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Gamified #45 | Gods Un-Epic’d | Pudgy World | DDM
Recorded: Dec. 13, 2023 Duration: 2:05:06Space Recording
Full Transcription
GM, GM.
What's up, boys and girls?
Good to be back for another episode.
Sam, I have wonderful news.
Oh, God.
I'm terrified, and I can't wait at the same time.
I heard back from the Airbnb owner.
Drum roll, please.
They've got your cell phone.
They've got it.
It's safe, and they're going to deliver it to Easy,
or Easy's going to pick it up.
Hey, let's go.
We're so back.
Not what you expected to hear, was it?
It was not.
I thought you had something in store for me
that was way more subultuous.
I think we all expected Tony to say,
I heard back from the Airbnb owner,
and my Airbnb account is banned.
I owe a whole bunch of fines.
No, it was so cool.
I messaged them, and I was like,
hey, so we want to get a cleaner,
and just wondering if you mind if I stay
for a couple hours later just so they can fix things up.
And they got back, and they were like,
no, man, you paid for a cleaner when you got this place.
You're good to go.
I was like, oh, wow.
You guys are incredible.
Tony's the goat.
He sent me a picture of him talking to this Airbnb person.
He pitched them shrapnel as he was asking for my cell phone.
He was like, if you guys are able to hook us up with that phone
that Sam left there, by the way,
we could get you access to this really great game called Shrapnel
that's coming out soon.
I was like, what a freaking legend of business development.
I should have finessed that into the intro.
I'm sorry, Tony.
I didn't have time.
It's okay.
I love you, man.
We got Saints up here, too.
Man, it's going to be a big day.
GM, GM, everybody.
A huge day.
My apologies for the slight delay.
Just trying to get the co-host and speaker slots figured out.
Gaming on AVAX, I believe I sent you the co-host slot.
Let me know if you need me to follow up on that.
AVAX intern fucking up again.
We love the AVAX intern, okay?
The AVAX intern is our favorite person.
And as always, that's actually Ed Chang looking to ruin Fresco's life.
Nah, dude, I'm convinced that's some intern that they're like,
just go do this for two hours.
You'll learn something about social media and marketing.
That's what most places do with interns, right?
I don't know, man.
You tell us.
I made Saigo live with me for three weeks.
Same, same, but different.
All right, we're going to jump into it without delaying too much.
Welcome back.
The sovereign strategist who didn't merely play his cards.
He reshaped the very rules of the game.
It is said that with a single masterful move,
he brought online poker to the majestic shores of Macau,
granting it not just presence but prominence.
His exploits didn't stop there.
With an astute acumen of an audacious ambition,
he wove a tale that culminated in a grand exit to the titanic Alibaba.
But be warned, beneath his celestial stature lies a force formidable and fierce,
an enigma that entrances and enthralls.
Behold, the tycoon of table games, the titan of taboo.
It's from my angry Yakuza girlfriend, Sinjin.
Yo, what's up?
I just saw Sinjin's eyes for the first time the other day
because he did some podcast and he wasn't wearing his signature sunglasses.
And I was like, oh my God, is that Sinjin?
I couldn't even recognize him.
Like, I've literally, even in person, only ever seen him with his sunglasses on.
So, amazing.
We'll get into it later, brother.
You're even handsomer when you're not blocking your eyes.
That's his poker playing prowess.
And real quick to everybody in the comments,
I see we're already 25 deep.
I gotta focus on the intros.
But if anybody wants to comment their favorite intro over the next few minutes,
I'm gonna hook them up with a Bullyverse NFT value that I think like .07 Ether.
They're not cheap.
So, shout out.
Get those comments in.
Up next, from the hallowed halls of public speaking where words became his weapons
to arenas beyond our shores where he was heralded as an internationally acclaimed debater.
Our guest's resume reads like an icon's biography.
In the realm of mobile gaming, his touch turned to gold not once, not twice,
but a staggering 12 chart-topping times.
Now delving deep into the enigma of Web3,
he's charting unexplored territories with tribe,
enchanting enthusiasts, and inspiring insight.
Welcome to the panel, the baron of blockchain, the monarch of mobile,
the Web3 warlord, the digital deity.
It's Saint.
Let's go.
Always hyped for being here.
It's a great panel as well, man.
A lot of fun stuff happening, man.
Can't wait for the topics.
Thanks so much for having us here, Sam.
We are absolutely stacked today, brother.
Up next, battling blazes and bolstering businesses.
Our guest, Brilliance, bridges both bravery and boardroom bounties.
From the scorching scenes of smoky skyscrapers to the sophisticated sectors of scaling startups,
he's seamlessly shifted, showing a shrewd skill set seldomly seen.
It's not just fires he's fought, but the fervent fields of financial forays he's fortuitously fostered.
Having harnessed hefty heights in Web2 with revenues royally rolling,
he now navigates the nuanced nexus of Web3, weaving wonders with every winning wager.
Of course, representing my angry accuse the girlfriend as well now,
the mastermind with the Midas touch, it's Jerry, the Golden God singer.
Yo, what's up, everybody?
Happy to be back from Miami.
You know, everybody talks about Solana there.
So I've been spending the last few days pumping my Solana bags.
I guess that's the way, since we've been hanging out with EZ so much.
And of course, emerging from the depths of e-commerce,
here's a man who swaps the corporate jungle for the adrenaline-fueled first-person shooters,
charting a course like a heat-seeking missile.
He transitioned from the cart-filled corridors of Amazon to the gunpowder-packed galaxies of gaming.
Within the Web3 warfare, his sniper-like precision ensures that shrapnel shatters the status quo and always lands a headshot.
Yet amidst the bullet barrages and virtual volleys, he stands as an oasis of congeniality,
an avatar of amiability amidst anarchy.
Brace yourself for the incoming barrage of brilliance.
It's the FPS fiend on the combat connoisseur, Tony V.
Hey, thanks for having us, everyone.
Super excited to be here, and it was so much fun hanging out with everyone at Basel this last week.
Can't wait to chat it up.
Thanks for making Basel an amazing time, my guy.
And for the first time on the gamified stage in the high-octane orbit of online analytics,
Illuminary looms large.
This man is the CPO and co-founder of Helica Analytics,
and he heralds from rich history in gaming data, having honed his skills with Zynga and SciPlay.
A titan in the terrain of tech, he's not only navigated but also nurtured the nascent nature of various startups,
making him a magnificent four-time exit streak as a founder and core team member.
At the helm of Helica's product team, he's the mastermind molding and mosaic of groundbreaking tools.
Ladies and gentlemen, fasten your seatbelts for the architect of analytics,
the sovereign of the systems, the vanguard of virtual valuation.
From Helica, introducing Lucas Fulks.
What's up? What's up? Excited to be here.
Also, that's the ultimate hype.
I want to enter every room like that from now on.
Yeah, that's fucked up, Lucas.
I did a panel with you at GDC.
I gave you an intro, too, and it wasn't bad, man.
Yours was good, too, but let's be honest here.
Sam's got a skill.
That's a real skill.
I'm so glad to have Lucas here, too, and Helica.
Y'all are our favorites.
We love working with Helica.
They are fire in the space.
More people need to know about them.
Let's go, Paul.
Thanks for the alpha the other day.
I can't say anything.
Oh, dude.
Hey, if anyone's going to get the alpha before anyone else, it's going to be the one who runs our analytics.
What can I say?
Paul's already pumping bags on that note.
Pumping, Paul.
Prepare to peer into the prodigious path of Paul, the paramount patriarch of pixelated panoramas, propelling from a petty proposition to a pivotal payday, he proficiently parlayed his platform, persuading Zynga to pivot from a paltry $20 million offer to a preposterous $180 million payoff.
Persevering in his pursuit, this programming prodigy partnered with the powerhouse Microsoft, marking a monumental moment in his march.
Presently with Wildcard weaving its way into Web 3, we watch with wonder as his wisdom works its way through this wondrous world.
Paul, a paragon of paternal patience, pairs his passion with play, with the preciousness of parenthood, personifying the pinnacle of professional and personal poise.
Welcome to the panel, the prolific, polite, polished, overlord of omni-channel odysseys.
It's the peerless, the paramount, Paul Bettner.
Pow!
That was amazing.
Oh my gosh.
That was more P's in a row than has ever happened on this show.
And I am stunned by your acumen and abilities, Sam.
I'm so glad to be here.
We are almost on our way to DreamHack.
I'm leaving tomorrow early morning.
Big show this weekend.
One of the biggest web-to events that happens.
And it's actually my first DreamHack, so I'm so excited.
Anyway, Wildcard's going to be there.
We've got a lot of stuff happening this weekend.
Thanks for having me on the show.
Big shout-out.
Excited for you guys at DreamHack.
We actually touched on that on the show last week.
I know you weren't able to make it, but really, really excited for you guys.
Up next in 2021, this dynamic innovator took the helm as a product lead for NFT drops in collaboration with none other than Jack Butcher and Tyler Hobbs, two luminaries in the NFT space.
Today, they stand as the founder and CEO of the world's largest pioneering Web3 gaming studio that set the stage for limited-time on-chain events every few weeks.
Their latest creation is sure to be a sticky situation with Sperm Game launching today and promises a seven-day on-chain gaming event worth $20,000 worth of prizes.
Paul clearly not tuned into the space.
I must be a little bit too head down.
With an act for creating unique experiences at the intersection of crypto and gaming, this man is carving out a space for himself in Web3.
From the world's largest, it's Patrick.
And I'm not going to ask what is the world's largest.
It's open for interpretation.
And so, yeah, it's whatever you want it to be.
So, thank you, Sam.
That was awesome.
And, yes, Sperm Game is out today.
Check it out.
The world's largest can see the link in my bio.
And, yeah, it's a lot of fun.
I've had a lot of people playing.
Some good feedback.
So, definitely hit me up about it if you have any questions.
Appreciate that.
And last but not least, enter the digital domain's dynamic denizen, the sly strategist who seamlessly stitches our symposiums into seamless sagas, the labyrinth of our lively discussions.
He's the silent sentinel that steadies the ship.
As the conversation cascades into the cryptic corners of Web3, he's the curator of clarity, the weaver of wisdom, deftly demystifying the densest of discourses, so trusting of each other we are that we thought both of us would submit the overworld whitelist, which neither of us did, if you saw that on Twitter.
Thanks again to Jeremy from Overworld for being so flexible and letting us get those in late.
My huge apologies and love you.
Now, stand and salute the sage that scales the summits of support, the nimble navigator of our narrative, the petite but powerful patriarch weighing in at 2.4 pounds.
Let's hear it for the Little Lizard legend.
Lams.
GM, GM, and yeah, been living in my box of shame for the overworld whitelist, so that was a good time, but we got there in the end.
And yeah, shout out, Patrick.
I'm going through the comments here, and it seems like a lot of people are hanging out, listening to Gamify, and playing the sperm game.
It seems like the thing to do for today.
Please, I hope you mean like an actual game.
Yeah.
I want to give a shout out real quick.
Edge of Chaos and Bullyverse both gave us NFTs.
Bullyverse is actually the mystery boxes, so they're going to mint on the 20th.
I just want to make that clear.
They're not the current NFTs that are out, but I think those mystery boxes can contain NFTs that are on the marketplace right now.
And then Edge of Chaos also sitting at like 0.1 ETH, so we're giving out like an entire ETH basically of NFTs today.
Huge thank you to that.
And before we jump into the episode, prepare for a pulse-pounding plunge into another power-packed episode of Gamified.
Before we do embark on our electrifying expedition, let's shower salutations upon our colossus that anchors us.
Avalanche, the official blockchain of Gamified.
In the vast and frozen frontier of the blockchain universe, where obscurity often veils opportunity, Avalanche emerges as the architect of innovation.
This towering titan of technology triumphs over the icy tundra, meticulously transforming the treacherous terrain of digital ledger labyrinths into the crystal clear pathway forward.
They're not merely carving a niche, they're crafting a crypto kingdom amidst the frosty wilderness of the blockchain, forging a legacy of legendary proportions.
And now, steel yourselves for a sensational spectacle as we turn the spotlight toward our other sponsor, the tactical titan of triumphs, Shrapnel, the official game of Gamified.
This first-person shooter phenomenon is a high-octane odyssey into the heart of Web3 warfare.
With Shrapnel, you're not just firing bullets, you're forging a legendary legacy of lethal skirmishes.
So get ready to parachute into a world where every click is a captivating countdown to cataclysmic chaos.
Navigate to shrapnel.com and enlist with your elite call sign, poised to grenade your way to glory in this breathtaking battlefront.
If anybody in the comments wants to tag Shrapnel and Avalanche, say thank you for supporting your favorite Twitter space.
I will hook you up.
Well, not all of you, but a couple of you win some NFTs.
I want to do that, too.
Big shout-out to Avalanche and Shrapnel.
Fucking love you guys.
We're jumping into it.
Kate Irwin from Decrypt.gg reported today,
God's Unchained, or yesterday, I believe she reported,
God's Unchained was removed from Epic Games Store because of the play-to-earn elements,
which ended up giving it an ESRB rating of adults only.
We talked recently about how it was great to see 70-plus games on the Epic Games Store,
but is this the beginning of a giant purge from that list after this news?
My question for the panel, what's your reaction, and is this the true death of play-to-earn?
Paul Bettner gets his hand up first over you.
Okay, definitely not the death of anything, but it does suck.
Like, I really, as a creator, when we saw this happening as a developer,
we were like, okay, we need a lot more information about this.
I reached out to Kate.
I reached out to our friends at the ESRB.
We haven't yet had a conversation with them,
but we have a lot of experience working with them on games that we've shipped in the past,
especially the Lucky's Tale game where we were aiming for an E for everyone,
and so that takes a pretty in-depth conversation with ESRB about the things that you can and can't do
if you want to get that rating.
I'm very appreciative of the work they do, and, you know, especially as a parent, you know,
the ratings that allow me to sort of decide what I want to get for my kids and learn more about that.
Like, so, but as having experience working with them, it is complicated, the set of things that is,
you know, they try to be as objective as possible,
but a lot of cases, like, games are always pushing the boundaries and trying new things,
and so they have to be pretty dynamic of figuring out, you know, the rules for what classifies a game
in one category or another.
This is such a dynamic and emerging frontier that we all now need a lot more information about
why did they give the adults-only rating?
Was it because of specific token-earning mechanics?
Is it because you can earn NFTs in the game?
What if you have a game where you have NFTs that unlock things in the other direction,
where you not necessarily earn them in the game, but you can gain NFTs outside of the game,
and then when you connect your game to it, they unlock skins or something like that?
Is that okay?
Like, so, there's, this just needs to be a more nuanced, evolving conversation
where we come up with the rule set, especially so developers like ourselves and champions
and anyone else knows how to navigate this correctly.
So, I'm awaiting that more information.
It's really, really crucial that we get it now,
and this isn't just some arbitrary label to get slapped on games
because they happen to touch crypto.
That would not be helpful to anyone.
I believe my man Saint got the hand up next.
Yeah, I mean, I think this is the reality, right?
What we're going to see is this consistent uphill battle of bringing Web3 products to Web2 users,
especially as we deal with these walled garden and centralized agencies
that control a lot of this distribution.
And this is exactly the problem that you've seen also in free-to-play mobile.
Ram through a lot of these same issues as well,
is that free-to-play and the IAP economy was essentially trying to get understood.
You know, the biggest advantage back then was you had, you know,
essentially the support of Apple and Google because they knew this was the actual business model here.
This is the problem with Web3.
No one's really putting it as the anchor of their business model.
A lot of people believe Web3 is actually going to cannibalize a lot of the Web2 products
whenever that shift may happen.
But let's also be real.
Fuck the ESRB.
Fuck a lot of these agencies.
I know Wild Paul's trying to be nice because he's worked with a lot of these agencies historically before,
and I have too.
But honestly, all these individuals are trash because, again,
if you're going to make a statement like this, give us clarity.
Give us any clarity.
But in reality, they're not giving you clarity because they want to make this a muddy battle.
They want to make this obfuscated.
This is the exact same problem that games were dealing with with Apple and Google before in the past.
And these are the tactics that every Web3 studio is going to have to deal with.
And this is also another harsh reality check to realize Web2 adoption is probably further away
because we don't even know many of the hurdles in front of us yet.
Well said.
Tagging in knock next.
I think that there's a lot more to unpack than we've sort of given credit to.
You know, the first point is we don't know that the Gods Unchained team doesn't have a rationale.
Right.
And it's not anybody's obligation to share that rationale to the broader public,
at least yet in this stage.
It's a case-by-case basis.
To me, this feels like this is the type of thing that you want to happen.
If we want to play this game, if we want to see distribution,
we need to understand what we can and can't do as companies building in this space
so that we can play the game the way that the game is designed.
I know we want to, like, you know, kind of link things to the way that mobile was
and the whole battle that Epic's undergone with the Apple Store and the Google Play Store.
But realistically, we're a decade away from that.
We still need to set the stage and the foundations for what we can and cannot do in this space.
And a team like Gods Unchained are just one of the first teams that's actually been under the gun here.
They're going to figure this thing out.
They're going to have conversations with the ESRB.
We're going to get more clarity on how this operates.
But this is still a net new industry.
It's a new era of gaming.
We don't know how things operate.
The ESRB is probably erring on the side of caution to protect them and their brand as well.
I think that we need to allow this to play out a little bit more before we take sides here.
I want to give a shout-out to Pawn in the comments.
He says, if it's not reversed, to what extent could this also affect mobile games?
What's the treatment for OA games?
Not sure what OA is in this context.
On the Google Play and App Store, please, big brains of the scene, clear my doubts.
If anybody else wants to touch on that in addition to answering the current question.
Yeah, well, I was just going to say, I mean, this isn't just for video games.
I almost posted this yesterday and they retracted it because I kind of agree with Noc.
We can't jump to conclusions here.
We don't know the details of why the ESRB made this decision.
And we do need a lot more clarity to what Saint was saying.
But if you start to assume the worst, well, they're just not going to have games with NFTs in them.
Or the ability for a child to, say, open a random thing and get something that's worth real money value.
Maybe that's what they're, but then I'm like, okay, so are you going to put adults only on Pokemon packs and stores?
Like what?
So none of that would make sense.
And I don't think, like, they don't benefit by creating something that's confusing or singles out a particular industry.
Like Noc was saying, they benefit by having a trusted brand that parents can, you know, feel like has some consistency and trust.
And it doesn't lock out legit developers and creators who are trying to make products and get them into the hands of younger adults or kids.
So anyway, I just, you know, I think, like Noc said, we need to wait to hear more.
And I don't think assuming the worst just because it's crypto will necessarily be the case.
But it does suck.
I wish we had more information.
That's the part that sucks.
Yeah, a thousand percent.
Shrapnel, tagging you in, Tony.
Oh, I was just going to, I was putting my hand down because I was going to repeat a lot of what was just said.
But agreed.
I wish we had more information.
I, it feels like this is one of those that we may see the ESRB treat games that, like, look that they are not for, as if they are not for children differently than those that look like they are for children, just from a pure aesthetic perspective.
But that's speculation on my part was the only thing I was going to add.
Interesting comment from Peyton from Champions Ascension, the founder of the Wolves Dow, the patron of pooches, as we know him, the curator of canines.
It could also be connected to the layoffs, the pivot to automation from the Epic Games Store.
Some people think it was an auto D-list based on things from the website.
Interesting stuff.
Koji joining us.
Over to you, my man.
Hey, I mean, I'll echo what a bunch of people already said.
And sorry I'm late, Sam.
I'm just out in the middle of a Canadian wilderness on a Starlink over here.
But basically, like, I think that we're going to have to wait and see, but there's always a canary in a coal mine in this sort of scenario.
I mean, when we talk about, like, play to earn economies, we have the benefit of seeing what happened with Axie and sort of learning from that.
And I think that, like, now we're talking about rating systems for games and how that affects putting it into some of these larger distributors.
It's like, OK, so now we have, like, this is going to be our test case.
And we'll see what happens at the other end.
And the rest of us will kind of take the learnings away and adjust accordingly if adjustments are needed and then hopefully get out there into the world.
So it's just, like, one last hurdle before, you know, hopefully everything's fine.
Knock on wood.
Tagging a Lucas, folks, from Helica.
Yeah, I think I just want to say I tend to align with what Paul and Knox said, honestly, which is this is probably the first of many.
Like, this is if you're shocked by this, I think the next 12 months are going to be pretty surprising for everybody.
We're going to find the boundaries and the guardrails.
To me, you know, we don't know what happened behind the scenes.
There could be more to it.
There could have been some instant.
There could have been some communication leading up to it that just wasn't adhered to.
The reality of it is I look at it almost from, like, obviously an analytical standpoint, which is when we start running up to these guardrails, we can start smashing down walls.
If we don't know about them, we can't even compete with them.
So I think it's a good thing.
Let's bring it to light.
Let's have it publicly have the discourse and conversation and just get through it and keep moving.
All right.
Well said.
I'm going to do a couple of quick giveaways before we go through the rest of the hands.
Tin, considering I've been playing Sperm Game for an hour, Patrick's intro was the best, and the game is great.
Patrick, you've got one ambassador in the audience.
Tin is going to win a Bullyverse Mystery Box.
And then NSA says thank you to Gaming on Avax and Play Shrapnel for supporting the best creator in Web3 gaming space.
Heck, on the whole Web3 space, man, I appreciate that.
You're going to win an edge of Chaos NFT.
Lem's, if you can mark those down, I'd appreciate it.
Knock, I'm sending it over to you, man.
What do you think about Gods Unchained being removed from the Epic Game Store?
Yeah, I mean, I think the biggest piece here is that, like, we tend to forget often in crypto that we are operating a lot of the time in an asymmetrical way in terms of, like, where information is coming from.
We don't have all of the context here.
You know, we saw this recently with people getting really upset about, you know, a certain marketplace doing a certain thing.
And I think that, well, on the surface, it looks one way.
It's important to try and understand what's going on underneath the hood.
You have to remember, we're working in a new industry with a ton of regulations that are still very unclear or, like, straight up being made up on the fly.
It's important that we tackle these sort of things now in this early stage.
So, towards the end of 2024 and into 2025, as people are coming online, we understand the rules of the game that we're playing.
This sort of thing on the surface is not an inherently bad thing.
We need to be able to tackle this stuff.
Sinjin, send in the road to you.
Yeah, I mean, this is just a process.
I mean, with every new industry, you see this.
And, you know, obviously coming from, you know, the real money casino and, you know, poker industry, you know, we've had to deal with this all the time.
But, you know, here's a question for everyone who's got their panties in a bunch here, okay?
Would you rather have, like, clarity like Steam does and says, fuck you guys all?
Or would you rather work it out with, you know, Epic who's trying to figure things out?
You know?
And so, like, I would say, to be honest, you're all a bunch of gutless wings anyways for going on these centralized, you know, Web2 platforms.
But, you know, because we do have, you know, like Hyperplay and everything else like that, which we should try to be supporting.
But, you know, I get where we're at.
But, you know, it's a process.
So, just deal with it and just be happy.
At least one of these Web2 guys want to work with us.
All right.
Appreciate that.
Saint, over to you.
Yeah, I don't know.
I think it's a little surprising to hear that people are willing to take a wait-and-see approach.
I think there's still a lot more analysis here just in the actions the ESRB has taken.
And, like, I think the stuff that's most telling is the fact that they're willing to announce this and block this without actually having a depth of conversation directly with the team on that.
And I think there's, like, also an understanding here is, like, if we're actually trying to get to a mutual goal, I think there's a way better process here from the ESRB to kind of understand where that will come.
And I think this is also what we've seen traditionally is when teams or, you know, centralized groups or, you know, these kind of walled gardens, when they do make these decisions, they intentionally make them vague to give them cover.
And I think that's usually a net bad.
Don't get me wrong.
I understand people are saying, like, this is going to force a conversation.
But really what I see is that, man, there's just more and more hurdles to Web 2 distribution consistently through where is it going to hit?
And that's really the hardest part because you already have a hard enough challenge of figuring out can an open economy even scale?
The question will be is can I even be able to get to distribution now to be able to get to that open economy?
It's this kind of layering of this kind of, you know, structures that is actually inevitably crushing Web 3 game development in a lot of ways too.
And I'm not saying that this single-handedly is crushing it, but this is also one of the core challenges of whether or not this space matures.
And this is that attack that you're going to consistently see.
And there's also a much larger conversation to understand here is, like, ESRB's incentives are actually aligned with Web 2 gaming companies, not Web 3 gaming companies, right?
If you look at historically on how they've been structured.
So the question that begs is, you know, do any of these Web 2 entities feel threatened by Web 3?
Because, again, when someone figures out in Web 3, all of Web 2 is going to be scared, right?
Because you'll have advantages in growth, advantages in CAC, advantages in LTV.
So I think that a lot of people might not be seeing, like, underneath this all, this is going to be that major pressure that is going to continue to make Web 3 development really hard.
Does it mean that it inevitably stops it to zero? Absolutely not.
But does it mean that it can absolutely be a huge thwarting function that can massively hurt a lot of the Web 3 games in development now?
I believe so.
And that's what I really would keep my eye on.
I don't really think this is something that I really want to wait to see it play out.
I want to understand who's going to be the aggressor here as well.
This is a really interesting one.
I'm going to let it run a little bit long.
Gabe Layden also comes in with, ESRB has been trying to break into mobile for more than 15 years.
The platforms block them.
Google and Apple have their own rating systems, and they are allowing Web 3 games on their stores.
He also says, St. Web 2 hates ESRB.
They blocked them on mobile.
I appreciate that.
Chime in.
Lenz, I'm going to send it over to you.
Yeah, just to jump off what Peyton was saying as well about it being automated.
I saw someone had said in the Wolves there the other day as well that the God's Unchained website tagline changed.
It used to say the trading card game that pays to play, whereas now it says the trading card game where every card in victory is truly yours.
So maybe it was some automated check, kind of like how Facebook will do checks on ads and things like that, and then they flagged it as violating TOS.
So it's hard to say when we don't have all the details yet.
I also wanted to highlight a comment from Josh P in the audience.
He's from the Bornless team, and he's saying, if someone under 18 earns crypto in-game, do they even have a legal off-ramp?
Exchanges are all 18+, as far as I know.
It seems to me this is more about liability protection from the ESRB.
All right.
Appreciate that comment as well.
Knock, over to you, man.
I actually agree with that comment, and it should be about liability protection.
We need to understand the rules here.
Like, I'll give you an example.
In the NFL, it's not a one-to-one equation here, but in the NFL, if something happens on a play, they'll allow that play to play out and then review whether or not something was an actual penalty because they don't want to interrupt the flow of the game.
They have a way to retroactively solve the issue.
When you're talking about Web 3, where so much of the legislation, especially in the United States, is unclear, you take the opposite approach.
You get overly aggressive, and you retroactively move back some of those layers as we start to understand what the actual rules and the laws are here.
I don't want to just focus in too heavily on the ESRB here.
I think that this is, like, universally true in Web 3.
We don't know all of the laws.
Every country's got different laws.
Teams, especially teams that are in governing bodies, are going to take a heavy-handed approach when it comes to operating in this space because it's better for them to play it safe, to understand the rules that they need to operate within, and they can set precedent for once that becomes clear.
But it's not clear yet.
All right.
I'm going to give a couple more mystery box whitelist and then, of course, the NFTs for Edge of Chaos to people that retweet the space.
I want to get a couple more retweets.
Get the people in here.
OG in the audience from Games.gg says,
There are straight-up pornography games full of nudity on EGS and gambling games tagged T for Teen.
So these ESRB ratings mean nothing, to be honest.
Appreciate that take.
Shrapnel, tagging you in, Tony.
Yeah.
With all this extra scrutiny and lack of clarity, I really have to ask Toji, on a scale of one to worried,
how worried are you that someone from the ESRB is just going to stumble across your profile and band parallel as a result?
Honestly, I let the eggheads do the worrying.
I think that, like, basically, we're just going to keep doing what we're doing until someone slaps us hard enough in general.
And so, you know, we just kind of roll with the punches.
Because we knew going into this that this was going to be a questionable space, and my profile being the most questionable of all.
I appreciate the honesty.
Paul Bettner, over to you.
I actually think there's a bridge between what Saint was saying and what Nock was saying.
And the bridge is us.
This is a roll-our-sleeves-up moment.
This isn't, like, there's sort of, like, two approaches we could take here, right?
When Web2 has rules and regulations and things that are in place because that's how the market has evolved
and that's what's currently keeping consumers safe or, you know, with trust or what have you,
then we could do two things.
We'd be like, fuck y'all, we're going to go do our own thing and you can come to us.
Or we can roll up our sleeves and be like, that's fine.
Let's start figuring out how to reach that audience, how to reach those platforms.
Like, this is nothing new to game developers.
Every time you want to get on a platform, like, especially one that's controlled by, like, Microsoft with the Xbox
or Sony with the PlayStation or, God forbid, the most amazing platform, the Nintendo Switch,
the amount of things, there's an entire process, rules that nobody sees that's called the certification process
for actually allowing your game to launch on one of those platforms that, in some cases, is so egregious,
you guys wouldn't even believe it, but they are the things that Nintendo, for instance, is just going to say,
sorry, but we are not going to put, we're going to let you put this product in front of our customers
unless you do these things.
So I'm not, you know, for me, as somebody who's worked in this industry for a long time,
I get why a lot of developers might be like, I don't want to do that.
I'm just going to be an indie game on itch.io or whatever.
I'm not going to play these rules.
That's fine. But for those of us who are trying to bridge that gap,
trying to bring the games that we're working on that are Web3 games to a truly mass market,
we have to roll up our sleeves and do that work and meet the customers where they're at.
And so we're here for it. I hear what Shane said.
It's like we've got to take an aggressive stance.
And for me, the way I would phrase that is we've just got to be proactive.
You can't sit back and wait for that slapdown to happen.
You have to reach out to the ESRB.
You have to reach out to these groups, including the platform console owners,
because in our case, we want Wildcard to be on consoles, which is really the highest hurdle that I can imagine,
and start doing that work now and figuring out what can we do without just abandoning Web3.
How can we build the game we want and achieve the vision of a Web3 game
while still reaching these customers where they're at today?
Well said. Patrick, from the world's largest, over to you.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Building on that point, I'd say one of my favorite stories of Web2 regulation is the Uber story of how
every city did their own local laws and regulations and their own taxi commission.
And they basically weaponized their consumers, Uber did, of the app and said,
hey, you love this app?
Well, the mayor of New York, I believe it was, wants to ban Uber for the next year until they put laws in place.
And they basically had a pop-up and they said, sign this petition.
And I think it was like tens of thousands within like 24 hours and basically weaponized consumers.
And so I'm waiting for that moment in the space.
And, you know, you can, we, as founders, Web3 builders, operators,
we can sit around and kind of point fingers and complain,
or it can kind of just focus on building and get creative with it and can like leverage the communities we have
and allow them to kind of speak for us.
And who knows what that'll look like.
Oh, I just have to jump on that too.
I just got to jump on that too for a second because, yeah,
as much as I'm trying to be positive and proactive,
I am definitely against the weaponization that can sometimes happen in these places.
Like people can use these mechanisms and these regulations as a way to sort of get their,
you know, impose their will.
And I do not support that at all.
But unfortunately it is sort of this kind of political thing that is required to navigate these spaces.
It's not simple.
And I don't mean political in the bad sense.
I just mean that there's a lot of stakeholders, a lot of liability,
a lot of different things that you do need to sort of bring everybody together,
bring everybody to the table and have those conversations to work it out.
And sometimes those things can go sideways and that's when those weaponization moments happen.
Those suck.
Well said.
All right, we're going to work our way through the rest of these hands and then move on from this topic
because there are quite a few.
Fresco, over to you.
Yeah, it's been a kind of a difficult discussion for me to participate in.
I know a lot of people on the GU team.
I told them I would keep the context of what happened private.
But I do want to say, to echo what Paul said, I think this is a clear moment where when the dust settles,
there's going to be a clear path for still being able to operate on something like Epic or Steam.
I mean, in this case, let's talk about Epic, right?
There's going to be a way to be able to go forward.
And capable teams should have zero issues being able to adapt, you know, as a small pivot, right,
into how to still work, you know, rewards-based systems into a game, you know, how to still be a Web3 game,
you know, that's compliant on these.
And, you know, I think that if people, if some of these games cannot navigate around that,
you know, it's, that says more about the team, I think, than it does about any rules that are going to be in place.
You know, I think when the dust settles, this is overall not going to be a big deal.
But, you know, if, yeah, I mean, I don't know.
I think this is kind of more of a nothing burger than anything else.
All right, Lucas Folks from Helica.
Yeah, very last thing on this.
I think Paul and everybody have summarized this pretty well.
But one thing I'll add is I think that what we're seeing right now is that Web3 just doesn't have a product that's unignorable yet.
And that's like a mantra of mine that I genuinely try to carry is, is like, for a business, for a game, for a company,
you have to become unignorable, where when someone wants to write regulation,
when someone wants to build processes that live by,
they have to work with you because losing you will cost them or will make it to where they lose too many customers.
And I think that's what people need to focus on is like, we're going to see more of these regulations.
We're going to see more of these problems.
Build something great.
And then the rest will take care of itself.
Because if it's good enough, everybody will play ball.
Yeah.
I mean, look at the battle that Epic just won against Google, right?
They took a stand because they had the customers.
They were able to have that weight behind them.
And that, that was amazing.
Exactly.
So, knock over to you.
Yeah.
I mean, I think the biggest takeaway for me, especially over the last couple of days with this
and a few of the other things that have gone on in the space is more of like a plea to consumers in the Web3 space.
Too often, something happens and we just go, nuh-uh, and we don't like it.
And we've set our opinions on it immediately.
And there's no additional context or research or anything that has been done.
I think, especially in this next era, as people start to pay more attention to the games that come aligned, we're going to be under more scrutiny.
You have to be educated.
You have to be willing to see something on the surface and dive a little bit deeper and educate yourself and take an opinion and take a stance.
Because just saying no to something that on the surface you don't like does not push the industry forward.
If anything, it hampers us.
And I'm seeing it now with this conversation on social over the last couple of days.
You're seeing it with some of the marketplace issues.
You're going to continue to see it with a bunch of things as we move forward into the next year.
Spend time.
Get educated on the content.
Let's have some real discourse around this stuff because we don't move forward without it.
And, Sinji, for the last word before we move on.
Yeah, I guess on a more serious note, I mean, this is what I did professionally, you know, when I was at PricewaterhouseCoopers and stuff like that.
And I would, you know, I would advise in spaces where regulation hasn't happened yet.
And there's a key thing to kind of look at is that, you know, there are the regulatory bodies and then there are the established players who abide by that regulation, right?
Or maybe or may not.
But, you know, there's two different distinctions there, right?
But in terms of, like, where the interplay happens, right?
That's where, you know, a lot of the confusion happens because is this happening on the regulatory side or is this on the walled garden side?
But the walled garden platforms, I mean, they have a liability issue, right?
And the regulatory sides, right?
The reality is regulation is always, like, it could be even, like, five to ten years behind where the industry is at.
And whatever they say publicly is kind of what sets.
And so it's not that they want to effusicate the situation.
It's that in reality is a lot of times they just don't know.
And, you know, what I would recommend to everyone is that, you know, as we get into this and certain things make it clear that these are kind of touch points for where regulatory issues can happen, is to really just be proactive.
Be proactive and really look at and assess, like, where are these risks, where are the things that are the unknowns, and be ready to pivot with options, right?
Because expecting them to kind of, you know, cow down to us, that's not going to happen.
Even in the case with, like, Epic and, I mean, with Epic and Google and stuff like that, I mean, Epic went through the process, made a shit ton of money, and then decided, okay, look, like, this is not, like, tenuable moving forward, right?
You know, waiting for that moment to happen for Web3, you know, that would be wonderful if it did.
We had a great product like that, right?
But for the moment, in kind of inching forward, I mean, we just really need to be proactive.
All right, great discussion, guys.
Really appreciate the founder knowledge that you bestowed upon us.
I got to give a quick mention.
Unfortunately, it looks like the space is bugged, so everybody that's requesting to come up, I can only send you an invite to co-host, but the co-host invites are full.
And then whenever I'm sending people speaker invitations that are not requesting, it's saying that they're not getting them.
So, unfortunately, if you can't hear somebody and you're on the space already, please do not leave the space, because if you do, then I won't be able to get you back up.
That is unfortunate, but every day we just try our best to navigate Elon's chaotic world.
I want to give a shout-out, speaking of chaos, Edge of Chaos NFTs, they're giving us five to give away.
Their game's a retro dungeon crawler, where Age of Empires meets Diablo.
Triple-A game, supermassive sandbox survival is on the way, but right now it's kind of a minigame situation.
And then there's an advent calendar worth $40K.
And also, Bullyverse is giving away some mystery boxes through us as well.
Two people for retweeting.
Mike, Ray, Kilo, all one word.
And OneWay448.
Appreciate you guys retweeting.
And if anybody hasn't won one yet, keep retweeting.
I'm going to go through the entire list, not just the people that do it immediately, and give away a few more a little bit later in the show.
My next question, we're not going to spend too much time on this, because the previous topic took a lot.
But big deal, little deal, no deal.
Pudgy Penguins, Pudgy World trailer.
I talked about this on Simplified.
But with Gamified having the best game founders in Web3, I thought there's literally no one better to tell us,
is this another PFP project without utility seeking a layup, or is this a big brain move seeking to resurrect the previously beloved franchise with a twist?
A couple of quick stats.
The success of Club Penguin led to New Horizon being purchased by the Walt Disney Company in August of 2007 for the sum of $350 million.
In 2013, Club Penguin had over 200 million registered user accounts.
If you're doing the math at home, that's 40% of OneWordsWithFriends.
Shout out to Paul Bettner.
And Club Penguin was later shut down March 30th, 2017.
It was then replaced by a successor, which also failed, Club Penguin Island.
Paisan, who I was there watching the trailer with in real life, said,
I knew that they needed to do a better Club Penguin.
This is awesome.
He was so excited about it.
So my question again for the panel, quickly.
So is Pudgy Penguin World a big deal, little deal, no deal?
Paul, I want to tag you in first on this one.
I think it's a big deal.
I didn't get to put my hands on it, but they brought a playable game.
And not just the trailer.
Like, yeah, the trailer's actually great, too.
But the playable game's the big deal.
I watched a bunch of footage of people playing in those kind of stand-up arcade games things.
And, you know, it looks like a cute little platformer with social elements.
And, like, from what I could tell, just looking at those videos, looking over the shoulder of those people that are playing,
like, it's not just something that somebody slapped together in two seconds.
Like, there's some decent production quality there.
The controls look good.
The gameplay elements look interesting.
So I think that's a big deal.
That doesn't come easily, just even getting to that point.
So on the other hand, I will say it is very difficult.
As somebody who has developed an E-rated game, as I mentioned earlier, with Lucky Sale, it's a tough market, right?
You're up against the biggest brands that just saturate the space.
Everything from Nintendo, all these beloved nostalgic brands that have a dual benefit, right?
They're not only something that appeals to a kid when they see it today, but all of us as gamers are like, oh, I still love Mario.
And so, like, what's actually tough about breaking into this space, just as an anecdote, is when you don't have that benefit of nostalgia,
what happens is, like, kids might say it's cute, but then parents don't necessarily buy it from them because they're like,
I want my kid playing the games I grew up and loved, like Mario and Zelda, etc.
So it's a hard space to break into, but I, you know, especially seeing them in the store with their toys,
seeing them show up with a playable game, seeing them kind of knocking it out of the park in terms of the quality of the IP,
I think they got a shot.
It's so interesting for me to see Pudgy Penguins, and the better example here is VFriends,
these NFT brands that are targeting super, super young generations,
whenever NFTs are clearly for, like, 20-year-olds plus.
Koji, I think you had the hand up next. Over to you.
Yeah, I'm going to go and say the same thing.
Big deal for a number of reasons.
I think that, like Paul said, it seems like a, I haven't played it myself,
but it seems like a playable experience and not just sort of a hat, like a slapped together product.
But I also think that it's a big deal because it just shows, like, in aggregate,
that the Pudgy and Luca are able to sort of deliver on a regular basis.
You know, they say they're going to do something and they do it,
and they don't just do it in a sort of like, you know, we check that off the list manner.
They're delivering it in a way that seems like a marketable product.
And just, like, anecdotally, so Pudgy's, the toys aren't available in Canada as far as I know,
but Luca was nice enough to send me a bunch of the stuff,
and maybe that makes me a paid-for shill, I don't know.
But he was nice enough to send me a bunch of stuff,
and my kid won't put down the big stuff, Penguin.
And so I think targeting the younger generation seems to be working
because she is dragging that, like, Hawaiian shirt Penguin with, like, a little hat on everywhere.
And I'm like, fuck, I've already ruined her life.
You heard it here first.
Koji is bought and paid for.
Fresco, over to you.
I'm going to do 30 seconds each for the rest of the hands here on this one.
Yeah, I think it's a big deal.
I still think, you know, I was, like, maybe the least excited person at the Pudgy event.
And I think it's big for maybe in a different way.
I think if they do it well, I think you'll see, like, the Izukis and the other PFP projects
maybe try to, like, lean back into gaming a little bit more.
I think if they don't, maybe it's, you know, these projects looking at and thinking,
let's just leave gaming to the people that know it.
Also still think that if you are a grown person that goes to play that game,
please let me know so I can block you and never let my nieces and nephews around you.
All right, Tony, for the shrapnel account.
Yeah, I would say that I share the perspective that it feels like Luca knows what he's doing.
I wasn't at the party, so I wasn't able to check out the experience hands-on.
But I share Koji's perspective that the stuffed animals are fire and my daughter loves them.
And so I can see a world where Hazel is waking up in the morning and asking me to play in Pudgy world with her instead of the Sims,
just based on what I've seen Luca deploying.
And I do think that they – I think that he has a vision for what he wants to do,
and it feels like he's executing well at each step.
And so I'm certainly pulling for him.
All right, Sane over you.
Yeah, I mean, I've been a huge Pudgy fan since the early days.
It's a big deal, but it's a big deal for another reason.
It's a big deal because it's showing what a luxury digital NFT can look like without needing to put pump metrics behind it.
Right?
This is a project that is still scaling up in floor price that has no upcoming yield,
no token being promised, no other upcoming airdrop.
It is a team that is purely winning on execution.
And that is fucking rare.
We're not even talking about that.
And exactly as a few other people did mention, like, Luca just continues to show up.
In regard to this game experience from a Web3 gaming perspective,
I don't think it's that big of a deal, to be very honest.
But it's rather the aggregation that they're showcasing a new builder strategy
and new community alignment strategy that doesn't have every single holder in chat asking for when more ETH.
And I think that's super powerful and might be one of the first designs of luxury digital NFTs that isn't shitty.
Really well said, Stane.
Appreciate that.
Mark, over to you.
I think the beauty of what Luca is doing is that he's creating a brand and an IP that really has intergenerational appeal.
Like, you've got people who are 30-plus paying attention to Pudgy Penguins for the last year and a half.
You've got kids now who are going to go into a store and see those cute penguins.
And then they're going to come home and go online and play with those penguins in this digital experience.
I don't think the vision here is a full-blown game in the same way that, you know, Parallel or Shrapnel or Meiji or Wildcard might be a full-blown game.
I don't think that that's the case here.
I think it's an additional touchpoint where they're going to have their core audience interact with the Pudgy ecosystem.
You're going to play with a toy.
You're going to play with this basic digital experience for a little while.
Your dad's going to go and purchase an NFT.
You're going to talk about them on a Twitter space for four hours a week.
It's something that is getting everybody involved from the top down.
They're building more touchpoints for different people to get their hands on the ecosystem, to become familiar with the IP.
I think it's a major deal because Luka genuinely understands how to build a brand.
I don't even think he thinks that the game is a big deal for him long-term.
I think it's an important touchpoint.
It's important right now in the short-term.
But long-term, there's going to be a hundred different versions of some activation that Pudgy's going to do because Luka understands the importance of making sure that no matter what it is that you're doing, if you want to relax for five minutes in Pudgy World or if you want to play with a stuffed animal, you've got something that is tied to the Pudgy universe that you can interact with.
Nostro in the comments says, I just watched the Pudgy World gameplay.
It looks really good.
And Paisan, who we mentioned a second ago, says, big freaking deal, a playable game.
It also helps that their TikTok is absolutely crushing it between these little skits and going in person and buying kids the Pudgy Penguin toys.
Lucas, tagging you in.
Last bit, and I won't deviate, big deal.
I think you still have to execute, but I have played and seen literally thousands of games in the last year, probably.
And the level they launched at is non-trivial.
So it says to me that there's at least some gaming chops there that can take it the distance.
And I think what somebody spoke to earlier is one of the most impactful, like, things you can have for a game is IP.
And rather than licensing that and taking on that expense that gives overhead to running a good game, they built it from the ground up.
And so they are the IP owners of what is becoming a very large multi-generational brand.
And I think owning that and owning the skill set to build good games could mean something really big for them.
I like that take.
Appreciate it.
Sinjin, I'll give you the last word, and then we're going to try to sneak in one more topic before the break.
Yeah, I just want to tie this back to regulation.
So this is a perfect example of where you have an intergenerational brand or a brand that appeals across the board, right?
And Lucas has been doing everything right.
He executes very well.
I have a deep respect for the gentleman.
And then here's the danger point I just want to point out is that as soon as they try to financialize this, right, with staking or tokens or whatever like that,
watch how fast the fucking SEC comes down with the charge for, like, or marketing or whatever like that in terms of, like, underage, like, you know, financialization type of advertisement that's targeting, right?
So this is kind of a danger that you're doing.
You're building out a brand that is highly, like, financialized as well.
That's intergenerational, right?
So, you know, I just wanted to point that out that anticipating these kind of things is what kind of keeps you ahead of the game when it comes to new industries like this.
Yeah, it's great context, man.
I think that's important to remember.
The topic that I wanted to sneak in, if possible, is what's the word for Web3 events?
I was at Art Basel along with some of the people up on this panel, and there was a lot of events that were flashy and fun, but a lot of people leaving them, including the Sappy Seals event, D-God's event, Pudgy Penguins event, sometimes they didn't have a shift in sentiment.
I will say leaving the Pudgy Penguins event, I did hear some people be like, you know, I got to sweep those floors.
But Sappy Seals and D-God's, while they were exciting, there was a lot of cool stuff going on, people were like, eh, like, I kind of expected it.
D-God's spent a bunch of money on having, like, a supercar there or some shit.
Alternatively, Shrapnel had a totally successful event without any gameplay being shown whatsoever.
They cultivated this really amazing house where content creators were able to come, create content together.
It was a meeting place.
They had a pool table and arcade games, and it was super chill, but they didn't feel like they were shilling anything.
So they just passively were in a lot of content.
They provided a Nerf gun fight, and it was just a really cool community of, like, 40 or 50 people that are all gamers in the space.
And I thought it was super successful.
So my question, again, is what's the word for these Web3 events, and what makes a successful event from the product standpoint?
I know I'm kind of throwing a lot out there, but Koji, I want to send it over to you first, man.
I know you've done a lot of these events.
Yeah, yeah.
I think it comes down to, I mean, what we're just talking about is live activations, right?
It's not even about, what, three.
It's just about how do you get people in person to sort of engage with what you're doing?
And, you know, I think parallel kind of, one of the things that helped put us on the map was at the first NFT NYC, we rented a penthouse in the Edition Hotel and just held a giant Unreal 2004 tournament.
And this was long before our game was playable or showable or anything like that.
And we just had a bunch of people in sort of nostalgically playing on laptops and being like, remember when we used to do LAN parties and do all this nerd shit and whatever?
And then, like, that really brought home the, like, oh, remember when we used to collect cards and do all this stuff in our basements?
And it's really just about how do you get people to engage in an in-person manner?
And I think that, like, throwing a party with a bunch of flashy shit and, like, whatever is, like, can be fun.
But, like, anybody can do that.
And that's not going to leave a lasting impression, especially not your impression on them if you're trying to build a brand.
And so I think that, like, the smarter thing to do is to, you know, engage with people in a unique way that kind of speaks to what you're doing.
Like, I wasn't at, I wasn't in Miami, unfortunately.
But, like, the idea of a shrapnel Nerf gun fight kind of just fits in with the, like, hey, we're just a bunch of people having fun.
Oh, yeah, and our game's kind of about shooting people.
So, like, let's, you know, kind of marry these things.
And that makes perfect sense to me.
Whereas, like, if you're, like, yo, we're going to throw a party and have the fucking sickest DJs and whatever, it's, like, okay.
I mean, you know, that's splashy for a second.
But, like, I can just, you know, I can go to Vegas or I can go wherever and just do that anyway.
So, like, let's make it interesting and on-brand.
I'd be super curious to hear from people in the audience what you guys want to see from an event.
Fresco, you were also at Art Basel in Miami.
I'll send it to you.
Yeah, I was at Art Basel.
But I also have a really unique take on this, I think, from a gameplay perspective.
And, you know, I've been to, like, every one of the major conferences showing off gameplay.
And I think when we did that, we actually always walked away with, like, a pretty good experience.
We were showing off, like, a good gameplay slice at the time.
And so, you know, that was always pretty effective.
But I think, like, these guys that throw just parties just to, like, have a party, it's kind of lame.
I'll never own a sappy seal because of the party that I went to.
Sam was there, too.
A bunch of us were there.
But, you know, I think one of the genius things, and that probably cost him a ton of money, right?
Whereas, like, Tony getting a house for everybody to come through and just come and hang out and be able to talk to him about shrapnel, be able to talk to Saigo, be able to talk to Francis, who is a fucking legend.
You know, and be able to just kind of, like, interact with them and talk to them as people and understand what they're building.
I mean, they, the shrapnel team got, you know, 20 times the value of just super fans that are going to walk from that than they did, you know, than they would have gotten if they just threw a party, right?
Because at the sappy seals party, there's nobody to talk.
Like, you don't know who's on the team.
And then you're like, this is kind of a lame party and all this stuff.
But, like, there's a bunch of grown men playing, you know, Unreal Tournament or shooting each other with Nerf guns.
Everybody was having a fucking awesome time.
Tony was also very gracious, catered every day.
So it was fucking just, it was super fun.
And he created a ton of super fans from that.
Whereas the sappy seals party, we all walked away going like, yeah, I'm never going to buy one of these things.
Yeah, well said.
I want to send it to shrapnel last.
Next, NFTcap in the comments says, Pokemon is a great example of how to nail in real life activations and events.
There's always some sort of exclusive card that is dropped.
Example, Pokemon Center opened in Taiwan and this card is given to attendees, even links the picture.
So check that out in the comments.
NFTcap, I appreciate that, man.
We're going to hook you up with the Edge of Chaos NFT.
And Lucas, I'll go to you next and then over to Saint.
Yeah, I think it's interesting.
I think hype is inherently non-sustainable.
And so if you're chasing hype, you're just not going to, it'll run out eventually.
And what I think shrapnel kind of captured, and it sounds super interesting, is belief-driven interest.
And so the people got to meet the team, got to find out what they're doing, what their interests are, what they're really trying to build.
And the people that walk away from that will become advocates for that game and for that brand because they believe in the builders.
Whereas if you go to a great party, all you really learn from that is that there might be some people that are going to be financially irresponsible.
Now, that's not to say that's always the case, but I think that is what you're seeing that kind of plays out here.
People are looking for utility and actual value.
And if that utility is belief in the team and what they're going to build, then that's more compelling than just the world's greatest party.
Hannah Hughes in the comments says, damn, the seal party was that bad, huh?
I don't want to oversell.
It wasn't that bad, but there just wasn't a whole lot of branding.
There wasn't a whole lot of interest.
Okay, thanks for us.
Yeah, it sucked.
Saint, over to you, man.
Yeah, I kind of want to maybe zoom back because I think we probably should be looking at this more like a product lens, in my opinion.
The way I look at it is, right, like when you're building a Web3 brand, right, you have a unique opportunity to have both on-chain experiences and off-chain experiences.
And you're effectively trying to figure out what is your live ops cadence of managing that community.
And I don't think there's actually anything wrong throwing a dope party if it's meeting the sentiment of your market and the timing of that, right?
Like, Azuki probably still has the best activation as they led that into Elementals.
Of course, the Elementals product was not at the same expectations of that, but it was the right timing.
Also, like, D-Gods had the best, one of the best activations I've ever seen at NYC, right?
And was really perfect with where the meta is of that market.
But then trying to do another live event after missing on Season 3 just shows that they're not reading the right energy or the live operations for their product.
And when it comes to live activations, which I totally agree with, that's the core concept, I think you should be looking at it from three different ways.
You're going for live activations for a BD partnership approach.
That's, like, one of the best values because you're seeing a density of decision makers coming to one physical location, which is significantly more valuable to close.
The second reason you're doing live activations is entrenchment of advocates, right?
This is what we clearly understand, like, we want to get more Web3 influencers, partners, collaborators, and you're trying to entrench the relationship between them and your brand.
And it sounds like Shrapnel did a really great job of that.
And then the third thing, right, is, like, brand loyalty, right?
It's the idea where this is luxury digital assets for a lot of people.
So status does matter, but status needs to have class, status needs to have timing, status needs to have good context.
And I think this is the problem is that people are just using the same playbook, not understanding how to actually connect to their product experience, and more importantly, sentiment analysis.
This is probably the thing that's needed most.
And if you can understand the sentiment of your community, you can then actually build a dynamic live ops for what they need.
And I think too many people get trapped because you have to overcommit to these physical live activations ahead of time.
So regardless, it's understanding, like, fuck, my sentiment might be bad, but fuck it, we ball, right?
And that's straight up D-God's mentality.
But it shouldn't have been the approach.
And I think this is the actual challenge here, too.
Yeah, off the back of that, ICOBeast in the comments says, Frank's mistake was he actually thought NFT Paris' Sausage Fest was something people actually liked and not just the result of a crazy bull market.
That's a fair point.
Knock, I'll send it to you, and then we're over to shrapnel real quick, though, because we're going a little bit over time.
Yeah, one thing I just wanted to mention is it feels like too often teams are having parties or people are going to events because.
And, like, that's full stop.
Like, oh, we need to go.
Oh, it's a thing that's happening.
We should go there and spend some money.
I do the circuit.
I travel a lot from Magic Eden into, like, 40 different events over the last year and a half.
And, you know, it's crazy how often you see the same people there who don't have a product that's ready to ship, who don't really have any goals to get out of an individual event, are spending a ton of money hosting, you know, a night out at a bar.
Those are teams that scare me because they're burning cash for literally no reason.
I think Saints nailed it.
If it's not, it's totally fine to have a actual party if it makes sense in terms of timing of a major launch.
What to me is a red flag is a team who consistently goes to every single event, never has a plan, is willing to spend a ton of cash and don't actually get anything out of it.
But that's probably a team that's going to run out of money pretty quickly.
And more importantly, it's probably a team I don't want exposure to.
Yeah.
Don't worry, Noc.
Parallel will never pick up the bill.
Shrapnel, I'm tagging you in, man.
Clearly the winner of Art Basel.
Take it away.
Oh, that's a liar, Noc.
You paid all $12 for that karaoke that we did.
It was wonderful.
No, we had a blast in Vegas together.
But, you know, all I'll say is, you know, I really appreciate all the kind words from everyone.
And I agree with actually almost everything that was set up here.
My take on events is that, you know, you throw a party when you're launching something big.
And then everything else is really, I really like what Saint said, and this is how I think about things like this, is it should be accretive in value to everyone that participates, not just the brand that's there.
And, you know, people ask me throughout the course of the weekend, like, what was the thought and, you know, why did we do it this way?
And my thought really is that the house or the experience should be as much about deal flow and opportunity for the creators that are there as it is exposure for the brand that's supporting it, right?
So, you know, my thought is that we want, you know, Sam and Icy and Jerry to be, you know, six-figure follower influencers in, you know, in the next six to 12 months.
And we want to support that goal however we can and also help them monetize those relationships.
And so, you know, when we're able to bring other projects in and say, hey, you know, we're sponsoring for the people in this house and the media that they produce beyond what we're doing here, that's just a helpful point of proof that working with these folks is as enjoyable as it looks like on the surface.
And we think that that's valuable for everyone, not just us.
We like being the context for which those positive conversations happen.
But we really think that we benefit from just being around them.
Great stuff, Tony.
Appreciate that.
And I do believe as well, whenever you try to make something special and help the people that are – whenever you incentivize the people to create good content for you by helping them, it's just a beautiful – what do they call it?
The virtuous cycle, I think is the marketing term for it.
But moving on, let the echoes of applause detonate for our explosive sponsor, Shrapnel, the official game of Gamified.
Shrapnel's not just a game.
It's a veritable volcano of gaming greatness.
Prepare for a pixelated payload and march over to shrapnel.com where enlisting with your call sign could load you an arsenal of awe-inspiring armaments through an extraction pack.
Tony, where are the extraction packs, man?
We need you to get in the comments and start dropping those to people that are maybe doing the next thing, which is giving us their game of the year.
We'll get to that in just a minute.
Don't linger in the trenches, though rise to the occasion in the comments section of Gamified and commend your favorite panelists or dive headfirst into the day's dynamite debates with us where your words could be the key to unlocking the war chest.
So comrades of the console, strap into your virtual vests and gear up for a glorious parade of power plays.
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Raise your cheers to avalanche, our steadfast stronghold amidst the frostbite, the official blockchain of Gamified.
Big shout out to avalanche.
And of course, really quick, Gamified's newsletter.
We are marching our way towards 1,000 signups in this last quarter of the year.
Appreciate everybody that signed up.
And it's crazy.
We had a 40% open rate this week, even though we're releasing, like, three weeks ago Gamified newsletters because of the little hiccup that we had.
So huge shout out to everybody that's still opening that up and still getting value from it.
I promise, even if it's a little bit old, the amount of insights that Nock is adding every week is absolutely insane.
You will still get a ton of value out of it.
Damn, I don't have limbs here anymore because Twitter's face is bugged.
I'll find a link to the newsletter and I'll pin it up.
Nock, if you can comment a link, I'll pin it up.
So huge thank you to everybody that's doing that and Nock for taking care of that week by week.
Games.gg, Game of the Year.
We're playing Pick'Em.
I've been teasing this for God knows how long.
I've been saying we're going to wait, we're going to wait, we're going to wait.
Well, the Game Awards are, what, like 17 hours away or something?
I'm bad at math, but we're around there.
So let's get those predictions for who you think actually wins from the final five.
I've been teasing it and teasing it.
The verdict is almost here.
NFL Rivals, Wild Card, Parallel, Dead Drop, and Big Time are the five finalists.
Who do you think will win?
And then tell me who you think should win.
And that can be somebody even outside of the top five.
That's okay.
Also in the comments, if you've got a game that you absolutely love and for whatever reason isn't in the top five, you can comment that too.
I just want to get some love for some games.
And bonus points if you tag them and make them aware that we're talking about them on the space.
Tony, or actually, let's go to Koji from Parallel first since you're one of the nominees.
We'll get you out of the way.
Yeah, I mean, I'm not usually one to, you know, talk up my own project, but we will and should win game of the year 110% just because I made it and it's the best.
So there's that.
But, I mean, if it's not us, if it's not us, which it will be, but if it isn't, then it's got to be Wild Card, right?
Just because I love Paul, I love what they're doing, and I'm really bad at his game, but I still like it anyway, which has got to say something.
But it's going to be us.
So I'm sorry, Paul.
You can just throw up that crying emoji right now.
All right.
Perfect timing.
Paul, why don't we tag you in next as the other panelist for the game?
Yeah, well, you know what, Koji?
I think it should be Parallel that wins.
So there.
Okay, look, I'm going to channel a little Wild Kate here.
Y'all, our game isn't even in early access yet.
We're doing private playtesting of a pre-alpha game.
There's some more Ps for you.
And Katie is, like, honestly a little bit embarrassed that we're nominated.
I know it's part of just the state of Web 3, but, like, I love y'all.
But until our game is, like, available where you can download it and anyone can jump in and play it, it is premature to use another P.
I love the excitement.
I do.
I know that Wild Card stands up.
Like, for the people who have gotten a chance to play it, even though we're restricting it right now intentionally because we're still playtesting, we're still tuning, we're still balancing.
There's so much of the game that isn't even online yet.
People are having a ton of fun, and, you know, when you do get a chance to play it, I appreciate people saying it's the most fun game in Web 3.
I agree with that, but in terms of the game that's being played all the time, that's actually out there, and people are enjoying it on a daily basis, can download it and play it right now, it's got to be parallel.
That's what gets my vote.
Even though it's not the most fun game in Web 3, I guess.
But, you know, but by the way, 2024, like, see, because it's not even going to be a contest.
We'll take this one, and you can take the rest.
How about that?
That works for me.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Uh-oh.
Did Sam get rugged?
Oh, you're back.
Okay, good.
I muted myself when I thought I unmuted myself.
Classic.
Bobill's going to get a mystery box.
He says, am I going to get yelled at if I say game of the year was Dookie Dash?
Game was fun as fuck, incentivized, and got me to play for hours and spend ApeCoin.
All right, I'll give you that.
He also says, parallel, if I had to pick out of those five.
So he participated in both ways.
Bobill, I'm going to hook you up with a mystery box from Bullyverse.
Lucas, I know you might have to go since we're past that hour mark.
I'll send it over to you next.
Yeah, we'll have to jump after this.
What I can say is game of the year, I did play the private play wild card, and I have
to say it is definitely up there.
Like, it is a fan.
Like, for me, I would play that on the regular, so that's up there.
If it couldn't be wild card because something went crazy, honestly, I think big time game
is doing something super interesting.
There's a serious economy behind that, and I can see how that scales.
And then, obviously, a ton of our partners are building really great stuff, but I think
those are the two right now.
All right, knock over to you.
Yeah, we have this, like, internal metric called, does Harrison hate it?
And the answer, 99% of the time, is yes.
Harrison hates all the games that we play.
Harrison, for those who don't know, his song, he's a former professional Fortnite player,
Valorant player, everything.
Second at the Fortnite World Cup.
The guy is legit.
Two games that Harrison definitely does not hate is parallel and wild card.
Parallel is a game he plays nonstop.
He constantly shills to our internal team.
I love the parallel team.
I think that they've taken a beloved genre and added a couple of, you know, their own
unique twists on things.
They're integrating Web3 really well.
It's a ton of fun.
They are definitely, especially this year, probably should be game of the year.
I'm going to go ahead and, you know, kind of renege on a little bit of that and say,
it's going to be wild card.
Why?
Because wild card is taking me to DreamHack to speak on stage with them.
So for those games who are not there, bring you to DreamHack.
We'll talk on stage.
We'll give you a little boost.
But seriously, wild card is one of the games where I played it for the first time.
Us as a team played it for the first time.
And we immediately realized, like, this is something.
This is a game that is not a good Web3 game.
This is genuinely one of the most exciting genre bending games that we've ever touched.
It was still very early.
Like Paul mentioned, I still think that they've got a lot of room to run and grow.
So that game is going to be special.
I would say 2023, it's probably got to be parallel.
They're building an excellent game.
But watch wild card next year.
100%.
Another great comment.
Mr. House says wild card and parallel are two of the most fun Web3 games I've played.
And my angry, who's a girlfriend, is a close third so far.
He says, gave the nod to parallel and the awards for Paul Bettner's reasoning.
But I'm looking forward to many more hours spent in Frostburn Arena.
Shout out to Mr. House.
We're going to hook you up with one of those Edge of Chaos NFTs.
Saint, over to you.
I might be doing too many of these events because I think this is the fifth time I have to answer this question.
And I'm going to answer it differently again this time here as well.
And add some spice because I think this is also a fun conversation of what gaming is.
But shout out to everyone here on stage, first of all, who are builders.
Like this is by far one of the highest quality builder stages of Web3 gaming you will fucking ever see.
There are amazing builders who have raised capital, who have not raised capital, are building the product, are actually investing into game-first technology on behalf of all of us at Web3.
Shout out to everyone here.
I do want to call that out.
But at the same time, we're all fucking suckers.
Why are we even building real Web3 games?
You know what is the actual game of the year?
It's fucking Rollbit Casino.
Have you guys seen the motherfucking numbers on Rollbit Casino, people?
Let me just – I just want to share this as just a little bit of insight here.
These guys just did $38 million revenue in the month of September with 20,000 users, which means that that's a $1,900 monthly ARPU at the moment right now.
Average revenue per user on a monthly basis.
Holy fucking shit.
This is game of the year.
This is business model of the year.
This might be the only real Web3 utility out there.
So if we're playing that type of game and, dude, Rollbit, it's literally the shittiest fucking games you can play and some really crazy DGN trader games as well.
But, like, it is hilarious what they're doing.
And at the same time, what you start recognizing as well is that what is the definition of a game in Web3 when we have this speculator persona, this trader persona, and this gamer persona?
It's very fascinating is where does Rollbit fall into that definition of a trader-based game or is it just purely gambling?
And I think that's also another larger question of where does gambling and gaming and Web3 kind of end up sitting?
Because what does this mean?
Holy fuck.
It's going to be poker or casino that's actually going to end up winning this industry at this point.
Just really interesting going for it.
Looking at pure metric by metric.
Rollbit the god.
Would love to get Sinjin to weigh in on that in just a minute.
I'm going to go to shrapnel next.
But real quick, I've got to give a shout-out.
A few people are mentioning OBabyCart, and I know my boy Lems is not only a maxi for OBabyCart.
He also was – he placed second in one of the play tests that they had.
So shout-out to Lems and OBabyCart.
Tony from Shrapnel tagging you in.
Yeah, you know, I think that – and I've said this before that I think that video games are a hit-driven business and Parallel is clearly a hit.
And that might be the only game that we can say that of in Web3.
And so, you know, for that reason alone, I think that they're worthy of the Game of the Year title.
The other one that I would throw out there for serious consideration are our boys over at Champions with Peyton.
You know, I think that they've been hustling out there, and they've got a product in market.
They've got a product on Steam that people are playing and enjoying, and I think that they're getting out there.
So, you know, I think between those two, those would be my favorites.
But the other thing I would say is, Paul, you know, I know that you're in early access, but God, I hope that when we go in early access, we get the kind of reception that you receive because it's unambiguously positive.
I know. I'm going to DreamHack and, like, going to be talking about our community or whatever, and it's just so strange because so many Web2 gamers aren't aware of it.
But when I talk about our Discord, I'm like, there's already 100,000 people on our Discord.
So, yeah, it's a bit overwhelming. When Web3 wants to show up, they show up.
Hell yeah. OG, the man behind the scenes of the Games Awards. Over to you.
Yeah. I guess different perspective.
I'm looking at the numbers, and I don't know what gets me in trouble here.
But to Paul's point, I think the note that was sent out to all the jury members was basically, we would only consider games for 90% of the categories, excluding most anticipated and best graphics, if as a jury member, we could get them access.
And that meant, you know, giving them like an NFT that gives them access or having them jump in a Discord or whatever.
So that was kind of the premise behind it. So, you know, I think you're being a little bit too humble because I think the total pool of Game of the Year nominees was like 104 potential games or something based on the first round.
And you guys still made it to the final five.
Thanks, man. I really appreciate that. I know it's just partially due to the state of Web3 right now.
We're all kind of in that place.
We're all, you know, don't want to pre-release our game or try to get it to reach a mass audience if it's not ready yet, because great games take years to build.
And so I really do appreciate that the Game Awards is here to recognize the work that we're all doing, even though those games aren't available.
You know, in the case of Wild Card, we have a wild pass that provides lots of benefits, but we don't gate access.
If you're interested in playing the game, like we'll hook you up.
Just reach out to me and we'll get you on our play test because it's really important.
I've played it plenty of times, Paul. Don't worry.
Yeah, and I think it's different if you can't even play the game at all, like if it's not playable.
But I think it's just we all want to raise the bar.
Like we can't wait until our games are fully available and are reaching the masses.
And I'm just excited to get to that point next year.
Yeah, 100%.
And then the point I was going to make was I'm not going to toot Koji's horn anymore.
But the other shouts on the list, I think, are also noteworthy.
Like you've got a it's quite a different mix.
I think Big Time has been around probably the longest on that list.
NFL Rivals is essentially a mobile game and they've got, you know, however many three million downloads or whatever.
So completely different, I guess, entry into that final list.
And then you've got Dead Drop, which, you know, essentially has Dr. Disrespect pushing that kind of narrative behind it.
And then, yeah, you've got the Giants in parallel and everything that they've done over the past year.
So I think overall, I can't complain too much about the final list.
I can't tell you guys who wins or whatever you'll have to find out tomorrow.
But, yeah, I'm glad there's some kind of consensus in terms of, like, acknowledging that all these games deserve to be on that list, even if their founders are too humble to take the credit.
Well, I love I love how many touch points we've had, like how many people have been able to come in and play the game because they wanted to participate in this.
But we're not going to vote unless they got their hands on the game and weren't just like doing it based on screenshots or movies.
So I love that that has brought more more people into our community than pretty much any activation that has happened recently.
And I want to say I really appreciate that, too.
Could you imagine if OG just leaked the winner accidentally right now?
And the winner.
By the way, I have no idea.
So I am sitting here on pins and needles also.
And I just love how many votes.
I mean, it's insane the amount of people that have showed up to vote for this.
I don't know, Paul.
That kind of sounded like an acceptance speech.
No, no, no, no.
We all have to pre-record our acceptance speeches if we're in that final set.
So Katie and I have already done that, by the way.
I was just going to say that because Big Sam has the spotlight on Game of the Year to announce the winner, essentially.
And even he doesn't know because he has to send us the winner.
I need to go record my crying speech if Parallel does take it, which I hope.
All right, we're going to work our way through the hands.
We've got two more topics to cover on today's episode, so let's go quick.
Over to you, Patrick from The World's Largest.
Who's your pick for Game of the Year?
Yeah, I'll be quick here, but I want to give a shout-out to NFL Rivals.
And, yeah, basically, they're paving the way, similar to the conversation we had earlier around showing what it looks like to build a Web3 game.
And I think these more, like, casual-style games, mobile first, where you onboard, you don't need a seed phrase, et cetera, et cetera.
And then you start playing.
It uses existing IP, in their case, the NFL, existing mechanics that people know and love.
And then you off-board, or you have the potential to off-board into your own wallet.
You have a marketplace.
You can trade the assets that you earn as you level up over time.
SoRare is another example of a game like that.
But the NFL Rivals has a game that's showing what's possible, setting precedent through the Google Play Store,
and being allowed to operate and getting to the skill they got to.
I think it was quite impressive.
Good shout there.
Sinjin, over to you.
Yeah, Koji is definitely not a gutless wink.
I love Koji.
I love his approach.
I love the team's approach.
I mean, I think if Parallel doesn't win a game of the year, then everyone who didn't vote for them on the panel and the jury are a bunch of crackheads.
And, yeah, they should never be allowed in Web3 ever again.
I think the humility of Paul and Katie, I think it reflects their authenticity in the sense that
you can always have, like, a real conversation with them.
I mean, like, for him to come out and say, you know, he's flattered that he's in that list,
but also, you know, that Katie's a little embarrassed because, you know, where the game is at in terms of not that the game's not great and it's not playable,
but, you know, like, they're really in this for the long term for, you know, building out their game in a way that it's not looking for, you know, short-term accolades, but rather, you know, moving the space forward.
And in terms of the casino stuff is, you know, like, it's a parallel and, like, totally different independent world.
Like, the stuff that happens in casino and the stuff that I know as a game developer and an executive is totally different than the experiences that a lot of other people have had.
And in terms of, like, the entire market fit of it, and it's funny, though, because everyone who kind of gets into casino or, like, real money poker or real money casino for the first time, they're like, wow.
And I honestly, I field at least three to five calls a week from random people who are like, you know, Sinjin, can you advise us?
We're going to do this and so on and so forth.
It's all casino related.
And they asked me about licenses and stuff like this and where to get regulated and whatever.
And, you know, the crazy thing, though, is about it is, like, there's a lot of money in it, but, like, how many more roll bits are there going to be next year?
20, 30, 40?
The thing about all that kind of stuff in the casino world is, like, if you're early with a certain level of innovation, you can get your market share and you can make your money, right?
But then you're constantly under attack afterwards.
It's a bloody, bloody, bloody red ocean that it ends up being.
And I think in Web3, you know, there's something more that we're looking for rather than that kind of straight-up competition.
People are not going to see it right now because, you know, it's pretty new to them, but that's inevitably where it comes from.
And I think having something more sustainable and also having that casino element or, you know, poker element, it can happen.
It's going to happen in Meiji, but not the way that everyone else is expecting.
And I think you can do it in a very robust and unique way that's really sustainable.
All right.
Koji.
Sorry, it took me a second to unmute there.
Two things I want to say.
First of all, is I've played wild card, and I think that Paul is doing the sort of reverse psychology thing by being like, oh, no, no, we're not going to win this year.
Like, it's good enough.
Believe me.
It's definitely good enough.
I also want to say, knock, I'm appalled.
I tried to bribe him with Raptors tickets, and he did say yes, but apparently going to DreamHack is more important and buys his vote.
So, I don't know.
Maybe instead of going to see the Knicks or something, we're now going to see the Pistons.
Yikes.
All right.
Saint, I'm going to tag you.
I think you wanted to talk on the casino stuff, and then we're moving on.
Yeah.
I just love giving random casino facts because still people underestimating how good Rollbit is.
Love all these gaming conversations.
But something to also consider if you're running a gaming token.
Go look at how Rollbit's running their token.
A, not only is it a $3.2 billion FDV at the moment right now and a $600 million trading market cap, which is fascinating, but the crazy thing is that they're doing buyback burns with their token based off the revenue generated in the game.
So, on that $38 million revenue they made last month, they also burned $5 million of their token with it, right?
So, it's actually really interesting.
Don't get me wrong.
There's a lot of legal areas here as well.
But fascinating to see that they actually might have the most balanced tokenomics ever.
And it's a fucking D-Gen Casino game.
I love it.
Appreciate that.
All right.
We're moving on.
Changing chains.
Some people say the game makes the chain.
Some people say the chain makes the game.
Pixels migrated to Ronin, came back to life.
Ape Iron is migrating to Ronin.
And even more recently, we had a migration with Pegaxi to Avalanche.
How important is the chain to your user base?
And if you're, for instance, wildcard, what would it take for you to migrate from a polygon to an Avalanche?
A follow-up question would be, what is the worst part of migrating for the laymen out there that maybe don't understand the technicals behind doing it?
And real quick, we are sitting right below 400 listeners.
I really want to crest that.
So as soon as I see 400, I'm going to fucking give away the rest of the NFTs that I have.
Wild Paul, over to you, man.
You are not going to get me in the middle of a battle between Polygon and AVAX.
We are very, very happy with the fact that we kind of partnered up with Polygon even earlier this year or the year before.
I can't remember.
We had a great opportunity to befriend that team because the guy that was heading up Polygon's marketing, Chad Huggins, used to be someone on the wildcard team and introduced us.
And that has been a great relationship and especially has really worked out for us in terms of running the wildcard protocol, right?
So we really have two things happening in wildcard.
We have our assets, things like the wild pass and wildcard swag and other assets that are coming in the future that we haven't announced yet.
Very exciting stuff happening early next year.
And then we have our protocol, which is the thing that records everybody's activity within the wildcard universe.
This is the thing that right now, today, when you show up on our Discord, you can get your free wild file.
That's running on the Polygon network.
And every time then you show up to a playtest, even if you're not a player, even if you're showing up and you're live in the stands, which is something that is a big feature.
Wildcard is kind of like a unique part of the wildcard experience.
That all gets recorded on the blockchain, on the Polygon network.
That would not be possible if it weren't for these chains like Polygon, like AVAX, that allow us to do these transactions, which, I mean, we're writing hundreds of events to the blockchain every day and doing that at scale with a much more efficient network than something like ETHL1.
But on the other hand, wildcards, signature assets, things like the wildpass, I believe that those ultimately belong on the chains with the highest liquidity.
In this case, obviously, I think we all know we're talking about ETHL1 being the place that has the greatest liquidity and has the collections that can hold the most value.
We are right now working on, and haven't really announced a lot of this yet, and so just look forward to the more concrete announcements about this coming, but working on the pieces of this technology that are going to allow us to have these things happening in parallel and not only necessarily on all one chain,
so that we can have our assets, the wildcard assets that want to hold the most value, living in the same place where the most liquidity is, in this case, ETHL1, while still running together with a protocol that is operating on a chain that can have a much higher transaction volume like Polygon.
So that's, to us, what we see as the future, and we don't, none of this should be something that a user has to worry about or even think about.
They should be like, I want to go get my wildpass? Cool, that's on ETHL1. I want to go and tune into a playtest? Great, that's just working, and it's being recorded, and I can see that that's aware of the fact that I have a wildpass,
even though the protocol is running potentially on an L2. That's this kind of integrated seamless future that we've been talking about now for a couple years,
and it's finally possible and we're able to build towards. So that's what we see, and that's where we're headed.
Fred, let's go over to you.
Yeah, Paul crushed a lot of those points. I think that, you know, I don't think anybody, I've ever heard anybody say that the chain makes the game.
I don't know that that is ever how I would view any on-chain games or that have any, you know, on-chain component at all.
I think what the, I don't think there's a big deal in, you know, games moving over chains or anything like that.
I think what's a huge red flag for me is when you see people trying to have, like, a presence on every chain.
I don't think that chains are really, maybe outside of Ronin so far, that chains are great for UA.
But I think, to me, that looks at, I'm looking at that as they're just trying to cobble together every grant they can to, like, survive.
And that's kind of a red flag for me, and I wouldn't touch those.
But people moving chains, I think it's not a big deal. Different needs for different times.
You know, when you're building early, you don't know what you need, and as that comes together, you get that picture a little bit more clear.
Saint tagging you in. Chains, games, transitioning from chain to chain. What do you think?
Yeah, I'm going to throw, I appreciate Wild Paul's really politically correct answer as a CEO.
He says everything brilliantly. He's got the polygon cap table. I get it.
But here's the actual real answer that he's really thinking behind the scenes, is, oh shit, this is all EVM aligned.
If it's all EVM aligned, I'm going to take my game and my assets to vampire attack the right chains and the right order sequence with the right liquidity.
And also, hey chains, as we get bigger and get ready for our global launch, ready up your fucking cash so that you can give that to us when we come over inevitably to you.
Whether or not Wild Paul does this, I'm not endorsing any of this.
This is how all of you should be fucking thinking right now if you are a builder in this marketplace, right?
Chains are going to mature at different rates and at different speeds.
Be ready to be able to use that leverage.
And guess what? The whole fact that these chains are financialized with real liquidity behind them, it means that they always have cap table or allocation of tokens to be giving you.
If there's one thing we actually learned correctly from Frank from D-Gods, right?
It's not the fact that he switched five times.
It's the fact that he switched and got paid for it.
This guy requested a trade and got money for it.
Holy fucking shit. Play this same damn game.
He didn't take much advantage over that, right?
But same thing. You should be doing it.
And if you're a small and mid-tier studio, right now, change up the game.
Ronin's a super smart bet right now.
Ronin has active gamers.
They've already shown cases with two or three different now transitions where it's been way more successful on the Ronin chain than other EVM chains as well.
There's something really interesting there.
Dude, Tezos is giving out grants of $250K to $500K to even a million to certain games right now.
Now, Tezos, guys, we're telling you, in this end, right, your goal is to understand where can your capital best align with your best user growth.
And because a lot of these chains are EVM compliant, it's not that hard to actually make certain technical shifts.
It does change when you go really deeper down, like, say, subnet level and certain roll-up levels.
But, again, with EVM compliance, all this is up for play.
And every major change should be looking at who the hell are we sniping at the right inception point.
That's what their core betting teams are thinking, too.
You know I've got to jump in here.
And, actually, Saint isn't wrong.
So, you know, I mean, we don't necessarily go out there and talk about our negotiations and strategies in front of everyone and the discussions we're having.
But we know that a product like Wildcard presents tremendous upside to the partners they're working with.
They're running these incentivized infrastructures.
And Wildcard shows up and is driving, you know, thousands of transactions a day.
Like, that's benefit.
That's value to that infrastructure provider.
And that should look like a partnership, not some kind of one-way thing.
But, on the other hand, I think that should always be done in light of what benefits the end users, right?
So, some of those moves that we've seen in the past from, like, I don't know, ETHL1 down to an L2, like, it might have been great for Frank or whatever because he got paid in that and maybe turned around and deployed that capital back into the ecosystem, which is okay.
But I wouldn't say that the users who came along in that journey and had their assets go from L1 to L2 were necessarily happy about that or benefited by that transaction.
I think we have to take both those things into account.
It's certainly what we're trying to do is, like, you know, see the value that we bring, come up with a great deal that, you know, that respects and recognizes the value that Wildcard brings to these infrastructure providers and vice versa, but while also maintaining or potentially even, you know, benefiting the value of the folks who are coming along in that journey with us and their assets are being brought along in that transition.
Nock, I'm going back to you.
I think that there's so much nuance to this conversation that it's really hard to distill into 30 seconds, but what I will say is one of the biggest factors, I think, for games specifically is to understand that, yes, technically speaking, it might not be difficult to move from one EVM-compatible chain to another, but from a user perspective, that is a nightmare.
90% of the people who participate in Web3 don't even understand that little button in the top left of your MetaMask that switches network.
The number of times that I've seen people ask me, hey, what happened to my ETH?
It's all gone.
No, it's still fucking there.
You're just on a different network.
That in and of itself is already tricky and difficult for people to understand.
When you move from network to network, you are losing potentially trusted users, not the other way around.
There is this misconception that if I'm on every chain all at once and I don't have a plan for it, it can be done well.
I want to make that very clear.
There are plenty of teams who have done it well, but the number of teams are like, I will just go to more chains because that'll give me more exposure.
No, what you're doing is increasing your surface area.
You need to understand the language of that network.
You need to understand where the people who participate in that network, where they are, what ecosystems, what communities, how do we like to spend money?
What is too much money when you have assets that are on multiple chains and they're effectively the same asset?
You open yourself up to arbitrage issues and an asset on ETH might be priced higher than an asset on Polygon.
And again, that isn't inherently bad, but too many games.
And I know because I speak to a lot of them.
Too many games are like, fuck it.
We're just going to be on every chain all at once.
And we're going to have the maximum amount of exposure.
Yeah, in theory, you do have more exposure.
In reality, you have more verticals to specialize in, to understand community, to make sure that you're able to speak to the people who operate on that network the way that they want to be operated.
And fuck, if you think that you're going to switch from an EVM-compatible chain to another EVM-compatible chain and get away with it by not presenting any amount of information for how your users that were on one chain can bridge to another chain, you're going to lose those users.
They're going to sell that asset.
They're never going to follow you along.
It is a very, very nuanced conversation.
There's so much more we can get into it.
But at a high level, I want games to take away more chains does not mean more exposure.
It means more headaches and likely an increased burn rate.
I just got to add one small point to that.
I completely agree.
And you would be shocked at – and I'm not shocked because I came from free-to-play, and I understand that literally any point of friction, a button being yellow instead of blue, will cost you 10% of your customers.
So, you know, it wasn't really shocking to me when I realized, like, hey, we have this asset on, say, the Polygon chain.
And so, like, if you have ETH and you want to buy it, no big deal.
Just convert your ETH to Matic and go buy it.
And it's like, wait, where did 80% of my customers go?
Why aren't they doing this?
And they're just sitting there with ETH in their wallet going like, yeah, I mean, that's cool, but I'm not going to bother.
I don't want to convert to Matic and then do – sorry, I'll catch up with you guys later.
And, like, just that little bit of friction, what Nock is talking about, the confusion, the user friction, really gets in the way.
So that's a really key thing to think about also.
So Etherway has a great comment, too.
He says, if you can easily switch your game from one chain to another, your game is not integrated very deeply into the blockchain.
Good point.
Saint, I think you wanted to say something in rebuttal to Wild Paul as well.
Oh, no rebuttal.
I think Wild Paul, I love him as a CEO because he says it right.
You know, it's like I'm going to – I'm up for sale but for the right partner, right?
And it means the right alignment, which is the right way to do it, right?
And I think this is also the other interesting thing.
And, yeah, I think one of the clear things we take away from this conversation is you never want to do multi-chain of assets, right?
It's understanding, though, is that you do have an opportunity to make one strategic move.
And if you do it correctly, there's windfall of capital and windfall of potential user growth as well.
So, of course, you want to make sure when you're making that right move, you're getting all of the above.
And, again, with what you're going to see with a lot of the bridges that are now coming out, you could actually do a really fun gamified user experiences.
There's some really interesting ways.
You're absolutely right.
Like, you know, if your game isn't an on-chain game, you could actually move a lot of EVM compliance.
I think what Etherway kind of notes is most of these people are trying to build way more on-chain assets.
And the truth is most of the levels of game sophistication right now isn't really at that.
Of course, that changes as these modalities and, more importantly, the depth of gameplay we want.
But I'm telling you, most projects that I know right now that are operating on ETH can really move to any kind of EVM chain relatively quickly.
I would say 80% could probably do it with less than two months of work.
And that traditionally would be two months of work that are worth it based off, you know, potentially either the growth that you might be getting or the capital you're getting.
And this is just the new form of negotiation.
It's equity strategies, right?
This is the first time that you could actually get non-dilutive capital from a platform that can help you launch.
Fascinating stuff that really hasn't ever been available to us before.
All right, we're going to have to move on soon.
But I want to send it to Koji who has a game on ETHL1.
Yeah, I mean, I think capital is obviously important, but it's got to either serve the users, serve the game, or sort of serve the experience.
Because if it doesn't do any of those things, then, yeah, you are just creating more friction and obviously potential security risk.
I mean, anytime you have to bridge anything, like, there's a potential issue there.
So you've got to be a little bit careful with that.
And, like, I understand the sort of temptation of, like, a switching chain for UA.
But, like, if you're moving chains to get users, then your game's probably in trouble anyway.
Like, it should probably be good enough to acquire its own users.
And if it requires you to be on a chain for people to play it, then I don't know.
Like, to me, that already feels like you're on a sinking ship.
All right, OG, and then we're giving Noc the last word.
Yeah, I'm just putting on my, I guess, PokerStarter thinking hat in this scenario.
And most of the time, let's say, it goes down to a business decision, especially during the last 12 months.
I think most games, when they used to ask us what chain they should, you know, migrate to,
or if we can connect them to someone higher up within the chain,
it was usually because they were looking for, like, some kind of incentive,
whether it's a grant or some kind of partnership.
I agree with Koji. I don't think you should be moving to a chain because you just, like, want the users.
Because I don't agree with the statement that the chain makes the game.
I think, if anything, like, Avalanche is happy that Shrapnel and Off the Grid and all these games are building on Avalanche.
Because, like, they'll draw users to the chain.
I don't think Avalanche is what's making Shrapnel cool.
So, I do think, however, that, like, deploying certain assets on different chains could still be a good marketing strategy.
And I think, funny enough, I think Tony with Shrapnel probably might have the most experience there
because they did the Sigma containment unit on Ethereum, Polygon, and AVAX, I think.
So, that's kind of something that doesn't really, like, live necessarily in-game in a way that it would ruin your experience
if you didn't, like, know how to bridge between the different chains.
But, like, they basically leveraged the Polygon network, the Avalanche network,
all the creators that are kind of pushing, you know, those bags or whatever.
And I think that's a smart move.
But in the end of the day, I think it just goes down to, like, the business decision.
Like, you know, when Wildcard decides to go with Polygon and they make it, like, a deeper partnership
and they both add value across both, you know, channels, I think that's a good decision.
But at the same time, I'm not surprised by some of the games that, like, just switched to, I don't know, IMX for the token grants.
Or, you know, when Oasis announced that they were launching a chain with, like, deep connections into the Japanese gaming market,
everyone, like, immediately wanted to jump ship and go to Oasis.
So, I do think it's 99% of the time a business decision.
But, for example, I can't imagine Star Atlas moving off of Solana because, like, Solana is so integrated into their game
that, like, if they were to migrate off of it, I think it would just take them, like, so much time and so much money.
So, yeah, I guess it depends on your, you know, motivations and the business decision.
All right, the last word for Nagri.
Yeah, one thing, and I can talk a little bit about the Star Atlas thing specifically,
but one thing that I think a lot of teams aren't prepared for is that it's not as simple as just saying,
here's a bridge to a new chain.
There needs to be user incentives.
It is a very fucking complicated thing to incentivize thousands of users who own your asset,
most of which are dormant.
Most of them don't even know that that exists.
And expect them to perform an action or two to bring it onto another chain, participate in that network.
That is very unlikely to happen for most people.
It's a challenge.
And it takes a very serious undertaking to make sure that that is done successfully.
The other issue that you have when you're moving from chain to chain is that not all chains,
even if they're EVM compatible, pay gas transactions in the same manner.
How many times have you made a swap from ETHL1 to an L2 and not have the native currency to actually perform a transaction on that,
even though you swapped over ETH?
It is a very complicated thing where even sophisticated people who are into NFTs who are participating in a multiple chains get caught up on it all of the time.
The number of times that people will connect the wrong wallet to a marketplace to interact with multiple chains is ridiculous.
I don't think it's a bad thing to move.
I think you're going to see a lot of teams, like a lot of the teams that are here,
have premier assets on ETHL1 because that is where the most liquidity is.
You're going to have game layer assets on an L2 or an equivalent, and then you might have one or two other things.
Like I said, I think Shrapnel did a good job with the Sigma containment units addressing a couple of different chains all at once.
But the biggest piece for me is that the idea that you can deploy assets and then just pack up your things and move is ludicrous.
I don't think it's something that teams are going to have success with long term.
Every time it happens, it's going to be more and more difficult.
I think that teams need to make sure that you're picking a team or you're picking a chain that aligns with who you are.
Like Sainte said, I'm available for sale, but for the right partner, I truly believe that that's the case.
Tony gets his hand up real quick, Tony.
I know. Sorry. I just got mentioned a lot there.
So I just wanted to say that our strategy was very intentional, and it's largely rooted in the fact that we're building an infrastructure product as well that is used to support Shrapnel in the way that we've designed the game.
And so the multi-chain, the ability to read assets from multiple chains and then provide benefit in our game is core to the experience that we're building and core to the UGC content engine that we've created.
And so for us, it was it was less about some some grand strategy around, you know, harvesting dollars from Polygon and Avalanche and East Mainland at the same time.
God, I wish people had been giving us money to do that, but rather eating our own dog food and kicking our own tires as we get ready to roll out an enterprise level product across the industry in the next, you know, six to 12 months.
All right. We move on to date, dump and marry.
What will be the biggest narrative in Web 3 2024, 2025?
OK, the three options here are gaming, artificial intelligence and real world assets.
If anybody doesn't know what real world assets means in this context, tokenized cards, watches, real estate, et cetera.
And real quick, I'm going to give out two of those white lists that I have.
Oh, sorry. It's one mystery box and one edge of chaos.
NFT mirror tribe is going to get the edge of chaos.
NFT and then div Rin is going to win the bully verse mystery box.
And I believe I have one more bully verse mystery box minting on December 20th white list to give away.
So I'm going to give that away to somebody who plays dump date and marry along with the rest of the panel.
One more time. What is going to be the biggest Web 3 narrative in 2024?
Gaming, artificial intelligence or real world assets?
I believe I saw Koji get the hand up first.
Sam, it's because you're teeing me up big time here. Come on.
I'm going to date and marry gaming and AI. You can you can choose which is which.
I want to fuck them both. But, you know, I call him is going to take over the world.
I'm going to I'm going to I'm going to go to that.
Like calling is going to take over the world. We had a bunch of people play it.
We're releasing a video very soon. Sam graciously said he didn't want to play for some reason.
But I invited him and everyone really enjoyed it.
And it's still like in its infant state. Right. It's like still in the womb, basically.
And it's it's a lot of fun. So I think that AI and gaming together are going to take over the world.
And then, you know, I'll I'll I'll dump real world assets because I have too many of them already.
And I don't need to buy any of that shit on chain.
All right. OK, the real story here is Koji hits me up.
He goes, hey, you're the first person I'm messaging.
I want you to I want you to come to this play test for Colony.
And I was like, holy shit, Colony. Yes.
Like, I'm so in count me in, bro.
What time? What day?
And he goes. 4 p.m.
Eastern Wednesday, which if anybody's keeping track, that's exactly whatever gamified is aired for.
I don't know, maybe 47 consecutive weeks.
Oh, sorry. 45 consecutive weeks.
My apologies. I don't mean to exaggerate Koji.
So maybe if you could have picked a different time, I don't know, maybe a time that you're not committed to coming on a show every single week.
Sam, it was a test. It was a test.
And you didn't want to play bad enough, I guess.
That's it.
I send it to Tony.
Tony, dub, date and marry gaming, AI, real world assets.
What's going to be the biggest narrative of 2024?
Well, you know, I am.
God, I hope that I'm dating AI by the end of the year because I maybe maybe not the end of the year, but maybe January.
Because I keep begging Koji to let us do a collab with with Colony.
I really want the shrapnel sacrifice zone and operators running around in that game.
And Koji, I want you to know that I will do almost anything to make that happen.
And so, you know, if I need to make my tummy look like your tummy in that PFP, I mean, I'm down.
I like the tats.
But yeah, so I think I'm going to marry or date AI.
I'm definitely going to dump tokenized physical assets.
I think that we did that with the Skylanders product a generation ago, and it was cool for a hot second.
And then it wasn't cool anymore.
And then, sorry, what was the third one?
It was gaming, AI, and real world assets.
Oh, yeah.
Gaming.
I think, well, yeah, it's gaming and AI.
I think it's the, again, Colony.
I'm really, I agree with Koji.
I think, and I really, I know I say a lot of nice things about Parallel up here, but I think Colony is, like, the coolest thing that I've seen in a long time.
And, like, I desperately wish that I was talented enough to work on that product because it is really, really, really cool.
All right, Nakham, send it over to you, man.
You going to shake it up a little bit?
You know I'm going to shake this up a little bit.
So, first of all, I'm going to dump AI primarily because I didn't get an invite, Koji.
And secondarily, because I actually believe in what Koji just said.
Colony is going to take over the fucking world.
I've seen Ex Machina.
I know how this plays out.
It is something that scares the absolute shit out of me.
Colony is one of the games that I'm really excited to play, but this AI stuff is moving way too quick.
There's a lot of really good teams building really interesting stuff that leverage AI.
I'm excited for them.
I'm also terrified for when those things go live because that's some scary shit.
I'm going to date gaming because, obviously, it's something that I know is going to be around.
It's a fun time.
It's something that makes sense for the Web3 ecosystem.
And I'm going to marry real-world assets for one key reason.
My immediate thought when I first started looking into crypto was there is going to be a world where things like geeks to a home,
passports, real-world assets that aren't just collectibles, that aren't just watches and Pokemon cards and things of that nature.
We're going to have verifiable on-chain assets that relate to real-world things where we don't need to trust that this guy has a legitimate Canadian passport.
We can see that he does.
That is something that is a use case that I still think we're very far out from, but ultimately was like the first use case that I saw when I looked into crypto and was like,
this is actually going to change the world.
I think crypto will help to change the future of AI.
It'll help to change the future of gaming.
We all believe that.
But for me, it's real-world assets.
The fact that I know that I own something, I know that Paul owns that thing, anybody else can go and verify it.
It's not something that needs to be trusted.
We can verify.
It's the motto of the week for me.
It's verify, don't trust.
That is the biggest selling point to crypto for me.
I'm marrying real-world assets on-chain.
All right.
Wild Paul, over to you.
I think, okay, these are all really good spicy takes and just kind of a good broad overview of the ways that these different things could matter.
But I feel like we can all just kind of read the tea leaves, right?
We can feel it.
We can feel that the bull market is going to come back eventually, and we can feel that that market is ready to have gaming be the take center stage.
Like, when we look back at what happened before, it was all about, it was just kind of confusing.
Like, I don't know, monkey JPEGs, why does this matter?
You know, art collections, I guess, maybe, PFPs, all right, whatever.
And I can just feel this groundswell happening where it's really finally starting to click for people that gaming is actually the thing that needs these technologies more than anything.
It has a real use case.
And I can just feel that momentum around that narrative building.
So it's no question that, in my mind, gaming is going to take the center stage in 2024 and 2025 for Web3.
It's going to be all anybody's going to be talking about.
It's already where so much of the focus is shifting in terms of where people are paying attention in the space.
I love it.
It's time, the good games are coming, so that's going to happen.
I'm going to date AI because I kind of nerd out about this, and sort of watching what's happening in AI with large language models,
I think it's like, it's the precursor of these more advanced behavioral models that are coming that are going to allow incredible games to be built on top of it.
But I'm not sure that you're going to get, like, world-changing games built on top of, you know, currently AI that's really just about conversation and text parsing.
And I can't wait.
I'm sure Colony will evolve to embrace those behavioral models, and then we're going to see some truly groundbreaking stuff,
even on top of what they're already able to do with plugging into the LLMs that Colony is doing, as I understand it.
Again, I haven't played it either.
I have been invited to a playtest, but it hasn't got scheduled yet, so I can't wait.
So that's why you get date for now.
And then I totally agree with Nock about, like, the importance of crypto as it applies and blockchains apply to, like, you know, things like passports and voting.
And I can't freaking wait, but I just feel like the governments just are dragging their heels so horribly with this that I'm not sure I'm ever going to see it.
But in terms of as it applies to the next couple years, I just think, like, if I ask my kids right now,
would you rather have $100 real dollars to go to a store and buy an outfit, or would you rather have $100 V-Bucks to go buy an outfit in Fortnite?
I know which one they're picking.
So I feel like that's already been determined in terms of the future of digital assets versus real-world assets.
And there's always going to be a niche and a fun market for that, but I think that story's already been written.
I had no idea that he did this, but Tony, a little while ago, put a comment down below saying, reply to this Sam Stefanina chibi that he put in there.
And he said he'll send a $50 extraction pack to anybody that does.
So make sure you get those comments in.
Thanks, Tony.
Appreciate that.
Saint, I'm tagging you in X-Men.
Dump, date, marry, AI, gaming, real-world assets as the narratives going into 2024.
Sweet.
Let's work our way up.
So dump real-world assets.
You know, I think about this as more of a timeline perspective.
I think real-world assets are a little bit of a misnomer.
It's pretty cool to see an asset class like, you know, paintings and trading cards kind of get unlocked in fractionalized ways.
But it's really not going to move the market in a meaningful manner, in my opinion, especially if we look at 2024.
So I dump that.
In regard to dating, it's AI.
And I think, you know, while Paul has it exactly right, I think AI will be the biggest reason that this entire landscape changes.
But I think the reality of a lot of that coming in is going to be more in 2025 and 2026 as we kind of understand these primitives.
And I think, you know, getting people on board into crypto primitive is already hard enough as it is.
Getting them also then understanding AI primitives are also just going to be another challenge.
It just takes time.
But straight up, Parallel Colony is the only game I'm deeply excited about as a fan.
So, you know, I do see the potential there.
But who are you marrying?
It's just gaming as a category.
Gaming has all the inflection points, has all the opportunities, has all the genres, has all the age ranges, has all the play sessions.
Like, if we can't fucking figure out good product market fit in the gaming category in 2024, like, we should all leave this shit, right?
It should break out here with all the alignment we have.
And there's so many quality builders making enough good tests.
And there's enough wonky builders out there who are going to, like, open up really unknown kind of opportunities as well.
And I love that.
I think it's going to be one of the most creative energy spaces ever.
And I hope we feel an element of a gaming renaissance in 2024.
That would be amazing.
Fresco, over to you, man.
Yeah, I'm going to dump AI.
But I also am super excited about it.
But I just, I get way more excited about, you know, a couple of the other things.
But, you know, I also want to give a shout out.
I think Parallel Colony, like everybody's saying, is going to be amazing.
A couple other really cool ones.
Like, today, the game, I talk about Michael too much.
I think people are accusing me of having a mad crush on him.
But Beyond Human as well.
I mean, both those games look awesome.
And I think are going to be great.
I'm going to date gaming because this is like, you know, everything that Saint said.
This is the time to finally just show what we've been doing for so many years.
And I think this is truly, you know, 2024 will be the year that a ton of these games step forward and show what the possibilities actually are.
I'm going to say, I want to marry real world assets.
I'm going to change that to applications though.
And there's one thing that I think when you look at the U.S. like political climate, we have two political parties in the U.S.
And we have elections over four years.
No matter what side of the political aisle you fall on, you think that one of the two last elections was stolen.
And this is a universal thing, right?
And, you know, Democrats thought one of them was stolen.
Republicans thought another one was stolen.
Voter fraud is something that's a huge problem in the U.S.
And I think blockchain is like the most natural solution to something that is a giant problem that we have, right?
It's a public ledger.
If blockchain was, you know, integrated with our voting systems, we would be able to see exactly where our vote went and where it went and to whom it went to.
And I think that's so important for transparency because we don't have a lot of that.
And so I think, you know, the real world applications can be so foundationally like game changing for us in a lot of ways.
But I think I always look at elections and voting.
All right. Interesting stuff.
Sorry to make it political.
My bad, guys.
I love that you just said blockchain solves this in so many words.
Yeah, sorry.
I got verbose there.
And I broke a rule.
I have to talk about politics.
I apologize, guys.
All right.
Fresco is muted for at least three weeks.
But, Nock, you're not.
Yeah, I really want to stress, like, just the size of even just one counterfeit market, which is luxury goods.
We're talking, like, by conservative estimates, $3 trillion in 2022.
That dwarfs the size of the global gaming market.
It is a massive, massive issue to the tune of we've got companies like StockX who are worth almost $4 billion US dollars that literally specialize in, like, peer-to-peer trades of hopefully verifiably, like, luxury goods.
And they fuck it up all of the time.
Chrono 24 is one that I use all the time.
I'm very big into watches.
I purchase watches from Chrono all the time.
They stress this has been verified.
This is true.
This is trusted.
And the fact that that is even something that I need to worry about in 2023, that there is no way for me to, without having to, like, trust the person that I'm buying this thing from, verify that, yes, this is a Rolex that was made in this year.
Yes, it is this model.
Yes, it has been serviced.
Or maybe it hasn't been serviced.
These are things that, like, I don't want to have to trust somebody.
I want to be able to purchase something with a verified, something that I can go and check, like, the equivalent of, like, what fucking Carfax is, which you still have to trust that Carfax is legit.
We need to remove this process.
You need to be able to purchase something in real life without having to worry about whether or not this is a fake good or if it's a stolen good or if some other ridiculous case of scenarios have happened.
Like, the idea that we can verify assets that exist in the real world on-chain is just so compelling to me.
Yes, Jerry brings up a really great point, and so did Paul.
But for me, like, even if you just look at the luxury good market, it's a trillion, a multi-trillion dollar industry.
That is significant volume that will be happening.
All right, we're just about out of time for the show, but I'm going to tag Sinjin in for the last word.
Yeah, I think we should call Grandpa Knock from now on for real-world asset marrying stuff.
Oh, that's fucking hilarious.
But he likes his watches, though.
Yeah, he loves them.
I love my watches, too, and now we talk about it.
The thing about it is with the on-chain assets that are from real world, I think it's been done and dusted in the crypto space.
It was one of the first narratives, I mean, like, for supply chain, and IBM really put a lot behind it, and they actually closed down their whole division for it.
And I think it's because where the value of the asset isn't really in the verification of it, it's in the inherent worth of it, and that lies off-chain.
Whereas I think, you know, obviously I'm marrying gaming because I think this is where, you know, we've had, like, moments of this, like with Second Life and World of Warcraft and these massive MMOs and stuff like that, where the digital asset has this kind of inherent value online.
But I think it's always been limited.
It's been gated.
It's been platform-based, so on and so forth.
But when you get into Web3 now, for the very first time, I think we can truly have digital assets in their most, I mean, optimal native state that really can operate if we can get it right in this open economy.
And I think that's what's super, super, super exciting, to actually, like, really see what blockchain can do with truly native digital assets that are at the level of real-world assets.
I love the idea of AI.
AI, I think it's just nuts.
And I look forward to seeing what's going to happen with it.
But I think before AI comes, like, we're going to figure out this gaming stuff, and it's going to be fantastic.
Sinjin, bring us home with the optimism.
Woo!
Truly fading all the gutless wanks out there.
I'm going to give out the last Bullyverse whitelist, which, by the way, I think there's only 250 that are being given out to communities because the rest are being given to people that hold Bullyverse assets.
So thanks again, guys, for that.
I appreciate it.
It's going to be given to Angel Daniel.
He says, date gaming because the fun of exploring dating more projects.
Dump AI because it'll be something with a larger time frame and marry real-world assets.
They're here to stay if the blockchain will change them forever.
Thank you guys so much.
I've got to give a shout-out to, of course, Shrapnel.
As we lower our weapons and conclude this exhilarating journey through Gamified, let us unleash a thunderous tribute to the Titans who have paved the path for us.
Behold, Shrapnel, the official game of Gamified.
Powerfully, proudly powered by Avalanche, the official blockchain of Gamified.
Man, I am out of it today.
In the vast realm of FPS games, Shrapnel stands as the ultimate commander, orchestrating an arsenal of artillery where every tactical endeavor weaves a tale of turmoil and triumph amid the echoing cacophony of explosive shrapnel.
So now, it's your turn to embark on an epic expedition to shrapnel.com.
Suit up in your digital armor, load your ledger with coveted loot, and lock in your coordinates for the next combat conquest.
And as we conclude our exhilarating expedition through Gamified, let's not forget the frosty fortress that underpins our thrilling journey into the future of finance and fund.
Avalanche, the official blockchain of Gamified.
Let's unleash a resounding applause for Avalanche, our polar pioneer, fearlessly carving crystalline paths with its unwavering strength.
Avalanche empowers us to navigate the digital landscape with the warmth of wisdom and the waves of entertainment.
Take a page from Avalanche's book, My Fellow Adventurers.
Stay cool, stay curious, and mark your calendars for next week at the same time in the same place.
Also, don't forget to tune in to the Games Awards tomorrow.
It's like, I don't know, 8 in the morning for me or something.
So I'm going to be having it on the side screen, the side monitor, while I take some meetings.
But huge shout out to all of them.
Thanks for giving us such great content over the last few weeks.
Appreciate you guys.
Of course, got to give a shout out to the Wolves down.
Thank you so much.
And if you're looking for a new community, always be trying to get in there.
It's absolutely insane.
Shrapnel, love you guys.
Thank you, Tony, for coming out.
Patrick with the world's largest.
Good luck with your new game.
Sinjin, my angry Yakuza girlfriend with Fresco.
Y'all are absolutely crushing it.
Parallel, people can't get enough of it, man.
Colony is going to be an absolute heater.
Can't wait to get my hands on it whenever you put it at literally any other time
except for doing it right in the middle of my show.
Wild Paul, everybody loves you, man.
Congrats on the runner-up to Parallel, inevitably.
And Lem's, of course, my co-host with the co-most.
Appreciate you.
Knock, the newsletter writer, had to jet.
But make sure you sign up for that, guys.
We will see you back same time, same place next week and the week after.
We're not missing any episodes for the holidays.
We're going to keep powering through.
So I hope you guys are able to join us as well.
Big hugs to everybody that supports us on a weekly basis.
I can't tell you how much it means to me, even when I'm still in a fugue state
because my sleep schedule is fucked from Art Basel.
I love you guys even more for all your support.
So thank you, thank you, thank you.
And we will see you back same time, same place next week.
See you all soon.
See you at DreamHack.
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