys the gameplay. They will do like,
oh, if I do this one action, I make a dollar. But if I do this other thing, I make $5. Like,
what am I going to optimize for? The thing that makes me $5. And then I can cash that out and
do whatever the hell I want with it. That is the fundamental problem. It changes the way people
think about when they play games. They don't think about being in the experience and immersing
themselves in it. They think, how do I optimize to make money in this game? And that is the fundamental
problem. And that is why until we figure out some way that the tokens aren't like directly in the
game, I just don't see how they're going to work. Like maybe there's some way they can work like in
an abstract way around the game. And maybe I'm just like actually kind of batting for the other
team here. But yeah, tokens in game bad.
He's cooked.
We're already in his head.
All right.
For team four, I'm going to the back to back to back dub.
Sorry.
Just give me a second while I claim this half a prime that I just want for
kicking this Mark Hillian guys is that.
And going back to our counterparties, the opening statement,
I would argue over one on one thing. It's not 99%. It's 98. And that is industry rate,
dear sir, for gaming. We all know it's a hit driven business. We have two shining examples
with parallel and off the grid and now super trip land
I'd even argue is a great look at a live token and a live economy and a live game experience and that shit works
And it works great. I'm looking forward to iterations of it
proofs in the actual games
98% we take those firmly in the category of we take those chris heatherly tagging you in team
against tokens in games most teams or games launching their own tokens i should say i should
clarify this is a distraction uh in all kinds of ways the go-to market is a distraction um you know
from a design standpoint um having a variable currency that drives your game,
you know, doesn't, isn't what most game designers would choose. And then, you know, on top of that,
like, or you could say, well, it doesn't have a lot of utility in the game. And so,
you know, it's more of a governance token, in which case, what the fuck does it do? And so it's just, it's just a problem. I think, you know, stable coin, if you're looking
for fun, stable coins are a better solution. If you're looking for, if you're looking for,
you know, for speculation, I think NFTs are a great way to do that. You know, I, but I just
think that one size fits all token for most games doesn't
make sense. And if you look at most of the tokens that have done well, game tokens in general,
I don't think you could say have done well. They're a minority category relative to other
things. There's lots of meme tokens that are much bigger and do nothing.
If you look at the ones that have done well,
primarily they're publisher tokens.
I just think individual game tokens,
it's very few of these games have enough of an economy
to justify it, and it's often a bad
design decision anyway.
Just point of order rebuttal,
making the argument that this isn't what most
game designers would choose is an argument against Web3 in general.
So let's just put that out there.
Objection from Team 4.
I'll let this one go.
All right, we'll go in.
Let's see.
Team 4, I want to tag in the Jerry Bear.
Let's go back to Jerry.
Jerry, Team 4, tokens are games launching their own
tokens and using it for their economy just a great idea yeah i think you know i say this all the time
on this show but i think um we we as an industry have tried to brute force a lot of things into
just essentially what is regular gaming models and loops and whether that be like you know economy
loops or game loops or anything.
And then I always make the argument, and I have the saying,
that what we try to do here isn't traditional gaming,
and would traditional games people call these games?
Probably not.
But I think that's the point of Web3,
and I think that's the point of what we're all trying to do here,
is that we are creating or attempting to create new standards and new options for people.
And we really are the people that are creating the blueprint.
Well, I'm a marketing guy, right?
You guys are the ones that are creating like new blueprints and new, you know, ways to advance the games industry.
And I think that's really what Web3 Gaming is.
So when we look at things like AI in games or AI playing games or anything like that, no, that's not gaming, but that probably
is Web3 Gaming. And I think that there is a place for Web3 Gaming to have tokens in them.
I think what we have failed at as an industry is figuring out the proper implementations of those
things. But whose fault is that? That is the designer's fault, right? That is not a token standards fault, or that's not the fault of like an ERC-20 or an ERC-721 or any of these things, right? It's a fault of the people who are trying to implement those things.
A game designer or a level designer, whoever, their failure to properly implement something doesn't mean that tokens don't have a place.
I think tokens have a great place, and I think Parallel is doing a really good example of that thing.
Dub mentioned a couple others.
I think now that we have kind of bottomed out in gaming, I think you're seeing people just try new things and seeing what sticks.
And I think tokens are actually a huge part of that. And, you know, I think that there is a
giant lane that's open for people to implement, you know, their own token into a game and be
really successful at it. But we didn't do that at first. We tried to take, you know, traditional
games or Web2 games and then say, like, let's slap a couple things on it. And then, you know,
we tried to Frankenstein this whole model instead of building it from the ground up.
And you're seeing some teams do that now, and they're doing it pretty well.
And, you know, they've learned the lessons and they will be successful at it.
So, you know, there will be tokens in games that perform really well, both from like, you know, being in a game,
but also being, you know, what crypto tokens are, which is speculative assets.
You know, there will be teams that nail both of that. And, you know, those teams are, you know,
up here speaking and or listening. And, you know, you know, it's it's it is definitely going to be
a thing. And yeah, I'm all I'm all in on tokens. Can I just jump in? Well, just I'll just say,
like, props to Jerry for having a consistent take two years later.
He basically said he was pro tokens two years ago, but hated how all of them had been done so far.
And pretty consistent with, you know, you've seen a few things that are interesting.
That's why I'm undefeated and undisputed and the most winning MVP.
Does that really back up his argument, though, when he was saying two years ago oh we just haven't
seen enough things yet and now he's two years later saying come on guys we can see some more
things i'm sure i don't tell these fuckers how to design the games you know spank and that's why i
want to just take a moment to thank jerry for effectively making the argument for why tokens
should not be in games because every single data set out there has anomalies and outliers.
So the games that we've mentioned, which I've heard three,
yes, you guys are doing great.
Way to be the anomaly, way to be the outlier
amongst thousands of games that have failed with a token.
Of course, it all depends on how the developer integrates the token.
That's like saying, oh, Microsoft can only be successful with how they integrate their technology and do their marketing.
Of course, that's obvious.
So to Chris's point before, the token in itself to a game developer who's launching a game is nothing but a distraction.
And it's why we've seen so many games fail.
And it's why we've seen this industry in such a decline.
Of course, there's going to be some teams that do it right.
But Jerry, you yourself said you do not believe in hope.
The entire statement that you just made was filled with so much hopium.
I think I'm going to make a new Star Wars movie with Luke Skywalker and have you star in it because that was ridiculous.
I think it can be done.
I think it can come in the future.
No, I know.
Until you can bring the actual hard data.
Actual hard data of it working on an insistent basis.
Not just the anomalies.
Not just the outliers.
The facts are in the data.
Pokens don't work in games.
I mean, isn't that an argument against doing anything new, though?
If there's no data?
Absolutely.
It's like a game's flying.
Good job.
You can keep riding your horse there, Tatted. Yeah.
Here's some data
though, guys.
The number two
gaming token is Gala. The number
three is Sandbox, which just announced
they're shutting down the Sandbox.
Two build in L2 though, right?
You can't use that as an argument when you know they're
all garbage, right? I mean, let's
actually make an argument here.
Yeah, but that's what this space is saying.
That's what people are voting with their dollars for, right?
It all comes down to the money, yet again, exposing yourself.
Maybe tokens are just Google Glass, right?
You know, Google Glass seemed like a cool idea 13 years ago, but it wasn't.
like a cool idea 13 years yeah 13 years ago but it wasn't you can't you can't tell me that you
can't tell me that that that the you know that that uh like if the market is retarded like like
tokens don't work right well but that's like saying you know you can't say like google glass
didn't work that doesn't mean that the meta ray-bans aren't kind of cool you know like it's
like just because a couple people sucked at it, you know?
Like, to speak to Koji's heart, you know, just because the HD DVD didn't take off
doesn't mean Blu-rays aren't fucking awesome, you know?
Yeah, they're not kind of cool, though.
No one's getting laid in the Ray-Bans, just so you know.
Yo, I don't know what kind of porn you've been looking at,
but the porn that's coming out from those Ray-Bans are quite good.
Yeah, yeah.
I was just about to say what Tanya said.
I've watched countless hours of video, to the contrary.
I've watched countless hours.
Koji, the bell of comeuppance calls for thee, okay?
Two years ago, you said, if your argument is a bunch of people who have tried it before, say it can't be done, you shouldn't be in Web3 in the first place.
And you also said if the token is the reason people are playing the game,
you're doing it wrong.
And that's consistent with your new take.
I appreciate you, Koji.
Well done.
Well done.
Wow.
Call us team consistency over here.
Yeah, shout out.
Consistently wrong.
Did we get an official take?
I know you threw a couple out there, but did we get an official take i know you threw a couple out there but did we get an
official take from spang uh no but but i i i laid up for tatted lawyer is is how i'm looking at it
but i i'm going to do a take i'm doing i'm gonna do it right now screw you jerry um look i look i think that um what just like my entire argument is basically stable coins
and and and this is for a couple of reasons because like obviously yeah dude milk toast
and you sprinkle a little you know in australia in australia they call it fairy bread you literally
take toast and you put fucking sprinkles on it and it is the best shit it's the the it's the normal stuff that works bread sustenance plus sprinkles and it's a
little bit of sweetness that's what that's what the uh that's what the nfts are they're that little
bit that make it just that that that that hooks you in and reels you in and like at the end of
the day at the end of the day like what what hasn't been
mentioned yet is the incredible sentiment like barrier that traditional gaming has against tokens
and has against the idea of getting involved in you know these complex financial assets like if
i'm playing a game and you and you tell me that I have to buy something that's basically on a fucking crackhead version of the New York Stock Exchange, and I need to understand that technology in order to play the game and engage with that, I'm going to go play something else.
Like, we have to think about what we're competing against.
Like, look at this year.
I'm sure you guys have seen the same graphics I have of like all the games that have come out this year.
The incredibly high scores that they've been getting across Metacritic and other platforms.
Hades 2 just dropped this week and is one of the greatest games of all time. Why the fuck would I bother losing the risk of losing money in your game when I could just go play Hades 2 for $25?
It just doesn't make sense. The risk to reward
ratio and the onboarding process that tokens put on the end user cannot compete with traditional
gaming as is. It's that higher level of getting people in with a strong game loop and then elevating them to that next level with NFTs.
And I think that tokens just get in the way of that because it is a stalwart barrier against mainstream adoption.
I want to say the bell tolls for Dub.
He says there needs, or two years years ago he said there needs to be
a value exchange the player can see and today he literally claimed prime live on this fucking
episode which is hilarious well done dub still consistent as well your hand is up over to you
yeah dude uh we also forget about our lord and savior who is still not resurrected yet. And his name is Gabe Layden, and he has app tokens.
And once that shit comes out,
then everyone's going to be coming back here
literally in less than a year from now
and being like, oh, shit, tokens work in games, I guess.
Whoops.
See that coming.
No, no, no.
Keep talking, Dub.
Keep telling him.
Dude, look at that, guys.
Dub.
Dub. Dub. Dub. Dub. Dub. Dub. Dub. Dub. Dub. Dub. Dub. Dub. Dub. Dub. Dub. Dub. Dub. Dub. Dub. Dub. Dub. Dub. Dub. Dub. Dub. Dub. Dub. Dub. Dub. Dub. Dub. Dub. Dub. Dub. Dub. Dub. Dub. Dub. Dub. Dub. Dub. Dub. Dub. Dub. Dub. Dub. Dub. Dub. Dub. Dub. Dub. Dub. Dub. Dub. Dub. Dub. Dub. Dub. Dub. Dub. Dub. Dub. Dub. Dub. Dub. Dub. Dub. Dub. Dub. Dub. Dub. Dub. Dub. Dub. Dub. Dub. Dub. Dub. Dub.. Dub. absolutely no no no keep talking dub keep telling him dude look at that guys dub and greatness comes out of him shout out dub also jerry two years ago dub said that big time had
you know solved the economy thing and figured it all out so you know well if they had they done
we were gonna leave that part out i i just heard chris heatherly say
that our tokens are different um i don't want to ruin the after show but you win the edward
scissorhands awards for splitting hairs man thank you i glad i i i want to thank the academy
tony two years ago said we need to accept the pain and cost that comes with not just
regurgitating an existing successful model and bolt on a token but we really innovate
and create a reason for the token to work in the game tony today you're on team against token
what say you what a dumbass that guy was who who was who let that guy have an opinion on
fucking anything holy shit um yeah no uh i i eat those words i i swallow them and i'm eating crow
i was wrong is the only honorable person in web3 uh and everyone else uh is a fucking pirate what
about me i had the same take well Well, yeah, but, you know,
Jerry, I can't call you honorable.
I don't know if anybody would call you honorable, Jerry.
We love it, though.
They do call me MVP, though.
Yeah, but, yeah, that was...
I think gaming tokens
are going the way
of the NFT, and I haven't seen
anyone really figure out a compelling reason
why that
why that might not be true um yet but maybe maybe maybe i'm wrong i think ygg might figure it out
with their with their casual ygg play stuff that they're doing but um yeah that guy was an idiot
don't listen to that guy singin team, Team 4, I'm going to you.
Yeah, I'll have my spiel
and then I'll have my rebuttals.
I'm using notepad here a bit.
Yeah.
Look, guys. If you're going to say
tokens don't have a place in games
like MMORPGs,
like competitive games like poker,
like, come on. Obviously, yes.
They do have a place in games
um the thing is like if you're looking at like how the execution has happened a lot of times
you know when you look at something like pixels right they were very much on the back foot and so
a lot of their like use case in terms of like yes play, play to earn for user acquisition, it works, but having it only
as a singular game loop, rather than like morphing over into something that's a sustainable revenue
model. You know, what this really comes down to is this, and my eyes have kind of been wide open
on this very recently, especially after Pirate Nation, is that I no longer give the benefit of
the doubt to other teams that they actually know what they're doing. And the reason it comes down to that is that, you know, when we talk about being a game designer in this field,
yeah, Chris is right. Like people don't want to deal with this kind of stuff,
especially the differentiation here is not that the game doesn't have tokens.
It doesn't have an open like floating token value because it's extremely, extremely, extremely difficult.
The fact of the matter is is is like when you're debating
here and you're not talking about like its effect on acquisition or retention or you know where like
the real kind of meat of this is it's like we're not even like scratching the surface here um you
know i had a call recently with a major fund out of hong kong and you know surprisingly enough the
thing that they were talking to me about was the token sustainability and the revenue model, which I was really surprised about.
And I said, guys, listen, I've had this talk the last three years.
I'm not going to be able to explain it to you whether or not this is going to work because I've had my model looked at by other casino and poker executives that I know, friends of mine.
And even their conclusion is like, Sinjin, you know, we have a lot of faith in you, but, you know, who knows if this is going to really work out.
And that's really what it is because it's the difference between,
you know, before flight and post flight.
And that's the level of innovation we're looking at.
And the reason why I've called people gutless wanks in the past
was because, you know, they were just taking stabs at it.
They were not really being serious about this, right?
But if you talk about like different models of what people want, like online poker is tokens and it's open.
It's not floating, but it's definitely open.
MMORPGs, they have floating values.
A lot of it is restricted, but, you know, a lot of trading is done through backdoor mechanisms.
Right. And like, look at pay to win pay to win sucks for a lot of western
gamers yet pay to win works for asian gamers um that's my intro but i want to say like tatted
you're a dumb ass uh you know tokens didn't kill this industry tokens made this industry
if there wasn't axie infinity nobody here would be talking right now full stop right it's
just that they didn't know how to figure it out right they didn't move it from like an acquisition
like mechanism into an actual revenue sustainable model limbs you know like if you want to like
optimize to earn and you know whatever so on and so forth you know again yes it's the job of the
game designer but again the the level at what we're talking about is that you know flight the
early attempts at flight have you seen them with like bicycles with wings and people falling and
breaking their necks and stuff like that it doesn't work it looks the defensive wing machine looks
horrible yeah but until it actually works right and the thing is the industry has only been trying to
stick glue on wings on horses at this point honestly and i say that because if i was to ask
anyone on this panel and if i was to ask anyone in web2 as a game designer tell me all the
mechanisms for online poker and how the revenue works and how do you put like someone from a
lower tier to higher stakes they couldn't answer that on top of every single casino mechanism there is.
I know every single casino and poker mechanism.
I've been in the video game industry for like 30 years, right?
On the competitive scene, right?
If I wanted to have a real discussion with someone and they didn't have that background,
we can't have a real discussion, honestly, because the models that are required here,
the fact that like people are looking at
tokens across the board they were using it for you know whatever raising and so on so forth but
the reality is tcgs great for collecting great for entities great match for tokens well debatable
but mmorpgs fuck man that game's made for it and everyone's saying like oh like there isn't like
this kind of example where people are willing to grind for whatever look at fucking eve online right like holy shit
like you guys just fucking lens you totally fucking invalidated everything you said in this
entire fucking like thing right so like what i'm trying to say like finally is like you know
tokens in games on a floating value right yes it is extremely extremely difficult but the reason
why you would want to have it and make the attempt to try to make it happen is that when you have it
as a fixed value it becomes a liability on your balance sheet so for instance in poker let's say
that i do free rolls okay so free poker tournament someone wants to come in and they want to play free
poker tournament i cannot run unlimited free poker tournaments because the liability is that i
have to pay back in the u.s dollars that uh that i'm not receiving so i need to convert these
players into real money gaming players right now if i have a floating token right then that
liability doesn't rest with me if there's some level of market speculation
that's moving the price even though I'm selling into it so it really is so fucking difficult and
that's the problem that people don't get it's akin to launching a new currency but the problem is
is that in any developing country if you launch a currency, you do not want it to have access to capital markets because capital markets will expose any inefficiencies and like maximize that.
Right. So like the model makes it even more difficult because if you want some of that speculative push, you have to be able to manage the secondary market.
be able to manage the secondary market but if you cannot manage the token in the game itself fully
so what i mean by that is that name me a game right now that can manage the inflationary rate
to like the percentage point there isn't there isn't because it doesn't design for it so it's
not an execution issue it's a design issue but what i'm saying is that obviously for my game i've set
out to do that and i've delayed any possible launch of a token so on and so forth the nfts were for marketing
because it is so goddamn difficult i have spent hours every fucking day for the last four years
and i can say when it comes to like game in-game economies for real money there's no one in web
three that even is close to my fucking background, not even fucking close.
And I'm telling you, I am so scared shitless every day with so much anxiety because it's such a difficult task.
So if you really want to look at it, it is a design issue.
And the fact of the matter is that most people in this space don't even know what the exploits are going to happen.
But if you have experience in dealing with real game economies, right, you know where these exploits are going to happen it's up to the game designer first design something that can be executed we're
not there yet but when flight happens see you on the ground you motherfuckers
Sinjin two years ago you said how many brand new currencies have worked out in the beginning
they don't that's why we have reserve currencies. Ultimately, when you do an open economy,
you're launching a new currency
and it's almost an impossible task.
And then you also said,
as soon as it gets out of control,
the game is dead.
And you also said,
you screw the entire company
and any potential the game had.
I believe that's pretty consistent
with your behavior of not launching a token
to this point
and trying to do it as carefully as you can.
I appreciate that.
You did call out Tatted, though.
Tatted, I'm going back to you.
I just want to say I 100% agree with your take there, Sinjin.
I agree that MMOs have the best foundation for these tokens working.
The only real thing I want to –
and I agree with you when you talk about casinos and gambling,
and I also respect your background so much.
But from both you and recently, Jerry, all I hear is the talk of theory. And sometimes theory does not always work out in practice. Oftentimes it doesn't. And it's not to say that it won't
work out, but to stand here today in October 1st, 2025, and say that this is a model that works or something that works,
it doesn't. And the proof is in the data. It's not that I don't think it can't work in the future.
Maybe it can if something changes, just like maybe super intelligence is coming,
which right now people don't believe, some people don't believe it'll ever come.
But the proof is in what's happened today. And that's not to deflate anybody's hopes or dreams or motivations to try to innovate and make it work in the future.
It's just we can only go by the data today.
We can't go by hopes.
We can't go by dreams.
We can't go by this pie in the sky, la-di-da.
We just have to go by the information that we have today.
And I love the theoretical points that the pro token side is making but over here on the
anti-token side we live in reality we live in fact we live in data and we can only speak from that
and i'm going to eviscerate you right here and this is the point is that if you're talking about
data name me another hit wet three game that's hit mainstream that is all the success that you would want right that doesn't even have a token nitro yeah they have a token that's a pay-to-win game
but but it's a successful game just because you don't like the style of the game it is it's still
successful what do you mean and they have a tokens yeah so what are we talking about here but the
token isn't why it's successful the token isn't even introduced to the to introduced to the player base until they reach, what, like level 40?
And most of the player base doesn't even know the token exists.
So I guess the question here that you're asking is, would that game still be successful without a token?
So is that really a web free game at all, even?
But the question you're asking is, would that game be successful without a token?
And I'm going to say yes, which, again, kind of lends itself to the do games need tokens point.
And the answer still is pointing but
then you've just you've counter-addicted yourself again because fundamentally it's the same model
with just some token window dressing on it so it's not really a web3 game that we can look as a model
but i mean what is a web3 game it's a game that's based off of blockchain technology so if i can
trade assets back and forth using usdc why does my game need its own individual token named after my game
if that's your definition that's fine but my definition of web 3 is an innovation that trumps
you know what's out there so if you look at nitro's like uh what do you call it performance
right and you compare it to its comparable web 2 counterparts it's nothing special it's a gimmick
for them right if we're talking about like actual dependent, like difference between riding a horse and flight, that's what we're looking at here. So
like, that's the other issue is that if we're like doing like comparables, right? Like right now,
like the comparables in web three are pathetic. So someone gets like 2 million revenue a month
and like, wow, this is fucking awesome. And this would be a totally failed game. Oh, this mobile
game got like fucking 1 million downloads. Oh, that in real life like in a web 2 you know view it's fucking pathetic right if we're looking at what like an
innovation is supposed to be you know if we say like look at like smartphones and when steve jobs
like uh releases iphone okay it doesn't just compete with flip phones it absolutely crushes
and if you're here not to crush right and not to define
web 3 as a game that crushes right then i don't know why the you're going through all this misery
not directly to you tatted but to like everybody else and that's why i believe as a founder i
believe in his vision i just think just the vast majority of founders in the space don't have your
ability don't have your background don't have your ability, don't have your background, don't have your knowledge,
and are not capable of launching a token with a game that will be successful.
And that's why we've seen just game after game after game.
I agree.
I am so disappointed.
Like I used to give the benefit of the doubt,
but once I don't give the benefit of the doubt when I talk to other founders,
right, it's just brutal.
So when I talk to other very established founders,
the conclusion we end up getting down to is that like for our particular model, I've basically until you make a dollar in actual revenue, let's agree to disagree. And I'm like,
yeah, absolutely. I mean, that's them like treating me as one of like the top guys in my
industry. And that's the best we can get to. So I totally agree on that respect.
Great takes boys. Awesome discussion. We've got two more hands I'm going to go respect. Great takes, boys.
Awesome discussion.
We've got two more hands I'm going to go to.
I'm going to also ask for the MVP votes.
We're just going to go ahead and say this one is still up in the air.
We'll check back in in another 200, or sorry, 100 episodes, and we'll see where we're at then.
Let's go over to Spang and then to Lems to wrap it up.
If you guys can also give me your MVP votes too.
Yeah.
My MVP for today, I think, honest to God, after that, it's got to be Sinjin.
Sinjin Crush that I love.
I love hearing him get fucking fired up.
It's what keeps me going through the long night of the soul.
the long night of the soul. But I think, I mean, I think we're like, you know, the debate's kind
of over. So I think what we're all kind of saying is tokens don't work in their current format,
and they need to have special considerations. Tokens, raw tokens on the market, free trade, floating value is too much of a pain in the ass.
And that's why we need tech like app tokens, tech like stable coins to kind of hone in and give game developers control over these assets and allow them to design the systems that we love so much.
And because they can design them.
And that's why, you know jerry's over there huff and
hopium because he believes in the systems that can be designed and i think that the current way
the current like complete free market approach to tokens doesn't give developers that level of
control they need to design these beautiful systems that we want um and that's why you know
we need tech coming in and new tech, not that
stable coins aren't new tech, but new applications and new integrations and new infrastructure that
allow us to create environments in which these perfect systems that we all want and are striving
for can be designed.
Lem's over to you, brother.
All right. First, I just want to say like shout out to monty pawn who's
like an og listener of the show i pulled this quote from that last episode because it was just
like too funny which is that i i like gaming tokens so i can sell them to buy games without
tokens just thought banger line shout out monty um mvp has to be singin like as much as padded was
like on my team and like fought a hard fight there,
as Spang said,
Sinjin absolutely...
He took notes through every single person's points
to have rebuttals for them
and was just the most impassionate take.
Yeah, GG Sinjin.
Bangers from BigSinge.
Chris Heatherly, I'm going over to you.
Who's your MVP of the day, brother?
I got to give it to T tatted i think best tag team partner since jeff hardy wow what a great reference that's a great one uh jerry uh on that note god yeah chris with
the fucking swanton bomb um yeah uh um koji it's it's koji because the edward scissorhands Um, yeah.
Koji.
It's Koji.
Because the Edward Scissorhands for Splitting Hairs Award.
Like, Koji doesn't really make me laugh that often.
But I actually laughed out loud.
So, shout out, Koji.
Shout out, Koji.
Koji, on that note, who's your MVP?
Well, first of all, I appreciate it, Jerry.
Jerry's just, I do make him laugh.
He's just mad because I called him larry david at one point uh my mvp i mean okay shout out to tony i said it was going to be tony because he he had that line when we were talking
about xbox but i think you know i want to fly with singin you know i want us all to fly so it's got
i got to give the MVP to Sinjin,
but runner-up to Tony
for being the fucking man.
Dub, who you got?
Oh, dude. Easy call Sinjin.
He just tore it up.
Without a doubt.
Big Tony, two-tone.
Yeah, we're going to have to
give it to the king of Korean barbecue, my man Sinjin.
Well, well, well.
Here we are yet again.
Big Sinjin, MVP of the day.
Raid Boss, if we had MVP 100 episodes ago, I have a feeling you would have won that one too.
Great takes.
60 seconds of FaceTime.
Take us away, brother.
Yeah, my MVP though, just to say, is
Tadde. I really enjoy debating
with him. It's always nice to eviscerate
a lawyer as a former
business negotiator
who used to take on firms of lawyers
to just have fun with them and
play around with them. My MVP
as well would have been Nob. That pussy
couldn't wake up for Game of
Pride as well. And I'm glad he's not here because then I would have been knocked that pussy couldn't wake up for a game of pride as well
you know and I'm glad he's not here because then I would have lost anyways just because he's so
articulate I'm very thankful to all you guys on this panel it's my highlight of the week I pretty
much have given up like really putting myself there on Twitter just because it really is last man standing at this point.
In terms of like what we're doing, the reason I'm not in Singapore right now is I'm in the
middle of doing all our marketing launches at our venue in Thailand. It's going extremely well.
We have one partnership with a major esports team in Thailand, and we're on the verge of another
one. And we have like three other partnerships that are coming up with a luxury esports team in Thailand and we're on the verge of another one. And we have like three other partnerships
that are coming up with a luxury bag brand.
And thanks to an introduction from Justin Lucas,
we might get an alcohol sponsor
to do in-game promotions as well,
who really appreciate that our game's plus 20.
I don't think the Saudis will ever gonna buy us
because our game is very haram.
So I don't have to worryis will ever going to buy us because our game is very haram. So I don't have to worry
about getting acquired in that
space. Look, guys,
this place is brutal
and gaming is brutal and
doing Web3 is even more so brutal.
But I think, you know,
once the playbills get out there, like it's
going to be very retroactive in terms of like
hindsight 2020.
Okay, yeah, that worked. That didn't work.
You know, making a token release then or then, you know,
it does make a massive difference.
You know, we are preparing for it again.
Like I spend sleepless nights,
like having anxiety and nightmares about everything about it.
And I think that's good because, you know, I, I fear this.
And I think fear is, um, appropriate to say, you know,
what we're kind of up against to say, you know, what we're kind of up against.
But, you know, why I'll always say that Web3 Gaming is inevitable is because, like, when you're in an industry and you make really good connections, really good friends, and you're with really intelligent people, right?
We can't all be wrong.
But, you know, game is so difficult, right? I mean, if we're going for the low hanging fruit, you know,
people talk about like social casino or casino or DJ and games, go back. I have receipts on this.
It's very obvious. We could have done this. And you know, whether it was staked or whatever,
like that's been going on forever. And even when state came out and people were like,
why don't we do crypto casino stuff like state? I'm like, I know how this industry ends up because i've been at the start of the online casino industry and the social casino
industry i know where it ends up and it's not it's not that it's not bad for revenue it just
doesn't move the space forward and at the end of the day i mean the contributions here coming out
to gamified and stuff like that it's a question of whether or not we are pushing this space forward
or not that's my litmus test it's not the money it's not whatever it's really question of whether or not we are pushing this space forward or not. That's my litmus test.
It's not the money.
It's not whatever.
It's really like, are we going to make a mark here?
The jury's still out.
Absolutely.
That is absolutely correct.
I don't know whether or not we're going to be successful or not,
but I'll tell you that when I make that one fucking dollar of revenue,
I'm going to fucking go, well, I, you know, pretty fucking hardcore, I was going to say something
even more rude but like
beep beep beep
yeah, thanks, I think I went over
the two minutes but I absolutely
love you guys
I love you too Sinjin, always a pleasure
to have you and if you guys
enjoyed any of these talking
points and more, please share us as
your favorite podcast
with some of your friends. You can find us on Apple and Spotify podcasts. I want to make sure
that whenever we have these great debates that it doesn't stop here. It's super, super important to
me. And people have been loving it as a podcast. I've been getting texts every single week of
people saying they shared it with their friends. They rated us five stars and it just means the
world to me every single time. So thank you guys for doing that.
Got to give one more enormous
mountain-sized shout out
to the number one sponsor
in the entire universe.
For 100 episodes,
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They've believed in creators' backed content and carried this show through storm after storm.
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And I just want to say one more enormous thank you for making my dreams come true to earn a living from hosting a show like this where we have honest debates.
We bring you guys genuine content.
And thank you again to all of the incredible panelists as well
that are willing to put themselves on the line
to have these kinds of very, very, very hard conversations
and be genuine and honest to what they really believe.
I think that this is what pushes the space forward,
among other things.
And I love you guys for that.
Also got to give a huge shout out to Remix,
a sandbox of scroll stopping surprises
awaits you where creators
conjure chaos with nothing more than vibe coding
and curiosity. It's a digital dojo
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on the line right now it's the official game studio of gamified find us on ios today thank
you guys i appreciate you every single week 4 p.m eastern we'll be back same time same place
and uh shout out again singin mvp despite waking up at four in the morning in Thailand, man. I love you guys. Can't wait to run it back.
Fuck Duncan.
Knock, you pussy.
Keep sleeping.
Sweet dreams.
We're going to find out if Knock actually listens to these episodes
whenever he isn't on them,
depending on whether or not he jumps in the group chat
and says, I'm not a pussy, guys.
If he listens all the way to the end to hear that,
that'd be very impressive.
It would be.
It would be.
Please don't go in another coma. Thank you.
