GR: Web2 vs Web3 Gaming

This is like so near and dear to my heart because we, you know, we kind of were under the gun announcing Wildcard as a Web 3 game at the beginning of last year, not really knowing what that even meant necessarily.

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And not truly understanding like, you know, I mean, I think I was really excited.

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We were really excited about the technology, about what a smart contract was, what a blockchain was, what my gut was telling me that it could mean for us, for video games in general.

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But it's really been a journey over the last, you know, 14, 16 months to actually understand this because some of the first things that come to mind, as you mentioned, that have to do with like, you know, direct ownership in video game assets.

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That stuff has actually been shown to be problematic in the history of the game industry when you expose game assets that are meant really balanced for fun to an open market.

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We all remember the Diablo 3 auction house fiasco, and that's just one of many examples of that when it hasn't gone well.

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And so it's a really challenging thing.

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And that has forced us and forced me to really think hard about the other ways that we might utilize this technology to empower the work that we're doing on Wildcard.

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And I'd say that for us, the most exciting thing that has come from those explorations and the prototypes we've been building and the conversations we've been having with the community is the ability to utilize smart contracts as a way to create affiliation between players and the game itself.

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This is a bit of a technical concept, but if you understand what a smart contract is, it's far beyond just like kind of the normal ways we think about Web3 and the financialization of things like, you know, tokens and NFTs, which are, you know, simple assets that you can own.

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But underlying those is this kind of rich technology that Ethereum and other blockchains provide, which is the ability to write a contract that can, you know, kind of allow two different entities to interact in a safe, trustless way.

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And so as we've dug into that, and especially as we thought about how that can apply to the vision that we have for Wildcard from the beginning, which is to create these relationships that could even be contractual and transactional that already exist in competitive games.

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Usually, though, they're just like, you know, it's a bunch of paper contracts that exist between, you know, teams and the game developer and publisher and esports owners and leagues and like all this kind of stuff that I think really Web3 has the power to create open platforms that would be much more accessible for content creators

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and allow for that community to kind of assemble and form those relationships and that's one of the most exciting things that I think we haven't really seen.

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People talk about it as like GameFi, which is like the application of smart contracts to the kind of relationships that can exist in video games.

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For me, I'm really excited to see that frontier develop.

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And certainly for Wildcard, that's the area that we are most excited about, creating those affiliations and the potential for our community to form those affiliations with each other and with our game using this technology.

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I love it, Paul. Yeah, I think a lot of people probably don't understand the full capability of smart contracts.

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And there's like so much things that we're currently getting developed to and is in progress.

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And so I can't wait for for more of that to be implemented into video games, too, and be more approachable, too, for like myself to make a smart contract.

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And me and Ali could like figure out something in terms of content creation and have it more of a smart contract be done.

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Right. And so I think there's a lot of opportunities to branch out.

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Sasha, I had I saw your hand up next.

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Awesome. Yeah, I actually was going to go down a very similar path to Paul.

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For me, the thing that's really stood out over the last couple of months and doing this mint and building the community is the just how different the relationship is between the game and the community.

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And I think all of that, I mean, there's it's kind of all of these dynamics which are created by the mechanic of ownership and blockchain.

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And really this idea of being able to have this perfect trust between people who don't know each other.

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And so what what we've seen already, one, there's this there's this total difference free to play.

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You have people who are there and enjoy the game.

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But, you know, if you ask them, they probably wouldn't want to spend a bunch of money in in transaction.

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They like to take it for free.

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Whereas in Web3, there isn't that same dissonance between the developer and the community holders, because the holders are just like they're along for the ride.

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Right. Like if if Dimensionals does well, if Wildcard does well, if these games do well, the early holders are going to do exceptionally well.

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So already there's this complete change in alignment and that creates a lot of these dynamics around like loyalty both ways.

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Right. Loyalty from the developers to the community and vice versa.

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And we see that snowballing in a way, even pre pre gameplay that just I think has never really happened in the games industry before.

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It's incredible.

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And so that's one thing. And then there's further social dynamics which emerge from this technology.

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Right. Like you have people who own a lot of these things that become celebrities, like everyone kind of does pranksy and diggling, you know, and they'll follow their lead when they come and invest in these different projects and buy up.

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So there's there's kind of this like almost larger culture.

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We see this again with like, for example, Wolvesdale, like DAOs and guilds and YGG and basically these groups of people who are guilds and communities outside of the individual games.

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And I don't think that really existed beforehand as well.

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I think with all of this, we're really just getting started.

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Like we've kind of barely scratched the surface, you know, basically we have this hugely high powered panel of game designers and developers, many exits, IPOs.

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Right. And for for all of us, we're still like the games are recent.

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You know, this isn't like we've been supporting this new Web3 game for 10 years.

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So that means that all of the dynamics and mechanics are still very recent, like we are going to see so much innovation over the next year, two years, specifically around this.

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And I think all of that will basically be rooted around the relationship between community and developer.

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And that's going to happen because we don't want to have to pay any more, add money to Facebook and Apple and Google, rather just go right to the gamers and build a strong relationship with them.

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So, yeah, that's that's my take.

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I think community is really the the thing that's evolved the most based on this new tech.

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Yeah, I couldn't agree more, Sash.

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And something that you said something during your talk was like different relationship developed by the community in the game.

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And that's kind of being shaped as of right now.

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Ali, not to put you on the spot, kind of putting you on the spot there.

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Have you seen that at all with like terms of like the community in terms of Web3 different on how they interact with you as a content creator?

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And I would just kind of like to hear your thoughts on that before we head over to Chris.

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Yeah, absolutely.

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Yes, definitely.

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I mean, I think I'm fortunate to have a really solid community that are very supportive.

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You know, I've been talking about blockchain for probably at least five years now, and only recently gaming's really come into the mix.

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So but yes, I would say the greater community, I definitely get pushback.

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I'm sure any time I tweet about Web3 games, I'm losing followers every time.

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You know, there's there's definitely a dissonance there and, you know, pushback from the larger gaming community.

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But, you know, honestly, I've got a pretty positive view of it all.

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We just need leaders in the space to prove that we can actually make really good games that, you know, utilize this new technology.

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And I think with time, people will eventually change their minds.

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Yeah, I agree with you on that as well.

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I would just love to hear your thoughts on it as it progresses.

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I think, you know, over time, as some of these start getting shipped, I know that you played Parallel the other day.

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And I think some people on your stream were pretty receptive to it.

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And it's because they're used to that type of graphic quality, the type of gameplay mechanics and everything like that.

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And you're also being honest, too.

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I think that's something that is useful.

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And I think the current like gamer community can just like smell bullshit like from a mile away.

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So when it comes to just like telling people like, hey, like these mechanics are still need to be worked on.

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And working with these game developers that are on these panels, they're super useful.

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So, yeah, gamers, gamers are pretty smart, you know, so don't bullshit them.

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It'd be transparent.

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And I think they'll be more receptive.

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Yeah.

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Yeah, absolutely.

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I think that was kind of the issue in 2021.

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Right.

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Just like this beautiful thing that like, you know, you could earn a whole bunch of money and game at the same time and ended up not being that.

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And so, yeah, we definitely have a lot of ground to cover.

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But for sure.

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Chris, I know you're up next.

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Yeah, I totally agree with everything that's being said here.

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You know, you asked like for value adds and use cases beyond just ownership.

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And I wanted to highlight one that I feel like is less talked about, which is provenance.

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And to me, that means like this whole rich on-chain history of every game item.

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And like I think about going back to childhood, like all these games that you spent so many hours playing and you beat the game.

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Like being able to have that sword that you beat the final boss with and just have that as a memory that's like, this is that specific sword that I used when I was like 12 years old or whatever to beat this game.

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Or even like, you know, like an item that, you know, someone like Ali is using on a stream or a pro gamer is using in the tournament.

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To have that kind of rich history carry across with these items as they travel around the ecosystem, I think it's going to be super cool.

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Yeah, I agree. And I think, I think Shroud had, he opened up a knife or something like that with like another one in terms of Counter-Strike.

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And like he put it on sale and it said like for sale by Shroud, right?

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And like, yes, some Steam stuff does that, but also like blockchain like makes it permanent.

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And you know it, right?

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And so I also think that's something that's huge that a lot of people don't talk about is more from branding purposes, right?

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In terms of like an individual level and Sash touched on it a little bit in terms of the distribution layer.

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I was like, as games come out as shrapnel, they have a huge UGC type of like games.

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It's like, okay, who are the best UGC people?

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Like, you know who they are and like, you can go talk to them as dimensionals and saying like, hey, I would love to like, you know, figure that out.

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And you don't have to go through Facebook.

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You don't have to go through Apple.

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So I think it's definitely overlooked a lot when it comes to blockchain.

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Sinjin, you're up next, brother.

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Yeah, you know, for me, it's really the implications for ownership if it actually really does happen that, you know, we can be in a situation where you get continual funds for extended or infinite development that, you know, game studios don't simply get profits and they go to new games.

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Rather, the game expands, not as like new downloadable content, but like a single IP ecosystem that can be different genres, linked economies, and it will only get stronger as, you know, gaming assets become interoperable and interchangeable.

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Now, I know I maybe people will disagree with that last point.

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But as a game designer, for me, I think that's really where the value is.

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And then Chris just mentioned about having an item when, you know, as a memory when he was 12 years old, the sword, but like, in this new model, you wouldn't ever have to give up that that sword, that sword could be with you for the next like, whatever, like 12 more years and still be functional in other games.

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And while that is a very, very hard task to even envision, I think that's where we need to go if we're really going to make a distinction between Web 2 and Web 3.

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It's not easy, but I think that's a path forward.

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Yeah, I would agree.

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And I think some people that would have like rebuttals to that, what I hear a lot in terms like the Web 2 gaming community, well, it points to an asset or something like that, or it's just a receipt.

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Those receipts are super useful, in my opinion.

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Like, for me, having a receipt of like a Blue Tiger skin in Call of Duty Modern Warfare, shout out, for example, like, that's super useful that I can take to Shrapnel and say, hey, I'm a gamer.

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And I play with it.

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Yeah, the servers might be down for Call of Duty Modern Warfare, but this is my Blue Tiger receipt.

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And like, you know, I grind it, you know, and that's super useful for any person.

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And then they have direct access to me through my wallet address.

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It's huge, huge, huge.

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Johnny?

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Yeah, I'll keep this brief because Chris kind of opened up the can of worms on the uniqueness and the, you know, like the immutable record of an item.

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But that also comes back to, particularly in multiplayer games, the social layer that's built into that and the value add that comes from players really is what makes a lot of the experiences, gaming experiences specifically over the last 10, 15 years,

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special to me and blockchain actually gives players the ability to interact with their unique items and make their unique mark on the ecosystem in a way that's remembered.

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Right.

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And I think that engagement has always added a ton of value to the experience.

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So, you know, if you look at multiplayer games over the last couple of years, specifically anything like World of Warcraft, Fortnite, Call of Duty, any of these games, like they're fantastic games.

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They're made by fantastic teams.

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But ultimately, the experience that everybody, that players come in and are exposed to and what makes the game really fun for them is the value add that comes from other players.

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And that's the kind of stuff that really, you know, is captured then in that in that receipt, in that history, in those items.

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You know, it's like that whole thing, like everyone has one, but this one is mine.

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Right.

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This is what's special to me.

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This is what I built in the game.

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This is this is the history behind what I've been doing here.

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And I think that's the kind of thing that really appeals to all players.

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You know, that's something that all players, it breaks the fourth wall for them.

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It becomes very real for them.

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You know, their cast of characters, they get attached to those things and it's meaningful to them, just like it's meaningful to the experience that everybody else is participating in.

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So there's a way to capture that value.

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And the blockchain kind of really provides that thoroughfare.

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Great points, Johnny.

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Couldn't agree more.

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Hey, Josh.

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Yeah.

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One of the things I think about when I think about gaming and NFTs and Web 2 versus Web 3, not a lot of people are talking about is the implementation of the advancement of AI with NFTs.

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And what I mean by this, to be very specific, is as AI gets more and more advanced, there's a very real possibility that you will develop or many players will develop a real deep friendship with a character within game.

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And I think that there's a universe in which you could take that relationship and have it be on chain, have the metadata embed a lot of your interactions, a lot of your dialogues, so that you can actually take your friend from one game to another game.

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And it may not interact with the gameplay specifically, and it may not be a value proposition in the way of, I'm going to sell my friend to you.

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But I think that to a player, this can be an extreme value add.

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And I think right now we're so early in NFTs, like there's not a real product fit for NFTs, in my opinion.

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The product market fit is really like kind of a speculative asset for investing, and maybe it goes up or goes down.

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But in the future, when you think about interoperability, the things that are going to be very valuable from the interoperable level are going to be the things that we have a huge emotional bond with.

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Kind of like, you know, if your grandmother gave you a watch and it's worth $10, you wouldn't trade that watch for $10 because it was your grandmother's.

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So I think the higher level of personalization with the NFTs, and this is something Chris said that I thought was very astute of like, oh, I beat this game when I was 10 years old.

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This is my sword.

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I think that's where the future of NFT gaming is going to be.

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Even though I'm primarily an investor, it's fairly easy for me to see that outside of like an NFT that's going to drop smaller NFTs or like a forge that would create attacks on future assets, the majority of these NFTs, the value proposition is really going to be collectability, ownership, and unique interaction for me, the player, and that asset where I develop a deeper bond of ownership with it.

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So I think that's one of the things that's very interesting that's rarely talked about is kind of the personalized interactions with AI and NFTs coming into play.

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I know Sash is like definitely itching to talk because he loves AI and he's been thinking about it a lot.

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Go ahead, Sash.

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Yeah, of course.

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I kind of, there's something really, really interesting about the intersection of NFTs and the blockchain and AI for a couple of reasons we just haven't seen play out yet.

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So the first is UGC.

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One of the things that I haven't seen really explored that much yet from a product perspective or even just from a philosophical perspective, what AI is going to open up is this incredible flood of content creation.

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The marginal cost of creating content is very quickly going to go to zero and that will be, in part, developing games will become easier, in part, like animation and all this stuff is going to get easier.

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And in part, it will also mean that within the game's ecosystem, players will be able to have much more control, almost like developer level control through modding using these AI tools.

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And I'm like, I'm sure we can see that.

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And when that happens, it's going to really change the game, right?

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We've already seen what UGC does to games like Minecraft just exploding, like Fortnite Creative coming out.

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Like a lot of these top stream games are games that are either UGC oriented or have been modded to be effectively like UGC.

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It's just more fun to watch and more fun to play.

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And when that happens, like when you have this unlimited amount of content coming through modding and through like the marginal cost of creativity going to zero, there has to be an interesting model here to assign ownership, right?

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Like to kind of pause through all of it.

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And I think blockchain is kind of this nice solution to that problem.

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If everything is, if content is so cheap, it can be produced by anyone, then what will happen is we'll see the same type of thing we've seen in these existing UGCs where players vote on the best content that kind of becomes absorbed almost as canon.

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And to do that in a decentralized way, well, there's a very natural solution, which is the blockchain.

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I think we're going to see a lot more of this type of thing emerging, right?

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And basically at the core of this is one, a much more rapid pace of content creation that can be done by anyone.

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And two, this like evolving relationship between the community and the developer and also the content creators, like the streamers and stuff.

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And that becoming more and more of a blurred lines with this new ecosystem and boundaries being drawn by the blockchain.

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That's kind of, I know I'm pretty abstract here, but I think that it's going to be really, really fun and really awesome.

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We just haven't ever seen anything like that.

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And it's got me really excited.

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You know, it seems like we've first invented this technology and now we're, it's going to have this incredible use case with AI that I think we didn't really anticipate, but it's going to work exceptionally well.

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Absolutely. And I think something I want to kind of stem a question to Allie and also Tony, I also think this pertains to you guys for shrapnel, but Allie, whenever it comes to like picking a game to develop like UGC for, or to develop like content around, what are you like looking for when it comes to like finding a game and like, like kind of sticking with it or not even sticking with it, but kind of being a brand ambassador for it?

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Hmm. That's a good question. I mean, generally speaking, I haven't delved too much into the UGC, like Minecraft world. I'm, you know, mainly strategy gamer, card games.

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But, you know, I think connection and community is probably peak importance there. Like if I'm, I'm going into it, like what kind of world can I create that I can, you know, experience with my community and, you know, develop more meaningful connections and, and, you know, kind of provide a space for that connection.

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So that, that would be top of mind, I think, specifically on the UGC front.

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Love it, Allie. And then Tony, I wanted to pass it over to you because something that Sash mentioned about like, you know, voting and that rights, that's something that you guys are actually focusing pretty heavily on in terms of shrapnel and your UGC.

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Can you just like kind of highlight a little bit into that at all, if you can?

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Absolutely. And I was going to chime in with that one. That's one of my favorite aspects of shrapnel.

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So, you know, for those that aren't familiar, shrapnel is a fully moddable game.

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So everything from the weapon skins to the player skins to the, the maps to like the pieces of the maps, the bridges and the buildings and shit, those are all going to be moddable and actually mintable as NFTs.

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And so people will be able to mint their creations and then set a royalty or a licensing fee for people to use those creations in their maps or in their, their scenarios, their custom scenarios that they're making, so forth and so on.

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And then further, once we have the maps and the modes being curated, the player generated maps and modes being curated, the way that that curation will happen is players or holders of our token will actually be able to,

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I'm not, I'm not supposed to use the S word, but they'll be able to lock up their token in such a way that makes it like a vote for the content that they're, that they're locking it up behind.

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So like if, if Peyton makes a wolves down map and there's like wolves howling at the moon everywhere and, you know, all of the buildings are decrepit and look like some sort of horror film.

0:46:04 - 0:46:10

And, and everyone on this, on this Twitter spaces thinks that that is going to be just like the best map in shrapnel, meaning more people are going to play it.

0:46:11 - 0:46:12

More people are going to spend money on it.

0:46:12 - 0:46:16

More people are going to, you know, jump in and tell their friends about it, make content for it, whatever.

0:46:16 - 0:46:25

Then you can actually say, I'm going to lock up a hundred shrap, I'm going to lock up a thousand shrap, I'm going to lock up five shrap, whatever, to say that I think that this is going to be a popular map and mode.

0:46:25 - 0:46:33

And then if it is, our, our tokenomics structure will emit token to you based on how early you were to that curation.

0:46:33 - 0:46:35

Like, were you the first person to say, this is going to be awesome.

0:46:35 - 0:46:37

And then you put a bunch of shrap against it.

0:46:37 - 0:46:43

And also the, the aggregate value that that map generates in terms of gameplay and span and all that.

0:46:43 - 0:46:46

Yeah, it's awesome, Tony.

0:46:46 - 0:46:47

I really love what you guys are doing there.

0:46:48 - 0:46:49

It's yeah, empowering the community too.

0:46:49 - 0:46:50

And it gets everyone involved.

0:46:51 - 0:46:53

And I want to pass this over to two people.

0:46:53 - 0:46:57

Cause Sash said something too, is in terms of AI and UGC.

0:46:57 - 0:46:58

And I think Josh mentioned it too.

0:46:59 - 0:47:08

Champions, Johnny, if you can, you know, disclose anything that you guys are doing in terms of AI, in terms of like level design and what you guys are doing for champions.

0:47:08 - 0:47:09

I would love to know more about that.

0:47:10 - 0:47:10

Yeah.

0:47:10 - 0:47:26

I mean, we might be doing a few things on that way of the pond, but yeah, I mean, I, I totally agree kind of with the context of, of, of the conversation, you know, AI is, is coming fast and furious.

0:47:26 - 0:47:29

As you guys all know, it is going to change a lot of things.

0:47:29 - 0:47:38

I think I've heard a lot of really great keywords, you know, over the last couple of speakers, you know, one of those things is that, you know, UGC has been around for, for quite a while.

0:47:38 - 0:47:49

It's a mental model that a lot of players have understood for a long, a long period of time, you know, going back to the earliest days, you know, different, different types of players interact with games in different ways.

0:47:49 - 0:47:54

You know, not, not, not to get overly nerdy, but you know, dungeon and dragons, right.

0:47:54 - 0:47:59

There was, there was dungeon masters and there was players, right.

0:47:59 - 0:48:04

And not to say that the dungeon master isn't playing the game, but he's playing the game in a little bit of a different way.

0:48:04 - 0:48:06

He was a content creator.

0:48:06 - 0:48:13

He was a master of UGC and, and, and the experience, you know, ultimately in digital entertainment, right.

0:48:13 - 0:48:34

The barrier to entry to, to kind of create that really the only, the only barrier to entry for that in the past was, was, was your own level of creativity and your ability to read and understand a, a 555, you know, page rule book to know how to deliver and use the tools that that game could, could, could provide the experience.

0:48:34 - 0:48:46

You know, now with AI and generational tools that, that are coming online, there's just, there's just going to be a very, very fast uptick in what people are able to do, but curation is going to be a thing.

0:48:46 - 0:48:56

I think, I think that Shrapnel mentioned that, you know, not, you can't expect all of these players to be, you know, fantastic at doing these things, at creating content first.

0:48:56 - 0:48:59

So there has to be very, very clear cut pathways and rules.

0:48:59 - 0:49:09

There has to be a good curation, you know, tool set in place to kind of make sure that the cream rises to the top so that you're serving, you know, the best content possible from the community.

0:49:09 - 0:49:14

And the community is going to oftentimes suss that kind of stuff out, but you still want to make them feel smart.

0:49:15 - 0:49:19

You want to give them every opportunity to feel like they're contributing in a valuable way.

0:49:20 - 0:49:22

You know, it's, it's, it's part of the process.

0:49:22 - 0:49:29

I mean, I think as far as if anybody's seen anything we've put out for champions, we're a hundred percent on this, on this train.

0:49:30 - 0:49:47

We, we basically want to create phenomenal gameplay that our players can leverage through UGC and AI tools to build the content in the game, basically build our live operational content, if you will, and then source that out and, and invite players to engage in it.

0:49:47 - 0:49:54

And then of course, yes, take some value away from it for their contributions, as I mentioned in my, in my past thing.

0:49:54 - 0:50:07

So we have something very special and specific coming up and we've been messing around with AI a lot, but I think the thing that I'm most excited about is, you know, just this very simple, it's amazing looking.

0:50:07 - 0:50:13

But for us, it's very simple where we basically build a game layer, a collision layer, a game environment.

0:50:13 - 0:50:26

And then we've created a tool and modified a tool that allows a player to type in a simple prompt and a description of what they want the room to be.

0:50:26 - 0:50:32

And that room will then be wrapped to the collision layer with, with whatever the player types from an environmental standpoint.

0:50:32 - 0:50:36

So it's a way to really start kind of really building unique custom environments.

0:50:37 - 0:50:48

You know, so in the game, when players are going to be fighting in their arena and serving their arena content, they're going to be able to serve it on a beach in Malibu or in a dark lit back alley.

0:50:48 - 0:50:56

And in seconds, you know, they're going to be able to go through those ideas and see what their environment looks like, decide if they like it, move on to the next one if they don't.

0:50:56 - 0:51:01

And I think that's the kind of stuff that really, you know, is exciting when you see it for the first time.

0:51:01 - 0:51:03

You're like, holy shit, we're in the matrix. This is amazing.

0:51:04 - 0:51:08

But the reality is, that's here. I mean, that is here now.

0:51:09 - 0:51:11

Like, we got to wake up to that, guys. It has happened.

0:51:14 - 0:51:16

Awesome, Johnny. And I saw your hand go up for a little bit.

0:51:16 - 0:51:18

Did you have anything to add to that?

0:51:19 - 0:51:22

Oh, no. You know, I just accidentally hit the wrong button.

0:51:22 - 0:51:31

But that being said, when you're looking at user-generated content from the perspective of how this is going to move into the future,

0:51:31 - 0:51:38

all you have to do is take a look at the past and kind of contrast something like an Encyclopedia Britannica with a Wikipedia.

0:51:38 - 0:51:46

And you're going to see that when you have access to millions of people that have an interest in doing it just for fun,

0:51:47 - 0:51:56

you end up with, like, a wide array of permeations that end up being very, very valuable as an aggregate whole.

0:51:56 - 0:52:05

And so, as we lower the bar and kind of get away from this universe where, today, you have the people that are very good technically,

0:52:06 - 0:52:10

and those people are typically fairly different from the people who are very good creatively.

0:52:11 - 0:52:17

And you have to pair those people up, and you kind of need an intermediary, and that's oftentimes why you'll require a bigger studio.

0:52:17 - 0:52:23

I think as things go forward, you're going to see user-generated content be the dominant way that games are going to be developed.

0:52:24 - 0:52:30

You're going to have, like, a gaming system or a gaming platform is going to create a universe and an ecosystem and an economy,

0:52:30 - 0:52:34

meaning, like, you know, a few, you know, 10 million active players per month.

0:52:35 - 0:52:44

But from there, I think the really high-quality content will be developed when it's easy for a creative to develop without, like, a CTO counterpart.

0:52:44 - 0:52:45

Yeah.

0:52:46 - 0:52:48

Can I just push back on that a little bit?

0:52:49 - 0:52:49

Go ahead, dude.

0:52:50 - 0:52:56

You know, one thing, though, is, like, each of the, you know, user-generated content in terms of, like, mods or whatever like that in the game itself,

0:52:57 - 0:53:01

you know, is running on the engine of wherever it's made, right?

0:53:01 - 0:53:06

And so, yeah, you can have a lot of creativity that's made and you can have all these kind of, quote-unquote, new games,

0:53:07 - 0:53:09

but it almost becomes, like, pop songs, you know?

0:53:09 - 0:53:15

You have, like, a thousand pop songs a year and then how many of them get remembered a decade later, right?

0:53:15 - 0:53:21

And you go through, like, you know, the top 100 of, like, the 80s or whatever of the last decade or the last century or whatever.

0:53:21 - 0:53:24

And, you know, I think that is a really good point.

0:53:24 - 0:53:31

But in terms of, will these games really be the future or will it kind of look like the future in the short term?

0:53:31 - 0:53:33

I think it's more, like, in the short term.

0:53:33 - 0:53:34

And that could be, like, the next 10, 15 years.

0:53:35 - 0:53:41

But then thereafter, I mean, there's still this need for, I think, pushing the limits beyond user-generated content

0:53:41 - 0:53:43

because ultimately they sit on this level of achievement.

0:53:43 - 0:53:46

That's a great point, Sinjin.

0:53:46 - 0:53:48

And actually, that's something – go ahead, Sash.

0:53:48 - 0:53:50

I saw your hand go up.

0:53:50 - 0:53:50

I know you want to respond.

0:53:50 - 0:53:50

Go ahead.

0:53:51 - 0:53:56

I think, you know, I'm really actually excited that the conversation took this turn.

0:53:56 - 0:54:03

It seems that amongst all these incredible founders who are focused on Web3, like, the common thread is actually innovation.

0:54:04 - 0:54:07

And it's not just – like, we see technology.

0:54:08 - 0:54:11

We see, like, Web3, how it could push gaming forward and also see that with AI.

0:54:11 - 0:54:22

You know, and I think that just hearing everyone is not only so far on pushing Web3 tech in games but also pushing AI tech in games.

0:54:22 - 0:54:27

And there's almost unanimous consensus on the fact that both are going to be extremely important.

0:54:28 - 0:54:33

It makes it feel even more special being up on the stage with you guys and also being here at this part of the industry.

0:54:33 - 0:54:39

Like, I think that we're kind of these very, very early ambassadors of the next wave of gaming.

0:54:39 - 0:54:48

And just one last thing that occurred to me is looking back historically, you know, we have seen this a lot, right?

0:54:48 - 0:54:55

Like, look at Fortnite and the whole Battle Royale genre coming out of mods, like, the MOBA genre coming out of mods.

0:54:55 - 0:55:02

Like, we've seen as soon as you give people a little bit of flexibility in terms of modding, you get crazy cool stuff happening.

0:55:02 - 0:55:09

And we even see that happening when it's illegal to mod, or at least not kosher.

0:55:10 - 0:55:15

My favorite streamer is Smallad, and he's, like, playing modder stuff all the time.

0:55:15 - 0:55:23

And so I think that there's this, you know, there's this kind of genetic algorithm that has been operating in the background of game design.

0:55:23 - 0:55:33

And modding has had an important part of, like, moving the world through these best practice mechanics, through these, like, widely adopted sort of interesting gameplay styles.

0:55:34 - 0:55:51

And I think what's going to happen with AI is just it's going to be the same process, but this huge accelerant where all of a sudden, instead of there being the time to create a genetic variation of gameplay being months or years, it's going to go down to days.

0:55:51 - 0:56:04

And it's basically going to produce, at a systems level, this incredibly fun world that we live in, because we'll just be able to take all the best stuff and combine it and go forward.

0:56:04 - 0:56:13

And I think there is actually a really important point here, which is that it's not enough to just have, like, godlike deity powers snap your fingers and make something.

0:56:13 - 0:56:26

It takes a, like, building something that turns into a huge franchise, a really popular game, it is, it takes a lot of thought, a lot of curation, a lot of ideas.

0:56:26 - 0:56:37

I mean, probably everyone on stage resonates with this, but with Dimensionals, you know, we, it took, it's been over a year that we were actually just getting the concept together.

0:56:37 - 0:56:51

It evolved so much. It took so many people contributing and thinking. And so I think we'll, there's, there's still this extremely important human element that's going to come out of all this, where people need to have this vision and build towards it.

0:56:51 - 0:56:56

And navigating the possibility space to get towards that vision is just going to be faster.

0:56:57 - 0:57:04

So, yeah, I'm extremely optimistic about all this. I think it's going to produce the best games we've ever seen, the most content we've ever seen.

0:57:04 - 0:57:15

Content creator is going to have the best time ever and probably become even more celebrities with even more super hardcore niche followings. It's, it's exciting.

0:57:15 - 0:57:25

Yes, I agree. Also, I just want to give also people like, you know, if you guys need to leave, when it comes, you guys are all busy people.

0:57:25 - 0:57:34

You guys are pushing like the web three gaming space forward. So please don't feel like you guys need to stay, but we would love to have you guys if you guys would spare more time. But go ahead, Paul.

0:57:34 - 0:57:48

Oh, I just, I'm really excited about, about how the conversation has been focused on AI as well. And I use this as an opportunity to drop a, just a little bit of fun stuff from our team, some behind the scenes image.

0:57:48 - 0:58:02

I've just posted a Twitter thread from this space of our team just yesterday. We're, we're leveraging AI all the time as a way to explore concepts. It's really fun. You know, it doesn't, it really, you know, people are scared about, about AI kind of replacing jobs.

0:58:02 - 0:58:29

Uh, we haven't seen that at all. If anything, it's just another amazing tool that we use to explore concepts. The, the images I posted were concepts that we're exploring for some arena, uh, kind of backdrops and arenas in different locations of the wildcard universe. Um, and so you can check that out just as an example of, but it's, it's just such an amazing, powerful tool. And just another thing that we have, you know, we're also using the unreal engine, which is just incredible. I mean, I look back 20 years ago, working on age of empires, we had our own custom engine.

0:58:29 - 0:58:43

And like half of the team was always just having to work on the engine. And now we get to work with this amazing engine. That's, you know, that Epic has created. And so anyway, yeah, the technology is a huge accelerate, not just for UGC creators, but also for us as game developers.

0:58:44 - 0:58:54

Yeah. And talking a little bit about like the game developer perspective, all of you guys, the reason why I wanted to ask a lot of you guys to come up here is because there's also like some fundamentals in terms of game design. Right.

0:58:54 - 0:59:06

And I think when it comes to giving some of these tools and I think Sinjin, um, the reason why he was probably pushing back a little bit on, on Josh's point was that like, there is also a lot of things, especially coming from an outsider, right?

0:59:06 - 0:59:15

As a gamer, before I joined Azure's team, I thought I was like, Oh my gosh. Yeah. It's like, you guys should just fix this specific bugs. I didn't know what known shippables meant.

0:59:15 - 0:59:30

I didn't know any of this type of like jargon when it came to game design. And I peeled back the curtain. I'm like, Holy crap. There is so much here that goes into game design that yes, giving gamers AI tools and moddable tools is like really good.

0:59:30 - 0:59:38

And it could like probably push into improvements of like kind of like that, that 1%. But getting that zero to one, it does require like a human element, a human touch.

0:59:38 - 0:59:47

And that's kind of like what I want to bring the conversation into is like, you see like a lot of people coming into web three and saying like, Hey, throw out everything that came into web two.

0:59:47 - 0:59:55

And like, let's just build it from the ground up. Uh, has there been something, and I'm probably going to throw a lifeline here to Paul to get him started on this.

0:59:55 - 1:00:02

Cause he was talking about it last week. Um, is like, you know, this land element, right? This land element that came in from like web two or like web three.

1:00:02 - 1:00:13

And like, we're kind of making a lot of the same mistakes, uh, when it comes to like web three. Um, and Paul, he mentioned one of my good friends to Lars Dushay, but I would love to also maybe talk on that subject.

1:00:13 - 1:00:19

Like things that are people making mistakes in web three that like web two has already figured out. And like, why are we going back?

1:00:19 - 1:00:25

Oh my gosh. I didn't know you knew Lars. Lars is amazing. He's one of our favorites.

1:00:25 - 1:00:36

I, I, I mentioned on the last face, like, I just love to work with people who are really good at, at like analyzing ideas and bringing the full history of kind of our industry and things that we've been working on.

1:00:36 - 1:00:51

Cause these concepts are not new. I mean, we've been, we've had land and land ownership in games going back to, I mean, gosh, I, some of the very earliest MMOs, even text based MMOs that I played had the concept of land ownership in it.

1:00:51 - 1:01:04

So this is not something that's new to us as game industry. And I think the real challenge is if we don't try to learn from those things that, that developers have been struggling with, because it's incredibly hard thing to manage in an open game economy.

1:01:04 - 1:01:15

I mean, some of the most successful games that have done it, such as, uh, Eve online lineage is an example, but there's very few of them because it tends to go awry more often than it works out.

1:01:15 - 1:01:29

But to, to answer your point specifically and, and how we've been thinking about it, land is a way of providing incredibly valuable ownership to aspects of a game's economy that are like really at the core of it.

1:01:29 - 1:01:37

Right. Cause land in the concept of land, and it doesn't have to mean just land. I mean, we, we talk about in wildcard, like broadcast rights. Right.

1:01:37 - 1:01:54

So like, like when you talk about like sports and how sports, uh, professional sports monetize a lot of that is through the quote unquote land ownership that is owning certain channels and broadcast rights for those games, which then allow those, those teams and leagues and owners to monetize that attention economy.

1:01:54 - 1:02:02

The concept is the same land is basically a scarce limited, uh, ownership that allows for the production of resources within an economy.

1:02:02 - 1:02:17

And I think if we look at it that way and we're willing to kind of look at that history, I, you know, I want to, I think we should link to some of Lars's articles here because a naive implementation of land leads to some really, really poor behaviors and broken economics.

1:02:17 - 1:02:27

You get rent seeking behavior, you get landlords, you get all these things that like, you know, again, hundreds of years of, of economic theory and history have shown there are better ways to do it.

1:02:27 - 1:02:34

And there are more advanced models that for instance, Lars has written about that I think can lead us to more of a promised land for how to implement land very well in games.

1:02:34 - 1:02:37

But, um, but we need to, we need to learn from the past.

1:02:40 - 1:02:44

Absolutely. I'm trying to find it. Sorry, uh, to pin it up there, but yeah, go ahead.

1:02:44 - 1:02:50

But I, while you're looking for it, I'll say that, um, we, I, there's a little bit of alpha, but I think I've talked about it before.

1:02:50 - 1:02:56

So I think it's safe. He's not, my wife, wild Kate, our co-founder texting me and being like, be careful, be careful.

1:02:57 - 1:03:00

But we have talked about venues in wild card.

1:03:00 - 1:03:08

Um, and it's kind of obvious in the case of our game anyway, how these matches that are taking place happen in the context of these arenas.

1:03:08 - 1:03:13

Like for instance, the concept art that I shared, but also the Frostburn arena that we've been hosting games in.

1:03:13 - 1:03:25

And, and so that becomes a central location and, and a place within the wild card universe where you could imagine players being able to own those venues and then having a lot of really cool things they can do with it.

1:03:25 - 1:03:30

A lot of this kind of stuff overlaps with, with the, the work that Shrapnel was talking about in UGC.

1:03:30 - 1:03:37

But, you know, you can imagine arena owners in wild card, being able to customize their arena, being able to manage advertising space.

1:03:37 - 1:03:44

Like when you look at Frostburn and we did the exhibition tournament back in February, we actually showcased our partners.

1:03:44 - 1:03:47

We had polygon banners running in the arena while we were doing it.

1:03:47 - 1:03:52

We had interstitial ads that were shout outs to the players like yellow Panther.

1:03:52 - 1:03:54

I saw on the, on the, on earlier, we did like a profile of him.

1:03:54 - 1:04:04

So it's really cool to think about that and to think about the possibilities of that and, and also the, the ability for us to share the economic value of, of that that's generated.

1:04:04 - 1:04:06

Because like what's actually happening there, right.

1:04:06 - 1:04:11

Is it's, it's actually, it's a server that's spun up and it's running and the game is being hosted there.

1:04:11 - 1:04:17

And that arena is the backdrop for, for the game that's being played and it takes up a lot of the screen.

1:04:17 - 1:04:26

So there's a lot of opportunity to, to kind of customize that space, to have sponsorship, to, to, you know, really tap into that value there.

1:04:26 - 1:04:27

So that's the kind of thing that we're excited about.

1:04:27 - 1:04:43

But as I mentioned, really wanting to, to think carefully about how to structure and implement land in a more progressive way that doesn't, that doesn't lead to that, the, the kind of failures that you can see in naive land implementations.

1:04:44 - 1:04:44

Yeah.

1:04:44 - 1:04:47

And I, I pinned it up to the top.

1:04:47 - 1:04:53

Lars has been a good mentor of mine in 2021 when I reached out to him, just talking a little bit about like just learning through it.

1:04:53 - 1:04:53

Right.

1:04:54 - 1:04:57

That's one thing that I love about like web three too, is just like the sharing of ideas.

1:04:57 - 1:05:09

Like when it comes to just this panel alone to get one of the, the better Twitch streamers out there to come up on the panel, to share a talk with a mobile game, Shrapnel and Paul, you guys are just rock stars.

1:05:09 - 1:05:09

Right.

1:05:09 - 1:05:15

And so I want to continue doing this in the future and we're about to wrap here in five minutes or so.

1:05:16 - 1:05:23

But I just wanted to kind of just say, I appreciate every single one of you guys answering my DMS, put up on this panel to talk about topics that people want to know about.

1:05:23 - 1:05:26

People want to hear your guys take on things.

1:05:26 - 1:05:30

And so, you know, this is going to be a reoccurring space and hopefully you guys are reoccurring guests.

1:05:31 - 1:05:36

But I know also a lot of you guys are going to gamified episode with, with Sam in a, in a couple hours.

1:05:36 - 1:05:42

So if you guys don't have enough of Paul and Sinjin and some of these guys up here, please go visit Sam.

1:05:42 - 1:05:47

I'll pin that up to the top, but also going to leave that up, up there too with Lars.

1:05:47 - 1:05:53

I think it helped me a lot when it comes to just like learning some of the mechanisms of like constant mistakes that happen in Web 2.

1:05:53 - 1:06:01

Even Josh Liu from A16Z Games, when I talked to him about it, he was talking about like, you know, go study like all of the, the in-game economies that happened in the past.

1:06:01 - 1:06:06

Like a lot of these like, you know, in-game economies were game breaking and you should probably know about them before it happens.

1:06:06 - 1:06:14

Right. And so I think it's just something that I love about Web 3 is the constant like thirst for, for information and sharing of ideas.

1:06:15 - 1:06:22

But yeah, anybody has, has any, any last things, Chris, I don't know if, I know you're a little bugged out, but if, if you are there, I would love for you to maybe close out for, for Magic Eden.

1:06:29 - 1:06:31

Can anyone hear him or is it?

1:06:31 - 1:06:36

Yeah. Hey, hey, sorry. Also kind of rugged. We're in the same place, but I'll just close it out.

1:06:36 - 1:06:43

Yeah. I appreciate everyone for joining kind of rugged on the space with some pretty wide, pretty bad Wi-Fi, but yeah, I appreciate you guys as always.

1:06:43 - 1:06:48

It was every Wednesday. If you guys want to come back up, let myself, Payton or Chris know or anyone on our game team.

1:06:48 - 1:06:51

I'm sure you're all very familiar with Paris and Matt and Loco Doco.

1:06:52 - 1:06:56

But besides that, just want to wish you guys all a great day and catch you back next time.

1:07:06 - 1:07:11

We'll see you next time.

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