both fighting over being the
first champions of the world
appreciate you Niko in the building
one of my favorite commenters
dude you've been coming to everything lately
man lots of familiar names
Hashoam's let's see you spam in the hearts too
man great to see all you guys thanks so much
I wasn't sure if I wanted to break the
focus on the fence for the first little bit
on the Avalanche gaming account
packed panel today Jonah I see your
questions too man would love to have you on at some
point we'll see if we can make some space
I think I might already be over allocated
which is bringing me some pain
but we're going to try our best to make it
Ed wants to come up to we'll see if
everybody follows through
on their commitments today so far
everybody's been really punctual so I don't want to
over promise I'm not under deliver
well Sam how are you feeling bro
I was good and that one got bad
and then I'm getting good again
I love to hear that man I don't know if you
heard Katie's been just down bad
over the last week or she's finally starting to get
so shout out to loud Kate
if she's listening we all love you we hope you feel better
did she get COVID too or is there something else
she did I'm pretty sure she brought COVID home from
fingers crossed that she starts feeling better
she's on the upswing so that's good but
it was a rough one five days
after GDC every single member
it's not even an over under dude like don't take any bets on it
it's gonna be a hundred percent minus
we just we just had it so we're good for
GDC we got for six months
fuck yeah I'm like a superhuman now
I'm like Iron Man I'm just gonna be waiting
walking through every every disgusting party
that as people just breathing in each other
you're just gonna breathe it in
you already got the last part down too
with the fucking vision pro Paul
no that's the wrong part of my face but
will not also be known as
is this like a thing now like
like every time somebody sees me
at GDC I have to be wearing the vision pro or I'm letting
I'm letting somebody down
becomes ground zero then we can
just rebrand it back to the
Shrap House Sam don't worry about it
based on who's got the stronger brand
presence at any given moment
as Paul so poignantly pointed out
I'm still kind of recovering
getting my voice back hopefully I can make it
through the intros in one piece
once a gallant guardian against the inferno
who is leaped from the fiery front lines
into the furnace of fiscal fortitude
this is the man who has traded his fire truck
and his acts for analytics behold the
man who has no fear whether facing a wall
of fire or a fiery critique of the market
the pyromaniac turned portfolio
pioneer brings heat to every
deal the spark to every strategy
and the warmth of genuine passion
to every project he touches
he's the flame taming financier
the sizzling sultan of startups
the man with the mightest touch is
Jerry the Golden Gods singer
that's how it's fucking done
knock that's how it's done
a true goat for simplified
I thought he crushed it I only caught like 20 minutes
maybe he was in shambles the rest of the time
but those 20 minutes were golden bro
don't let Jerry get you down
this next man is not just a player
pioneer and navigator of the nets
new frontiers having played 300 web 3
games he's the supreme head of
community and partnerships at shrapnel
and he's the wizard who weaves together warriors
and wanderers across the web crafting
a coalition of comrades with his
background in sporting goods he's coming from
360s on the slopes to 360 no
scopes welcome to the panels
the shrapnel sharpshooter the undisputed king
oh man I freaking love it
stoked to be here thank you Sam
it was a great episode back there
and looking forward to STX
I'm still going to be traveling
Friday so I'm hoping to catch the second half
of Friday and then maybe spend a lot of time on
Saturday in that STX I'll see you guys
in the arena and speaking of
in the grand arena of game design
where twin titans of technology
and tradition tussle emerges a figure
who fuses the two with finesse
it's where the arcane art of cardplay
meets the algorithmic acumen of artificial
intelligence his crucible of
creation crystallizes in parallel
a pantheon where pixelated prowess
and peer to peer trade paint a portrait
a possibility of power in an
unparalleled player participation
just written it's woven in a tapestry of
transactions triumphs and trade welcome back to
the panels the crusader of cards is stitch
I know you did run out there
it was like a tea kettle but
thank you for squeezing out every
last bit of oxygen in your lungs for
you're welcome man anybody who
caught me on the wolves down meeting earlier
would be halfway through a sentence and my voice
would completely give out so you know
we're just trying to avoid that at all
costs prepare yourselves for
the entrance of an enigma wrapped in a riddle
and shrouded in mystery and dressed
in the armor of authenticity he emerges
a lone figure against the
setting sun of societal norms wielding
not just a weapon but the very essence of
colossus in the concrete jungle a behemoth
in the board room he towered above the trivial
not content with the conquest
of commerce he casts off the cloak
of the corporate command to champion a cause closer
to his core welcome to the panel
for my angry yakuza girlfriend it's the titan
of taboo the haunting him of the night
I'm glad to be awake at 4 am
such a... Sam you sound great brother
so it should be a very interesting day today
I'll try to be more articulate than I have
been in the past few weeks
Chinese New Year it's amazing it only took
two weeks for you to shake it up
but it's great to have you man thanks
for waking up early for us I appreciate you
Brace yourselves for a breathtaking
blast from the blizzard of brilliance as
we bring forth our next beacon of banter
the titan of the tundra the tumultuous
hailing from electronic arts he's now
the heralded head honcho of gaming and avalanche
where lesser legends might lose
their luster like a fleeting frost he stands
steadfast sculpted from the very essence
of endurance an indelible icon amidst
in this realm of relentless rhyme
where mortals meander with muted might
he marches unmarked marshalling
the masses with a mastery unmatched
a veritable vanguard of the vast
please welcome the custodian of
coolness the alchemist of avalanche
Hello hello thank you for having me
I feel like I can be considered a
regular now so it's a pleasure to be part
of the game it feels good
these days I feel like there's a ton of
game to just play every day
and there's no shortage of
things to do so thank you for having me
hear it man if we could just glance back
to a year ago we were on episode
three already frantically
scrambling for topics because there was
absolutely nothing going on and nothing to
play so we've really come a
long way it's great to be in this
situation up next he's not just
a player he's a prophet of play a visionary
voyager with a scepter of strategy and a crown
of cunning he's carved out kingdoms
and keystrokes ruling over realms
with a clash of swords and a cast of spells
business development at Magic Eden
employing a decade of experience in scaling
businesses and managing talent in the realm of
esports to take web 3 gaming to the next level
welcome to the panelist the ruler of
RuneScape the emperor of esports
good to be here guys I just want to point out
stopped trying to pronounce the name
of the world of RuneScape and now has just gone
with broad sweeps like swords and
mysterious yeah he just gave up entirely
Gelgmore whatever the hell it's called
was not not my forte it was
in shambles after that one every time
introducing a web 3 warrior
the d5 devoteur who saw the
future when he bought a board ape for a mere
meet the man who joined stardust as it's 8th
employee when it was just a constellation of
dreams in the vast cosmos of crypto
he's a solutions engineer turned business
development behemoth who didn't just
climb the ranks but reshaped the very realm he
he pivoted with the precision
of a blockchain transaction this is the
architect of infrastructure the sultan of solutions
representing stardust we got andy back
i'm looking in the x app in the
settings to try to change my gamified
after after last week's intro
for sure and positioned at the
pinnacle of play he personifies the pure
power of a 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 known as
words with friends now with wildcard
waiting in the wings this
patriarchal programming prepares to plunge
into a potential packed province
known as web3gaming promising another
pioneering project please put your
hands together for the prince of pixels the
bard of bites a true titan of tumultuous
tides of tech with the wisdom of a
sage in the inside of a seer he turned a modest
musing into a monumental milestone
negotiating the nacence of a notion
into the nucleus of a nine-figure nirvana
it's the prolific the polite the
polished the peerless the paramount
oh if i'm responsible for killing
sam that would not be okay so
just just slow down give you a second
here sam i'm gonna say hi to everyone
oh i'm so glad to be here i'm so glad to be with
you all this is a packed panel
i i just wanted to say to sam's
intro like i'm not promising
this i'm not like proposing this for the
future i'm in the middle of it y'all we
are running playtests we are doing uh we
are playing games of wildcard every day
we're having a blast if you're not with
us join us in this community because we
have over 300 people showing up to
every one of our playtests now like
concurrently which is you know for web3
like game that's still in pre-alpha
pretty good and it's we're just having
the best time ever the game is so much
fun but it's getting better every day
from the folks who are playing so if
that sounds fun to you please join us
amazing thank you for giving me time to
breathe and i gotta give a shout out
thanks lems for pinning up icys
running bingo again this week and i'll
be giving out next sport prometheus chess
play to whoever wins gamified bingo
really appreciate the man himself
making that happen it's amazing every
ladies and gentlemen swing into
excitement and peel back your
perceptions because we're about to
introduce the king of the jungle in the
world of intelligent investments
in the dense forest of data and the
swinging vines of virtual ventures he's
the brainy banana in a world of bland
not just monkeying around he leaps from
branch to branch of blockchain wisdom
sharing insights that shine brighter than
a banana under the jungle sun
with the smarts of a silverback in the
strategy of a chess playing champ he's
not just another ape in the pack he's a
gorilla with a golden touch leading his
followers to bunches of success
so let's beat our chests in admiration
and welcome the primate pundit who's
that's brilliant in his in his
investments as he is boisterous in his
what's good thank you for having me i
don't know about intelligent
investments we might need to take that
out but some of my uh yolo plays did
not financial advice don't copy trade
because you'll never be him ladies and
gentlemen lend an ear to the linchpin of
our lively lexicon the littlest
luminary with the loftiest of lore when
our dialogue lingers he lays down the
law lighting the lamp that leads us
weighing in at a mere 2.4 pounds
the lightweight with the lion heart for
the 54th week uh it's the literalist
gmgm everyone i'm still in awe here over
crypto gorilla's ability to bash his
chest and have the mic capture it right
hey lem's quick question because i missed
that for some reason i can't hear gorilla
so does that mean i need to leave and
come back or will it fix itself uh you
probably have to leave and come back it
it never it never fixes itself yeah all
right i'll be back y'all see you in a
that's right it'll be back just in time
for the first topic after we do our
beloved sponsor adres arden admires and
audacious gamers blockchain believers
digital daydreamers let's assemble for
another amazing episode of gamified let's
acclaim and adore avalanche the awe
inspiring authoritative and absolute
anchor of our astronomical adventure the
official blockchain of gamified
avalanche and its astounding ascent
audaciously alters and amplifies the
arcane intricacies of the ledger into an
articulate accessible atlas of
it's a monumental marvel of innovation
in a relentless roaring river of daring
and of course you've got to lock and
load and aim your sights as we zero in
explosive endorser shrapnel the official
game of gamified by the way as you heard
stx coming up tomorrow if you got an
make sure you get in on that march into
a minefield and prepare for an artillery
assault of adrenaline in the explosive
with this first person shooter fiesta
navigate your way to shrapnel.com and
list with your profile and launch a
barrage of comments likes and retweets on
for a chance to win one of those $50
and get into tomorrow's stx event
so gear up gather your wits and weapons
your way to glory and of course last but
not least gather around for the
glittering guide to gaming greatness
welcome to the spectacular
the sensational stardust the official
infrastructure of gamified
are you dreaming of diving into the
dynamic domain of web 3 games
desiring to dazzle and dominate the
digital well stardust is your star-studded
seed steering your software to the
stardust empowers every eager developer
with the cream of the crop and
technology transforming the top titles
like midnight society into titans of the
with stardust prepare to propel your
project to the pinnacle of play
and profitability let's go and last but
not least export quick shout out for
giving us those chest plate nft
freemen's that are coming up
appreciate you guys we're jumping in
with what's the word yuga
is making moves last week yuga acquired
will they finally provide some utility
to moonbirds is this bullish or bearish
for the other 12 nft collections that
an additional breaking news today as i
bring paul back up on stage
is that gargamel is stepping back in as
a quote from his announcement on
looking at what's ahead for yuga we need
to execute with a more crypto native
focus across our entire company
and i got to give a shout out to po
the man that i look up to as a spaces
crypto is the only industry where you
a 15-year executive from google and
activision that has an m a mba and jd
and in pray and replace them with a
short bald guy with glasses named
and everybody responds with bullish
one of my absolute favorite tweets of
so again i ask you is this bullish or
for yuga making these moves lens i'll
send it over to you first
i think the proof thing is just such an
gargamel is kind of interesting pio's
right though it is pretty funny how we
he made a point of something about how
yuga needs more crypto native focus so i
think that's kind of true it feels like
there was maybe a little bit of knock
like as much as it could have been but
i'm really excited for knock's take on
this because knock always is a die-hard
leg and we'll defend yuga till the end
i want to hear his take on it hunter
filer also had an amazing one he just
this was in our in the wolves dot discord
he goes imagine your kids are all begging
and then you go adopt three more
instead of paying attention to them
which i'd imagine how that's how paul
betner's kids feel about him adopting me
that who says i told them
dub from shrapnel i think you had the
yeah i mean like overall for me change
and and doing things in this ecosystem
are are overall good signs
even if they're not the best things like
or whatnot overall i'm glad to see it
and looking forward to seeing how they
pivot and how they wear it out of it
all right ed cheng what's the word uh
well i think we all know what knock's
gonna say but we all want to hear it
uh but i i agree with lebs uh i i think
moonbirds and proof is fair so i think
what they need to do is actually focus
their kind of product portfolio and
they're just adding on others and i
you add on the baggage that's
associated with moonbirds and the
experience that others have had and you
know other things behind the scenes it
probably not the best formula at the
all right knock i think you were up
knock literally days ago was like i
wait to talk about this one
yeah because there's watches involved
you're fucking right no listen i think
okay there's a lot to unpack here so just
bear with me um before i want to
pre-qualify all of this was saying i do
any yuga assets and magic eden has a
relationship with yuga but this opinion
is my own it is my take on the space it
is my take on what's happening i want to
very clear as somebody who has been
going to bat for yuga for a long time
the first thing i want to tackle but but
he does but he does own a lot of what i
um the first thing that i wanted to
tackle was the gaming piece right just
this is something that i've been going
months and one of the things that we
on this space is whether or not yuga
knows what they're doing and the
argument that i've been putting
for months now has been they have a
one end of that strategy is this
long-term vision with other side this
really over the top thing if they
deliver on it it's going to be
the other end of the spectrum is
short-term high interest you know quick
hitters things that people can get
provide some utility to people within
while garga in that long post literally
we are taking a barbell approach to
for people who are unfamiliar with
investment terms and what that actually
it essentially boils down to let's
middle-of-the-ground plays and let's
and let's shoot for some you know high
short-term place things that people can
dookie dash and heavy metal some of
them will hit some of them won't
long-term the plan is other side but
something that is maybe uh 20 or 30
hour worth of gameplay or
some form of like mid-core title
that's not their strategy it's never
and garga confirmed that today they are
quick hitters things that people can
get excited on in the short term and a
which is other side i'm not the type of
but i told you so that's that's always
been the thing that they've been doing
it's always what's made sense
now part of the reason why i texted sam
and said we need to speak about this
was because of the insane
number of people in the web 3 space who
this doesn't make any fucking sense i
don't understand why they would do this
this doesn't make any sense to me why
would you dilute your brand why are you
and i'm not going to speculate on
whether or not this is going to be a
good long-term business move for yuga
but the point that i wanted to drive
anybody who said looked at this
acquisition said this doesn't make any
is not paying attention to the way that
businesses operate in the real world
now the example that i'll use is lvmh
luxury good conglomerate in the
if lvmh purchases henise which they own
nobody who is a fan of tiffany will say
they're diluting my necklaces and my
if they purchase mark jacobs which they
they're not going to say that you know
you're diluting my t-shirts what
is creating an ecosystem where they have
items for different level of people
people who are willing to spend
different amounts of money
and they can capture a much broader
audience so you look at the yuga
not everybody can afford a board ape not
a mutant ape people want to get
exposure to the yuga ecosystem and what
in part with the acquisition of proof
and i can't remember the name of the
team but the parent company for
what they owned was give more entry
points to more types of people
who have more types of interests within
they're covering gaming they're
covering the luxury good they have the
art piece they have the membership pass
they have a wide range of asset classes
and asset types for people so that when
more people hopefully come to the space
they have more points more points of
entry more touch points to the yuga
to me this makes a ton of sense now the
financials are not made public yet
but typically with this type of deal
what normally happens is the treasury and
the ecosystem and everything underneath
the group sort of gets absorbed into the
parent company typically for something
some combination of stock and cash to
the third piece of this that i think
makes a ton of sense is that this was
really cheap acquisition relatively
speaking for yuga right it probably
didn't cost them a whole ton up front it
probably added a whole bunch of cash to
it probably gave them access to a whole
class of collector that was not part of
actual ecosystem to begin with from a
this move makes sense i expect yuga to
make more moves like this
and you'll probably see things like
ozuki and pudgy penguins and some of the
other large groups in the ecosystem
make more acquisitions as time goes on
we're going to see more consolidation
it's what naturally happens in a new
yuga is just ahead of the game the third
the final piece of this that i think
who is in the minds of most people in
the space the biggest competitor to yuga
it's pudgy what does pudgy have and what
a cute little bird why the fuck would
acquire something that has like 50,000
a bunch of people who have traded it has
and is a direct one-to-one for the thing
that people that you know is the most
prominent threat to the brand
the yuga ecosystem and what they're
sure moonbirds are not a one-to-one for
but it just makes so much sense to me
i've calmed down over the last couple of
days sam because i think people who
originally tweeted this doesn't make any
fucking sense yuga doesn't know what
has actually they've actually gone back
on those tweets and have said okay
thought about a little bit more this
makes a ton of sense to me
from a business perspective this is
clear as day this was always the type of
play that is going to be that was going
they've already made their intentions
with previous acquisitions known and
you're probably going to see a lot more
i cannot believe anybody doesn't
understand why they made the move
regardless of whether or not you think
that this was a good business decision
i want to hear from more people in the
audience but nak you have to give us
what's the word you got to summarize
expected all right crypto gorilla what's
i guess i'd say bearish for like
a lot of people were talking about me
and uh i'm blanking what the other one
saying like oh and 10 ktf dude i lost a
10 ktf they basically bought it and then
so yeah i mean so i think it's bearish
but i do like it that's what's weird i
yuga owning moonbirds from what i heard
and somebody just mentioned this to me
i was like oh that makes sense
somebody said to me and this is just
like an internal play for a16z who has
so they basically just absorbed one of
the companies they absorbed the
treasury which apparently was like 40
and it it wasn't like this this as
crazy as everybody's like making it to
posts like oh they paid 250 million or
i don't think that's what it is it
seems like it's this internal play where
a16 and the investors which they
probably share a lot of same investors
yeah just absorbed this company uh let's
let's change it around and uh and that's
well said paul bettner over to you um
so i i agree with guerilla and and i
what nak was saying that like uh
we're we're you know it's not it's not
getting to this sort of consolidation
companies like yuga who have been doing
have the capital there's other
companies that they can kind of absorb
and or you know merge with
that just makes sense uh and so none of
that's surprising but the word for me is
we're on gamified right we're here to
and i am impatient for yuga to deliver
on that vision like i i i agree with
is paul getting rubbed for everybody i
see yeah he is for me it's clear and it
any better no damn it yo paul you're
getting right back again i'll be back
sorry guys there goes the apple vision
thanks paul sorry man uh fish we'll go to
you then we'll send it to jerry and maybe
paul it'll be back in time
yeah i mean i i guess i would probably
similar to what paul was making uh and
use the word unclear i mean i guess from
like the company perspective uh probably
you know rationale behind the
makes sense i think it's you know was
in context to the community which is why
the reaction was what it was
um i think just to counter one point
how many like new collectors or entry
points this actually opens up
um i i at that point i'm a little bit
um and then also i think to the point
how does this really support like
existing you know visions that they've
right it the the reason that public
sentiment is negative is because you
have this thing that's been
that they're heading towards and really
very little information about that and
the progress towards that
and a barbell is fine but what happens
in the middle of the barbell right
like if there's no especially if there's
no to minimal communication about what's
and then you see this acquisition of a
poor sentiment collection right
and even the retention of ryan and like
an advisory role was kind of an issue
you know the the strong feeling
that's going to result from something
like that is inevitably going to be
frustration right specifically because
how does this fit into the vision it
whether it does or doesn't i think it
like was unclear and that's why i used
kind of represented a negative sentiment
where does this fit within what they're
trying to achieve is this a distraction
from what they're trying to achieve is
i think all of those are perfectly
legitimate concerns i don't think that
i think unless there's information you
know made clear to people
in terms of how this fits into a
and how we can actually still be working
things like other side while now we've
got this entirely new company and
entirely new you know sort of ip to to
how does that fit in like it just
raises uncertainties for people and so
the reaction was warranted and fairly
all things considered that said like i
get that it probably made
decent business sense but if there's no
information flowing to people
about what that actual other end of the
and how this more immediate end of the
has anything to do with it whatsoever
then you're going to have a lack of
well said fish dante in the audience has
a great say he says i think knock is on
but i think they still have the same
issue in regard to holder expectations
there's a hundred thousand other side
land plots that are supposed to be
getting the next fortnite and the next
jerry i'll go to you then we'll go back
my word is going to be an acronym it's
s t f u uh shout out to koji
and it's that because i think at worst
what happens this that just exactly
this move gets panned on twitter by
jump the gun on everything they would
with any collection if it was knock
amigos they would do the same thing
right at best yuga has just acquired
what a project that was a premium asset
hours of success and it was
since then has been on life support right
so at best yuga can take something and
give it life again something that we all
people outside the industry pan and at
the the risk to return is so high on the
because if moonbirds can now become a
premium asset again that people
yuga looks like geniuses right so i
you know no matter what yuga does people
are going to jump the gun people are
going to say like oh you guys are idiots
and then you know time will prove people
um i still think that yuga this year
you know a game that is a huge success
side but in you know the uh in the
you know sector and i think you know
just to kind of sum up what i think is
yuga i have no inside knowledge of any
of this stuff that's happening right
but yuga just signed with magic eden
right they're building a marketplace
one can probably safely assume that
magic eden is a launch pad as well and
you know additional mints coming
through so if you were somebody who
said is worried about the dilution of
shut the fuck up and don't mint
anything that they do with magic eden
because you're too worried about
they're going to launch more stuff and
they have to because you can't have a
built off two thousand dollar entry
points so every collection out there is
going to get more diluted
if you're you know any project you're in
assume that they're going to dilute down
more because they have to
so shut the fuck up let them cook
let them cook ed kang do you agree
uh i just i want to follow up i i think
i think you know knock doesn't work out
you would be an amazing yuga labs
spokesperson i love the points that you
however you're kind of arguing against
yourself lvmh is a brand that's built in
i looked it up on wikipedia actually
1854 they have a repeatable business
process they know exactly the criteria
of what they want to acquire
it's uh then these things aren't
competitive to each other right
champagne and bags you don't you don't
sell your champagne to go buy a
louis baton bag right and so i think you
know crypto and nft zero sum game right
and i think it leads to this identity
crisis i think for yuga labs right like
okay if the if the idea is you got to
bring as many people into the fold in
you should be focusing on that not
acquiring to paul's point i think where
what is moonbird's going to do for
gaming they just went through these
layoffs they laid off the 10k tf team
they were building first party games
now they're going to publishing they've
they just don't have the repeatable
nor this track record of like being able
to boast the sustainable business out of
you mentioned pudgy penguins what they
is they're both cute birds but you know
10 other collections it's just pudgy
penguins and look at the execution there
you know i think if yuga labs had a
stronger track record of supporting apes
kind of sticking through with a strategy
and following through on that it makes a
lot of sense but at this point
i'm just waiting for three months later
saying oh it was fun you know which
proof team the best of luck and
we'll go on to the next thing so are
they a holdco are they building a brand
i think that's the identity crisis i
talk about great stuff out of ed shank
knock i'll send it to you for the
rebuttal then we'll give wild paul the
last word i do want people to touch on
we were going to do a separate subject
we're kind of running out of time but
the insider trading that we saw
uh where moonbirds absolutely skyrocketed
before the announcement actually
happened so if anybody wants to add on
or maybe we'll just skip it over today
but knock over to you really quick on
the insider trading stuff get used to
how it happens in real life it's not
going to be any different here
um i'll say this i add good point
present to you an alternative swatch
group founded 40 years ago owns
exclusively watch friends
when longine releases a watch that is in
the same price point as an omega
watch or a rado watch they don't say
the price of my speedmaster they say
this is an entirely different brand with
the other thing that i'll say is when
a company like yuga the the problem that
we have within this ecosystem is that
nobody seems to want to believe
or want to look into the things that
they say are their plans right
in all of the press releases but got a
right now yuga is explicitly saying we
want to pay more attention to art
we are excited to integrate moonbirds
specifically into the other side
we're excited about x y and z and then
recent acquisitions that they've made
and you go well they've checked off the
box on they want to make more they want
to pay more attention to art
they've checked on the box and they want
and strong ip into the other side
ecosystem and then from the gaming
specifically they have literally said
we're focusing on two types of games
quick hitters and this long-term vision
that is other side and i can promise
you that even now that they've said it
in three months when they or four months
or whenever they release that next
people are going to go yuga doesn't know
what the fuck they're doing they're not
making a game that's strong enough
we're not paying it's because people
don't want to pay attention right
there's two ways to approach it you can
listen to what they're saying and take
them at face value and say
hey they said that they care about art
they say that they want to create this
they say that they're also paying
attention to games and you look at
things like the fact that
they've partnered up with far away to
create a bunch of those quick hitters
those quick hitters and really fun
which is what they said that they are
or you can ignore all of that and every
time yuga does something go
they don't know what they're doing
doesn't make any sense to me we don't
know anything about what their goals are
but the reality is you do you just have
chosen not to ignore it or chosen not to
and and that's been my issue with like
the criticism specifically
against yuga again i have literally no
i'm not going to have any skin in the
game i'm not purchasing yuga assets but
from a business perspective they have
this is what we want to achieve this is
how we're going to do it and then
they've gone out and done things
that specifically have that end goal in
and the response from the general
they're not telling us what they're
doing it doesn't make any sense to us
to me is just crazy well said while
paul gets the last word that we move on
i think not that probably i mean i'm
just guessing that partially the
response from the public is due to the
i would give here which is unfocused i
it's not that the public doesn't want to
support what yuga's doing
it's that they're they're kind of a
little bit all over the place
if we look over the last couple years
you know the struggle is because
they're trying to a little bit be
everyone everything to everyone i think
they inherently understand that they are
a brand company that possibly they're
just a luxury brand company an ip
but then they feel like i think because
of holder expectations and public
sentiment and pressures and whatever
that they also have to be a metaverse
company they also have to be a one hit
you know quick hit game company whatever
and i think that it's because of that
that there's that there's a confusion
and a mismatch in expectations i think
probably success for them looks like
really you know pulling a steve jobs
like saying no to more things
and getting a little more focused about
who they are and what they're doing
because they have a lot of different
opportunities in front of them and i'm
not surprised by any of the stuff
it's the time for consolidation but and
so that's great like that's
and in fact the the moves they're making
seem to be continuing to double down on
their understanding that they're a brand
a digital brand company which is great
but i think they need to let go of some
things i think they need to reset
expectations a little bit i think they
need to back away from the
you know the things that they've sort of
partially committed to over the last
no company could pull off all those
different things at the same time
and so you know i you know it's just one
when they talk about the metaverse and
then they also talk about quick hit
quick hits this is the point i was
i personally think they should just go
after the dookie dash moments like i i
we live in a world now so from a game
where like i i'm in one world i'm
digging i'm building a big game
that i'm hoping is uh is like a true
long-term sustainable business
that is a giant ip and a game that has
millions of players etc etc
but i recognize that we also live in a
of uh of dookie dashes of you know
quick hit games that can flash over a
weekend generate a hundred million
dollars and then go away and that that
it's all about the lulls it's all about
that's this this kind of phenomenon
started happening as streamers started
to you know use games as their
entertainment medium and to entertain
audiences and like i think that's
amazing and there's nothing wrong with
but i i think that you know again and
from the perspective of defocused i
think that it'd be better if they picked
instead of trying to do both or promise
well said paul but what if you had 15
wild cards at the same time
it's hard man like you gotta say no to
things no matter how great of a company
you are like i said steve jobs knew
knew this can't be everything can't do
focus is what leads to great products
and like so if you're trying to be the
world leading metaverse and also trying
the meme you know we're gonna launch
dookie dash is like nah nah pick one
all right knock the hand went back up
i actually like completely agree with
with paul's assessment there i will say
epic is a metaverse is a first person
game they're trying to create an
e-sport they're a launcher they're
trying to create the actual engine
they're a media company they're trying
to create experiences with lego and
i don't think that just because you are
spreading wide means you're unfocused
oh no that's i i agree and it's like
it's like a little bit of the amazon
thing if you look at epic like build it
once sell it twice is apparently the
internal mantra at amazon from the
amazon folks i worked with
and so epic like has built great
momentum with their products and then
figured out how to monetize in all
but i think the challenge is they they
understood that they had this great
product initially was an engine and they
use that to build a game then they'll
let other people build games on top of
i think that that yuga is just maybe a
little bit defocused about
understanding what their engine is and i
think their engine are these killer
brands and they should just be a little
that that really is the focus and the
rest of these things are exploiting that
value rather than being like
no you should look at us as our value is
that we're going to build this
metaverse it's like no no no your value
the metaverse is just an exploitation of
that value which is great
but you know i think i think again they
sent a little bit of confusing message
well said by all parties we move on
like uh paul eloquently said earlier
we're gamified let's talk about some
300 000 kills over 69 000 nice
extractions is it a big deal
a little deal or no deal that we're
finally seeing these kinds of name
numbers out of a playable game dubbed
from shrapnel actually had to hand up
obviously a massive deal um
it'll be a big deal as long as we can
um and and really like i'm looking
forward to seeing the results from
i i hope to see those trimmed upwards
if they trim down obviously i'm going to
double down on work and even order for
but um yeah i'm excited to get off and
see what people have to say about it
yeah i'd say big deal pretty impressive
numbers from a first public playtest
and yeah dub kind of front run me and
what i was going to say which is
it's all about the retention there too
and also seeing these numbers start to
trend upwards right we'll see how the
the next tests go but overall i saw
there was tons of feedback as well and
that people even were saying there was a
good improvement made between the
operator playtest and then the
i call it public but extraction packs
so as we'll say it's uh it's good to see
stuff moving in the right direction
like four people have already won bingo
or not even halfway through the show
jerry big deal little deal no deals
yeah i'm gonna say big deal um i played
in each of the tests awesome time you
know i think there was improvements made
each time um you know i think those
hard to quantify if you didn't play the
game but that meant a lot of people you
know in an easy way to put it a lot of
and um kept playing so that was a good
i think the thing i'm very curious to
see from the team going forward is
you know retention without reward you
know in the game you know if there's not
a hundred thousand dollars
up for grabs and speed you know what it
what do tests 1.1 and 1.2 and 1.3 look
those will tell you everything you need
to know about the future of shrapnel i
know the team pretty well
i think we're in good hands but you know
looking at you know bets and and bets
that you might want to make
but awesome job to the shrapnel team it
ed chang big deal little deal no deal
it's gonna come as a surprise the
shrapnel team please do not ban my
i'd say it's little to mid deal like
at surface level i think you know you
i want to know how many players played
how many people bought extraction packs
like what was the average play time like
things like that and again know it's the
first stx and maybe after a couple
we'll get some more of that data but
obviously bullish but just love to know
a little like dive a little deeper and
and you know look at some of the other
factors i kind of gamed as my
my value or look at damn if that's not
the attitude the perspective the
foresight that you want your head of
gaming to have i don't know what is
knock over to you i actually think that
this is a big deal but for
dub tony i love you guys i appreciate you
giving me the stats so that i could farm
some impressions with it but like
they don't mean anything to anybody who
hasn't played shrapnel seven million
you know sigma extracted doesn't mean
anything but what the what stx 1.1
did show was that this is a team who
at every playable stage the game has
more and more polished it feels better
concerns are being addressed that is a
and it's a great thing to see that that
trend has continued onward through these
larger play tests it's a big deal
fix or address a live services problem
in real time there was a matchmaking
issue people couldn't get online in
and they addressed it they communicated
they understood what was going on they
reset leaderboards they tried to make
they addressed a real live services
in a way that to me made sense people
there's always going to be people who
are upset but the point is
this was a team that took on that
communicated what they were trying to
do as effectively as possible
tony took a couple of absolutely
hilarious jabs at harrison from our team
as he was trying to get online
which is like just bonus points fucking
but this is a team who on two occasions
we understand how to take feedback and
will actually you know implement some of
and when shit hits the fan we can
what's going on how we plan to fix it
and we're going to fix it and we're
still gonna have a great time
that's why this play test was a big deal
numbers aside those are two things that
i think are really hard to quantify
um but are equally important when it
comes to the types of team building
the types of games that you want to see
well said paul bettner over to you i
gotta agree with both nak and ed even
though their their view their viewpoints
opposite ends and it kind of is for me
too i think this is both the biggest
deal and also no deal at all
so the biggest deal is exactly what nak
was pointing to it's the same situation
we're in the with wildcard right now
you guys heard me talk about it before
the most important thing a game does
right or doesn't do right at this phase
where they're like in alpha and moving
towards beta early access release is
play tests driven development every
lived or died based on our team's
to look the most critically at the game
to hear the feedback from our most
critical players and act on that
feedback was telling a story earlier
castles in age vampires too were a thing
that came online late they were a thing
that we weren't planning on we thought
the game was going to be good enough and
you know and we were kind of playing it
being like yeah and in some ways i still
like playing h1 better than
than the game we're working on right now
you also were just not there yet and
you know we pulled these help this hail
mary and disrupted the design
to push for the thing that became the
incredible castles gameplay that we all
those moments have to happen during this
phase of development for shrapnel for
and watching the team and how they
navigate that critical feedback and how
that's right it's no deal these numbers
are tiny if this if we were talking
about a steam game it'd be like yeah
and we're you know as a team like we're
looking at the same things as shrapnel
which is like week over week or play
test over play test growth
which we are seeing too and it's amazing
like i i mean to watch the gamers really
these web 3 games like that's a great
great bullish sign for what we're all
switch gets the last word on this one
yeah i mean i don't want to reiterate too
much what was already said because i
very much agree with a lot of those
you know paul and knock said and and
also what what ed said there uh
are all quite true right like it's a
mixed bag you know the one thing that i
positive and what i thought was a big
deal was creating a moment
um you know you guys did a really nice
job on the shrapnel team of that right
you know the social organization around
you know what you guys have been doing
getting a lot of the people here in the
audience and speaking on stage involved
um you know again socially organizing in
there's so much i think that was really
and this is just me with my marketer hat
but i i really liked how you guys
and i also really liked you know what
about resolving a problem that existed
because you know for me all i really do
parallel shit and you know occasionally
play some games on my own so
just looking at this from like the
kind of stuff bubbles to the top well
what bubbles to the top is these guys
are doing this they're organizing these
events there's people that i know and
care about who are involved
you nailed that what also bubbles to the
okay you see that on the timeline you
know it's going to come up on the
what also bubbles up you fixed it you
know you you deploy to fix
it's it's been addressed it was
so i think like that's very much
expected in this early stage of of play
and it was handled quite well you
you appropriately executed on hype you
uh or sort of naturally and
understandably encountered an issue and
appropriately dealt with the issue so
to me like it was it was really nice to
and so i don't know i guess i'd call it
like a mid-sized deal like in some ways
it was it was a big deal just because of
execution and building a moment that we
in some days you know ways it's a minor
deal like has already been addressed
these earth shattering numbers but nor
is that the purpose of the play test
but i think it's yeah it was it was well
done and i looked from the sidelines
and i i sort of clapped it was a golf
clap it wasn't a thunderous clap but it
we take those is what i'll say with that
uh sinjin wants to tag in the arena
yeah i wasn't going to say anything but
you know i think the context really
matters and i think fitch really nailed
it in the sense that it's a play test i
nailed it as well but just to really
if shrapnel uh you know has done this
and they've done and they've done
outstanding on this play test and
they've they've had these moments that
have bubbled up i think it's a massive
but you know obviously there is this
public uh perception and uh the need to
throw out these vanity metrics which in
reality don't really mean much but
you know whatever results shrapnel was
able to make during this play test in
terms of their numbers and stuff like
that i think that's sufficient because
you know what other group out there is
the amount of support and ability to
shrapnel has done so if you know for a
play test you know like let's put it
this way if we're talking about like
player acquisition numbers or how many
going to be retained for the next game
i think this is totally besides the
point because in a regular game launch
you would never be concerned about like
what was like the user acquisition and
because that's not the point of this
right and like i would challenge any
other fucking team other than maybe uh
you know parallel and uh you know paul
uh that if they did the same type of
you know could they get better numbers
and they won't be able to get better
numbers because that's not the point of
so like all this extra like kind of like
commercial type of like uh requirements
or expectations on a play test is just
ridiculous i mean it's because we're
building out in the open but that's not
of course i understand why they put out
these kind of numbers because they had
right but the reality is that's not the
point of what we're doing here and so
them showing they're able to be
responsive and to have a better test
than they did the last one
i think massive win let's put it into
otherwise we're all fucking ourselves in
shooting ourselves in the foot
well said dub from shrapnel yeah it's
just hilarious listening to all this
the first part on the metrics i feel like
like the those metrics that you guys
called out um that's definitely
something i already pinged to this team
for us to do and not to like hide behind
like the details of sigma and stuff like
saw something funny and wanted to
those metrics but and to speak to the
the live ops moment of the game not
and me literally being in the discord
with thousand people kind of just
looking at me like hey why doesn't this
it was so funny and i just wanted to
share with with people that i've done
on the retail side of things where i've
literally sat at stores during launches
where items don't scan or you know
imagine like after a warrior's game
and none of the warrior's merch it can
be sold even though they won and all
this kind of stuff and to have
those hundreds of people kind of
it was nothing new for me and it was
cool to see how the team handled
and the team took the feedback and how
we did kind of like pivot
and execute quickly and i just wanted to
share that that bit of info
from behind the scenes on it
love it while paul got the hand back up
i just had two seconds shout out uh to
to you sam to gamify to ed there there's
just no conversations that happen like
this in five three every other
space home apart of is just all about
chilling and talking about the good
gamify is the only place where we have
these realistic conversations where
where it gives us a venue us builders
a venue to to to set expectations to
to really connect with folks about what
what it takes to build a game like this
and what they should be expecting going
forward and i'm just so grateful for
thank you paul and let me take that
that compliment thank you fish and
exactly on my sponsors avalanche
stardust shrapnel of course the the
pinnacle of this conversation the wolves
you guys are the ones that allow us to
do that people ask me sometimes oh with
all the sponsors don't you worry about
opinions being you know they can't they
not with these guys and and i'm so
eternally grateful for that because it is
jerry i thought you had the hand up over
yeah i think um picking on the fact
that they use like vanity metrics is a
um i i was on monday as we were going
i was literally i was reading the
scobly stats from monopoly go
they used all vanity metrics right i
think in the case of shrapnel like this
public test so does time spent in game
or whatever does that directly matter to
you know to to what they should release
i don't think so right you kind of had
it was a semi-gated test you had to have
an extraction pack at the very least so
you had to kind of know what shrapnel
which means most people probably stepped
in it could probably deduce a lot of
what those vanity metrics mean
i still think the numbers are pretty
impressive for what they pulled off for
an early test i think picking on them
for using vanity metrics is
is a little uh it's a little silly
yeah they're not balder's gate three
right like they're they're not going to
put out that like two pager with the
insane baller metrics you've ever seen
who could do that there's very few in the
world that can do that like i totally
agree with you i'm sorry i had to
interject and be like that was on my mind
i think they use the appropriate
metrics if you got a metric that says
seven million use that fucking metric
dude it's seven million like
it doesn't really specifically matter
it's a big number great like that's
that's the purpose it's a flashy little
you're getting some feedback do whatever
the fuck you want you know
yeah it's just coupling that with like
the the other metrics that
like game does want to see and people in
the space want to see and
totally get that and the last thing i
it's so cool to be doing this in this
way of doing it because i mean we're
essentially doing this tournament
every every two weeks now and every
every two weeks it's going to be a
we're going to take the feedback and do
all this kind of stuff it's amazing how
thought we were just kind of like doing
this tournament like once and then
walking away for a couple months but
this is the start of us really building
in public and kind of setting that
what that looks like from a gaming
perspective and it's weird and it's
and it's a joy at the same time to be
well said and if anybody didn't see the
shrapnel is going to be having an stx at
at gdc i'm so excited about that we're
gonna have pc is literally in the house
we're gonna have pro gamers there
trying to get to the top of the leader
board we're gonna have a few pc's
dedicated to pro gamers then we're
that people can rotate in and out of and
even if you're a scrub like me maybe i'll
get i'll get wrecked for a good 30
start up andy your hands up no i was
what i was saying there about um i
think what everyone on stage basically
and is just more more data and like as
long as you guys keep on being public
it's all very exciting and as long as
you're not trying to like bury the lead
where i have to like zoom in 10x to see
that your y-axis is actually just like
worked at your twitter account or some
some ridiculous metric that is just
totally not what anyone cares about as
long as you guys just are
you know transparent i think we're all
rooting for you so keep going
well said andy and on that note amplify
your applause and acclaim for our
electrifying game sponsor shrapnel
the paramount the pinnacle the prime
official game of game of five
shrapnel's not merely a game it's a
supernova spectacle a cataclysm of
a tidal wave of tactical triumphs it's
where pixels and prowess fuse in a
furnace of ferocity forging a frontier of
march your mouse over to shrapnel.com the
digital domain where dreams dawn the dog
here enlisting with your unique call
sign catapults you know cosmos of
offering an armory of astonishing assets
through the extraordinary extraction
hey dub can we if we if we drop a
you know uh comment on this or you know
you already know it sam do it right
thanks bro i appreciate you and how can
stardust the official infrastructure of
feast your eyes on their wallet as a
a magical mechanism making metaverse
yuga might be able to use some of that
these days this invisible ingenious
innovation offers the white label wonder
weaving web 2 simplicity with the
with over 150 chains at your command
including evm sweet and solana
stardust stands as a supreme steward of
in-game gold and the guardian of your
gamer's gains and worry not
about the wily ways of the web stardust
safeguards the sanctity of your player's
shouldering the logistics and the
and of course behold the behemoth the
it's avalanche this colossus of the
crypto climate stands unshaken as it
slices through icy skepticism like a
scorching sword cutting a crystal clear
through the bewilderment of the blizzard
avalanche is not just a platform it's a
pathfinder a pioneer a prodigy and it's
the official blockchain of gamified
with valor and vigor avalanche ventures
valiantly into the very vortex of
it's not just a ledger it's the load
star leading us through the labyrinth of
the light guiding us to lands of logic
we're jumping into the next topic we got
or or wellian mr paul bettner had a
staggering claim this week
that ai prompts to fully playable games
are just a few years away after seeing
sora videos but is that a good thing
is it a utopian future where you can
play exactly what you want just type in
angelina jolie's zombie video game
that's a battle royale and i can jump in
and have an amazing experience
or is it an orwellian nightmare where
everything you play is built by ai and
has no flavor or soul because it's no
by people while paul send it over to you
which i fucking hate but like man i've
been facing this where i was
i've been the the guy who read the
singularities near if you guys haven't
this this is probably the most useful
book on understanding what's happening
what's been happening what's been
coming go read that book and you
your mind will be blown because this
book was written i don't even know 20
and it literally is predicting to the
year these things that are happening
self-driving cars ai's that generate
you just like it's like it's like it's
like a calendar like a timeline you can
line it up with what's talked about in
this book so go check that book out
singularities near if you want to
understand where we're at and what's
it's it's all there but anyway as
you know just been kind of facing that
reality because i started strongly
in in it as i as i read that book and
going on 20 years ago i'm sitting here
i told you so to everyone in my life
that i've been saying these things are
and at this point like so then it's
like well that how do i feel about that
you know is it orwellian or or uh or or
uh that's why i said yes it's like both
it's incredibly illuminating but i kind
of feel like when people talk about ai
this this thing like uh like smartphones
or like some other technology
that's the wrong way of looking at it ai
when you talk about ai it's more like
talking about mother nature
like it's like evolution it's not
something that you're like oh we don't
like that so let's just stop that or
let's do something else or i wonder if
evolution is going to keep it's like
it's just a force of nature you don't
there's no stopping it there's doesn't
really matter what humanity thinks of it
or or about it because it's happening so
it's more about just trying to align with
what's happening and trying to navigate
it and having that conversation rather
hey is it bad or good well i don't know
a hurricane's coming is it bad or good
well i i guess a hurricane's a bad
example because it's nothing but bad but
you know some other some other
cataclysmic thing that is just like in
there's nothing that can change it uh
and yeah it'll be good and bad and for
to to talk about okay how do we harness
for good and you know obviously we're
but there's also just so much unknown
about it and everything that used to
take a year now takes a month and in
in another couple years it'll take a week
on the point of what i mentioned which
um look i i've been making this for 25
that what what starts out as it takes one
per frame to render something or even 10
when i started my career we could do
ray tracing right that was the thing we
had figured out the math of it
and it literally took 12 hours to do a
on my computer now my computer runs
dynamically real-time ray traced frames
on a computer that i you know spent
two thousand dollars on that's just
like my gaming pc so and and the thing
that that that this book talks about
that that is really hard for us as
is that it's not just a linear thing
oh things are getting faster at a
certain rate right now no it's a double
exponent which means the rate at which
is also accelerating so and this is
really hard for us humans the human
brain started going for the second but
to wrap our heads around we're not used
to that we're used to like looking at a
curve and being like cool i get that
curve things are getting faster
but what we what we're not good at is
rate at which the curve is bending up is
also on a curve is a double exponent
human brains are just not not used to
things like that and numbers that go up
that fast it's just it just kind of
but that's the way this works and so
is that the tools and technologies that
are going to power something like sora
running in real time at 60 frames per
in a couple years like yeah we look at
today's cycle we're like no it's not
going to happen in a couple years but
is that the things that are powering
faster like ai designing better chips
that run ai for instance right those
things start to feed in on each other
and that's what causes that double
that's what causes my prediction that
yeah in a couple years a game engine
isn't going to look anything like unreal
it's going to be a thing that i can type
a prompt into and i can be playing that
uh you know it's like similar to how you
go chat gpt you're able to get a response
in like you know a few seconds
it's going to be like that you describe
a game a few seconds later here's your
game pop it up in a browser start
playing it with your friends
and i and so like that's amazing
fascinating credible as a developer it's
also so disruptive that i can't even
imagine what that means for our jobs and
what our lives and careers look like in
i'm just trying to go with it i'm
trying to stay ahead of it i'm trying to
to to to harness it and and figure out
how we can use it for good
really well said paul i just want to
throw a quick anecdote in here that
uh about three years ago before i found
i was knowing that i wanted to leave what
i was doing with youtube at the time
very ready for a transition and i
remember i was on a walk with my
girlfriend we were on this
on this farm walking down the driveway
and i said i don't know exactly
what it is that we need to learn for
but i'm pretty sure what we need to get
used to is everything is going to change
all the time really quick for the rest
and it's only going to change faster and
faster and faster and faster
and three months later i found web three
gaming and i feel like every single day
everything changes all the time and now
with ai everything changes all the time
so that's maybe the the one time i've
been actually right about the future and
i do i just gotta i just gotta speak to
that real quick sam because we have the
same conversations of family all the
time and i just wanted to tell you guys
chickens and water okay so so katie and
i when we kind of turned to each other
we had that conversation we're like so
how do we even navigate that we're like
well what's probably not going to change
immediately we're probably going to
still need to eat and drink
and so let's figure out how we and so
now we own chickens and we figured out
how to raise chickens and they're
and we have a sustainable source of
water that is a well and whatever so
everybody has their own answers to that
but like you know in the face of just an
a radically accelerating world it's
it's kind of good to get back to our
roots a little bit as as as human
animals what do we need also
chickens and water were the real alpha
the whole time kids fish over to you
man paul you just absolutely fucking
that was just amazing man i was like
listening to a symphony so so true
rake her as well right like
i've been familiar which is the
hilarious thing i was in a super bowl
what oh yeah this was during the words
of friends erin it's when when i told
that story earlier when uh
what's to say alec ballman got kicked
off a plane and they turned me into the
punchline of a joke in a super bowl
commercial so if you just go search for
google super bowl commercial words of
friends you'll see me and my brother on
an airplane pretending to get kicked off
for playing words of friends
that's amazing uh i thought that that
couldn't get better and i was the one in
that in that too and he's the guy who
wrote the book yes rake her as well
yeah i've been a fan of his ideas since
i first heard about them and
um yeah i mean like you said i couldn't
framed the moral question around this
better than you did it's like
it what is the morality of an
inevitability you know it's it's it's
almost like the idea of ai
supersedes our typical understanding of
because it's like an eventuality of
that has so many implications that we
process with existing moral frameworks
that the question itself is almost
it's like i've heard physicists
described like what was before the big
bang is an irrelevant question
it's like a question that has no logical
and this is the same kind of thing it's
sort of doesn't make sense because we
new understandings and new modalities of
morality at that point i mean
if we're thinking about them in our
existing moral frameworks
something like the destruction of jobs
traditional jobs by ai would be like a
but then you could also compare that to
the internet which then created jobs
so we're all going to end up being like
in this like perpetual dialogue with
these semi-sentient machines
and or neural networks i don't know if
you know way to describe them so i think
like the thought that i would encourage
people to think about is like
how do you put structures into like the
that will create outcomes that you want
and so like if you're you know prompting
make a game well it's sort of making the
in and of itself right um so what do you
plug into it you plug in ideas
general rules archetypes right of
characters that you might want to
exist and flourish in this world and
sort of generate that and you can
refine it down from there
so i think it's it's we're going to have
to learn how to do a different type of
and that type of work is putting in
general frameworks and structures and
and then refining on the outputs right
because that's effectively how
you know these models learn and work is
endless sort of you know training and
um with with initial inputs so
yeah again paul said everything that i
um but those are just my personal
thoughts and thank good thank goodness
you're an optimist man i know you guys
are on the forefront of building ai
and i'm kind of jealous i i would love
to be playing with more of those
technologies even than i am for us
we're mostly using it in the process of
building games rather than making an ai
game but i think that's such a
but i just like the relentless optimism
i just wanted to say i a lot of people
ai is going to be the thing separate
from humanity and i think it's an
outgrowth of humanity i think it's going
to amplify our humanity and i'm very
i i yeah i very much agree and i think
you know you sort of have to be
to work in that type of field but yeah
i think the the closest like
comparison would be the internet and
just how it massively overhauled and
changed every aspect of human life
it changed the way our brains work
it changed the way that our entire
social networks globally were
you know effectively rewrote what was
like a post agrarian you know
industrial society into this new
global mesh so it's it was a profound
change and i think that that this is
the juice that takes that to the the
in the form of ai so yeah be prepared to
rewrite everything that you
you think you know and i think that if
uncertain state the default is optimism
you know humanity has progressed
towards better and better ends over
i have no reason to feel like this is a
well said gentlemen katie drake bedner
in the comments katie hope you're
feeling better she says don't let paul
he's had a couple of dark nights of the
uh double it's so funny because again
even knowing this stuff was coming it's
like my human brain still also reels
just like everybody else when the
things actually happen when sora i mean
again another moment like that
christ i saw sora i was like fuck i was
thinking that was going to be like
12 months from now but of course i knew
i saw i saw sora and the first thing i
thought was like oh my god
all those season twos that i was hoping
from like these amazon one-offs and
netflix one-offs i can finally make a
and what a what a beautiful future we
see that's the fun stuff right like
let's have that conversation what are
the season threes that we're all going
to cause to happen now that we all wish
could have happened and we could just
make ourselves now a love one shit we
can do that for games too
now also and start to make these the
the sequels we always dream to
to be a reality and ultimately for me
like i'm super optimistic on everything
i actually look at it as like
the analogy for me is like a pencil
ultimately this is a tool that creatives
are going to use that humans are going
and have to put their input into their
they have to use the tool in order to
they're drawing out of it just like a
that was my viewing on it and totally
innovation is just exponentially
happening at an infinite rate so five
years from now it's just going to be a
katie and ici both posted the uh the
super bowl commercial that paul was in
so big shout out for that
i also want to hear from the panelists
not just doom and gloom or optimism but
also how far away do we actually think
we might be if you had to guess
how many years until i can type in a
and what what might that change about
the future of game development i'm going
yeah i mean i think we're a lot closer
you know uh five ten years away i think
it's probably something that we see
basic versions of in the next
12 to 24 months what i don't think
is ever going to happen is you type in a
there's a game and it's some mass market
success in the sense that
you know it's it's like a major game
that everybody's playing i think like
you know playing a game recently i've
been playing a lot of hell divers
hell divers too and i just cannot see
how an ai prompt will ever create a game
with the amount of soul that hell
divers i don't know how else to describe
it it is one of the most like magical
gaming experiences i've had in a very
it is so ridiculously fun there's depth
to it it's like you're meeting new
people because you're forced to work
together you have to build
specific rigs and setups to make sure
that you're executing missions correctly
i think when you're looking at a game
there's an element of soul to it that i
just don't think a machine is ever going
that being said i think jonah uh blake
actually had one of the better takes
about ai this was like maybe six or seven
where i think curation is going to be
incredibly important moving forward
anybody is going to have access to these
anybody can spit out a bunch of bullshit
where things will change is how well you
the things that are going into whether
it's a game or a video or a piece of
how good are you as a creative as an
quote unquote prompt engineer at
creating things the way that you want
putting a real human flair in it adding
that soul into the piece of media itself
that's where i think you know the the
limits of ai will go i think what what
is it allows us to build things a lot
it allows us to prototype things faster
but i do think it opens a whole bunch of
other doors and i also don't think that
completely removed a la like x machina
when you're talking about these sort of
that's what gets me excited but man play
like a couple hours of hell divers and
tell me you ever think a machine is
going to create anything even remotely
yeah i think uh i'm pretty Orwellian for
the long term but for the short term is
you know the thing is like ai is based
right and what we've already created and
so like the game that nong had you know
just mentioned right if that becomes
part of the data set then we'll be able
ai will obviously be able to copy that
or be able to create something more
you know in the short term it's like
the the benefit of ai is definitely our
whatever speed or the technical like
hurdles and stuff like that that's kind
of goes away but it's like
you can only have that level of
creativity based on our current
ai will basically be and new creations
derivatives of ai based off you know
human data sets that were you know stopped
basically in like let's say
2026 or whatever like that and so in
become where society becomes enslaved by
this matrix of our own understanding
you know one i guess pop culture
reference would be like create ai like
the supreme intelligence where
you know it's just literally everyone's
thinking that this ai has the best kind
understanding what's going forward
because they've lost even the
creativity to direct the ai and i see
this in my son because my son
is really intelligent and he has access
and he absorbs all of this information
he doesn't necessarily understand the
like he gets this information and
that's pretty much it and i look at
what a lot of the younger generation of
my friends are looking at they're not
really friends of course they're just
um and everything they're looking at is
right a ticktock hack hack hack hack but
what are all these hacks based off it
was like a kind of deeper understanding
you know where the issues were or what
whatever it is and then so i think
the orelian thing is that at the very
end of the day is that we think that
but we're just basically rehashing
things and we're basically
big shout out to missy in the comments
too he says it'll never be a single ai
prompt it's a sequence of ai prompts
being written by someone who has their
levels being part of the creative ai
process you still have to
have a vision and an idea that is unique
to you lens i see that hand up i'll
send it to you then paul betner gets the
last word before you move on
perfect because i i want paul's take on
on this as well like remember when chat
gpt launched it felt like the twitter
timeline was full of the most generic
boring ass threads where everyone was
just regurgitating the same thing copy
i want us to steamroll through that
generation of game development so we
can actually get to the good games but
is that going to actually be a big lag
time where the first games
are really simple and kind of shitty and
we have to go through that for a while
before we can finally start you know
seeing some actual enjoyable stuff come
yeah absolutely we're gonna totally go
it's a zillion generic ideas and there
the what we were calling them earlier
the one hit like you know the the quick
things that just get all the lulls and
all the memes and all the clicks
because it'll be some idea like paul
i just wanted i just had this idea
there should be pokemon with guns for
years and so i'm going to type in the
prompt and that's the thing that
apparently a bunch of other people
thought would be really funny and it
flared up this weekend and that's what
we're all playing for a second
but i agree with knock that like the
hell dives of the world and i think this
is what you're saying too lambs are still
and this is always how i felt about ai
like i have this debate with my brother
because he's he's always he's on the side
of like ai's gonna leave us behind and
you know the ants and and they'll be the
and i've always decided and i don't know
if i'm right or wrong but i've decided
to take a more optimistic approach which
is nope it's going to be this ongoing
collaboration the ai will continue to
enhance our own humanity and we will go
along with it and so we will be
superhumans together with super ai's
it'll just eventually merge into one
thing and the humanity won't be lost in
enhanced amplified and it'll grow uh in
the ways that like we've been talking
about the internet has caused that kind
of growth like all these things
throughout the history of humanity have
i i don't think ai's going to be any
and in that regard i really look forward
to you know what nak is pointing to
the world i think is going to exist
where me and my friends uh as humans get
to work with incredible ai's to create
even more incredible things and you know
this this thing that i've been talking
about is these technologies merge which
is like the apple vision pro i'm using
and the ai that we're using and these
we're going to be creating universes and
building dreams and we're going to get
to inhabit those things and that's
amazing and i don't know what happens
after that because like i basically just
i guess pick up a bible maybe i don't
know and i'm not i'm not actually the
most religious person or spiritual
but like but it starts becoming as
someone who's indicating earlier like
this kind of very spiritual thing it's
like hard it's like you're waiting into
philosophy and stuff like that
trans human concepts that that just
you can't talk about in scientific terms
because they're just outside of what
our brains can process but the time that
i think we will be able to process the
things because our brains will be big
enough thanks to ai so two other couple
other things i wanted to point out
sora can already generate games if you
guys haven't seen this it's in the sora
white paper or whatever they have these
minecraft videos and these are zero shot
ai generated they just they you know they
train sora on all this information and
the point i made on twitter earlier this
actually i think this is going to take
off possibly even faster than than ai
is going to be ai game making and the
the problem with ai is always training
source right so what they'll do is
they'll feed ai every single piece of
linear media ever recorded all the films
and then they'll they'll be running
around with cameras trying to provide
but games are an infinite source of
training data you can literally be like
you know 10 million hours of minecraft
to train on no problem we'll just run a
of you watching minecraft videos for a
day and there's your 10 million hours of
this and like you can do that with
literally every game that's ever been
and immediately spawn an ai model that
that has awareness of every video game
genre every video game type all video
they obviously did that partially with
and so sora right now you can just type
in generate a minecraft video and it
and it's insane what it's doing y'all
rendering lighting and shadows and like
there's this part of the video where
switches to a sword and it updates the
of the sword ui at the same time that
the sword comes out and it's like
you just gotta think like what is inside
that ai's mental model that it
how to generate those things both in
the ui and and i see that and i'm like
okay well i was right like yeah we're a
couple years away from this at best
because it gives that that that video of
you know i don't know how long sora
takes to generate videos right now but
10 15 20 maybe an hour it's going to be
in real time it'll be doing that at 60
frames per second in a couple years so
and the last thing i want to say on the
you just tell a story about my daughter
my daughter's 14 her name is eloise
she is a burgeoning artist she loves
drawing she does it all the time i also
showed her mid-journey a couple years
ago and we had a little bit of this
moment or i did anyway where i was like
holding my breath i'm like oh fuck what
if this ruins her desire to be an
crushes her dreams and she's like what's
and that's not what happened she started
loves it she's fascinated by it she uses
it to like generate concept arts or
but it had no impact on her desire to
become an artist and this is the
strength of humanity this is the
she wants to learn she wants to grow
to know how to draw she wants to be able
and in her mind it's kind of like what i
think is like when photography was
invented i'm sure i'll bet some artists
like flip the table or like fuck it why
are we even doing this we now just take
but obviously art hasn't gone anywhere
with photography being this incredible
tool it can just literally capture and
i think that we can look to things like
that and find out optimism
well said paul appreciate that knock
for a quick statement that we move on
yeah that conversation was was pretty in
the weeds and i think for
the bunch of listeners up here it's a
ton of fun but for those of you who
were lost just go watch like literally
of love death and robots it's like
every possible outcome of what is going
to happen with ai in the most like
funny way just go watch a couple of
start with the yogurt episode it's
basically exactly the scenario that
sinjin just described in his fears for
but yeah just watch the show or black
oh my god they're all black mirror is
not going to be an optimistic outcome
no i feel like people are not going to
leave feeling good oh i know
but you know to balance out my
relentless optimism is black mirror
all right we move on is this the turning
50 deals in the next quarter you'll see
why i picked that number in just a
there's a quote from an article that i
this level of activity likely represents
the more realistic level of investment
than the peak years of 2020
and 2022 which attracted non-endemic and
tourist investors during the web3 and
where we were reaching almost 200 deals
consequently median deals have fallen
from uh three point or sorry two three
from 2022's high of four point one
late stage deals were the only category
that's been increasing from seven
to almost eight million and over the
last few years or sorry for over the
last two years we've trickled down from
down to about 50 but now we're starting
at 50 deals a quarter so my question is
over under 50 deals for the next
quarter are we on the way up
are we on the way down or maybe you
could just say about 50 if you think
i'll send it over to fitch first yeah
are we talking about web3 game deals or
what's the parameters this is gaming
if you want to take it if you want to
make it specific about one industry i'll
okay yeah i guess i'll just answer the
question i think we're we're probably
up again um you know if not now then in
the very near future not by much i mean
you know but i like the the market's in a
stable position now you know and i i
probably we're we're going to trend very
i'm going to go over but only by a very
i uh let me say that i have
experience and knowledge of this is i'm
sure some of the builders are
we're definitely on the way up in this
and it's not just me that believes that
through conversations that we're having
with other folks in the industry and
other folks are related to different
parts of fundraising everything else
the perception is um let's let's fucking
go like that's kind of where we're at
and actually i the main reason i raise
my hand is because these things are
we were i agree with nak we were a bit
in the weeds on the on the ai stuff it's
but i i i actually want to use that
opportunity to bring it back to
relevancy and what we're talking about
we are we're we're partially all of us
in in in the growth and or decline of
ai is an incredible fuel for that and
and it's not just in the most obvious
ways of like oh i'll build a game with
ai i mean ai has a massive impact on the
and just the general growth of of tech
and acceleration of tech means that
everything happens faster like we were
so that means when we're faced with a
or growth in the market or growth in
that those things happen faster too and
that's really exciting and i think that
um you know i i do believe we're at the
uh pretty pretty crazy raising raging
situation that's that's how it feels to
not financial advice um and uh and i
think it will probably go even faster
than any one of these has gone before
of course insanity for somebody like me
uh like the wildcard deal in the first
place our raise the paradigm happened in
just six weeks from like first call to
so i'm like fuck is this next one going
to be like six days i don't know uh but
um yeah stuff's happening and uh and it
does feel like it's taken off again
shrapnel's dub yeah dude what i know
is it's only freaking q1 of 2024 it is
everything just turns up from from my
my previous experience uh
and what we're doing here so looking
forward to seeing that that going
ah so short and sweet i was tapped on a
dm trying to help somebody edge hang
uh i'm gonna agree with the crowd here
you've got you know crypto tokens
ripping right now nft floor is rising
games launching a lot more interest
anecdotally you know we're we're seeing
a lot more games kind of approach us and
and kind of look at follow-on rounds a
lot of teams are also kind of just
building through the bear and waiting
for better markets to kind of
you know to raise their next round
ai you know spoken beautifully by by
paul and fitch earlier like
that's heating up and then you know
the vision pro you've got mark
zuckerberg out there like recording home
videos talk about why the quest three
rocks and talks about gaming like
there's there's so many new platforms so
a lot of capital has been sitting on
the sidelines in terms of dry powder for
i think it's burning a hole in their
well said i'm inclined to agree with you
zagging you in um i think 50 feels
about right um i don't think we're gonna
huge explosion um in you know q2
um so 50 feels good and i think you're
you know a lot of teams who've
self-funded and gotten themselves to a
point where they've built legitimate
good products that is actually way more
investable than like you know previous
um so your 50 feels kind of right on the
money to me i wouldn't be surprised if
we were slightly under or slightly over
all right about right nak what are your
yeah i would probably say about right
q2 but i think that that number gets
absolutely slaughtered in q3
part part of the reason why we saw such
during covid um was this incredible
combination of a ton of people at home
ton of people spending more time playing
and really the beginning of like web
and it was more costly to not have
games at that time than it was to make a
few investments that went belly up and
you lost money and that's part of the
reason why we saw we all saw some crazy
i think when you combine the fact that
gaming is heating up just generally
web three seems to be on the up and now
i feel like the circumstances are even
crazier than they were a few years ago i
i would not be surprised if we go on
quite a run over the next little while
but i do think it takes some time to ramp
well said no more hands are up so we'll
move on factor fiction battle.tech
is the reskinned friend tech a new
social 5 platform called battle.tech
launched last week where you can buy
shares in esports players careers
they're first starting off with
counter strike 2 this is a social 5
the platform is unique in the way that
it displays your ranking in different
esports like i said they're starting
but they have said that they'll add more
games unfortunately i have never even
played counter strike 2 so i have no
for people like me that i've never
played counter strike 2 you're mostly
just buying into like a private chat and
i'm not even using the private chat so
it either please don't buy mine or don't
expect anything if you do buy mine
the long-term vision here though is to
invest in the esports pros and
potentially earn a percentage of their
future tournament winnings
so again fact or fiction battle.tech is
reskinned friend tech or is there
really something deeper here
i think mr dubb had to hand up first
yeah i think there is something deeper
here and honestly i've just been waiting
a couple weeks since the platform
launched to brag in in this space about
how i floored one jerry and picked up
the best trade that i probably ever made
getting access to a chat that you ghost
um but i i think it's a it's just like
it's really hard to launch something
right out the gate super successful make
a ton of sense for everyone and get a
i think they have a lot to build going
forward but i think the root of what
makes a ton of sense and i i want to
and i look forward to seeing like other
into that mix and for it to obviously
not be a csgo one as well
um because my face at score is just
absolute trash um but definitely
looking forward to seeing that the
i'm gonna send it over to jerry for the
yeah i would say just just note that one
jerry was worth four sam's
uh you're welcome by the way dub and uh
i think uh battletech is is really cool
you know i should disclose i'm an owned
content creator um i'm doing some stuff
but i wouldn't do something i mean i
is good enough with people here that i
you know you guys know i wouldn't do
believe in um but i i think it's really
in a lot of different ways right i think
i really love the concept of smart
right nak can probably touch on this
uh just a little anecdotal story but i
do a lot of consulting uh for event the
and i'm doing um i did an esports
tournament last year and i'm doing
another one's upcoming up
and um in my time in esports nobody ever
gets fucking paid on time
you always have like especially the
players right the entertainment like
those guys never get make the fucking
money they're supposed to
so i think um you know starting to get
things like smart contracts in place for
esports though battletech's not doing
i think web 3 fixes a lot of issues
and i think battletech is really cool
because you know what they're starting
is you know countries that are a little
bit underrepresented in esports or um
that are like tier two and tier three
you know 25 avacs their their term is
splitting getting half that for winning
a tournament is pretty fucking
significant right getting fees for
people trading your passes
can be really significant and you know
an actual source of livelihood for
and that's really fucking cool and we
should celebrate stuff like that so i'm
all in on battletech i think it's a very
it is a little bit like friend tech but
you know it's not a bad thing
singe in fact they're fiction it's just
a reskin friend tech what do we think
um i think this is going to be the
um real pivotal moment for how esports
is is really looked at especially for
really using web 3 to unlock it and uh
this this uh disclosure here is that
out of like i don't know fucking 50
asked me to advise for them related with
i picked these guys they're one of two
that i actually advise and that's going
um and so what the real difference here
is it's not for pro esports people it's
it's actually for amateurs across the
right and so it's a really grassroots
movement and unlike friend tech
the biggest thing here is and then why
they asked me to come on was basically
how can we make a sustainable kind of
p2p type of format and right now for
you know it's just been you know
whatever the week or so and um you know
you have that one aspect of
the the the users themselves the gamers
themselves who are aspiring
you know whatever esports or want to
make it a career out of or taking it
but their content that they're producing
is not chat rooms and stuff like that
what it will be is actually will be
their actual earnings on the platform
so right now they've taken a feed of
like what their scores are and stuff like
that or their composite scores from
once the platform really starts to move
like a lot of tournaments and stuff like
that will be going on right now and
free tournaments but i think today
they're actually launching
uh tournaments where the users will
have to put in their own entry fees
and once they start to expand to games
that are web three games that actually
have their own earnings then users are
doubly kind of incentivized in the sense
that they have their own earnings that
going through and earning through web
um you know the fact that other users
can actually stake them and
a good example of staking is like in
you know if you want to go into wsop
it's like a world series of poker it's
a 10k buy-in for the main event right
and some players you know basically they
can't afford that and so what they'll do
is they'll ask other players
you know can you stake me like 1k for
10% of the earnings or so and so forth
and this platform allows for that so as
forward what's going to happen is that
within the platform itself there will be
actually internal stats that are being
for the users for the players the
players will be able to come in you
show that and then the the traders or
the backers there's kind of two forms
where if you want to just trade on the
actual shares of the players that's
fine but if you actually want to back
for particular tournaments and sponsor
right then this creates you know like an
how do I say like interactions in the
terms of like how many games that get on
right and so you know I think that
you know like it's kind of really hard
kind of get me on board and at first I
was very very skeptical of it
uh but the reason why Rex came and asked
me was because he was really concerned
how do we close and how do we create a
kind of revenue loop here
that really drives into the in the
trading and I'm like okay
let's talk right so I think it's going
really amazing and the fact that a lot
of esports teams where they got fucked
was salaries right so the salaries that
and so the the individual players uh you
know they were just sucking out all the
right and so it was very hard to stay
but you know here's the thing about like
esports like does it always have to be
right and I and I think what we're
coming to is that no that's not the
because a lot of uh content that's
being produced right now is more fun
esports right they're not necessarily
they're most kind of entertaining and
then this is kind of another level to
esports can be um fueled not by the
best players but the ones who are kind
managing their own portfolios kind of
like on a trading side of things and
so not financial advice but I think that
what they've done is really fucking
innovative and it's like really what
the spirit of web3 is it's kind of like
direct support to individual players so
like I know there's like the hoopla of
all the marketing stuff like that but
uh really in depthly there are certain
loops that are being created here that
are being set up it'll take some time
and you know I was talking with the
founder and and rex today
and um you know ultimately this is
somewhat of a trading type of platform
and I said like as long as this launch
was good and the launch ended up with
players right and obviously we're
getting another influx of like you know
5k players in a week from now
from the partners um as long as it's a
solid product where the game loops are
really there and also like the kind of
like the user journey loops are there
you know a trading perspective to a
gaming earnings perspective
back to increasing the profile of the
actual user itself and then
giving multiple ways for backers to you
earn from the user the player itself
then when this bull market comes this is
and if you want to talk about a product
real product market fit with web2 this
is it because at the end of the day
we're not convincing players to come
adopt some new tech right we're saying
if you want to see a real sustainable
you know model for esports as an
individual to kind of enter into this
without going towards pro but still has
then it's a kind of no-brainer right
because it ends up being almost like a
users or a patreon for like
esports players but it's really
accessible and it also has
these different rails which they can
that it's not just a matter of like a
single donation or like this huge
it's just very obvious and so uh but in
you know who's worth more uh i put my
money on sand being worth more than
ed jang your thoughts on battle.tech
we got a lot of bag holders in here
everybody uh everybody conveyed it
you know i'm gonna be honest uh
we say everybody here that works here
does does beady and you know i think
coop was actually talking to them first
and he was like very bullish and
at first i was like this is a reskin
okay and then you know they were
building for weeks and i'm in that chat
i saw how thoughtful they were about
building things from the ground up you
know how this compared with
stars arena or friend tech and what they
could do and like what they were doing
to be fair to be honest i don't really
like read that much into it
and then they launched the product and i
i opened it for the first time and i was
i get it so i think it's really cool i
if they can get to kind of critical
this is like a must-have i think for a
lot of these web3 games just an extra
kind of d gen factor competition e-sports
there's so many cool things that come
out of this um and i think they're
they're thinking about it in the right
you know a a gaming focused kind of
social 5 platform even though i hate
uh that abbreviation knock i want to
hear your take on this one
so many mixed feelings um i want to say
i i love the team i love the idea i
think the idea is spot on
i definitely think it's something
it feels like to me this might be one of
those things that's so early it's late
and what i mean by that is traditional
is in a really terrible fucking spot
most teams are grossly grossly
overspending on a professional team
even in a tier one e-sport like valorant
which is on the bottom tier
you know your top 10 to 15 teams in a
region like north america or europe
are each of them are spending somewhere
monthly between the players the coaching
that doesn't include travel and things
of that nature so cost is is prohibitive
contracts and the way that e-sports
contracts have always been structured
restrictive in in the nature of where
how you're getting paid out where
where percentage splits and who's
getting what portion of what fee
over time the norm has become prize pool
money specifically has trended to zero
because everything else has gone up so
teams have sort of conceded this thing
if your favorite csgo team fanatic
wins a major tournament fanatic is
almost almost 100 of the time no money
the team wins a million dollars it gets
divvied up amongst the players today
that's not how it was always but that's
how teams are operating today so what
won't become at least in my opinion is a
somebody like xi wu in in csgo right
a potential or a portion of his prize
one because he won't allow it two
because he doesn't have the time to pay
attention to something like this because
he's getting paid three million dollars
and more importantly because his team
won't allow something like this to
what this might become and where i'm
is that this is the sort of thing that
for real grassroots level esports play
part of the reason why organizations and
fail in esports is because it's very top
because there is no real support or
dollars going into the ecosystem
at a tier two or three or four level
right even in professional leagues like
overwatch or call of duty
what we've seen by and large is the tier
has been gutted over the course of the
so now there's really two ways to play
call of duty it's professionally in the
or it's you know for fun with your
friends there's no real middle ground
and it's really difficult for players to
put in the hours that it requires
to become you know a professional level
i think a platform like this might help
to be that stop gap right
if the leagues are abandoning that tier
something like this where players can
earn a little bit of money
have the opportunity to spend a ton of
time to get better at the game
hopefully afford themselves better
professional with an organization that
incredibly exciting for me my concern
relative to the esports market looks on
the surface like it could not be better
i'm worried that it might not be
possible for it to be worse
because we're in the process right now
of significant turnover right large
organizations are laying off
massive numbers of their of their
workforce teams are being gutted
esports leagues are being gutted
people are trying to restructure and
what is the actual business model that
and i think unfortunately especially in
the west what's going to happen over
is you're going to see a little bit of a
downturn in the success and
the popularity of esports because
everything is just such a fucking
disaster i think it's a natural healing
process i think it's something that
but hopefully we'll come out on the
other side with products like battletech
that really help to build those
to help small teams and smaller players
make some money so that they can put
more time in so we have a better
pipeline of potentially professional
but i don't think that this ever
the top 0.01 percent of esports players
i think this is for everybody else and
hopefully will help to build the
foundation for the next stars
well ran to take fit over to you then
yeah i mean i think nak you know said uh
really everything that i would have
um you know the it seems like if the
is to kind of get you know the upper
echelons which sort of by
default uh esports is but the upper
echelons of players competing in larger
uh and taking a piece of that prize pool
then i just don't really see that but
what i do see is you know to jerry's
point like the infrastructure
there's so much infrastructure in
esports that would be benefited by
smart contracts um to knox point
and syngin's point if there can be that
middle layer that ends up being created
um but mechanically that's that's a
because like again you know what
there's some ability it sounds like for
sponsor uh or excuse me participants to
players um but then who's who's
constructing those events are these all
events that live in the app
or is there like other events that the
actual game publishers would be
uh you know contracted with battletech
and put on i mean these are like fairly
major questions that i think would need
having quite clear answers um to have
um you know again like esports is a
heavily plagued industry as as knox
explained and you know that presents
opportunities but right now i think it's
it's more confounding of a variable that
um exploitable of a variable for you
know a lot of different reasons
but yeah if there was like an
infrastructure play here for esports if
really seamless way to like connect the
publishers with the players with
and have some like cool new feedback
loop between those three parties
that would be really compelling um but
i am trying to conceptualize it in my
don't quite see it right now um so i
interested in kind of following along as
you know a game company is like
is this an option for us like what would
how would we want to work with with this
and like i just think to round it off
left me confused from the pitch was like
um you know i could be backing dub uh or
backing jerry or sam like do you guys
compete in esports events i didn't i
you did right so like that that
in and of itself kind of left me a
little confused i was like if these are
who i'm buying into and the pitch is
that i get a portion of your esports
tournament winnings well i didn't know
that you guys competed in esports
you know that kind of in and of itself
reframe the pitch it sounds like from
what sinjin is saying that there's
a totally different pitch that's way
um and i guess to answer the actual
not really a friend tech reskin per se
what sinjin described right um because
there there's a lot of other
implications with that but um i'm still
not a hundred percent on that
that vision i am very talented fish i
i choose not to because i write banger
and game reviews in my channel
so um that's what you get if you buy my
well that's i mean that sounds great but
like that's not what i was sold is i
if i'm investing in your esports
participation that's totally different
thing because like i said i'm not aware
of you being an active esports player
um you know that the tournament level
specifically right but then that goes
back to the problem of like
okay well if it is grassroots who's
like how are they happening that seems
like a variable that like specifically
in the whole equation i'm not
i'm not really seeing i think it's it's
um and there's a lot of smart people
involved so i i don't doubt that it
could end up being successful but i
think the product market fit to be found
is was what noch described
and that's actually rather elusive and
um difficult in a variety of ways
well said fish i have to uh give
everybody i'm gonna give everybody with
hands up 60 seconds real quick i'm gonna
give uh missy a shout out and also an
xborg nft whitelist he says i'd love for
battletech to work as web 3 proof of
gaming a lot of noobs around here acting
like they play these games
i'm really looking forward to playing
non-boomer games when i can destroy all
and yes i'm saying counter strike 2 is
for boomers and then we have another
comment from josh p from bornless says
totally agree with knock here
i know so many people who got caught in
of that jump to professional gamers and
there's absolutely no support there
that's the real gap i think battletech
wild paul go to you first okay y'all my
heart is racing right now
katie's been tuning in this is a this is
really tricky moment for me because uh
we only have a few minutes left and we
maybe the topic i'm most passionate
about of any gamified that we've ever
so first my request to sam is man let's
another another gamified topic that we
in depth but i but i can't not uh
not sort of share my heart and soul with
you guys and let you know something
this vision that you are all most
excited about and that we are
discussing over this last half an hour
which by the way it's so exciting to
you know folks that are that believe in
this is wildcards vision we have been
that is that you're now seeing show up
uh uh paddle tech export community
gaming game seven there are several
platforms that are beginning to
that are that are pursuing this vision
and there's a couple things i want to
in my opinion and this has been true if
you if you literally rewind two years
you go look at the wild paper we
publish you can see the genesis of this
vision in the way that we describe where
we're heading with wildcard
two years ago now right but of course
everybody focuses on the game but we've
been saying from the beginning
for us we are valve we are not just
building our counter strike we are also
at the same time and so people are like
what does that mean like are you
actually building a digital
no we are building a competitive
economy and ecosystem platform that will
power wildcard and if we get it right
hopefully like steam serve the interest
but as you guys know because you've
heard me passionately talk about this
you can't as a company i just don't
believe in building the platform you
also a team building your killer app you
have to be nintendo you have to be
apple you can't just build the device
and the hardware and the platform you
your mario your zelda your halo your
that's where the real value is built so
in case you guys didn't know this we
are a direct competitor in this space
caveat mtor wildcard is 100 going after
we haven't launched the platform yet but
i can't wait to show you guys what it is
and i i just think and last thing i want
that i think the reason that there's
there's skepticism around these other
platforms and i think knock you nailed
it when you look at battle tech and you
look at kind of the way they're leaning
into it in this friend tech angle
the challenge is and i only say this
because i'm speaking from experience
with with with what we have been
working on a discussion we've been
having for two years as we've been
building this platform is
you have these three groups i think
someone nailed it just perfectly i
forget who said it which is
this platform serves as a connection
point the nexus for developers and
as one group for the competitors the
pro gamers the people who make their
living playing games professionally
and the organizers so you have these
three groups coming together but you
know who i didn't mention
the speculators or what we like to say
those are an important part of this
ecosystem they kind of fit under that
that larger umbrella of the organizers
time attention and money into bringing
but if a platform launches and that's
is just speculators from the first
moment that's not going to make it
what we've discovered over the last
couple years working on this
is that the focus actually has to be on
empowering your organizers and your
first the stakeholder is important the
specular is important the people are
going to show up with money and want to
but if you lean in on that you end up
in a zero sum game just like knock was
saying and you build a platform where
actually the initial focus was all
about the speculators and that's not
actual customer is i look at the
difference something like friend tech
and farcaster which is like
my most exciting thing right now i think
i'm just all in on farcaster
and it's like night and day right when i
experienced friend tech i was like
okay yeah this is cool but this is a
speculator product first again rather
a functional utility product that's
here to serve my needs as a user it's
actually really just here to serve my
whereas i look at farcaster and like i
don't even know i'm sure they got some
tokenomics or whatever but i'm using
farcaster because it's a great product
that serves what i want as as a you
and i think that's the way these
platforms the ones that are going to
win are going to do that first
and that's not what i'm seeing yet from
these platforms especially with
battletech leading all into the like
it's all just about that friend tech
and i want to see the other thing i
want to see the thing that creates
solves these problems that you guys are
all calling out need to be solved
especially the grassroots thing that
singe is calling out and knock
when we've been working on this that is
the thing that consistently shows up as
the most important problem to solve is
how do you empower those folks who have
that time energy and passion
happen and right now it's really hard
especially when you're talking about the
so how do you make that possible to me
that's an incredibly cool problem to
solve that's worth solving
and it's not about speculators it's
about those folks who really are there
bringing the talent the time and effort
and i i'm excited to serve them and
wildcard is going to do it
you love to hear it paul thanks for the
alpha man can hear the passion on that
we'll have to bring it back as a topic
knock i'll send it over to you next
yeah i think one of the tricky things
could not agree more with what paul
just kind of walks through but one of
the tricky things when you're looking at
is that i know that i get hung up on
the semantics but i really do think that
there's like a meaningful difference
esports and competitive play and even
between regions esports is inherently
the path that every new esport follows
is something like this for the year zero
north america dominates from year one to
europe dominates every year after that
it's typically korea but let's just say
southeast asia as a broad hole
are strong and it's not because just
there are you know higher density of
people there in that region
but part of the reason why that happens
is because western markets tend to trend
towards quick easy money they tend to
trend towards vanity metrics so
the best western players oftentimes
will retire after two or three years and
and that's part of the reason why the
western ecosystem for esports
has been gutted because there's so much
more money in just putting on
a really high experience or our high
that is fun to watch that is just good
sinjin actually hits the nail on the
part of what north american esports is
is an entertainment product right it's
who is the best player who is the best
it is in asia it is to some degree in
but historically speaking north america
really strong and then we always trend
how do we create the most entertaining
when you expand beyond who is the best
that's where something like this gets
exciting because you can pick somebody
good enough has a personality and help
to support them so that they can become
for this market right but i really want
the north american market the european
south american market and asian market
in their approach to esports it always
plays out the way that i've kind of
and there's just different goals in asia
honor you want to win you want to be
the best team you want to build legacy
it's part of the reason why somebody
like faker has been playing for a
in north america it's come in make as
much noise as humanly possible
and then fuck off and go stream because
you're going to make way more money
streaming it's way less stressful and
people are going to care about you and
i think that the potential there is
and just real quick i know we're at time
i just i just had to add like the
coolest thing about this opportunity the
reason that y'all should be so bullish
on the battle text of the world
is because it is the best is one of the
best real applications of web 3 tech
like i was sitting around having these
conversations at dream hack with some of
the folks that are organizing the esl
folks in the dream hack folks
and we're like talking about how
manual some of these things are right
and that like to prove that they won
because there's no api that records the
results of the games or whatever
or like gosh it's almost like we need
this contract that could be like in
software like what would we call that
like a smart contract or something like
it's incredible how much those
fit with this problem that's why i'm so
great stuff guys i'm really sorry i see
a couple more hands unfortunately i have
to jet i have i'm up against it over
here in a different time zone it's very
sorry sorry guys as we host our heroics
and bring down the banner on this
breathtaking battleground let's lend a
roaring round of applause to the titans
and trailblazers that have turned the
tides in our favor shrapnel the crown
champion and official game of game of
in the sprawling saga of fps supremacy
shrapnel emerges as the elite envoy
masterminding a maelstrom in might of
new missions each strategic striking
calculated crash crafts a chronicle of
get into shrapnel tomorrow man excited
let's cast a spotlight on the icy
of our fantastical foray into the
fusion of finance and fun avalanche the
official block tana game of five
unleash a thunderous ovation for
avalanche our arctic art architect
valiantly vaulting through the virtual
vortex edging pathways of pristine
my intrepid explores just like avalanche
remember to remain cool under pressure
and foster that curiosity and before we
end today's show i'd be remiss if we
didn't thank stardust the official
infrastructure of game of five
one more time this formidable force now
fields a fully managed user acquisition
and performance marketing marvel
meticulously molding the masses into
consumers monetizing your metaverse
with stardust stellar strategies
diffused with web 3 secrets
snares sublime players at scale securing
sky high ltv users at a snip of the cost
thank you stardust and for next week
same place and of course my amazing
guests we got paul bettner singe and ed
lambs jerry fitch and more that had to
drop off crypto gorillas also in here
appreciate you guys tremendously dub
coop is i think hiding behind the avax
account too i appreciate all you guys
behind the stardust account thank you
guys so much we'll see you same time same