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Gamified #48 | Web3 Gaming in China | GOATs and WOATs
Recorded: Jan. 3, 2024 Duration: 2:05:43Space Recording
Full Transcription
It's just the music, but, you know, anyway, GM 2024 gamified, everyone.
Dude, the last two spaces, I couldn't actually hear Dub, and so I heard his voice today,
and I was like, what the, who's this guy?
Whoa.
Sorry if I ignored you last week.
Yeah, thank you.
Man, every time I try to just have a nice, peaceful, gamified library for the first three or four minutes,
and you guys just can't handle it.
Just let me listen to my music that apparently doesn't work for anybody else, okay?
I just can't deal with the silence.
I just had to make sure people know we're alive and that they're not getting rubbed as they're trying to listen,
and we're having this deep, insightful conversation they're missing out on.
I will say, as I tune in from the Fairfield Marriott at the Richmond Airport,
it is nice to know that the space is indeed working and that everybody can hear each other.
That's comforting.
So thanks, Lebs.
Appreciate you.
I got you.
You know, actually, the space might actually be better now that you're in, like,
some level of civilization on the East Coast rather than in Utah,
so it might be pretty good today.
Wow, bro.
Dude.
Oh, I'm headed off to Utah.
I'm going to be there after East Denver until GDC,
and so let's all have a state law Lake City party and dance with the Mormons or whatever,
whatever you guys do.
Salt Lake City parties.
I'm booking my party.
Salt Lake City party ends.
They end at, like, 10 p.m.
Sounds good for an old guy like me.
Hey, are we allowed to, like, buy bottles or do, like,
they give them in, like, little cups, like Tixie cups or whatever?
Oh, dude.
So this is actually, this is 100% true.
The alcohol laws here are, like, ridiculous.
So all the drinks are, like, half strength and everything.
So it's kind of, like, you have to pregame, like,
as if we were all in college again.
If you want to go out and get drunk, you have to just get drunk first
and then stumble to, like, a bar and then just try to maintain that for a few hours
and then go back.
Oh, my gosh.
Wild Kate totally wants to be on stage right now because she went to BYU.
And then also had other adventures after that related to our conversation.
I went to BYU for a little bit.
They politely asked me never to come back.
Wow.
That's awesome.
Dude, I remember getting itched to, like, move to Utah.
And, you know, honestly, it didn't stick.
But now I'm feeling like...
But the real question is...
Now, Dub, Utah is in your future, dude.
You will live in Utah at some point in your life.
Yes, Katie.
You'll become an alcoholic if you're there.
If you didn't become an alcoholic and go straight from Salt Lake City to rehab...
This is what I'm saying.
I wasn't going to out Katie on Gamified, but since she's here, she can now just tell you
all about her adventures from BYU and Mormonism straight into alcoholism and then back again.
Yeah.
Well, kind of.
Yeah.
I'm a Mormon of my own understanding.
But, yes, I did become an alcoholic.
I can tell you so much about alcohol in Utah.
More than any one person really actually wants to.
I am all ears, Katie.
Gamified.
Absolutely.
So you were a Mormon alcoholic and then you dropped the alcoholic.
Can we just restart Gamified, by the way?
I'm a Mormon of my own understanding.
Can we...
Oh, okay.
Can we just restart Gamified?
That's to say that a lot of Mormons would say that I was not a Mormon.
But, you know, a lot of Texans don't want to claim me either, so...
This is wild, dude.
I can't wait for Grand Theft Auto 7 featuring Katie in Salt Lake City.
Oh, my God.
You guys, I have a story.
When there's a story time, and I don't know that it's appropriate for Gamified, but I
have a story about Halloween night in Salt Lake City in my last, like, months of drinking
that should be a short film.
I probably have to just nope out.
Yeah, you probably do.
That's what I'm thinking.
You probably do.
It's one of those pre-marriage stories you don't want to hear, Paul.
Just could ruin your...
We actually had a very popular MySpace page with, like, dating adventures in LA that Paul...
Can I just say, if we're going to do that, if we're going to do that story time, if we're
going to do that story time, we need to replace Sam's intros with just, hi, I'm Paul, and I'm not
an alcoholic, but Katie can do hers, and everybody, like, we can just go around and turn it into a
meeting.
That'd be awesome.
Hi, I'm Sinjin.
I'm definitely an alcoholic, and I'm loving it.
Before this turns into an AA meeting, we're going to go ahead and get started.
Dub, on the shrapnel account, give some people...
Let's just kick it off strong, man.
Let's give some people some extraction packs, man.
Just slide in there.
Anybody that's dropping a comment, just give them an extraction pack already.
We're going to kick it off with my man.
From kickflicks to crypto, he's an amateur skateboarder who swapped half pipes for hash rates.
He's spent six years in the crypto circuit riding the bullish and bearish waves with
a skater's resilience.
His journey into this world began with the allure of ice poker, but it was the boundless
possibilities of Web3 Gaming that truly captivated his spirit.
With the launch of Web3 Gamer, he's not just a participant, but a pioneer, propelling the
space forward.
From conceptualizing to hosting an extraordinary in-real-life Web3 Gaming award show in Miami,
he's dragging us forward whether we like it or not.
He's also my substitute host for Gamified Whenever I'm Personally Down Bad.
So, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the panel, the poker pioneer, the award show architect.
You know it's icy.
Hey, I hope that Sam is never down bad again.
Thank you so much, guys.
I'm super stoked to be here.
Let's go.
First Gamified of 2024.
And all I got to say is that Thomas Edison can't kickflip.
Albert Einstein can't kickflip.
Leonardo da Vinci can't kickflip, but I can kickflip.
Let's go.
Wow, dude.
Pumping his own bags, but accurate, though.
Can confirm all those things that you just said.
Don't forget, guys, too, I'm also going to be giving away a shrapnel operator at some
point.
Can't wait to do that later today.
Big thanks to shrapnel for making that possible.
Up next, perched on the precipice of pixels and player psychology, he orchestrated the
ascent of online poker to its current zenith.
A relentless hunger for greatness defines him, a trait that alternately intimidates and inspires
us all fortunate enough to cross his path.
He doesn't merely seek admiration.
He hungers for peers who share his insatiable appetite for the extraordinary.
Ladies and gentlemen, back on the panel, representing my angry Yakuza girlfriend, please welcome
the sultan of strategy, the virtuoso of virtual dominance, the titan of taboo.
It's Sinjin.
Hey, guys.
I'm happy to be here, and I'm thankful that my sponsors, Paul and Katie, could come here
to, you know, just join me on this journey of non-alcoholic spaces.
We're just here to watch out for you, man.
We're going to, Katie's Sober Corner is going to be super popular at the next few gaming
events at this rate.
Up next, in the early days of crypto revolutions and digital renaissance that emerged in the
shadows in 2010, this panelist emerged as a luminary.
Over a decade later, he still stands as a foundational pillar in this burgeoning realm.
Beyond the surface, his influence extends to the intricate realms of tokenomic structuring
and the art of business development, and behind his formidable experience, there thrives a fervent
passion for gaming.
Kicking off all the way back with the Commodore 64, he's been the steadfast witness to the
metamorphosis of electronic entertainment from its nascent inception.
So it's with great anticipation that we welcome back to the stage the cryptocurrency
captain, the Neo-Tokyo titan.
Ladies and gentlemen, give it up to Vidar.
Can anyone else hear Vidar?
I was just going to ask the same question.
He's totally wrong.
Oh, rip.
Okay, somebody DM Vidar and tell him the mic isn't working.
We'll get you back, brother.
Up next, within the dynamic world of Web3 turn-based strategy games, a storied luminary talent has
emerged.
He's triumphed over challenges as a firefighter and expertly navigated intricate markets in
Web2 and Web3.
Now he becomes part of the My Angry Yakuza Girlfriend team.
He arrives armed with the same unwavering determination and mastery of the market, poised to elevate
the game to unparalleled heights.
Behold, the baron of business brilliance, the Meiji mastermind with the might is touched.
It's Jerry, the Golden God singer.
Yo, just cracked to no duels in honor of my people, Paul, Katie, and Sinjin.
It's ready to fucking party.
Isn't that a non-alcoholic beer, just for the record?
Yeah, it is.
Wow.
Go hard.
It's not the best one.
I can talk all about non-alcoholic beers if you guys want, but no, I won't.
We'll make out a segment on my future show, Alcoholics Anonymous, so find.
Up next, positioned at the pinnacle of play, Paul personifies a pure power of pioneering spirit,
a prodigy who propelled Age of Empires to popularity.
This paragon of pixel perfection pivoted to plant his prowess in the panorama of mobile
marvels producing the phenomenon, Words with Friends.
From a paltry proposal, he parried and prevailed, persuading Zynga with his persuasive pitch,
propelling the price from a mere pittance of $20 million to a prolific payout of $180 million.
Now, as wildcard waits in the wings, this patriarchal programming prepares to plunge into the potential
packed province of Web 3, promising another pioneering project.
Proud papa to a trio of progeny.
He pairs the paternal with the professional, proving that he is on the precipice of parenting
and pioneering.
It can indeed prosper in parallel.
Prepare to pay homage to this potentate of play, Jesus Christ.
The prolific, polite, polished, overworld of omnichannel, overlord of omnichannel odysseys.
It's the peerless Paramount, Paul Bettner.
Sam, you are the most amazing and also your own worst enemy.
And that was just incredible.
Good job getting through all that.
I don't know if you wrote it.
That was too much.
Go ahead.
Sorry.
What were you saying?
It was way too much for the Marriott if I was in my home office.
I'm assuming you wrote that or somebody else just continued to add P words to it.
Anyway, I am really, really thrilled to be here with you guys to kick off 2024.
My first gamified was right after we, I think, minted the Wild Pass for 44 Matic.
We are entering into 2024 with the Wild Pass at 1900 Matic or something like that.
It's been amazing 2023, but y'all, it's just nothing.
2023 was never, for us, the big year.
It was always 2024.
2024, I am so excited about what's happening with our project and with Web3 Gaming in general
in 2024.
Welcome to the future, y'all.
It's going to be a blast.
Thanks for having me.
Dude, you absolutely love to hear it.
I can't wait.
And ladies and gentlemen, prepare to be captivated by the creative catalyst, the collaborative
connector, the visionary vanguard.
In a world where dreams dance with potential, she emerges as the doyen of destiny, orchestrating
opportunities and igniting imaginations.
As a producer, she conjures cinematic masterpieces, captivating audience, and garnering accolades.
A startup savant, she is, in her own words, quote, begrudgingly decent at capitalism.
And along the way, she uses her sobriety to support others looking to do the same, fostering
sober spaces at events where they can seldomly be found.
So welcome back to the panel, the creative catalyst, the sober superhero, the Bettner better
half.
It's Katie Drake-Bettner.
Aw, that's so good.
But I really think potentate of play is something that has taken you to a whole new level.
So I keep saying that in my head.
Bettner better half.
That's definitely where it's at.
So excited to be here.
I can't even begin to echo the excitement that Paul is obviously here to spread about the
project and just about the space in general.
But I'm always thrilled to start off the new year with the best space on Twitter, and it
will always be Twitter.
Thanks, Katie.
Don't get us rugged, bad-mouthing our boy Elon.
Up next, in the realm of Web3 Gaming, there reigns a mortal who's conquered more games than
any other.
With unparalleled prowess, he's ascended to the number one ranking in My Angry Yakuza Girlfriend,
but his dominion extends far beyond the battlefield.
As the community and partnerships lead for shrapnel, he's weaving a tapestry of connection,
fostering a vibrant community around this groundbreaking Web3 game.
So prepare to be enlightened by the Web3 sage, the Meiji maestro, the man who PK'd a dragon
hunter crossbow in old-school runescape and negotiated deals with industry giants from
companies like Walmart.
Brace yourselves for the redemption arc.
It's dub.
Aw, dude.
Thank you so much.
I think, actually, since we started saying that about Meiji, I've lost consecutively since
then, so, like, I need to turn it around, but also proud to say this is the year that
I turn a decade of sobriety, so here to roll that so we're going through.
Boom!
Yes!
Bring it.
Congratulations.
That's awesome.
Hey, GDC, when we all get together, I'll drink for all you guys.
I thought Sinjin was going to do that.
I'm just drinking for myself.
I'm his right-hand man.
Yeah, the Meiji staff, don't worry, the Meiji staff will collectively drink for all of us
while everybody holds on to their sobriety chips.
Up next, in the grand tapestry of tech, twirls a tightness of tenacity, her tactics and talents
touching the terrains of both tradition and tomorrow, an artist of algorithms and aficionado
of alliteration, bouncing between bites and brilliance.
She's the belle of the blockchain brawl.
Of course, it's none other than Decrypt's Kate Irwin.
Wow, thank you, Sam.
Hi, guys.
I'm doing dry January, and I feel like shit, so I'm here.
I'm alive.
And yeah, I just want to be here to motivate everyone, tell everyone, don't let anyone tell
you who you are or what you can or can't do, because guess what?
People are judgmental as fuck, and I say, fuck that.
Dang, coming into the new year hot, Kate.
I like it.
I like it.
Good luck with the rest of January.
And last but not least, ladies and gentlemen, lend an ear to the linchpin of our lively lexicon,
the littlest luminary and the loftiest of lures.
In the labyrinth of our logic and laughter, he's the linchpin that locks our lineup.
When our dialogue lingers, he lays down the law, lighting the lamp that leads us through
the lexicon of the lost, weighing in at 2.4 pounds, let's laud the Lord Liaison, the lightweight
with the lion heart.
It's the little lizard legend, Lambs.
GM, GM, happy to be here for the first show of 2024.
Can't believe we're actually in 2024.
As Paul said, 2023 was just like things warming up, and I think 2024 is when the magic happens
for what three games.
And I'm just going to throw this out there real quick.
We're at episode 48.
I'm not going to make too huge of a deal out of episode 50 as bad as I want to, but 52,
whenever it's been literally an entire year of every single Wednesday being a gamified
day, I'm going to go absolutely fucking crazy.
So if anybody wants to like donate some NFTs to give away, or I want to bring on a bunch
of people that have been on the show throughout the entire year and just do like a very nostalgic
sort of thing, we'll make it a lot of fun.
But if anybody wants to get involved with that, start sliding in the DMs, because I
got a few things in planning.
So when I get back to my office, that's definitely on the list.
And of course, brace yourself for the breathtaking blast into a brand new episode of Gamified.
But before we dive into the riveting rendezvous, let's bestow appreciation upon the behemoth
that serves as our bedrock.
Avalanche, the official blockchain of Gamified.
Ooh, it sounds so good.
In the sprawling and frosty frontier of blockchain cosmos, where obscurity often trumps opportunities,
Avalanche stands as the almighty architect of innovation.
This towering tech titan tames the treacherous tundra, transmuting the digital ledger into
a pristine, crystal-cut corridor of clarity.
Every week, there's an avalanche of advancements in their audacious ascent towards a unique and
unparalleled future.
And now, steal yourselves for a sensational spectacle as we turn the spotlight toward our
other sponsor, the titan of tactical triumph, Shrapnel, the official game of Gamified.
Oh, I love it.
So, get ready to Sigma jump into a world where every click is as captivating as the 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.
Of course, the Avalanche account should be with us as a co-host.
Unfortunately, it turns out that everybody that has access to it is currently 30,000 feet
up in an airplane.
So, that's why they're missing today.
We're going to give them extra love, though.
So, maybe drop a couple comments if you want to be considered for that shrapnel operator.
Give shrapnel a tag and Avalanche a tag so they can make sure they feel the love despite
not being able to have the account today.
We're jumping in with a brand new game mode first up.
Goats and Woats.
What an amazing title I've come up with.
What is your greatest console of all time and what is your worst console of all time?
This is sure to excite some people and piss some people off.
I'm going to send it over to my co-host, the Little Lizard Legend Lems, first.
All right, there's probably some nostalgia bias here, but the OG PlayStation is it for
There was just so many bangers on that.
I don't know if we can count the Game Boy as a console.
It might actually take the cake if we're talking about the Game Boy taking the console.
Oh, it totally counts, man.
That totally counts.
Now I've just thought about original PlayStation games.
But yeah, the OG PlayStation was a big thing for me because Crash Team Racing is still
probably one of my favorite games of all time, so that one wins it.
And I was a PlayStation kid, and I will still say that the PSP was the worst of all time.
That thing was a major failure.
They totally lost the portable game.
They can't compete with Nintendo.
Damn.
All right, the PSP getting thrown under the bus already.
Vidar, I'll send it over to you next.
All right, this is a test.
If you can hear me, please spam 100s.
We can hear you.
Okay.
How is this even a discussion, Sam?
You and I and everybody else in this call know that the greatest console of all time
is the Super Nintendo.
100% always will be Super Nintendo.
Legend of Zelda, Super Metroid, Secret of Mana, Street Fighter 2, Donkey Kong, Yoshi, Harvest
Moon if you have a low T-score, Super Star Wars.
Okay, it had everything.
It was like 1,700 games.
Everyone played it in the 90s.
It created the entire console genre.
That's it.
It's the Super Nintendo, period.
Did you say if you have a low T-score?
I did say that.
That's amazing.
Chelsea in the comments, also part of the Wild Card team.
Shout out to Chelsea.
Says GameCube is the goat, especially with the travel screen and car adapter.
Gotta give a shout out to the car adapters.
Also on the Game Boy that Lems mentioned.
Did anybody else have that little stick that plugged into whatever their version of a USB
port was and it was like a flashlight that would reflect off your screen and you still
couldn't see anything?
That was amazing.
Fresco, over to you.
Chelsea is absolutely right.
It was hands down the GameCube.
The most innovative console at the time with like the most defining games of the 2000s.
People still play Super Smash.
There's still a huge competitive scene for Melee.
It had the best controller of all time.
It was the first to support internet.
You know, we always talk about like console wars and I feel like at this point, console
wars has really come down to like Xbox and PlayStation.
And Nintendo fucking crushes both of them, like every console generation.
And it started with the GameCube, right?
It was super innovative.
It had the best games.
I mean, it's still like Super Smash Bros. is what it is now.
Mario Kart is what it is now because of Double Dash.
Super Mario Sunshine was amazing.
The Zelda took off in that era, in my opinion.
GameCube, no question.
Worst?
Are we doing worst now or is that next?
Yeah, hit me with the worst too.
Dreamcast because it had all the potential in the world and they still found a way to fuck
it up.
Bro, that is so painfully true.
Okay, I owned a Dreamcast and like three of the best experiences I've ever had and then
most of the worst.
Wild Paul, send it over to you next.
Well, okay, that's the thing.
And I'm just going to hijack all this because that's what everybody's doing.
So there's no greatest or worst.
There's just these things that we loved so much about certain consoles and things that
we hated so much.
I'm going to start with hated.
I had a Jaguar, y'all.
Okay, the Atari Jaguar.
And you just think about, you got to rewind in time, right?
We had grown up with Jaguar.
We had played on the 2600 and the 7800.
Like we, so when this thing was announced and man, did they hype it up and the technology
or whatever, and it just had the shittiest games, the worst experience, the console itself,
the controller, everything of that was so awful.
I was going to say that the, the, oh my gosh, what is the Nintendo hardware that was the
VR thing with the red screen in it that you'd stick your face on?
Oh, what was that?
That's the worst.
I remember that.
That's officially the worst console ever.
No, that was awesome.
Okay.
No way was that awesome.
That was the worst.
But, but the Jaguar is, is almost there.
Now in terms of best, I mean, I think it's amazing for y'all to be picking the GameCube.
I would never, I mean, as a piece of hardware, it was just absolute garbage.
Some of the games were amazing, but, you know, famously a game developers called it two, two,
what was it?
Two switches or two Wiis taped together or whatever.
I mean, it was just bad.
But I want to give some, speaking of, I want to give some special love to the Wii.
Okay.
So I'm not, I'm not going to say it's my favorite.
If you honestly, if you ask me right now, as much as I have nostalgia, I got to say the
Switch is my absolute favorite because it is for the first time, both my favorite home
console and my favorite portable console.
And nobody's pulled that off in the way that they have.
It's just, and the games for it, it is just the absolute top.
I know it's hard for us all to say that because we don't have nostalgia for it, but if we're
just ranking them in terms of like just purely best games, best hardware, best everything,
it's got to be the Switch.
But I just wanted to shout out real quick, the Nintendo Wii, because they took an insane
chance with that.
And I know there were some games, it didn't, you know, we, we all kind of bemoaned the
lack of a traditional controller, but they just did so many innovative things with that
console and the audience it was able to reach because of the chances they took was astonishing.
And I was, from an innovation standpoint, I, I can't, I have a special place in my heart
for the Wii.
All right.
Strong words from Mr. Bettner.
I see tagging you in.
Yo, I love Paul so much because I always end up like agreeing with everything that he
says.
Like the Nintendo GameCube to me was just a little wild, like the small little discs.
What was that?
Um, and shout out to the innovation, buddy.
Yeah.
Okay.
No, that was copyright protection.
That was not innovation.
That was Nintendo trying to do desperately anything they could to stop you from copying their games,
by the way.
What does Paul know about game development?
I love it.
I love it.
Uh, but shout out.
Well, and also, uh, to Paul's point, right?
Like all of these conversations are, it's about like the time in your life when you like
experience it, just like music is right.
Uh, but shout out to Vidar, like with the Nintendo NES, but like, come on, that was the iPhone
one.
How has no one mentioned the N64 yet?
Like that was the iPhone three.
Uh, you got Donkey Kong.
You had, uh, Zelda Ocarina of Time.
You had all the best games.
You had GoldenEye.
Like I'm here because of Nintendo 64.
That is absolutely the goat.
And, uh, yeah, I'd have to go like Dreamcast or, you know, some of these other, uh, I mean,
to me, this is, I might get case from the panel, but GameCube, like that wasn't it for
I'm sorry.
How could the Dreamcast be the worst when it had three of the best games ever on it?
Like, I get that it misses potential, but like, oh my God.
Because it, because it was, because it was heartbreaking though, because it had so much potential.
Also, Dreamcast was everybody's favorite.
And then you said like, I have a Dreamcast and it was like saying you rollerbladed or
something, you know?
That's true.
Yeah.
I gotta, I gotta say, I agree with Icy calling out the N64.
You didn't even mention Mario Kart, Paper Mario, uh, any of, any of the bangers there.
Uh, Shrapnel, Dub, tagging you in.
Yeah.
I just want to double down on GameCube is not the pick here.
Like that was the most forgettable console.
Like in all of Nintendo's history.
I mean, like even when GameCube was out, I had people wanting to play N64 over it.
Like that, even Super Smash is the, it's hilarious you brought that up.
I mean, like more people play N64 Smash to this day over the GameCube one.
Like, come on.
And, and to Paul's point, I was going to pick the Switch as well because of mobility, but
you know, to counter him, I'm going to say the Steam Deck is, is, is got some cooler games.
And at the end of the day, Ninja's able to open up some CSGO cases while he's at a wedding,
you know, because of it.
And I don't see any other console pulling that dream off.
Dude, I love, uh, that Goats and Woats is coming in with a banger and people are so passionate
about it.
All of a sudden, three people on different accounts that I know are, are not the same
person, uh, all said Virtual Boy, which is not one that I expected to get so much love.
No, that's the name.
That's, that's the terrible 3D Nintendo VR thing that they shipped that was, again, still
bold for them taking the chances, but boy, it wasn't bad.
Yeah.
Apparently people loved it, at least in the comments.
And can I get a shout out?
Can we call the Nintendo Power Glove its own console?
Can we, can we go as far as this?
It was a movie prop, but it was amazing in that movie.
Vidar, I'm going back to you, man.
Okay, just two things.
Uh, first off, I don't know whether Fresco didn't have his coffee this morning, but I
physically recoiled when you said GameCube.
I wanted to go hide under a bed and never see the light of day ever again in my life.
GameCube was one of the worst consoles.
Again, like, like, like was said, one of the most forgettable things ever.
Uh, I really don't know why you chose that one, but the N64 is a very, very close competitor.
Like I said, the SNES, but the N64 was great.
Like the only thing and the only reason that I'm not putting it at the top is because for
its time, they stuck to using cartridges.
They didn't try to innovate outside of using the analog controller, but I agree the games
on the console were incredible.
Some of the best games of all time.
They stuck to using the cartridges to stop you from copying games.
That is true.
Everything they do is to stop us from copying, but it doesn't matter.
The profit margins on all N64 games so miserable that nobody wanted to develop for it, by the
way.
That's amazing.
Katie isn't jumping in on the space, but she is in the comments saying we're so old.
Does anybody remember the Atari Jaguar?
Uh, no, no, we don't.
Send you an overview.
Uh, yeah, I'm a, I'm a big PlayStation fan boy, so I'll leave it at that.
But one thing I threw out there is, uh, for all the really old school gamers that started
in PC, the Amiga 500 or 2000.
And for me, that was just the fucking nuts.
If you don't know the story about it, uh, you know, it was like fucking, it was just the
fucking best thing ever.
But the thing is everyone pirated all the games and so like, they basically destroyed
the whole gaming industry.
But like, if you wanted to play it like a proper video game on like a gaming like rig, pretty
much, it was, it was all Amiga.
So just want to throw that out there.
Actually, the properest of proper was the Neo Geo if we want to go there, but that was
the only rich kids could just, I never had one.
Um, but, uh, but a friend of mine did with its hundred dollar game cartridges or whatever.
And that was the true, like, Oh my God.
Oh yeah.
Okay.
Neo Geo.
Yes.
But I think it was Amiga before Neo Geo though, for sure.
It was, it was, it came first, but I'm just saying like, it sort of hit the height of
like, I have an arcade in my house when we got to Neo Geo level.
That was amazing.
And so I just imagine Paul, after you sold your company for $180 million, you were like,
I'm buying like 50 Neo Geos just because I can't.
I should have.
Fresco.
Ninja Gaiden.
Uh, you guys are insane for the GameCube hate that had the best games of like the early
two thousands and the best controller.
I'll say again, and the first console to do internet on it.
Um, I would say one thing that also disappoints me about this panel is that nobody mentioned
the Wii U as the worst console of all time.
Oh my gosh.
That's because we forgot it because it was so bad.
You're right.
Holy moly.
You're right.
All right.
A couple of shout outs in the comments.
Shady.
Sheba says N64 had Pokemon snap and you can go to Blockbuster and print out your shit as
stickers.
Obviously top tier console.
Jaxi says Fresco and Chelsea are crazy.
What's a GameCube?
Come on.
Uh, AE says the goat is old school Nintendo for sure.
Phil says the greatest console of all time has to be the N64.
Felt like we entered a new era of gaming whenever that came out.
Mario 64 was revolutionary.
I also have to give a shout out to StarCraft 64.
Anybody remember trying to play a freaking RTS with some sticks?
That was insane.
Uh, also Park from Avalanche says can't forget the best Pokemon game ever to release was Pokemon
Colosseum on GameCube.
Very underrated.
I don't know how many people agree with that.
Lem, over to you.
I just can't believe how many Nintendo Maxis we have here on the panel.
Like at least Sinjin Chandon at the end.
I was like, there's someone who's been on my back up the, on my corner for the PlayStation.
Like you guys, like you're sleeping on those so many PlayStation classics from like Crash
Bandicoot to Spyro, like Time Crisis, Tony Hawk, Sega Genesis was pretty great too.
Or it was the Mega Drive if you were in Europe.
I had Bomberman on Mega Drive.
Nerdy gamers these guys are.
Just completely nerdy gamers.
Not real competitive gamers.
Nobody's mentioned the 3DO.
I remember that guy.
I just slammed the mute everyone button on accident.
My apologies.
You're all unmuted.
Just don't go look up the 3DO.
It was the Dreamcast of Dreamcast.
It's terrible.
But I just had to give a little bit of a shout out for that one.
Zach D in the comments also says, Goat console is Nintendo Switch.
Portable.
Easy to put on a big screen slash projector and can co-op almost anywhere.
Worst of all time.
Xbox.
And then in parentheses, any iteration.
Why not buy a PC?
All right.
Fair enough.
Shrapnel, tell us I'm tagging you in.
Dude, I just have to double down.
Fresco is a giant troll right now.
I mean, it is known that GameCube controllers are the worst design controllers in the history
of controller design.
And also for the PlayStation Maxis, I tried to play PlayStation games probably like 20
times over my childhood and I could never get a disc to freaking read.
So I don't even know how you guys played games to begin with.
But the one console that I'd say is the worst was I remember NVIDIA, like an AnyForce phone
type console.
It was one of the first like phones that were for gaming things.
And I remember convincing my parents to buy it for me.
And it was the worst thing that was supposed to be as good as a Game Boy, but was a massive
letdown.
I forget the name, but God, it was awful.
Was that the thing that looked like a taco?
Like it was shaped like a taco?
Yeah.
Yeah.
I just think of it as the taco game phone.
I don't remember what it was called.
Somebody in the comments can help us out on that one.
By the way, I think this whole conversation that the thing I learned the most was, was
that the GameCube is the most polarizing console.
I had no idea that people loved it as much as they did.
I thought it was universally like that.
You fool.
I just love that we finally get the real reason why Dub has never played Grand Theft Auto.
So listen, man, like the anticipation of the disc reading or not, you'll never know such
like, you know, D-Gen tingles.
I'm probably a gambler because of that.
That was Web 3 before Web 3.
NFT calf in the comments also says, time splitters to NHL hits 2003's Mario Sunshine, Mario Baseball,
Mario Super Strikers, et cetera, et cetera.
Tags Fresco and says GameCube was goaded.
Okay.
So even more.
Luigi's Mansion.
Super Mario Sunshine was amazing.
Dude.
The Twilight Princess was probably the greatest Legend of Zelda game of all time.
Oh my God.
The GameCube version destroyed the Wii version.
The Wii version sucked.
Dude.
Yeah, right.
They had that available to apply at Circuit City and people wouldn't even go to play it
there.
Like, it was insane.
Circuit City.
What a throwback.
We are all aging ourselves.
It's well known that Fresco lives two blocks away from me.
And I'm just going to end this segment by saying I'm moving immediately.
Okay.
Come play Double Dash, dude.
Yeah, great two-player racing game.
We'll play Double Dash together.
He's still got GameCube hooked up.
I have a GameCube.
I do.
Jesus Christ.
What I will say, actually, though, is NHL Hits 2003 is the single greatest hockey game
of all time, and nobody can change my mind.
That one is incredible.
That franchise should be brought back from the dead.
We're going to move on to something that, unfortunately, is not nearly as fun to discuss.
But thanks, everybody, for chiming in on that new game mode.
That was a ton of fun.
Definitely going to be doing that one again in the future.
What's the word?
Unfortunately, the USA has passed a very underwhelming new law saying that if you make more than $10,000
in crypto, you now have an obligation to report the transaction, including names, addresses,
social security numbers, et cetera, to the IRS within 15 days under threat of a felony charge.
This is the 60-50-I law that CoinCenter supposedly has been challenging in federal court, and their
case is currently in appeals.
Shout out to Jerry Brito and the team over there at CoinCenter that are working on that.
Unfortunately, for the time being, it seems like there is an obligation to comply, but
nobody really knows how to comply.
So we're in a really interesting situation right now.
Tons of hands go up.
I'm going to tag in Katie Bettner first on this one.
Okay, because you know if we're going to talk about legislation, I'm all over that shit.
So this was something that was brought up really early.
Chelsea brought it to our attention.
And then we reached out to people at Paradigm.
We reached out to a couple of other people.
But it was actually our chief financial officer, Tessie, who came back and had all the deets on
where exactly that falls.
I would also say that right now, with that particular legislative package, it's not something
that you'll be held accountable for until and unless that moves.
But you already should be.
That is not financial advice.
Go talk to your accountant.
Not financial advice.
I'm also not an attorney.
But the other kind of piece of that is that you're supposed to be doing that with $10,000
no matter where you're getting it from.
So, you know, do that as you wish.
It's also what they're asking from you when you have your Venmo statements at the end of
the year is to count and do basically due diligence on people who are paying you via Venmo.
So lame.
Vidar, I'm going to tag you next.
I agree with what Katie said.
Pretty much everything in what she said.
Again, let me echo.
I am not an attorney.
This is not financial advice.
Your monkey's all on your own.
So that said, with the way the law is currently written, if you actually go there and look
at it, which I do recommend everyone actually goes and looks at this themselves, the way
it's currently written is that you would have to supply almost all identifying information
from the person that's sending you said cryptocurrency, which, as it works, is completely impossible.
So it's impossible for you to comply with this law.
It's going to get overturned in court.
But do you want to end up in court?
So just put your head down, wait for the appeal process to go through.
It's very likely to get overturned because it's impossible to comply.
I mean, I would love to see the IRS try to actually enforce this.
Vidar, quickly, again, not financial advice.
None of us are experts on this.
But do you have any sense for the timeline on which if it's just put your head down and
try not to get yourself caught up in it?
Do you think like a month, two months, a week, a year?
This is the United States government, Sam.
This could take seven years, 14 years.
The whole country is going to be completely done by the time this actually makes its way
through the appeal process.
Yes, yes, that's right.
So this appeal process could take forever.
And to actually get enforcement to start going through the IRS is going to take even longer
because the government moves at a glacial pace.
So the likelihood is, is that it won't even affect you.
But again, keep eyes on it because you never know with the government, especially with the
current administration that we have.
Who knows?
Hey, now, don't get started with me, Vidar.
We'll have to take this offline.
Vidar doesn't like taxes.
Well, I just briefly have to shout out Amy or Ami.
I always mispronounce it from Wildcard also says this is the heaviest dose of nostalgia on
gamified to date.
Of course, talking about the last topic.
Sorry to bring us all down to earth with some American politics real quick, but I'm glad
that at least we got to give ourselves some serotonin before we did that.
Wild, Paul, I'll go to you next.
Can I just sarcastically say, thank goodness that the government is focused on chasing all
the people doing sub $10,000 transactions in crypto instead of, I don't know, providing
guidance or doing their work on governance or providing any sort of useful legislation
to help crypto move forward.
But thank goodness they're chasing all of the, you know, the individual people who are
trading tens of dollars.
That's really helpful.
Yeah, super great.
Super great.
We all like that.
Sinjin, over to you.
Yeah, I don't think it's, how do I say?
Okay, first of all, I'm a law-abiding U.S. tax resident and I've paid all my taxes and
I love the IRS.
Okay, and number one is that I would say there are different institutions here, right?
And then so, like, even if, how do I say, when it comes to the IRS, don't think that
they won't get into enforcement earlier than a lot of other agencies and they've been shown
to do that.
So, that's one point.
So, I don't kind of agree that, you know, this is some kind of far off thing.
If the IRS has a mandate for it, you know, they'll jump in a lot quicker than a lot of
other agencies.
Another thing is, like, if you try to be tricky with it and you are, like, you know, sending
exactly what Paul was saying, like, sub-10K, it's the same thing with, you know, traditional
kind of AML, anti-money laundering kind of policies where the banks need to report anything
over 10K, but they also report patterns.
So, if you're sending, like, 9,999, like, three times or whatever like that, it's essentially
the same fucking thing, right?
Because if there's a pattern that's, you know, whatever shown, then, you know, you're
in violation.
The other thing that's really dangerous with this is that if you do get a transaction and
you can't fill in all the information because it's from a DEX or whatever like that, there's
a room for kind of interpretation there and you just provide whatever information that
you can as long as there's kind of backing of proof.
And so, I know a lot of people, they don't, they feel like, why the fuck should I provide
this proof?
I'm such a fucking pain in the ass.
Well, you know what, when you want to be compliant, just provide everything you can
to be transparent about it.
Because if you fucking don't, one problem with this is with the crypto is that if they
can show that this transfer came over state lines and that those funds are not clean funds
fully because they have like one thousandth of like fucking, you know, terrorist funds
included, you'll get hit with a fucking RICO charge.
And that's the most serious motherfucking charge you can get hit with because like the enforcement
on it is pretty much 100%, right?
And it's a federal fucking charge, right?
And yes, I have taken my AML certification because I had a fintech company and this is
not financial advice, but this is advice like don't fuck around with the US government
and the IRS just to fucking abide by it.
And the other thing though too is like same name accounts, right?
So if you are on a registered like US brokerage, right?
And it's the same name account to your bank account, then in that case, generally speaking,
because it's the same name account, the transfers between those are fine.
I don't know how they're going to treat like crypto to fiat per se, other than you're reporting
it, but you should be reporting anyways, all your crypto anyways for holdings.
But same name accounts, like the reporting should be different.
I know that there was one thread of some guy saying that like he sends his money from
his company to himself to pay off other people and he's like, what the fuck?
And I'm like, you're a fucking idiot because that's not a same name account, you dumbass,
because that's your fucking company is your personal account.
So if it's personal account to personal account, generally speaking, there's a lot of leeway
there because the same name is already established.
That's it.
For everybody in the audience who is not American, I hope that you're absorbing this as just a
moment to be grateful for not being American and for everybody who's American.
I hope this is helpful in navigating this, but of course, not financial advice.
Dub from Shrapnel.
Yeah, definitely not financial advice.
I'm going to take what everyone else said and use it to empower my word.
And the word is messy.
It's just a whole lot of mess.
And, you know, I think especially they're going to take an example and try to run with
And I think they're going to be targeting like a marketplace player or something in our ecosystem.
And using that to kind of like make an example of this legislation if it does move forward.
But in the meantime, it's a big mess.
Dub gets a thousand fake gamified points for remembering that the actual segment was
what's the word.
Thanks, Dub for that.
I appreciate it.
Give some more people some shrapnel extraction packs, too.
If anybody is tired of listening about politics, just go in the comments and scroll around because
there is an insane amount of nostalgic conversation still happening, which makes me so unbelievably
happy.
Dub, if you don't mind giving those people some shrapnel extraction packs.
And also, he's just dropping random comments with code.
So it's kind of first one to enter it on the website gets it, which I also really love.
So thanks for doing that.
Vidar, tagging you in for the last word on this.
I know I'm usually jokey, but politics aside, since Sinjin came in here and said some real
stuff, I also have an AML.
I run a fintech company as well.
Murray.
And I'm just going to come in here and give you guys some serious, like actually serious
advice.
When it comes to dealing with the IRS, okay, always try your best to comply.
It's called best compliance.
So even if you can get close to complying with the law, that's what you should do.
Because if you try your best, they're not going to come after you like that, right?
Things like, oh, if they tried their best to actually comply as much as they could, even
if compliance was impossible for you, right?
So you want to get as close as you can to compliance, stick to regulation.
Is there loopholes around law, around tax code?
Of course.
Should you do it yourself?
Absolutely not.
You should be talking to a professional at all times for corporate tax, for your own
tax, individual tax, everything.
Please get a professional, especially for cryptocurrency.
It's very difficult and it's very treacherous to get through the tax code for this.
Okay.
When it comes to this particular thing, what Sinjin was mentioning about having transactions that
are similar, I'll try to make it a little more clear.
It's called associated transactions.
So it's like, if you're sending 4K and then 3K and 3K to the same person, they know you're
trying to avoid the 10K thing.
So it's going to be the same exact thing.
They think they won't notice that.
They absolutely 1000% will.
Okay.
Again, I agree with what was said by Shrapnel here.
They're going to try to go after a big player.
It's unlikely they're going to go after small people like you guys, like individuals, but they
could use it as a legal pretext to then come after you later.
So just try to practice best compliance.
Very well said, Vidar.
Appreciate that.
Kate Irwin, tagging you in.
Yeah.
Interesting stuff, guys.
It kind of seems like it is perhaps an effort, again, toward sort of anti-money laundering and
concerns surrounding how crypto has been used repeatedly and sort of infamously as a preferred
method for cyber attackers and different malicious actors out there.
So I think this might have good intentions, but obviously, as Coin Center argues, it's pretty
difficult to comply to the sort of specifications as they've been laid out right now.
You know, like, theoretically, someone could just, like, send you $10,000 and you're like,
okay, I have no idea who this wallet is.
Like, how am I supposed to figure that out, right?
And so it could certainly raise some really interesting situations.
Um, yeah, I think, I think we definitely need, like, uh, further, further action on this and
from sort of the government on, like, where they, where they stand on this and, and what
it means, like, further details.
Um, but I think, yeah, this is, it's very interesting.
I think the US government's approach to regulation is, is to really try to be, like, very, um,
intense against the, the bad actors and a very, um, sort of anti-privacy almost regarding this,
where it's like, we don't, you know, they, they want to know where the money is, is being sent and
they, and they don't want crypto to be used as a way to get around, um, traditional sort
of like wire methods and things like that.
So it's, it's definitely an interesting time for crypto in the US, of course, but, but what,
how I see this is really like, this is, this is coming out of an effort to, to potentially
stymie, stymie the use of crypto as a, um, money laundering tool or other kind of malicious
tool.
Um, and, um, I think a lot of people may get caught in the crossfire, but I think it
will also be really interesting to see how people's behavior changes, if it changes at
all, and, um, how much they decide to enforce, how many cases they decide, um, to enforce
will be really interesting to see.
King Apollo in the comments says, I'm denouncing my citizenship.
An NFT cap says, this episode of Taxified is sick.
Proud to be an American, I see tagging you in, then we're going to move on from this
topic.
Taxified is hilarious.
Um, yeah, I just want to, uh, encourage everyone, especially US citizens listening in to heed this
advice.
This is fantastic, uh, points made by everybody.
Uh, but I also want to take a second to, uh, just, you know, note how much information we're
all probably sharing in a public space.
Uh, you know, we're posting wallet addresses for giveaways or X, Y, Z things.
And, uh, you know, we're posting our PFPs, which are all probably tied back to things.
So, you know, it's really important that we take note of all this stuff and you be responsible
and follow the laws and, and, uh, you know, uh, practice best compliance.
Um, in my biggest fear, like it's like them, you know, using AI in the future, some chat
GPT to just like scan.
And there are already companies out there, like getting funding to like do this stuff,
to scan Twitter.
And, you know, people are trying to, you know, tie things to people.
So, um, you know, take note of that and be responsible.
Yeah.
Is it too late for me to all of a sudden, uh, re-dox myself?
Can I, or un-dox myself?
Can I, is that retroactive?
Are we able to go backwards?
Uh, moving on by ourselves, fair Dutch auctions.
I'm really curious to hear what people have to think or have to say about this one.
Age of Dinos, another exterior product, exterior, of course, uh, Jeremy Horn overworld recently
minted Age of Dinos is doing a fair Dutch auction from 0.2 Ethereum to 0.59 Ethereum, which means
a fair Dutch auction is essentially the lowest price at which all the NFTs would sell is the
price for all NFT buyers.
So essentially if 4,000 NFTs would sell because, uh, 4,000 people at 0.4 or higher put in that
bid, then it'll sell for all of them at 0.4 ETH.
Uh, my question for the panel is, is this the best way for both the projects to get
the most value out of their potential, uh, collection mints?
And is this the best way for consumers to get into their favorite projects without being
left in the cold via a gas war?
Is this the best of both worlds or is somebody kind of getting left out in the cold here?
Uh, Mr. Wild Paul, I'll tag you in first.
I don't have an answer to this question.
I just wanted to double down on the questions you just asked, because this is very interesting
to me and us as project creators with future mints, uh, that we're thinking about and airdrops
and, and just ways that we want to get assets into the hands of, uh, of our players and our,
and our users, uh, and, and looking at the, you know, uh, kind of existing meta still of
like, just looking at, uh, like the overworld mint that happened and the gas wars and the,
and the challenges of that and the things that had to be done afterwards to sort of make
up for, for the failures of that particular approach and just being like, is there a
better way?
And so I see this experiment running now, or, uh, you know, as you said, exterior doing,
doing this additional style and trying it out.
And I'm just wondering if anyone here has insight into how that's going, because I'm,
I, we have been fascinated by that this whole time.
Like this idea of like, is there some way for people to express their interest in getting
their hands on something without having to get involved in a gas war and just waste money,
uh, just for the attempt.
Um, so anyway, I think it's, I, I, I'll just say, I'm, I'm very happy that, that they're,
that these experiments are running that, that, you know, groups like exterior companies like
exterior trying this because, uh, because I don't think that, that the current model for
it is very good at all.
It's not consumer friendly.
It sucks from a developer perspective.
I mean, we went through it ourselves and, uh, and I had lots of conversations with Jeremy as
they were going through it recently.
And there's just, there's like no winning in it.
Like there, there's just, it's, it's just like, you're just choosing between the least
worst options.
Um, so love to hear any ideas or thoughts on, on ways to evolve and innovate past this.
Just real quick.
I got word from shrapnel that I'm going to be able to give an extraction pack to everybody
that retweets the space.
So huge.
Thank you to shrapnel for that guys.
Get those retweets in before the end so that we can make sure we hook you up.
And the little lizard legend had his hand up next.
I'm going to send it to you limbs.
Are you buying or selling fair Dutch auctions?
I think first, it really depends on who it's for.
I think for the projects, it makes a lot of sense because it doesn't leave as much money
on the table.
Like you actually kind of have, uh, the market discovers and finds what price it is.
I see patents here now, and I was going to plug alpha wolves from last week.
It was a really good lesson for anyone who didn't hear that and check that out.
Cause spark and Peyton got into this a bit on, on age of dyno and spark had some really
good takes on it and, but basically like you're leaving your, you're short.
Like if your mentors don't have as much upside potential, which then limits your secondary
trading.
So from a buyer's perspective, it's not as good in that, in that light, but then from
a project's perspective, you actually, you know, you gain more money and you take it off
the table, but then are you hurting yourself longer term because you don't see as much
secondary action and as much volume.
So you might not perform as well on secondary, but you raise more money out of the mint.
So it kind of depends what your goals are for the mint.
Um, some projects don't need funding and they're wanting like at the marketing value.
So a free mint or something like that can, can be good or just a low price mint.
Whereas other people are trying to like bootstrap and actually fund and maybe a fair Dutch option
is better for them to get money off the table.
Um, so I think I don't really have a buy or sell.
I think in terms of the projects, it's usually more upside.
And in terms of the consumers, it's usually not as good.
Appreciate that, Lem's good insights.
I'll tag in Peyton on that note and remind people alpha wolves is every Thursday night.
We'll have another great episode tomorrow night.
So make sure you're tuning into that.
And Peyton, along with the lead researcher of the wolves down, Sparksy comes every single
time.
Unfortunately, Sparksy's in Australia, which means he can like never attend any spaces that
are at a reasonable hour.
So it's super late, but I'll make sure you tune into that for tons of alpha Peyton.
What do you think of fair?
Dock excuses spark.
Um, yeah, I think, uh, the fair duck auction to Lem's point is, you know, closest to what the
builders can get for their product.
Um, but there's also a lot of things that you are adding into it and putting into it.
Um, there's a lot of, um, things that come with a price of, let's say 0.2 to 0.6 ETH,
right?
There is a lot of value that you have to give and flow and the expectation from that
community, uh, for a very high amount.
And this is going way past what we're kind of like all talking about.
I think a lot of us don't talk about the tail end of things because we're super excited
about overworld, but we don't also see the tail end of two years from down the road.
Whenever, let's say they're just now releasing their product.
And now people are very upset, uh, let's say age of dino, sorry.
Cause like 0.15, but like, let's say 0.2 or 0.6.
Let's say that we come out of this, uh, fair auction of a 0.6 ETH mint.
The expectation that that community is going to have on the game coming out with 0.6 is
going to be a lot more harder than like probably somebody from like Everseed or something that
charged like $15 and like $50, uh, through like Solana and like, you know, is willing to
have like a very core community that comes and plays their game is like UA, a quality QA
testers and all that stuff that provide value way beyond, you know, they're paying you pretty
much to, to QA the game.
Right.
And there's a lot of those things that are, are built into the price of something marketing
that you're going to get from, from these people.
Like, you know, Paul, like I hold a wild pass.
Do I fricking love the crap out of you guys?
Will I do anything?
Like, absolutely.
You know?
And so there's a lot of things that like, you are also kind of paying.
And if the more that you charge, uh, for that, the more I think, Hey, that falls on
you.
Go do, go do great things.
I'm fronting the money for you.
Um, and you can, you can do that.
Right.
And then people usually raise off of the back of that and then get more money and then sometimes
tend to forget where they're coming from.
So I think that's what it kind of comes down to.
There's, we've seen this now for like two years.
A lot of people are not talking about the presale though.
Like I think presale is something that is kind of like Kickstarter in some sense, right?
If Paul, if you came to me and said like wolves would like, uh, would wolves like a presale
of like wildcard, absolutely a hundred percent.
Like we don't care about what's going to happen in the gas, gas war.
Right.
But no, we believe in you.
We believe in Katie.
We believe in what you guys are building for wildcard.
And so we will take that chance on like the floor, whatever your price is before that.
And that's what happens.
And I think a lot of people are not really, people are sleeping on the presale meta that's
happening currently.
I think the presale meta is great.
I, and I love that.
And thank you for saying that.
I just want to respond real quick.
Part of the challenge, and I agree with what Lems was saying is if, if we're in the bucket,
which actually we are of wanting to primarily, uh, just get assets out there into the hands
of not just the presale, the, the, the sort of alpha groups and the whales who are, who
know what they want, and they're going to have a direct discussion with us, but more of the
general public, and we're not actually trying to maximize the return to us at, at mid time.
We're actually just trying to set some threshold that, uh, that, you know, makes it so that
there's some, uh, you know, there's some upfront cost for the people are trying to get in, but,
but, you know, but mostly they're capturing the upside from there on the secondary market
is, is what we're hoping actually in that case, there's still no great way to do it because
like, you know, it's still sort of puts those consumers in a situation where
they're either effectively doing a presale, which is the management of the whitelist or
the allow list, or you're just dealing with overallocation and gas wars.
Like, I just wish there wasn't a way, I wish there was a good way to say, look, we just
want to give people a chance to get into this mint at this low price.
And then, and then, you know, see what happens from there and, and, and not have to deal with
gas wars, this other stuff on, on each L one.
And they're just, there really isn't a good way to do it.
Or maybe, or maybe this kind of auction is a way to approach it, but that's what I'm trying
to get at is like, if, if you're in that bucket of, of companies who are, we're actually just
trying to be entirely consumer friendly, is the Dutch auction a way to do that?
Or is it still not great from that?
Well, I think, Paul, like the, the plate of airdrop is like a real big meta that's going
to be coming that we can probably analyze that, right?
Something that I'm, I'm doing that.
And I think AI arena was one of those people that did that.
They didn't have to deal with gas or anything like that.
You had to get 50%.
I think you had to be the top 50% of the leaderboards to be able to have like a chance to, to mint a free
segment.
And I think they have a very low supply.
I think it's a 420 max currently.
And you have a, I think it's at like 2.5 to three ETH.
And so there's like a lot of that type of thing where like, it's the consumer that got the
upside of it for playing your game.
And, and I, I love that.
And, and sorry, I don't mean to jump in front of anyone's hands.
What I wanted to say just in that point is we're doing that too.
And we love the, like played, like we have the wild file, which is our way of tracking
player engagement and people are scoring points there and they're getting kind of on the leaderboards
and all that kind of stuff.
So we're doing that.
But the, but the thing that continues to come up is yeah, but mints are these tremendous
marketing opportunities.
So even if we're not trying to capture money from the mint itself, there's still these very
meaningful marketing moments for web three projects.
And so like doing everything as an airdrop instead of utilizing mint sometimes sort of misses
out on that.
Yeah.
That's a great point, Paul.
I appreciate you adding that as a wrinkle to think about from the founder perspective.
I want to send it around.
I'm going to send it to, to Fresco who's been on both sides of this as well.
Fresco, are you buying or selling these fair Dutch auctions?
Um, in a way both, I think I'm buying it more than I'm selling it.
Um, I think, listen, like it, it seems to me like this is a pretty fair way of getting your
items into the hands of people who, who want them the most.
Right.
And, uh, you know, people who are fans are probably more willing to, to pay a little bit
more.
Um, I think where it gets a little complex and I don't think age of dinos will have to
deal with this, but what, what do you do if you have 4,000 max bid or 5,000 max bids?
Like how do you choose the 4,000?
Right.
I don't think that's an issue for, um, you know, that we need to talk about now, but I think
going forward when a game hits critical mass, you know, that that's going to be an issue,
um, at some point, but I, I think it's fair.
I think we've all grown up in web three enough to know that businesses need to make money and
they need to maximize their money making potential.
And I think this is a really good way to do it for age of dinos.
I also think it's, um, pretty fair to say that anybody who wants this bad enough can make
sure that they get it.
Uh, doing it blind kind of sucks.
I, I will grant people that, but, um, overall I think there shouldn't be a ton of people that
come out of this with heavy complaints because, you know, you're the consumer, you're spending
your money, right?
If you overspend, that's, that's nobody's fault, but your own, in my opinion.
Um, the other thing that I think is a little caveat that's interesting is, you know, if
the public sale of this ends up going up for like 0.5, but there's a ton that gets sold
at 0.2, you have a really big gap of a bunch of people who will be in profit, which is below
the amount of people below the money spent for people who bought at public sale.
And that sucks for them.
And I think that if people are going to be doing this going forward, limiting the amount
of pre-sale spots you give so that you can at least try to preserve like some people's
goodwill, I think is going to be a smart thing going forward.
Um, but overall, you know, I mean, I'm super interested to see how it plays out because
I, in theory, I like both sides of it.
Some interesting thoughts there.
I want to give a shout out to Jay from Gino pets in the comments.
He says fair launch slash player driven pricing is the only way to create markets.
We've done this with every mint for Gino pets.
I'm a big fan of what Gino pets has done in the past.
I want to give him a shout out as well.
Kate Irwin from decrypt media.
I'll send it over to you.
What do you think about these fair auctions, fair Dutch auctions?
Um, yeah.
So, I mean, I have a bit of a hot take.
I think like gas wars and gas fees in general are just something that crypto native people live
with in this sort of era of like dumb money.
But I think, you know, once people realize that wasting money on gas fees is very stupid,
um, they will stop doing that.
So that's kind of my two cents.
I think like crypto native people are just going with it, um, because it's what they're
used to and they've accepted it.
But I think there's going to be a lot of people out there that are not going to accept it and
they're going to hate it.
Um, just like how they hate advertisements on YouTube videos or what have you.
Like there are going to be a lot of people, um, that are, that are going to hate gas fees,
gas wars, be very mad about it.
Um, you know, like we, we literally saw with that previous, uh, mint that started, started
with an O that a lot of people were tweeting about, um, and complaining about how their mints
failed and they wasted hundreds of dollars.
Um, yeah, crypto people do that and they just tweet and complain and they get over it.
But like normal people, um, who aren't crypto G gens throwing their Ethereum around, like
it's paper fund money.
Um, they are going to be extremely mad about stuff like that.
So I think I, I just, I urge people to like, please see outside of the bubble.
Gas fees are extremely stupid.
I understand that they need to run the network and whatnot.
But when you get into these like gas wars, it, it truly becomes ridiculous and it just
becomes like a battle of like, who's richer and who has more Ethereum lying around that
they can just blow on dumb shit.
And, and so I, I just like, I'm strongly against that.
Um, and, and yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm fully in support of, uh, more equitable blockchains that
run, um, in ways that really prevent gas wars from happening.
So I don't think there are like any duck, Dutch, duck auction, um, Dutch auction is, is a great
solution.
Um, I understand that like, yeah, people are wanting to throw their money at stuff, but
I think it's a lot of dumb money that's being spread around.
Shout out to inhuman in the comments.
He says, no such thing as a fair Dutch auction.
Play to mint is the only way for games going forward.
If it's games, you should be rewarding players, right?
Otherwise the goal is extracting.
I also want to give people a reminder.
We are giving away a shrapnel operator, which last time I checked was worth like 0.25 Ethereum,
which is absolutely bananas.
So make sure you're dropping comments, retweeting, liking the space, all that good stuff for a
chance to win that in every single retweeter.
The space is also going to win an extraction pack worth at least 50 bucks.
Vidar, I'm going to send it over to you next, but we do have to wrap up this topic in
just a couple of minutes.
So try to keep it short if you can.
Okay.
Yet again, I'm going to have to be the Robin Hood of cryptocurrency and disagree with Fresco
for the second time on a call.
I'm sorry.
I know the GameCube thing.
If I have a hundred million dollars and you have a hundred K, does that mean that I like
the game more than you, that I'm more of a fan?
If you've been following it for a year?
Absolutely not.
It just means I have more money than you.
Okay.
That's the first thing I can just throw 200 K at the floor and control it.
The second thing is to Paul.
There's a lot of options.
Actually, number one rule.
Number one is just don't mint on F layer one.
Just don't do that.
Stop minting on F mainnet.
I know it has the most adoption.
I know that it's the most secure, but really you should be looking at other options.
Like Kate said, more equitable blockchains.
Okay.
We have AVAX.
We have Solana.
There's up and coming stuff, especially parallelized blockchains.
Please.
Everyone should start looking at these, especially for mints, because they can process many transactions
in parallel without having to wait.
So there'll be a lot less gas wars going forward when you're using these blockchains.
Things like Say and Swee.
Swee, which is being optimized, particularly for gaming.
And Say, which already is an EVM compatible thing.
So you can basically go back and forth with that.
So there's a lot of other options, right?
You can even go to a subnet on AVAX.
You can use a layer two.
There's a lot of options.
If you really, really, really want to stay on F layer one, there's other things you can
There's little mechanics you can do with your air, your mint.
You can use it like an airdrop.
So instead of having one single mint day, you can have phases.
Okay.
You qualify for mint phase one.
Next week, mint phase two, mint phase three.
So you can separate that out.
So you don't have a billion people all trying to mint on mainnet all at the same time and
killing each other.
And the other issue is also overallocation.
If you're doing a great job with your marketing, if you're already doing a great job, like overworld,
great job with marketing, right?
They overallocated their mint.
Insane.
So now you have all these people trying to blow thousands, hundreds of thousands of dollars
on this mint.
It's crazy.
You're just going to blow F into the ether.
So I think there's a lot of options, a lot of ways that you can kind of talk about this.
And if your marketing team is on point, it doesn't matter where you're launching on an
L2, on another chain, on another L1.
It's irrelevant because you'll be able to push it there.
Yeah, really well said, Vidar.
No surprise there.
I'm going to work my way through the rest of the comments.
Also brought Jay from Genopets up.
I'm going to let him finish this topic out.
But I also just want to remind people in the audience, I'd love to hear from the consumer
perspective.
If you guys are excited about it, whenever you hear of a Dutch auction, do you go, oh,
damn, that's awesome because I have a chance, even though I haven't been farming a whitelist
or something like that?
Or is it like, oh, God, I'm immediately priced out.
What's your gut reaction to that?
Dub from Frapnel, I'm sending it to you next.
Yeah, I'm going to echo like Peyton Vidar here.
Like it does not make any sense for a general consumer.
Like even myself, I have never done a Dutch auction.
I've seen it launch.
And then I look at the prices go up and I'm just like, no, I'm cool.
And the prime example I can give to this is when I was doing sneaker releases and releasing
Yeezys or the LeBrons or what have you, if I would have like turned around to the sneaker
heads and been like, oh, OK, whoever spends the most is going to get these shoes today
rather than who was like first in line or a lottery system or what have you, it would
have been all out war.
And like, it's the same thing, I think, when looking at NFT cultures, taking a look at
physical collectibles and how those are distributed by brands.
Well said.
Sinjin, over to you.
Yeah, I'll try to keep it brief is that, you know, I've done everything in in the Web3
space for gamers to make everything fair and so on and so forth.
And I realized that in some ways I've been completely naive and wrong in that, you know,
this market, which I thought was a very speculative market and that it was going to pass.
It doesn't seem to be the case.
It seems that like there is this kind of real market here that is based off speculation,
almost like penny stocks or pencil pink slip stuff where the speculation is so high and
it's it's it's very established.
And so like this idea of like this degen like cultural identity consciousness that that's
really formed is that a lot of rational things that you would think that's so, so excuse
my language, so fucking stupid, like gas worlds and stuff like that.
In retrospect, looks so fucking bullish, right?
I was like over allocated, but like, oh, you know, like you go labs almost like a mark
of like bullishness and degenness that like, you know, that much gas was wasted to the ether.
And so I'm just like, OK, if they're going to play this game, you know what?
I'm not going to fight this anymore.
We're just going to go with it.
And if people want to degen and they're happy to degen and that's the current market, then
fuck it.
Let's fucking degen.
If you're going to come to me next, because honestly, that's where I was going to pick
Shinjin is like, yeah, hi guys.
Welcome.
Thanks for having me on, Sam.
I couldn't not I couldn't only listen when when this topic came up because we've done
so much of this with three or four primary mints over the last two years with GenoBuds.
Um, our first mint ever was a fair launch kind of Dutch auction.
We use the Solana fair launch protocol.
Uh, you let community decide pricing for an asset for a game that doesn't exist and it's
only a vision.
You can choose a price if you want.
But but at that point, who am I to say what what it's worth?
It really should just be up to the community and those willing to ape in, um, Shinjin, where
you were leaving off there around like, that's just what Web3 wants.
I think it's okay for aspects of our game to be built for Web3 and degens and to cater
to that audience.
That's okay with that kind of drama, whether or not it's wasted money or not is kind of
a perspective each player will have.
Um, there are Web3 gamers who are willing and able to Web3 waste money.
Um, that said, once you start to build your game, you've got a live game and economy.
There's a bit of pivoting that probably has to happen where you're catering, not just to
the one audience of Web3 users.
And if you look at our future mints around, you know, where our first Genesis, other Genesis
collections were then created, you create play to mint games.
And there can still be, still be some aspect of dynamic pricing, but, you know, stages
of a mint, multiple rounds of gameplay that need to happen before you earn the right to
mint the final asset, I think is, is probably the approach that most mature games will end
up taking, uh, after what could be a more speculative Web3 driven first mint.
Um, so maybe my, my TLDR is there's no one size fits all here.
You got to know your community and who you're building for.
Um, the next treasure on a genopence mint, uh, is next Friday.
So if you're looking for a prime example, play to mint, um, we're, we're coming up on
the next one.
Sorry for the plug to close it out, but thank you for having me.
Yeah, of course, Jay.
I just wanted to say that that's amazing, man.
I, uh, I hope you can join us again in the future.
That was some great insight.
Yeah.
And Jay, feel free to stick around for the rest of the show.
A couple of comments.
AE says Dutch auction always feels like a marketing move to gain more F or ETH and get a whale
on board, not giving a general market the chance to participate.
The rich get richer and the poor get poorer.
A fork or sorry.
4k three says no Dutch auctions suck.
What a turnoff.
Destruct Chen says Dutch auctions make me want to vomit.
Uh, crypto haddo says I'll always be priced out.
RQ says do not like Dutch auctions personally.
Uh, and so it seems like while we see, uh, both sides of it up on this panel, there's
not a lot of love coming from the consumer side.
Uh, we'll see if that changes in the future.
Before we get to our next topic, let the echoes of applause detonate for our explosive sponsor,
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Unfortunately, he wasn't able to make it today.
He's actually competing in a Fortnite tournament, so he officially likes Fortnite more than all
of us.
Make sure you give him shit for that next time you see him.
And I got to give a shout out to the Wolvesdow that's also co-hosting this space today.
If you don't know yet, Wolvesdow is going to be doing a lot of advisory services in 2024.
They've actually already been doing advisory services in 2023.
It's just not very public.
It's been with people that we've been helping out on the back end.
So that's going to be something that we take a bit more public in 2024.
We're really excited to do that.
If you're a project and want to get involved, slide into my DMs, slide into the Wolvesdow's
DMs.
There will be some more public-facing stuff and announcements coming up, but I just want
to get people excited about that in the meantime.
And of course, like I said earlier, if you weren't here for it, AVAX is always our co-host.
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So make sure you tag them in the comments.
Tell them thanks for sponsoring Gamified and make sure they feel the love despite not
being here.
But we move on.
Big deal, little deal, no deal.
One of our title topics for the day, China proposes a ban on converting game tokens to
real-world items.
I'm going to read a little bit of an excerpt from an article that was on Cointelegraph.
They said, Article 23 regulates the use of game tokens.
It intends to ban the use of game tokens for buying physical goods, exchanging them
for products, or, quote, products and services of other units, or, quote, legal tender, unquote.
The latter point leaves room for speculation, given that cryptocurrencies don't qualify as
legal tender in China, and no specific mention of crypto is present in the guidelines.
However, it appears the GAPP is trying to insulate online game economies from a tighter
interchange with the real economy.
The guidelines also restrict game providers from offering induced rewards, such as registration
or daily login bonuses.
Providers must also set up user recharge limits with pop-up windows, warning reminders, with,
quote, irrational consumption behavior of users.
The guidelines were published for a public consultation and do not hold legal force yet,
but the deadline is January 22nd.
So, big deal, little deal, no deal, with China wanting to potentially ban converting game
tokens to real money.
Sinjin, as our resident expert on the Asian scene, I'm going to tag you in first.
Well, you know, I've actually worked in China for the regulation on the gaming as well back
in the day, but it's, you know, this is the Chinese government.
It may not make sense to a lot of other people, but, like, for the Chinese government, I don't
think this is about crypto.
This is actually about gaming itself.
So, when that League of Legends, like, Riot game had come out, they actually instituted
that, like, children couldn't play it, like, more than, like, eight hours a day or whatever
like this, or, like, by, like, 10 p.m., they had to stop.
And so, there's a record of them doing stuff like this before, but, you know, the main thing
is, is, like, whatever you guys think about, like, monetization in mobile games, like,
times it by, like, 150, and that's China.
Like, when you, like, get an item in China and you get a product, there's, like, another,
like, linked website through whichever, like, portal you went through that will allow you
to sell that physical item that you won from the game for cash.
Like, it's all, like, structured there completely.
You know, this is the original, like, kind of pachinko model.
It's from Japan where, you know, you'd win, like, a stuffed toy and you'd go around the
back of the pachinko parlor and then you would, you know, get your money for it.
And it was kind of a workaround for the gambling.
It just happens to conveniently be a store that buys stuffed animals for $100 behind
the pachinko parlor.
Yeah, exactly.
That's the way it's done in pachinko, yeah.
That little Pokemon doll is worth, like, $2,000 and you exchange back.
So, like, but, you know, like, even when, like, China, like, banned ICOs back in, like,
2018 and stuff like that, it's because, like, whatever you think that happens to the
West, it's, like, 100 times worse in China in terms of how they take it.
But in terms of, like, the daily rewards and stuff like that, you know, when you
go to China, like, everyone plays, not just, like, these casual whatever games.
They're playing, like, card games and so on and so forth, like, nonstop.
And I say, good, fuck these hyper-casual fucking monetization bullshit little
fucking, like, logging shit.
Make the game developers really fucking innovate now if they want to monetize and,
like, whatever, take the money off the Chinese because it's still a huge market.
So I'm, like, it's a big deal just because it's going to cost huge shifts.
But I think, like, whatever.
I mean, I'm happy to see what happens here.
All right.
I think Kate from Decrypt had the hand up next.
What do you think of China's new potential policy?
Yeah.
Great takes from Sinjin.
Really good context there as well.
I mean, I think it's interesting from my quick little translation of, like, an article
from their government website.
It's basically, like, it's a draft document for online game management measures.
And they're seeking opinions from the public.
You could literally email them or send them physical mail and basically write your opinions,
I suppose.
Not sure if they're taking any American opinions into the matter.
But, you know, interesting stuff that they are sort of open to opinions.
My cat has her own opinions that she's sharing now in cat.
But, yeah, I mean, this comes shortly after the sort of news that they were going to ban
sort of, like, daily login rewards and things like that.
So, I think, like Sinjin said, it may push game developers toward building different types of games
or building games that are a bit more meaningful and a bit less of the sort of gotcha, pay-to-win,
login and pay-to-win kind of variety of games.
And those can be super addictive.
And you could argue that they sort of resemble gambling and therefore could fall under all kinds
of other different regulatory things.
I mean, it's really not surprising to me.
And it's sort of all par for the course.
But what has been super interesting is that just developers and publishers, especially in South Korea,
they've really pushed forward with blockchain game development for global audiences,
despite basically being unable to release them in their own home countries.
So sort of watching, like, we made move basically their whole sort of blockchain gaming focus
toward the Middle East, even though they are based in South Korea,
as, like, really interesting.
So definitely sort of watching the Middle East region and what they end up doing with gaming
as more restrictions pop up in Asia.
Mr. Paul Bettner, over to you.
I think that this is a big deal for games that were actually, we're calling themselves games,
but to Sinjin and Kay's point, which I think is brilliant,
we're actually just gambling instruments and or gamified financialization protocols.
It turns out that for games, I think, that are actually trying to be games,
we as designers are less interested in creating, as what we've talked about before,
open economies where the end result is players extracting dollar values from the game economy.
And instead, we're sort of naturally incentivized to think about the ways that we can have real money economies
work in tandem or in conjunction to our games economy.
Like the example we always use for Wild Card that we've talked about many times
is the professional gaming that can exist with a game as an e-sport.
We have this real money economy and people playing to earn all the time in games like League of Legends,
even though that's adjacent to the in-game League of Legends economy,
the free-to-play economy that exists that you can't extract money out of directly.
I think that's the real model.
And for games like that, this is no big deal at all,
because they're not trying to create, they're not trying to violate this rule.
They're not trying to create a system where you can play and just extract dollars,
but you can engage at a different level as a professional player and earn money in that way.
And so I actually think that for the games that are legitimately trying to stay as games
and where their focus is being the games,
this actually sort of naturally aligns with the direction that we would be heading anyway.
But for the games and products that are calling themselves games
but are actually gambling applications, it's problematic.
All right, Fresco, over to you.
Yeah, I think it's a big deal.
I go back into my early days.
This is where I went with our back over.
We all remember, those of us who played Vanilla, WoW,
the Chinese mafia that absolutely dominated Tears Hand for Crusader Orbs.
And I think the Chinese population has been trying to figure out ways to monetize games for a long time
because the everyday citizen in China kind of needs to.
I think the government wants to track every dollar that their citizens is making,
and there's a level of control in China.
Let's thank you.
I don't know who that was, but I appreciate you.
And I lost my train of thought.
But yeah, they want to see where every dollar that their citizens is making,
where is that coming from?
And the level of control in China is unreal compared to what we have here in the States
or in most first world countries.
So I think that's a huge thing.
I think the other part of it that's a big deal is it's getting harder and harder to launch games into China, right?
And it's almost this thing where companies that are launching games have to develop almost a second game.
I think, what was it, TFT launched as the battle for the golden spatula in China because it was such a different game
and they had to work around so many different regulations that the Chinese government was putting in place.
And I think that's a really big thing to watch out for.
However, all that said, I haven't seen the Schoolhouse Rock video of how an idea becomes a law in China.
So I might be talking out of turn here.
It's then just tagging you back in.
Jerry, you are never going to China on the same plane with me.
We're going to go separately.
At least when you get picked up by the authorities, I can call my friends and get you out of fucking customs for fuck's sake.
That was the most American take ever.
Listen, the Chinese government in China has, you know, very, very different cultural norms.
And just like two points on that.
The Chinese government thinks in terms, like for them, short term is 10 years.
Okay.
Like you just have to understand that.
Like whenever the Chinese government is making a policy and they think it's a short term policy, that policy is for 10 years.
Short term for most other people is like two to three years, like for institutions.
Right.
Like then midterm would be like 10 and then long term would be 20.
Long term for China is fucking like 60 years to 100 years.
Right.
So that's one point.
The other point is, is that, you know, the if the Chinese government says, hey, Kate,
please give me your feedback for this thing.
It's a fucking red herring.
Don't give your feedback because you'll get fucking picked up.
Okay.
The only thing you should fucking do is let this thing happen as they happen, because the guys who are in policy, they are fucking smart.
They know all the fucking shit that's going that is going on.
They will arrest people and interrogate them for a fucking year by making them teach them what is going on in the industry and won't let them go until that happens.
Okay.
I'm not saying anything that's not a common knowledge in my field of whatever, but I would say, you know, whatever they're going to do, they're going to do.
And, you know, whatever policies that they have, while we may say it's very draconian in the West.
Right.
For them, like their interest is like kind of societal interest as like this kind of mama, papa bear who's like communist.
Okay.
So I take that for what it will do.
We are not, we're not going on a trip together.
You want to get this engine to be PC.
You just mentioned China.
It's the first, the first way we've ever found.
I got to back him up just real quick, not jumping in front of the hands, but he's completely right.
And I've done business in China.
It's the same thing.
I used to fail because I would think of this as so like from an America perspective, when I started to just like, just really think of it as the way that China would like for you to believe that is the case, which is that they're really trying to protect their citizens, et cetera.
Then I started to have a much, much more fluid relationship, much more successful relationship in China with, with, with other businesses or whatever.
Or, you know, we can be hypocritical about whether that's true or not, but, but the reality of it is that's what's believed in and by all, by, by the majority of Chinese citizens.
So like, like just denying that or saying that's not true and that's not like, it doesn't really get you anywhere in that country.
All right.
Fair enough.
I'm going to work my way through the hands pretty quick.
We got to move on.
I have some lighthearted topics I would like to get back to since we started off the space in such a fun way.
I'm going to send it over to the man Vidar next though.
Okay.
I have to be extremely careful with the things I'm about to say because I'm going to China in two weeks.
So wish me best of luck guys.
Uh, I'll be going to Guangzhou to meet with some 10 cent executives.
So I really have to be very careful with what I'm about to say.
That said, um, China is a large duality.
Okay.
The government, um, both wants to keep an eye on things that are going on and where money flows are going, but it also, and I know that this is a difficult concept for us in the West because people really see things differently.
They really do also care about the cultural norms, which affect the people and the people themselves also really care about the cultural norms there.
It's extremely important.
They have a much more communal structure here.
We're much more individualistic.
So things which are offensive to them will be instantly offensive to all of them.
Okay.
So you really need to pay attention to that.
Like, like what was Paul was saying, you know, once you start looking at it from the point of view that it's all Chinese people and they all think the same thing.
And the government's looking out for the people, you'll get a lot farther there.
So that said, um, starting crypto gaming, there is going to be incredibly difficult for any startup because one, you can't publish a game there unless you have a Chinese publisher that's going to help you do that.
And two, putting crypto in there, the only place where that's going to be a starter of any sort is maybe in Hong Kong because they're using that as a financial test bed ground to bring in financial products.
But outside of that, if you're trying to target mainland, you're going to be competing with the likes of Tencent.
You're going to be competing with the likes of Alibaba and all these other mega corporations that can just beat you at your own game.
There's nothing you can do about it and they will just take your product.
So I would be very careful with that.
Also, just crypto in general is also usually a non-starter inside of mainland China because they already are basically already using a CBDC, which is the digital UN.
Um, so honestly, when it comes to Web3 gaming in China, the biggest things that I see is going to be coming out of these mega corporations or the games that already exist there, like Wang Zirongya, which is a honor of Kings here in the West.
Games like that, which are the biggest game in the world that no one's played in the West.
So games like that, I think, are going to be the things which are going to first start to integrate maybe digital ownership of property, but it'll still be quite limited because of the way that the government works there.
Well said, Vidar.
I've got two more hands I'm going to work through.
I'm going to send it to Icy, who I know is American, but half Chinese.
And then Andy from Stardust also joined us from the audience.
Icy, over to you.
Yeah, I'll try and be quick, Sam.
For I think it's a big deal for China and that country.
I think the, you know, crackdown on gaming and the politics of China have been well covered here.
But I think it's a little deal for the rest of us in the crypto industry and Web3 gaming.
We've talked about this a lot with the crypto industry and the regulation hurdles that we have here in America.
And a lot of American companies and crypto companies building have, like, talked to the, it's a talking point of, like, you know, does it make sense to build this company and, you know, participate in the US?
And maybe and maybe not, but, like, there's a whole big world out there beyond, you know, these countries.
It's unfortunate if we lose that market.
But those are the decisions that those governments and those people can make for, you know, their citizens.
But there's a big world out there and progress isn't going to stop.
And, you know, the value propositions and these values are going to continue.
So I think that, you know, Web3 gaming will continue to develop.
And, you know, if we just aren't able to tap into those markets, then, yeah, you're not able to do that.
But, you know, progress is going to continue regardless.
Well said, I see Andy from Stardust.
Welcome to the show, my man.
What's your take on what's going on with China right now?
Hey, I'm not even going to give a take.
I was just smiling ear to ear listening to Sinjin kind of react and explain stuff about China.
And I highly recommend anyone who's interested in China.
So first of all, just there's a mountain of history to go look at.
And the way they think is completely different than the West, especially when it comes to, like, the long-term thinking.
And if you're at all, everyone here is interested in crypto.
I think Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order by Ray Dalio.
And I'll say it one more time.
Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order by Ray Dalio is an absolutely phenomenal book.
It basically levels all of history of any kind of nation state or society on what they did with their money and what and how they use their military.
It just, and technology, and it just levels everyone to what their GDP was and how it affected kind of how they grew or not.
What, you know, having reserve currency status, et cetera, et cetera.
And it really pinpoints where China and the U.S. are in their respective cycles.
It's an awesome, awesome, awesome book.
So highly recommend anyone in this industry to go read that.
Appreciate that, Andy.
That's something I've had on my list for a long time.
I'm going to put it in my Amazon cart right now and make sure I pick that up because I'm going to be doing a lot more reading in 2024 if I stick to that goal.
We're moving on, though, to a brand new game mode.
What's the worst?
We're bringing back some nostalgia maybe in reverse order.
We're going to ask, what's the worst between these three things we all experience in video games?
Unskippable cut scenes?
Ah, brutal.
Game cheaters, okay, in the sense of maybe wallhacks, aimbots, or buggy game launches like Cyberpunk, No Man's Sky, Fallout 76.
I would say more, but I'll have to stop before I throw up.
My question again for the audience, what's the worst?
Unskippable cut scenes, game cheaters, or buggy game launches?
Lemz, I'll send it over to you first.
I don't know why people hate unskippable cut scenes so much.
Maybe it's just because I really like story-based games.
Let me pause it if I need to go do something or I need to go pee or get water or something, but I don't really care if they're unskippable.
Everyone hates cheaters.
They're annoying, but what really grinds my gears is buggy game launches.
You named a few there.
It is so bad, and I think that's one of the downsides, I guess, of having the internet and patches now is that it's like game devs can just be lazy sometimes and release something that's not fully complete and then be like, oh, we'll just patch it later.
Whereas, you know, when we were kids and you didn't have something that could update, it was like you've got to ship the game finished and complete, and I wish we had more of that.
That's a really good point at the end there.
Kate, Erwin, you had the hand up next.
Yeah.
I think, like, as someone that plays a lot of shooters, like, cheaters has to be the number one, but, like, they're not really that common in the games that I play, so the patch bugs is also, like, a huge, huge, huge one.
And I think that's a really good point that, like, yeah, patches, launches are often very buggy now, and often there will be bugs, you know, like, 12 seasons into a competitive AAA game, and you start to wonder, you know.
I mean, I'd be really curious to hear from, like, Paul and the game dev folks here about, like, you know, is this a reasonable thing that we should be okay with?
Like, all these bugs in AAA games coming out repeatedly, even, like, 12 seasons later, or is it something that, like, game-breaking bugs, you know, not just, like, little things, but, like, big things.
There's, like, and then there's, like, DDoSs and stuff, so, yeah, it's a really hard choice to pick one.
Yeah, I mean, I think I am personally more affected by the game-breaking bugs than cheaters, but cheaters would have to be a very close second.
Appreciate that, Kate. I am going to send it to Mr. Paul Bettner to shed some light on this one.
Okay, so I kind of hate it. There's a little bit of, like, a dual standard here between AAA developers and, like, everyone else, and in reality, as gamers, as consumers, we're unfortunately rewarding bad behavior, if we're honest.
Like, you know, you can look at an example like Cyberpunk, and, like, yeah, it was a buggy launch, and it wasn't the game that we all wanted it to be, and there was, like, controversy and everything else, but they sold so many units of that, and then additionally got another giant marketing beat when they came back and, quote-unquote, fixed all those issues with Phantom Liberty, and suddenly the game was, it's almost like they got to launch it twice, and, like, so, from their perspective, like, would they do it the same way again?
I mean, kind of. So it was a little bit of the, like, all press is good press kind of thing in that regard, and I, you know, so, I don't know, man, as gamers, Kate, as gamers, like, we're unfortunately rewarding bad behavior, and it's not necessarily disincentivizing these giant publishers from sort of, like, making this hard decision of, like, should I ship this game even though it's not exactly what we wanted it to be?
We're out of time. We've been spending a zillion dollars on it. It's time to just get it out there. It's good enough.
The gamers will forgive us as long as we deliver on some of the most important big flashy things that they wanted, then the things that aren't there yet, they're going to give us some leeway.
We can go fix those things. I honestly, though, I hope that doesn't continue, but so far, it's not necessarily harming those launches, and then you can even have the effect, like, what happened with No Man's Sky, right?
Where it's, like, what was the other game where this happened recently? Well, oh, sorry. It's the one I think is going to happen, which is Starfield, right?
So it's a game that isn't doing very well. Everybody's shitting on it. I'm like, oh, you just know they're out there, like, redoing it, and then they're going to have, like, a second launch for it, and that's going to be the one that's, like, the honest reality of it is, and I'll shut up.
I've been talking about this for a while, but the reality of it is, developing games at that level, like the Starfields of the world or the Cyberpunks of the world, it's so expensive.
It's so enormously expensive that literally developers at that level will do anything they possibly can to try to increase marketing, to try to defer costs, to try to monetize sooner than later.
Like, and if there's an opportunity to start having gamers buy that game and pay for it, even before it's truly ready, and it's good enough to do that where they can then just continue that path, they will, those companies running those enormous budgets will do that.
They'll do it if they can get away with it, and currently they can get away with it, apparently.
I always appreciate that industry insight from the man himself. Vidar, over to you.
Vidar is dead to us now. Jay, tagging you in.
Ha, dead to us. I think there's a scale here, too, right? Like, sure, for a AAA game, you're spending tens or more millions on. It pretty much sucks when it falls apart day one and it launches.
But tie it back to being a Web3 builder, and it's not the first time I've admitted this is my first probably really big game I've ever built.
We had to launch a small slice of game that worked good enough to get a token economy going, to get a community to get built, to get all those pieces going.
We're 18 months into what was originally an alpha of a game, finally getting to be one now, and we still got bugs.
They're not game-breaking bugs that, you know, destroy the world, but we had about 1,000 Saga players join over the last week and a half,
and it exposed a new problem with the Saga browser that all fell apart.
It's kind of just the way it's going to go. I think I come from more of an iterative development background,
so the bugs one, maybe because I'm a builder, I'm less forgiving on, I'll put that in three.
Skippable, you've got to give people choices to skip stuff at this point, though I did grow up on Final Fantasy
and watching an epic cutscene was just my thing. Back on PlayStation would have been my console, sorry guys, to bring it back to the beginning.
I did like watching those cutscenes, but I don't think you could skip them.
My memory's a little bit fuzzy on that one.
And then, I guess I'll put number one at cheaters, only because cheaters not only ruin the economy for the game itself,
but other players, and in crypto, real-minded cheating sucks.
Though I do think it's on the game developer in some ways to design the game such that cheating is not going to impact the wider community.
People will always find ways to cheat, but you should be able to at least find some ways to limit that impact of cheating
to not destroy the player experience or everyone else.
Thanks, Jay. Dub, the man who's played more games than anyone on Planet Earth.
I'm sending it over to you. I know you're going to have a good answer on this one.
Dude, I appreciate it.
Honestly, the cheaters and the bugs are just par for the course.
It's the things we go and live through just by playing games.
Honestly, I don't care about them when I experience them.
I don't really mind it at all either.
But when I am redoing a level, and I have to live through an unskippable cutscene that was made to be viewed once,
like, I just don't freaking get it.
And it's unbelievable and unacceptable and a waste of, like, everyone's time in this world.
While the rest of the things, like, I've seen bugs become great game features, you know?
So, like, if you just try to get rid of bugs altogether, you're also taking away some unexpected innovation.
While, you know, these unskippable cutscenes, man, they cannot exist.
It's blasphemy.
It is blasphemy.
Phil in the audience also says, on paper, I would think that it's cheating or bugs that would be the worst.
But what I remember the most is the cutscene I wanted to get through so I could just play the fucking game.
I couldn't agree more with you, Phil.
Fresco, over to you.
A dub might have changed my mind a little bit.
I was going to say unskippable cutscenes are not that bad.
But when you have to watch them twice or, like, a third time, it is pretty bad.
And then, like, Kingdom Hearts 4 really sticks out to me as being a game that had way too many cutscenes.
But I think generally I look at unskippable, like, cutscenes as, like, video games are art, right?
And you losers should just, you guys are average at games anyway.
So just watch the cutscenes because they're beautiful and a lot of work went into those.
Buggy game launches.
That, I, you know, maybe I've been around in gaming and played games for long enough that I just kind of come to expect it at this point.
So I, like, never play games when they get launched.
Sorry, I got a phone call.
I don't know if I got cut off.
I expect gameplay launches to be kind of shit when they come out.
So I always wait, like, a month or two anyway.
And I find I have different experiences.
Like, I enjoyed Fallout 76 pretty much from the moment I played it on.
And I didn't play it a ton.
But I know people hated it at first.
And a lot of the games we look at as having bad launches, like Paul said, have these great, like, rising from the ashes stories, you know, like No Man's Sky.
We talk about all the time.
It's like this, you know, that's the true redemption arc right there.
But Cheaters was the worst, especially if you played anything at, like, a high level.
I used to play, like, WoW all the time.
I was a high-ranked arena player, you know, like, a high-ranked rated battleground player.
And there were things like that, that, like, you know, when your IP, like, you would never join Skype, right, with random people you didn't know.
Because then they'd pull your IP and they'd DDoS you the moment you went in.
And you couldn't climb rank.
Like, you know, so the guys who had 27, 2800 arena ratings didn't actually earn it.
They just had everybody's IP and they'd knock everybody offline.
And that sucked because, like, the people who were talented enough to be up there, you know, weren't necessarily.
They always had this wall that they would hit or the ceiling that they would hit.
And, you know, that's pretty shitty.
And I imagine, I don't play a ton of FPS, but I'm sure that's fucking rampant in FPS games.
Dude, you guys talking about unskippable cutscenes just triggered a core memory inside of me, which was a boss in Ratchet & Clank.
It was, like, the last boss in the entire game.
And it took me, like, 50 tries to beat.
And every single time you would die and then engage the boss, you had to watch it again.
And I swear to God, I spent, like, 13 hours watching the same cutscene over two days forever scarred.
Vidar, are we back?
We are back.
So, when it comes to multiplayer games, the winners are the cheaters.
Of course, that is the worst possible thing that can happen in any multiplayer competitive game.
I would rather sit through an unskippable cutscene and then not get into a game with 12 people that are sniping me through a wall 400 meters away.
But that's terrible.
When it comes to single-player games, though, you might think I was going to say broken games.
But no, no, it's not the bugs.
It's boring gameplay loop.
That is way worse than having a buggy game.
And when you have both of them in the same game, Starfield, then you have something which is just a waste of my time.
And this is coming from one of the biggest Elder Scrolls proponents ever created by humans.
I love the Elder Scrolls, but Starfield ain't it.
I got extremely bored about six days in.
And I'm sure a lot of you got bored even quicker than I did.
So, I think a boring game loop is even worse than game mechanics.
Cheaters are the worst and unskippable cutscenes.
Guys, it's 2024.
Just give us a – let me press space bar, please.
Andrew, Uncle Funk, in the comments says,
that dude in your party who won't skip the cutscene every time you have to try the boss again.
Oh, that one dude, every time.
They're like, I'm going to go get a snack.
And like nine minutes later, everybody's just like going to bed for the night.
Then they eat in the mic.
Yeah, facts.
Icy, tagging you in.
Man, you guys are making me like want to change my unskippable cutscene take.
But like, listen, you know, like it's a chance to get up, go to the bathroom, go get some pizza bites.
Like, yeah, they sucked.
And yeah, that core memory is bringing me back.
So, I want to change it.
But you know what?
Icy, can you bring me some pizza bites?
Absolutely.
And I mean, cheaters are terrible, right?
I have like, I'm just thinking of Cairo raging on Twitch over like alleged cheaters and dead drop.
They can definitely ruin the game.
But like, I'm a casual gamer.
So like half the time, I probably don't even know if there's a cheater there.
I'm just getting killed and sucking at the game.
Anyways, you guys can go check out my banner for confirmation of that on Twitter.
For me, I hate to be that like entitled gamer complaining about buggy games and games breaking.
And I'm not like judging or blaming the developers.
I'm just saying as an experience, that's probably the worst experience for me.
You know, like being in the middle of the game and it just crashing or whatnot and having a restart or just like calling it a day, turning the TV off and just like going outside and touching grass for the first time in a week or something like that.
It's just, that's not what you want.
Paul, I know you've been itching to get back in on this one.
What's the worst, my man?
Well, here comes, okay, here comes a little bit of spicy.
The reason that unskippable cut scenes are completely just totally unforgivable.
I mean, of course they are, right?
Like, that's not even a question.
The reason is because cut scenes in games, here's my spicy take, are kind of unforgivable too.
Like, look, I get it.
I grew up with Final Fantasy.
I grew up with freaking Hideo Kojima games.
Like, I, you know what?
I can't help but love that a little bit.
But if I'm honest, that's what movies are for.
That's not what games are for.
I think that the genre of interactive entertainment has made its greatest strides when it has tried to figure out how to tell story in a way that does
not take interactivity away from the player.
If you're putting the controller down to go to the bathroom, maybe that's a sign that that's not a great part of the game or that that's not why you're playing a game for.
Like, I just think if at any moment when the controller becomes non-functional in a game, it's no longer a game.
This has been a philosophy that I think Nintendo has fully embraced with all their games.
And they will still have cut scenes like in the latest Zelda games.
But they have, you know, internally like this rule, I think, that nothing is ever going to exceed 60 seconds of non-interactivity.
And even in those cases, when they can add it back in.
And then you have the games that are like really the pinnacle of doing this well.
I always love to point to the work that Valve did with Half-Life and especially with Portal, where they told some of the most compelling stories in games and never took player control away.
I mean, think about Portal 1, Portal 2, the intensity of the story and the characters that you're experiencing.
Of course, you can look at any of the shock games like Bioshock or Bioshock Infinite as great examples of this too.
There's a sort of a genre of game designers who have been focused on doing this and who strongly believe, as I do, that a cut scene is a cop-out in a game.
And I get it. It's sort of a quote-unquote lazy way to tell a story, but it's not. It's a movie.
It's not what a game is supposed to be and that there's always a way to do it interactively.
And I think games like Last of Us have continued to push that boundary, and I just want to see games go further in that direction.
I think queuing a cut scene and asking the player to put the controller down is somewhat of a cop-out.
All right, Paul. Hold on. Real quick.
Does looking around count as a cut scene?
Do I still have control? Am I still playing?
No, that's not a cut scene.
Yeah, not a cut scene.
Like, I just finished Alan Wake 2, and there are examples of cut scenes in that game that are live action.
But there's lots of examples of walking through the environment, experiencing the story while I'm not really, like, shooting or doing anything else.
I'm getting my story told through environmental storytelling, audio cues, things like that.
Those are not cut scenes. That's still gameplay.
So you don't think that when you start over Skyrim, that's a cut scene?
When you're sitting in the fucking thing, and he's just talking to you, and you're not doing anything, you're slamming, you don't want to get to the fucking running around with the dragons, but you can't.
You got it, bro.
That's a per light.
Know exactly what I'm talking about.
Another example that has the tram ride in Half-Life, right?
The classic example of this.
And honestly, that's where designers started to push those boundaries.
They said, normally this would be a cut scene, but we don't want to take player agency away, so we're going to at least let them look around and move around.
I don't think that that's great.
I think that most of the examples in Portal where you're being told story while also still playing solving puzzle stuff is the ideal version of that, or exploring an environment because you're looking for things like happens in Alan Wake or Last of Us is better.
So, yeah, sitting in a seat in the back of a caravan in the beginning of Skyrim and having that last forever, that's not great.
That's almost as bad as a cut scene.
Dude, Andy.
I think it's a cut scene with bentles and whistles.
With look controls, yeah.
It's pretty bad.
I did not have Andy gotcha-ing Paul Bettner with the Skyrim cart on my bingo cart for 2024 this early.
That was amazing.
I'm going to tag in Vidara just a sec, but Phil in the audience chiming in again.
He says, dude, Lady Unaleska from Final Fantasy X, each time you died, you had to listen to that whole 10-minute speech before fighting her again.
I wanted to blow my brains out.
How many times can I go to the bathroom?
Vidara, over to you.
I want to be very careful, a little bit more careful.
As careful of China as you are of cut scenes.
No, no, no.
I don't want to be that careful with Paul.
So, I think that it really, really depends on the game that you're developing.
Because some games, I think it's completely forgivable and even kind of helps with atmosphere and scene setting if you're going to have a cinematic.
I think it really depends on how that cinematic is done.
I think some good examples, like people did mention the opening of Skyrim or the opening of Oblivion, you know, hey, you're awake, you were dreaming kind of thing.
And then they bring you right into character creation, right?
That's cool.
That's great.
I think the only thing that personally annoys me, and I think this may be a cultural thing because the Japanese people are completely different and the way that Japanese games are made are completely different.
But in JRPGs, and I think Final Fantasy is a great example of this, I really don't like sitting through 30 minutes of cut scene.
There's a lot of story in there, but if I wanted to do that, I would read a book or watch an anime.
So, with that, I do agree with you, but I think cut scenes do help in certain parts and they can be some of the most memorable moments in gaming.
I think, again, people mentioned World of Warcraft.
That's another one.
Sometimes they have these intermittent cut scenes when you're doing a quest and they catch you off guard.
You didn't expect it and you're like, oh, that was a cool cut scene, right?
So, sometimes cut scenes are great and memorable and don't impact your gameplay and it's something that you really remember the entire time you're playing the game.
Other times they're obtrusive and they make you want to get up and go get a snack.
So, there has to be a medium between the two.
I agree with you, by the way.
Just to double the advocate myself, I'm also that kind of gamer and I like when the game, especially if it's right after an intense moment, lets me sit back and be like, cool, I'm being rewarded by a cut scene now.
And I can, like, let my heartbreak come down a little bit and just enjoy this moment.
Wouldn't you kill Arthas for the first time?
Yeah.
Oh, my God.
Oh, yeah.
If you skip to that, lose my number.
But now let's talk about some of the cut scenes in Metal Gear Solid are literally hours long.
Hours of doing nothing but advancing the codec or watching.
Like, it's just insane.
So, clearly this could be taken too far.
And, obviously, unskippable versions of that kind of thing are unforgivable in my opinion.
All right, guys.
Another heated debate on nostalgia.
All I have to do is bring up something nostalgic and apparently you guys can talk for fucking hours.
So, I'm jotting that down as a note for 2024.
I do appreciate it.
It's a lot of fun.
I'm going to ask you guys this one.
We've got 10 minutes left in the show.
The question is, it's the beginning of 2024.
I want to know if you had to pick one NFT, one gaming NFT, you only get to pick one and it's got to go in the vault for 12 months.
You can't touch it again until 2025.
What gaming NFT are you going to pick and why?
Paul, Sinjin, I'm going to ask that you don't pick your own.
Of course, we don't.
Oh, come on.
Of course, it would be the wild pass.
No, actually.
Could I pick one that we haven't launched yet that I haven't told anybody?
No, I'm not going to do that.
Only if I get five whitelists and you spill the alpha and gamified.
Okay, I'll make you that deal.
No, but I spill the alpha because Katie will kill me.
Do it.
Do it, Paul.
Do it.
Not yet.
You go first.
If I was going to go first and it was in those Sam's the host, I'll just take it away.
Yeah.
Shravnall.
I think, you know, they're doing everything right.
And I think, you know, by the time I get it unlocked out of the vault, I'll be able to
play with it with a much more fuller game and then, you know, see the whole game loop
and everything else like that.
So, yeah, props to Shravnall.
And then, you know, obviously, wild Paul and wild card and everything.
I thought we were going to do the obvious thing.
You pick me, I'll pick you.
Well, you know, we're like the best buddies.
Of course, it's like always there.
But you know why I didn't?
Because he said you had to put in a vault for 12 months.
So I want to play.
Okay.
And, of course, we have a Shravnall operator to give away today on that note.
I mean, Paul, I can't help but notice I have zero wild passes to give away.
Just a funny thing.
What the fuck?
I'm going to fire somebody.
Please do.
I'll give you a couple nominations offline.
Wow.
You got them all ordinary now.
Since I'm on, I'll go next.
I think it's going to be a pudgy for me today because I just loved what they showed at the latest, the kind of playable.
I mean, of course, I love what they're doing in retail.
And I just think they got a lot of momentum and a lot of opportunity to create a beloved brand.
I still am a little skeptical of the intersection of, like, truly kids' brands with crypto DJs and NFTs.
But I think what they've created is special.
And I was kind of taken aback by this game that they all of a sudden showed that was further along than I think anybody expected.
So I'm going to go with that.
Dude, thank you for saying that because I feel like the only person that ever, ever says I'm a little bit weirded out whenever we make things for children by way of crypto.
Like, VeeFriends, Gary Vee's whole thing, it's literally made for three-year-olds.
Three-year-olds are not trading Bitcoin.
But, you know, and there's this weird thing.
We mentioned on the last show, but, like, we all get a little bit confused between the thing that we've been talking about this whole show, nostalgia, and new brands.
And the reality of it is, when we see something that triggers that feeling of nostalgia in us and we think, oh, that's going to do well because it looks like Mario, like, we just got to be really careful.
Mario is Mario.
Like, becoming the next Mario and just because you look like Mario and you're targeting the same age group is a completely different challenge.
So, again, though, I'm really surprised by the momentum that Pudgy just had at crossing that incredibly difficult chasm between nostalgia and brand-new brands for kids.
So, all power to them.
That's, like I said, that's got my bet at the moment, my support.
Well said.
All right.
Well, we have five minutes left in the show.
I see you got 12 months to hold on to one gaming NFT.
It goes in the Vulcans until 2025.
What are you taking and why?
Man, I mean, like, the answer that I want to give is a shrapnel operator, a wild pass, a magey, you know, princess, and, of course, like, a parallel avatar.
But, like, I'm going to go with a dark horse pick that I don't think gets talked about enough.
My friend, Empress Rayan, shout-out to her, gifted me a Sugartown aura, and I have been enjoying the casual games.
I like the auras.
Price is up.
That's pretty cool.
IRS, don't sue me.
And it's Zynga.
It's Zynga.
And I think that they've been doing some really interesting things with their casual games.
I know that's controversial, but I think that I really enjoyed the experience and the way that they're incentivizing their leaderboards.
So I think they're going to be doing some really big things in 2024, and I'm excited to see that.
So I would lock that up.
But, of course, you know, all the games up here, you guys are my favorites.
Vidar, what about you, my man?
Of course, I don't have a shrapnel operator yet, but I will be picking one up, so that's going to be something very, very cool coming out.
So I'm going to be holding on to that.
Neo Tokyo, of course, is technically a gaming NFT, so I have to be holding on to that one.
My Honeyland NFTs.
That's something that a lot of people know about, and some people know about it if they've been following me,
but Honeyland's going to do some crazy stuff, which not many people know about yet.
I do, but you'll see, in like a month.
So that'll be interesting.
And the only other one that I can think of off the top of my head, really, with NFTs,
is I really do want to hold on to all my Parallel stuff, because Parallel's really, really cool.
I love my Parallel stuff.
That's it.
Gotta say, I've got to bag in a few of those, too.
Fresco, what about you, my man, besides Meiji, of course, as you're a team member now?
Yeah, I love the answer of Sugartown, and I love Honeyland.
Both of those are great answers.
Sugartown would be great if they implemented a warm XYZ or a way to delegate.
I think that would take that project up another notch.
Though this was Paul's weakest episode, by far, since he's been on Gamified.
Is this because of the GameCube thing?
Dude, come on.
I'll save my wild card NFTs.
What did you say, Paul?
Is it because of the GameCube thing?
Oh, it's for a lot of reasons, buddy.
Oh, jeez.
I appreciate the animosity.
Dub, again, the man who has played more Web3 games than any person really ever should at this stage in the game.
Over to you, man.
What NFT would you hold for 12 months?
Yeah, man.
Like, it's a hard question because, like, I want to use my gaming NFTs that I have.
So the answer is not Meiji.
It's not the Wild Pass.
It's not even a shrapnel operator.
For me, it's the Aftermath Special Edition set that was released by Parallel.
It's one of the things you can pull in the Planetfall pack drops, and it actually gives you one SC of every single card edition of the Aftermath set, which is the next one they're going to come out.
And I think my timing's right where, you know, once that's unlocked, I'd be able to have all the juicy things and play them as I want.
Got to give a shout-out.
Mr. CBD in the comment says, thank you, AVAX and Shrapnel, for sponsoring my favorite spaces.
You love to hear it.
He says, I love all the insight.
For me, I missed Wild Card when it was at .4 ETH last time.
If it gets back to that range, I'll hold that in my vote for 24 months.
He's surging way past the 12.
Lemz, I'm going to send it to you for your take, and then we're sending it back to Mr. Wild Paul.
Man, there's just so many good picks.
It is hard to pick one.
Man, I'm probably going to go with my VIP Meiji that I just got recently, so shout-out Sinjin.
I'm happy to lock that away for 12 months.
I do love my couple of Wild Passes I have, too, but the way they've been pumping lately, I don't know.
I can't say that I can't hold on to that for 12 months.
If I see those juicy gains in front of me, I might have to, you know, just capitulate and drop it, even though I hope I still hold one.
No hard feelings, man.
We'll just let the person who buys it from you get the next set of gains.
It's fine.
Yeah, yeah, you know.
Well, that's why I should probably hold one forever, but, you know, we'll wait and see.
We'll wait and see what happens.
All right, Paul.
Back to you.
So, I just wanted to fulfill for Fresco, or, yeah, I mean, really, the arc of the show and just say Red Dead Redemption 2 is not the greatest game of all time.
So, now it's completed for everybody who is disappointed in my takes earlier.
I just wanted to add that one.
And then, lastly, I just wanted to say, Meiji, like, y'all, you just don't – there's not a lot of developers in the space who understand playtest-driven development like Sinjin does and like what he's running.
And the combination of that and Meiji's alignment with, I think, D-Gen brands and more of an adult-focused, you know, kind of opposite to what we were talking about with Pudgy earlier, I just – I think there's a lot in store for that project.
And it's not just because I love Sinjin, but also because I love Sinjin.
You're back, Paul.
You're back.
Wait.
Redeemed.
Jack seeing the comments –
Jack seeing the comments says, I'm going to say a Wolves-down NFT.
Joke's on you, Jack, so you can't trade it because it's sold out, baby.
Icy, over to you.
Yeah, I just wanted to chime in real quick and break the rules of the game and say that, like, I'm not – I'm round-tripping.
I know we say, like, take profits and all that, but, like, as a gamer and creator in the space, I'm never selling, like, any of the NFTs that I've got.
So, that's how I'm just going to avoid the IRS issue.
Haha, suckers.
They're all in the vault.
Shout-out to 4K3.
He says, all my NFTs are probably vaulted for 12 months.
So, he's echoing your sentiment, Icy.
He says, but if I had to pick, it would probably be one of these two.
And he shared a picture of a MyPetHooligan NFT and an other deed.
So, I appreciate you guys picking something that's not on this panel.
I mean, I know we got nothing but the goats up here, but I knew there were some other gaming NFTs that were worth holding.
Jay from Genopet, stagging you in, man.
I'll close it out because I think, I don't know if I'm last, but I feel like we're getting there at 3 o'clock.
Definitely Honeyland.
I'm super excited for Corey.
We need to get Corey on here.
I don't know if you've had to have him up here.
It would definitely be Corey from Honeyland.
Well, that came out real wrong.
Corey from Honeyland definitely would be a real one.
And, of course, I actually was just thinking back because I was catching up with Calvin.
Shrapnel, I mean, you guys are doing it right right now.
I'm pretty excited for all the things picking up.
I've had my operator since day one.
And I became an advisor for Shrapnel early, early on when you guys were first putting thoughts together on creator economy.
There's so many parallels between what you guys are doing and what we're doing on the Genopet side for creator economy that I can't only send love.
And I'm super excited to see that all start coming to life.
So, yeah, that's my take.
And I guess really, though, the other thing just to add to that last second there is, like, if you're going to play these games and like these games, unless the game is bad and you want to toss it, you're probably going to hold on to all the NFTs.
We've got to create economies with a bunch of other NFTs or assets that you trade and move around and profit off of so that you keep your OP NFT.
That's sort of your progress in the game overall.
Agree with that.
Completely looking forward to some of those systems being fully off the ground.
That shrapnel operator, that coveted NFT that's in a lot of those vaults you just heard about.
The one that we're giving away today is going to Jaxi.
Jaxi, huge shout out.
He's been an absolute beast in the comments.
He's been retweeting the spaces.
He's been participating with everybody.
Absolutely what you love to see here on Gamify.
Congratulations, man.
That's worth 0.25 Ethereum.
Also, a special shout out to Yap, who is also killing it out there.
Phil, among others.
Yap.
Love Yap.
A.E., a bunch of amazing people.
Shady Sheba, who I know is also with the wildcard team.
Shout out to all you guys.
Thanks so much for making it just as much fun in the comments as we have here up on stage.
And as we lower our weapons and conclude this exhilarating journey through Gamify, let's unleash a thunderous tribute to the Titans who have paved this path for us.
Behold, Shrapnel, the official game of Gamify, proudly powered by Avalanche, the official blockchain of Gamify.
In the vast realm of FPS games, Shrapnel stands as the ultimate commander, orchestrating an arsenal of artillery where every tactical endeavor weaves the tale of turmoil and triumph amid the echoing cacophony of explosive shells.
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, let's not forget the frosty fortress that underpins our thrilling journey through the future of finance and fun.
Avalanche, the official blockchain of Gamify, let's unleash a resounding applause for Avalanche, our polar pioneer, fearlessly carving crystalline past with unwavering strength.
Avalanche empowers us to navigate the digital landscape with the warmth of wisdom and the waves of entertainment.
So take a page out of Avalanche's book, my fellow adventurers, stay cool, stay curious, and mark your calendars for the same time, same place next week.
And a huge, massive, thunderous applause for everybody on the panel.
Can't thank you guys enough for making Gamify special week after week.
Of course, Sinjin, the man behind Meiji, it's been so great to see everybody finally see what an absolute behemoth you are in the industry, man.
I'm so excited for you.
Icy, of course, the substitute co-host that killed it just a couple of weeks ago, love that you've been a bigger part of Gamified, my man.
Vidar, who's absolutely been crushing it on all of my spaces, he's been on Simplified and Gamified lately, always bringing the funny and the knowledge, a rare combination indeed.
Mr. Wild Paul, the man behind Wild Pass, dude, 2024 is going to be friggin' electric for you guys, I cannot wait.
The co-host with the most, Mr. Lems, always appreciate what you bring.
Andy from Stardust, man, what a welcome surprise coming from the audience.
And speaking of that, Mr. J from Genopets, thank you so much for coming up and dropping alpha on those minstructures.
Fresco, absolutely, always enjoy your humor and your knowledge.
Thanks so much, and congratulations on the new role with Meiji.
And we had a couple of people drop off.
Kate Irwin, thank you so much as well.
If you listen to the rest of the recording, huge shout-out to what you do.
And thanks for always for giving us a ton of topics via Decrypt every week.
That's a huge help.
Appreciate you always keeping us up to date in the space.
Thank you guys so much.
We'll see you back same time, same place next week.
I love each and every one of you guys.
Peace.
GameCube is all sucks.
Damn, that closed out.
Thanks, Sam.
None of this happens without you.
Wait, did I miss my exit intro?
Oh, dumb.
AVAX even took the intern with him.
Oh, no.
Oh, no.
Dub the man who's played every fucking Web3 game on Earth.
I don't know how you did it.
Thanks for doing it.
Peace.
