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ICP.Lab: Gaming and Metaverse
Recorded: Sept. 12, 2023 Duration: 1:32:21Space Recording
Full Transcription
Thank you so much for watching.
And so my name is Kyle Langham.
I'm the director of data and analytics at DFINITY.
I'm going to be your host today.
But more importantly, we're looking to have this kind of be an open and fun, free-flowing Twitter space.
So if you've got a question, if you've got a comment, feel free to go ahead and request to be speaker.
We're going to pull up a lot of people, we're going to pull up a lot of people, and you're going to get to hear from a lot of projects focused on building gaming and metaverse projects on the internet computer.
I'm excited for this space.
Their project is different from maybe other projects that their project is different from maybe other projects that you've played in the past.
So quick background on the timing of this Twitter space.
Right now, we're dead in the middle of the web is an initiative from DFINITY aimed at uniting and bringing together all the builders in a specific vertical.
So in the past, we've done infrastructure, we've done DeFi, this is our fifth version, and this one is focused on gaming and metaverse.
And essentially, we invite them all to Zurich, where our headquarters are.
And in return for coming to Zurich, you get the privilege of sitting down for hours and hours and hours.
I've seen some of these meetings.
They can be long and deep conversation, really challenging conversation, which is phenomenal.
But you get to talk with the DFINITY engineers, DFINITY marketing personnel, partnerships.
And really what we want to do is, A, build relationships, not just between builders and DFINITY, but also between builders.
B, talk about challenges and hurdles and how we can overcome them as an ecosystem.
And C, talk about future plans and help shape the Internet Computer Roadmap together.
A phenomenal initiative, and I'm excited.
We have 14 projects at DFINITY this week and a few more that are attending virtually.
And so, I'm excited to get going.
If you're in this space and you're a gaming and metaverse project that is there at headquarters, or you've been attending virtually, go ahead and request to be speaker.
We'll bring you up, and we'll get to hear from you.
If you're somebody who's got a question for any of these projects, feel free to go ahead and request as well.
Again, we're focusing a lot on what these projects are building, what makes them unique in the marketplace, not just within crypto, but also within the general marketplace of the world.
And how building Web3 into gaming is actually creating differentiated products within the marketplace.
Let me, Dragons, I'm going to get you pulled up here.
In the meantime, Canistore, I saw you hanging around.
You requested really early on.
And so, let's go ahead.
If you want to come off mute, did you have a question or a comment?
Hey, bro.
We're live at ICP Lab right now.
Oh, are you at?
I didn't realize you were at ICP Lab today.
Yes, we're here supporting Inside Box Studios right now.
I can tell from the accent, this is Barry, right?
Yes, definitely.
So, what's the environment like there now?
Right.
So, it's been, you know, a couple of days now of us doing sessions, amazing sessions, you know, learning new things about the Internet computer, speaking to, you know, engineers with tons of experience.
Right now, we're having pizza and beers right now.
So, we're having a social time where us projects can really sit down together and socialize with the DFINITY staff as well and really align and, you know, look to the future.
So, it's been amazing so far.
Awesome.
I got to ask the most important question.
What pizza toppings did you prefer?
Right.
I've gone for the veg myself.
I've gone for the veg.
You know, I'm trying to stay off from the meat.
I've gone for the veg.
So, let me ask this question.
So, Canisture, obviously, are you guys, I mean, are you guys viewing, I feel like you guys already participated in an ICP Lab, no?
Yeah, you know, I'm probably the only person that's had attended two ICP Labs.
Now, how did that happen?
So, Canisture and IDS have created a partnership, but a true partnership.
Now, Canisture's mission has always been to direct music into games and metaverses, right?
So, now, partnering with IDS, IDS are, at the moment, creating amazing games.
They're creating the Pulse Box game.
They're creating the Boxie game.
They're creating the GSA game.
And about 10 others, as well as real-world applications.
So, partnering with IDS right now, it's beneficial for us because we now can have automatic access through APIs into all of these games, which is amazing.
Now, within these metaverses and these games, we're able to channel new music, music from creators that may have never, ever had the chance to have their music played in a game.
So, with this partnership with IDS and Canisture, it's, you know, exactly that.
And this is going to be that layer of collaboration that's really needed on the IC at the moment.
Now, IDS, that's Inside Dark Studio, right?
Inside Dark Studio, that's exactly that.
Phenomenal, phenomenal company.
I love this idea, Barry, of thinking of games as a distribution channel for new music.
Is this, do you see this as, like, empowering the, like, individual musician?
Or is this about something else?
I think it's beneficial on, for multiple parties, right?
It's beneficial for the gaming developers because now they have access to cool music, right?
Without having individual agreements with individual artists.
We know how licensing and copyrights work, so that has to be in place.
Also, for the creators, it benefits the creators because, you know, how often does an up-and-coming creator have the opportunity to be played in a game?
You know, not much, so, you know, it's beneficial for all parties in that sense, and it's just amazing.
Phenomenal.
That's incredible.
What is one thing that's happened this week?
Well, actually, here, you know what?
We have probably the only person to participate in two ICP labs.
What is happening this week different than the previous ICP lab that gets you most excited?
Oh, definitely.
So, I think that it's been targeted very well, the subjects regarding what is beneficial, and that was directly beneficial to the developers that are here.
Throughout the last ICP lab, what was brilliant is that a lot of feedback was taken from DFINITY.
And DFINITY have made an effort to ensure that every ICP lab, there is an improvement regarding organization, you know, improvement regarding the quality of information and how the information is presented to the developers.
And I've been able to see the difference between the last one and this one, which the last one blew me away as well.
And this one is even better.
That's awesome.
I'm glad we're getting better and better with each one.
I appreciate you making the trip out there twice.
And the third time, I wanted to align with the time when I'm out there because I'd love to meet you in person.
Oh, most definitely, Matt.
Let's bring up Will.
I see you hanging out there.
Will Guest, I've got you up on speaker.
Are you able to come off mute?
Yeah, sure.
Yeah.
Nice to see you.
How's it going?
Good, good, good.
Okay, I've got to start off with the, have you had your pizza yet?
I'm halfway through, so it's the perfect moment.
What about the beer?
Yeah, about the same, halfway through.
Okay, okay, I've got to ask, what is the topping of choice and the beer of choice?
It's Il Giardino, the vegetarian pizza and Moretti, so it's fully Italian themed.
Oh, nice.
Well, we've got two vegetarian pizza preferrers at this point.
We'll see if this is a start of a trend.
Will, give us some background on the project you're building.
Yeah, so this project is following on from a couple of years of development on the IC,
which was funded by grants called the Island Collective.
And what that project was about was building VR canisters.
So we've built a number of immersive spaces.
One is a tropical island.
Another one is a kind of a dive bar kind of vibe.
Another one is a 10-pin bowling simulator that's just running entirely on the canister.
And then the last one is, was actually part of the Supernova hackathon, which we took second place.
And that's about streaming audio.
And all of this is done peer to peer.
And yeah, all running fully on chain.
That's that's awesome.
So streaming audio, I guess, are you working with Barry there?
And not yet, but we've had some really interesting conversations in the last couple of days.
See, that's that's the appeal of getting everyone in one geographical location.
You can have a beer together and just see where the conversation goes.
And hopefully that's fruitful for you guys.
What what what what are you liking about ICP Lab?
What are what are you not liking about ICP Lab?
I can't answer the second question.
Everything's brilliant.
The you know, it's been it's been so inspiring.
The there's so many fascinating conversations, so many interesting people here.
It's just been really inspiring to see the kind of to be able to zoom out, having spent so much time really focused on the details and coding and building.
Now to see like the the whole ecosystem and how it's coming together.
It's just a huge inspiration.
Yeah, I I was shocked over how many projects and I don't think I realized just how deep the project list for gaming on the Internet.
The Internet computer actually was you.
So you're somebody who has built multiple projects on the Internet computer.
What is it about ICP that attracted you?
And and I guess what is it that makes like is there something a feature of ICP that makes it so you can build, you know, distinct products or, you know, that gives you a competitive advantage?
Yeah, sure. I mean, I was building some some WebXR spaces, I guess, like going back about three years.
I was kind of exploring that space and then I came across the IC and I figured, oh, that's a that's interesting looking tech stack.
It uses WebAssembly and I just kind of wondered if it might be compatible and and everything has just gone really, really well from the kind of the early feasibility studies all the way through building like more complex features like the whole peer to peer stuff.
It's just been it's just been a story of success, really.
And of course, that's that wouldn't be possible without like DFINITY's amazing team, like just being supported all the way.
That flattery will get you everywhere.
I hope for sure.
All right. Let me ask you another tough question.
All right. So you can't name one of your own projects.
What is what is a project that you I guess, you know, you're talking with the other builders in and ICP gaming.
What is a project you learned about this week that maybe you weren't as familiar with before this week?
And you're like, this is really something that needs a lot more attention.
Well, that's that's a hard question. You're right.
I mean, to pick only one is difficult.
I guess I've learned a lot about InsideDark's work.
That's really amazing.
I'm really I'm in admiration of like the scale of what they're doing, not just building games, but building platforms for games.
The work around WebSockets is really interesting to me just with kind of like a techie kind of nerdy perspective in terms of networking.
I think that's really cool. And I can see that taking off.
I love how these these projects interface with the kind of the emerging technology.
Around like the the blockchain itself.
But then the boundary nodes and looking at the pain points and how everything is going to grow.
It's just yeah, it's great.
Hey, give a give a quick background on what WebSockets are for the non techie people on this call.
Sure. So it's a system for kind of building multiplayer systems.
It's it's it deviates slightly from what I've used.
So WebSockets is a kind of server client architecture.
And the goal there is to kind of allow for like more more close to real time multiplayer experiences.
That's something that is when you can combine that with the security and the cryptography that comes from the chain, you create something that's really valuable, really powerful.
So that's awesome.
But you nailed that description so well for as as a as a non techie myself, I can say I understand it better here in that just to reset this space.
This is ICP dot lab gaming and metaverse.
We're talking with projects in the Internet computer ecosystem who are building gaming and metaverse products on on the Internet computer.
We have one of maybe the one of the more well known projects dragons here.
Who's behind the dragons logo?
This is Scott Jablow.
Hey, Scott.
How's how's your week going?
Going great.
Yeah, arrived in Zurich on Saturday and then got to do a little sightseeing.
But now just enjoying the festivities here at ICP lab.
Well, what are we have a lot of perhaps aspiring builders on this call who will either hit there now or will be listening to it in the future.
And hopefully they'll be out there for an ICP lab sometime in the future.
What what are the tourist sites in Zurich that they they should hit?
Well, you can't come to Switzerland without getting some fondue.
So that was one of my first stops.
That's actually I've been I've been out there twice and have yet to get fondue, which is which is shame on me.
Awesome.
So so tell us about dragons for anyone who's not familiar and just let us know what it what is the project about and what's the what's the vision?
Sure. So our game dragons is 100 percent on chain, free to play kind of 3D in the more RPG.
So in our fantasy world, the players will hatch and raise dragons, take them on adventures, battle monsters and pursue mastery of various skills like alchemy, cooking and gardening.
What's special about dragons is it's designed by Adam and Donna Powell, who are the sort of the original founders and creative minds behind Neopets.
And yeah, we're excited to be building this game entirely on on the IC.
Awesome. Yeah. So what is what is it about the IC that you guys are excited about?
What I guess what how does that help you build a differentiated game?
Sure. A couple of reasons.
One, we can actually build and kind of host the entire game essentially on the IC from the back end infrastructure to the admin tools,
even our asset CDN and even our website is all hosted on chain right now.
One of the other things that we really like is that there's no signup form.
So we use Internet identity for authentication.
So there's no need for us to collect, you know, personal identifiable personal identifiable information.
Obviously, the scalability is really great, too.
So for being able to support a large number of players and the sort of the depth of gameplay that we're going to want to offer.
And I think lastly, the sort of hybrid DAO approach that we want to do for governance supported here and gives us a lot of flexibility into things to come in the future.
Yeah, I think I mean, obviously, with the takeovers, not the right word, the the adoption of the SNS one token as the governance system for the game was was probably a time where dragons became really in the mindshare of the entire ecosystem.
I'm kind of curious. I've always and this is just me personally, I've always thought it would be a very cool thing to do where you essentially SNS a game.
So you have it so that the entire game is controlled by the players, which then gives you this really meta thing where the players have the ability to write the rules for the game.
And so the rules almost become like a form of gameplay themselves rather than like a box that you try to play in.
But actually, rather, maybe you're trying as a player, you're you're trying to optimize the rules to your strategy at the expense of maybe some some competitors or some other players.
Is that is that a thing or am I just making this up?
Well, that's definitely definitely an interesting way to go.
I think for us, we're going to keep it sort of a hybrid DAO right now.
What I mean by that is that for now, the sort of kind of creative control will remain with with Adam and Donna.
But we do want to obviously use our DKP token to help facilitate voting from the community, feedback, additional contributions and things like that.
So we're going with a little bit of a hybrid approach.
Awesome. Yeah. And I'll also just, you know, obviously with Adam and Donna success, I think they know a thing or two about developing a phenomenal game.
So the final thing is so thinking about the future, you know, and kind of where where the game is today and where the game is going.
Well, I guess you guys are really trying to think about NFTs and probably dynamic NFTs really interestingly.
Do you want to kind of give some information on, you know, basically NFTs that not only can be easily exchanged, but are actually like upgradable and actually represent something in the game?
Sure. Yeah. The IC allows us to do and explore a lot of those different options.
Just to give an update on the first part right now, we're still kind of keeping the game under wraps, but we are actively improving and iterating on the back end infrastructure, building out the admin tools, prototype and adding new game features.
And we're working towards delivering kind of a first look demo soon enough.
And then in terms of the NFT usage, obviously, like the key thing is going to be the dragons, a lot of the items that are in the game, as well as spells for us, which is a kind of a we're taking a unique spin on spells.
And so there will be some components that are tradable with NFTs, but it's not going to be like, you know, the major focus of the game.
Right. We want to make sure that the game is fun to play, that it's an immersive world and that it's just fun.
It's just fun for everybody to play. And our focus is there first.
Yeah. It makes total sense that the gameplay is the most important and Web3 supports that rather than trying to jury rig it into the Web3, you know, jury rig Web3 into the game.
You know, a lot of games have built, you know, they built the game around the NFT. We're going the other way.
Awesome. Awesome. All right. Final question. There's pizza there. What's your pizza of choice?
I abstain from the pizza because I got some dinner plans later, but definitely having one of the local Switzerland beers.
Awesome. Awesome. I'm really jealous of you guys and wish you guys the best of luck.
If you got time, stick around because I think, you know, I want to kind of keep this conversation going.
And if there's anyone in the community who's listening to this Twitter space and you have any questions and you want to dive deep into any aspect of building, building a game on the Internet computer, feel free to go ahead and request that speaker role.
Well, I do see a couple of the projects out there that that that are still a listener.
So if you are a project who is at ICP.Lab and you want to come up and have a conversation about your project, feel free to request the speaker role.
I won't force you, but it'd be good to hear from you.
FX-22, you've been so patient, muted in the background there.
Are you able to come off mute?
Yes. Can you hear me?
Yeah. Yeah, I can hear you just fine.
I apologize. I don't recognize the Twitter handle.
Can you kind of give us some background on who you are?
Yes. No. Yeah, this is the first time I've been in.
But we're Alien Form, A4M.
And, you know, we're formerly with Ship Noby, but we, you know, changed the name.
And so we have, we're due to launch our new token, which is Alien Form, and next month, which is exciting.
But we are a community of 16,000.
And we have, you know, a five professional member board and, you know, with two advisors and, you know, a really nice community.
And so, but we're looking, I guess, eventually down the road just to start, you know, developing a game.
And so I guess, I mean, that would be really, you have to bend in and listening is, can you give us some advice on, you know, what are the first steps that we need to do in developing a game?
And is that something ICP can help with?
Oh, that's phenomenal.
I appreciate you joining.
Welcome.
Welcome to the community.
And thank you for joining us.
I certainly could offer some advice, but I've never built a game.
And so my advice probably wouldn't be that great.
But if any of the builders who we've talked to want to come on off mute and go ahead and give some advice to our friend over here at Alien Form, A4M, feel free to go ahead and come off mute and provide whatever advice you'd like.
In the meantime, I think Scott over at Dragons actually gave some really good advice that maybe I want to circle back to, which is the fact that Web3 crypto is something that should supplement the game, not be the point of the game.
And I think just that mindset change of let's build something that people want and then work the Web3 component in as appropriate to accomplish that vision is a much different mindset than let's start, you know, how do we build a crypto project kind of a deal.
Any of the Cosmicraft, I saw you request and I think I thought I accepted you, but now you're back down to listener.
Maybe we're having some technical difficulty.
Barry or Cubetopia, Scott, anyone want to offer any advice for our friend here?
And I was going to say thank you, too, for just giving me space and just having me in a group.
Hey, we're all in this together.
Yeah, I was just going to add real quick.
Definitely appreciate DFINITY hosting us this week and putting on this amazing event.
I'll echo what a lot of people said.
It's been great meeting so many different developers and learning all about their different games or platform solutions or other projects all being built on the IC.
So I really encourage if anybody can make it out here or get the invite, definitely, definitely take them up on it.
Yeah, thanks, Scott.
I think I think that's a good boat of confidence for the ICP.Lab initiative.
Let's go ahead and add Passion Planet as well.
Well, I think what we'll probably do then is keep the space going, but hopefully you'll stick around FX22 and pick up some advice, as it's kind of mentioned.
You'll hear probably a lot of these projects give their story of how they started and how the project evolved.
Actually, a great segue for that one is into Cubetopia.
Are you able to come off mute, Cubetopia?
Hello.
Can you hear me?
Yeah, yeah.
Who is this from Cubetopia?
This is Joey.
Joey.
Awesome, man.
Thanks for joining us.
Why don't we actually start with, because I love your origin story.
Why don't you give us the background of Cubetopia, how you got started, and kind of like the major events that have led to today.
I like the term origin story.
That kind of implies that I'm this superhero.
So thank you very much for that.
I know for a fact that you are.
So it's your superpower is humbleness.
Oh, thank you.
You're too kind.
So my origin story.
Well, I've always been a bit of a nerd.
I've always been interested in playing games.
And for quite a while, I've just been trying to build them ever since I was a kid, usually to not very much success.
But I did study computer science.
I did actually kind of learn to code, which is pretty fundamental if you're trying to build a game.
Actually, I mean, there's a lot of tools nowadays that maybe you don't need to code, but generally I'd say it's quite a helpful thing.
And, yeah, I just kind of had fun with it.
And I had this idea of like, okay, what if we tried to put like Minecraft onto the blockchain?
When I found out about ICP and I found out about, oh, you can store data here, you can host, you can actually host the game, you can host the front end, you can have a fully on-chain game.
It just sounded like a fantastic fit.
So that's when I started building on the IC.
And I just had like a really warm reception ever since I kind of made myself known.
And I kind of just went from there.
Yeah, so, I mean, Cubetopia really – well, actually, let me – because my memory is fuzzy at this point.
In fact, so fuzzy I can hardly even say that I say fuzzy, apparently.
But Cubetopia kind of launched with Supernova, right?
So we – I've been sort of building in stealth and attracting like a few interested people in ICP for a couple of months before.
But I think, yeah, Supernova was definitely the big break, which I think really elevated our renown in the ecosystem.
I love seeing, you know, obviously with the NFTs, you can see what other people are building.
Like you said, it's Minecraft-themed or, you know, similar of like a world-building application.
Like, I love seeing what people built.
You mentioned – and actually, maybe going back to kind of what FX22 was asking of like, hey, is the IC a place where you should be building a game?
You mentioned the fact that you can go 100% on-chain, that your front-end, your back-end, everything can be put on the blockchain.
Scott mentioned that for Dragons, that that's an important thing for them.
Is that, you know, obviously from a governance standpoint, that allows governance over the entire code base.
But is that the extent of why having everything on-chain is important or are there other either quality of life for a developer or gameplay perspectives that having everything fully on the blockchain, it makes a difference?
Well, for me, the main benefit, the main way that I kind of look at it is I see NFTs as a technology to represent ownership digitally.
So, we have games like Counter-Strike, you know, Dota, things like that on Steam where you have items within the game.
Like, you have skins in CSGO, but you don't actually fully own them.
They're still completely under control of Valve.
And we've seen that Valve are putting restrictions on, you know, how you can use your own items.
You can't necessarily trade them freely.
You can't use them on third-party sites anymore.
And I think that NFTs are, you know, they're a better way of owning something in a digital format.
And interestingly, I think that Vitalik was inspired to create Ethereum because Blizzard were the ones that I think they took away a spell from it on World of Warcraft or something like that.
And since then, I think he's been against, you know, centralized power.
So, I think it's kind of come full circle in that regard.
It is funny to think about those small actions that seemingly seem insignificant, like taking away a spell from World of Warcraft.
How that actually maybe is the trigger or the spark that lights off this entire decentralization movement.
Obviously, there's more to it than that.
But there is something meaningful about those small things that happen that trigger much larger responses.
You mentioned the digital ownership.
That is a phenomenal aspect.
So, we've got the governance of having everything on chain.
And you have, if everything's on chain, it can be, you know, digital ownership that can't be censored.
And then going back to Scott from DragonZ was saying the identity part of it, right, where you can have that security model built in at the protocol level.
And you don't need to have the security at the application level, which allows you to get away from things like asking for your user's email address or phone number and all that stuff.
So, what is something you've taken from ICP Lab this week and you know is going to kind of help you develop Cubetopia further?
I think for me, the biggest sort of mind-blow moment of being here was actually listening to Boom Down.
And they demonstrated how their world engine can be used to create these autonomous worlds.
And what they were basically doing was they were showing how they were like running around in this world.
They were, you know, collecting items and attacking creatures and stuff.
And they had this counter in the corner, which was increasing.
And it was showing every call that it was making to the canister.
And for me, that was kind of like the mind-blow moment of like, yeah, you know, we can take one-chain gaming to the next level.
Oh, that's awesome.
So, how, I guess, what does that do for, how does that take gaming to the next level?
Well, I think that they kind of, they were showing the, you know, these games and these systems.
Like, on the front end, it looked, you know, smooth.
It looked like a normal game.
It looked fun.
But, I don't know, it's very geeky and it's kind of like a developer thing.
But to know what's going on, like, behind the scenes compared to how it normally worked.
It was just really interesting to actually see, like, you know, it's making calls to the canister while just seamlessly playing the game.
And it's, this is kind of like the step, this is kind of the evolution that we need to actually, you know, get our games on-chain, as much on-chain or 100% on-chain as we possibly can.
To, you know, get the benefits, which you were saying earlier, you were just saying so many amazing things.
I'm like, damn, I should have thought of that.
But you're completely right.
There are so many benefits to building our games like this.
Yeah, yeah.
And it kind of opens up that innovators, right?
If you're somebody who thinks outside the box, you have an opportunity.
And this is certainly true for the internet computer.
But I think crypto in general, one of the things that we don't necessarily focus on is the fact that it is a different paradigm that enables,
it enables human cooperation in a way that has never been possible.
And we don't yet fully understand just how that can play out in our everyday products.
And I think innovators who start to actually think outside that paradigm, that Web2 paradigm, will be the ones who really actually fully grasp it and create just truly phenomenal products.
Yeah, I totally agree.
And I always kind of felt like I was born a little bit too late.
You know, I couldn't have been the one to create eBay.
I couldn't have been the one to create Amazon or Minecraft or whatever.
But I think that, you know, what DFINITY are trying to do is essentially trying to make a new internet.
And, you know, you have the opportunity to come in here if you're a developer and to actually make the next big thing,
not just taking something existing and putting it on chain, but, you know, we can do things which weren't possible before.
Like, it's been flipped on its head.
It's a new paradigm, exactly like you say.
And I feel like we've been given a chance again to, you know, create something which could, you know, become huge.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think that gets underappreciated.
I'm, I don't know, I guess old enough to say I was in my teenage years when the internet started, at least coming to the United States.
I remember getting those disks in the mail for AOL, having to reinstall it so you could get 300 free minutes on the internet, right?
So think about that.
Like, you used to log in with your phone, a modem going through your phone line, and you would get, like, a certain number of minutes.
And I would set up a whole new account just so I could get 300 free minutes.
But it was basically, they just took, like, it was news, and it was chat rooms, and Yahoo, and email.
And that was what the internet was.
You had these interesting projects like Amazon that, I mean, at first was just a business that didn't make any sense from a business perspective.
But you had the Ebays, but even that was you bought something online.
You actually mailed them a physical check, and then you waited for them to cash that check, and then they would mail you, send you the item that you were buying.
And nobody at that time, I mean, that was, like, 1998, 1999, nobody at that time would imagine that, hey, 10 years from now, you will be able to get a car off the internet.
Like, they'll come, the car will come pick you up wherever and drive you to wherever you want to be.
That you could actually book, you know, an entire vacation.
That, you know, you could just do a Google search, right?
You know, that concept of, like, you could search the internet and find any piece of information that you've ever wanted.
And I think that's kind of where we're at with crypto.
I'm getting a little more philosophical than getting off the whole gaming and metaverse.
So let me bring it back.
I'm going to ask you the question, then I'll move on.
If Cosmicraft is still there, I want to touch base with them.
But I've got to know, we're doing a survey here.
What's the pizza of choice?
Well, I was fashionably late to the party.
I was looking for something with a bit of meat on it.
But I've ended up with a margarita with a single olive.
But it was quite nice, though.
I only got about halfway before I kind of got wrangled out of the room to get on here.
So I'm looking forward to getting back to my margarita pizza.
Well, given the fact that I have yet to hear anyone eat a pizza, a slice of pizza with meat on it, I'm thinking either the DFINITY employees got all the meat or...
I've seen them around.
I've seen them around.
It must be, you know, the early bird gets the meat.
The early bird gets the meat.
That's the good old adage.
Joey, thank you so much for joining.
Passion, actually, you got your hand up.
Let's go ahead and go to you.
And then maybe we'll hit up Cosmicraft.
Yeah, I won't take too long.
I've been following DFINITY for quite some time, almost two and a half, three years now.
And I absolutely love what you guys are building.
I mean, it's incredible.
And I think it's like one of those things.
If you build it, they will come.
And then the SNS one down when it came out, you know, and dragons, that whole captivating week or so when everyone's trying to figure out what is going on here.
I think we built an amazing community already, and we're only just getting started.
But as far as the internet computer goes, you know, I just, I'm hearing about all these other projects.
I had my son try Cubetopia.
He loved it.
And I also, I found a web page that showed all the internet computer games.
But is there like a centralized page that can show all the projects so that we can check them out?
Is there something like that that exists outside of this?
It was like an HTML page, it looked like, like old school.
So I was just curious if there was anything that can show all the projects.
Yeah, we actually have on internetcomputer.org.
That's kind of a great place to start.
And let me just see if I can pull up the link really quickly.
It's essentially a website where all the projects can go ahead and post their information.
So if you're listening to this and you're participating in icp.lab and you haven't updated your information on internetcomputer.org, make sure you get that information in.
Because I think that's a great way for people to find you.
It may be good to also mention Kinnick as well.
You can search on there for canisters.
So maybe if you just search like game or whatever it is you're looking for, you might find some hidden gems or something.
Yeah.
The last thing I wanted to say is just in terms of tracking this, because I mean, I'm trying to find the internet identities where it shows how many are being formed.
Because I do believe that whether it's dragons or one of these games, when it goes viral and goes out there, I just want to be able to track how many new people it's bringing to the ecosystem.
And I'm guessing that would be through the canisters, not the canisters, or the internet identities.
That would be the way to do it.
I think it's 2 million or something like that now.
But would that be a good way to track the growth of these ecosystems?
Yeah.
So actually going back, Joey made a great point about Kinnick.
So Kinnick is like basically the Google of the internet computer.
It's fully owned and operated by a DAO.
And so that's kind of a great thing.
That's Kinnick.io.
That's K-I-N-I-C.io.
In terms of metrics, yeah.
So if you're interested in the ecosystem as a whole, the best place to go is dashboard.internetcomputer.org.
You'll probably find that if you just kind of click through, you can actually get down into metrics on specific subnets or canisters.
But then in terms of individual projects, that's typically the – we typically leave it to the project to kind of report their own metrics.
We do have some conversations with organizations like Token Terminal and stuff to make sure that we can get our – get these apps being built on the internet computer to be able to integrate into their system so they can provide more visibility.
But yeah, I would say check out dashboard.internetcomputer at first.
And then beyond that, the specific projects you're interested in, go ahead and follow them.
Cosmic Craft, you've been waiting so patiently.
Really appreciate it.
Love having you guys on and bringing you up another one of those Supernova projects that, at least from my perspective, really exploded after Supernova.
How are you doing?
All good.
Thanks for having us.
Super happy, super excited to be here.
So, who do we have from Cosmic Crafts?
So, my name is Omar.
I'm the founder of Cosmic Crafts.
I do the game design.
I do the graphics.
Technical artist.
Pretty much all the visuals.
And –
So, give us some background on what is Cosmic Crafts.
Sure.
It's a strategy game.
A real strategy game.
Made of spaceships.
So, it's a battleground where players send spaceships into the battleground.
And then we have some AI that – with navigation systems.
So, you send the spaceship and the spaceship is going to move on its own and it's going to attack the enemy base.
So, that's pretty much about the gameplay.
We have many different spaceships.
We have three factions.
We have the robots.
We have the Empire.
We have the space pirates.
And every faction has its own characters.
And every character has its own unique skills that is going to haste all your fleets.
That's awesome.
What aspect of the internet computer do you think is – that most brings value to your game?
I will start with the free-to-play capability because of reverse gas fees.
So, this game started back in 2016 and it was taught for mobile devices.
So, we're thinking about a free-to-play game on the App Store that people can play and then integrate some in-game currency and game transactions.
So, that way, when we switched to the internet computer back in 2021, it was just like – it was the best choice.
First, because users don't have to pay for transactions and that just opened up a new whole world for Web3 gaming space.
That's awesome.
Yeah, I don't think – I mean, I'm glad you brought it up because I don't think the reverse gas fee gets the attention and the love that it deserves.
Do you mind – so, for people on this call who don't understand what the reverse gas fee is, kind of give some background on what that means.
Sure.
So, for example, in any other blockchain, let's say Bitcoin, Ethereum.
So, every transaction you make on the blockchain, you got to pay for a gas fee.
So, sometimes those gas fees can go, I don't know, from like cents to like, I don't know, Ethereum back in 2021, like hundreds of dollars.
So, on the ICP, instead of users paying for those transactions on the blockchain, developers do.
And actually, they're pretty cheap for like the speed we have.
And another big reason why we're on the ICP is because the speed of the network.
It's just like to me, it's lighting speed compared to Ethereum that we have to wait minutes for a transaction to confirm.
And on the IC, it can be like from two, three seconds up to maybe eight seconds at the latest.
But it's almost instant.
That's awesome.
Yeah, I definitely agree.
What about ICP Lab?
So, you've been there.
This is, I guess, what day – let's see.
I assume you arrived on Sunday.
So, probably day three for you.
Yes.
So far, I love it.
This is my first ICP Lab.
And I think that like the discussion around what developers are doing and meeting up in person, getting to know each other, and trying to figure out what we need to make the multiplayer on blockchain works.
I think that's amazing.
So, so far, I'm loving it.
Awesome.
That's great.
Is there maybe a connection that you've made talking with the other builders or even maybe talking with DFINITY engineers or other DFINITY employees?
Is there a connection you've made that you're like, this is going to be pretty fruitful moving forward?
I would say pretty much with everybody because this is like my first ICP Lab.
So, I met everybody in person, as far as I remember.
And, yeah, I love that.
There's one thing, like technical stuff that the game needed, and that's the real-time game servers that we've been trying to achieve.
We did it back in 2021, but we did it in like a technical way, like a peer-to-peer.
And now it's going to be possible to make like game servers on the blockchain for the first time.
So, that's, yeah.
That's phenomenal.
I heard a dog in the background.
Is that Dom's dog back there?
Yeah, yeah.
It's right here.
It's farting.
It's pizza farting.
Yeah, yeah.
All right.
So, I got to know.
Actually, let me ask this then.
Is there a project that you're seeing, not your own, but somebody that you're like, this project is really impressive that you've learned about this week?
Yeah.
I'm going to vote for Dragons because the game looks amazing.
I mean, the teammates were experienced.
I know people that used to play Neopet, so I know it's going to work.
But I also want to vote for BoomDAO, not only because Cosmic Crafts is part of BoomDAO right now, but because they've been doing such a great job.
And they've been delivering tools, like, since a long time.
Tools that we've been using, for example, in Cosmic Crafts.
The login we have comes from Tommy, from BoomDAO.
So, I think that deserves a lot of credit.
And right now, they just build a completely open-world project on Unity that any developer can just take it from there and start from scratch.
And it has, like, login session.
It has, like, a main menu UX UI and, like, some game logic to connect with Canister.
So, I think it's pretty amazing.
That's something that I will be looking forward to, get my hands into it.
Yeah, building out that infrastructure is awesome.
All right, last question.
Pizza.
What's your topping of choice?
I got pepperoni pizza.
I like it.
Nice.
Yeah, yeah.
I think I'm a simple guy.
Pepperoni pizza is just fine for me.
I like it.
And beer.
I love it.
I love it.
Your first one, a beer, of course.
Right, yeah.
You got to go with the beer.
So, as a quick reset, this is icp.lab.
We're hearing from lots of projects throughout the Internet Computer Ecosystem that are building in the gaming and metaverse world.
As you hear about these projects, I highly, highly, highly recommend that you're following their Twitter account.
That's how you're going to stay up to date on the development.
I hope one of the things you're picking up is that there's a lot going on, there's a lot evolving, and you're going to want to stay up to date with it.
Jack, at this point, I'm wondering if your touchscreen is going to be breaking from all the emojis you're sending.
Can you come off speaker, and do you have a question or anything?
Well, sir, can you hear me?
There you go.
Yep.
Yeah, thank you.
My question is, how did you involve the community in the project's development, and how can you create a strong community that expands globally?
Thank you, sir.
I'd like to start off with the first, I think that the first thing to build a community is to deliver and to give something.
So, in a way that, you know, some projects can be like, I just want to take something from the community instead of first giving away.
And then, I think, when you give first to the community, then you can get started, and then you can build from there.
So, as far as Cosmic Crafts, I think we did pretty good last year.
We missed it.
You know, the market, I can just, like, say a lot of excuses, but the thing is that we missed a lot of the community because we didn't keep up with it.
So, another thing about after making a community, after delivering, it's very important, the consistency, to be constant, answer questions, invite them something, get them more stuff, and get them to actually test your project and get you some feedback about it.
So, I love it.
Great, great answer.
I've got a Cosmic Craft Taco NFT, so I know you guys were, you know, you guys were at least somewhat involved moving forward.
So, I love that NFT.
We've got BoomDow.
Are you guys there?
Hello, hello.
Yes, we're here.
Who from BoomDow is there?
So, I'm Tommy, I'm here as well as, and I'm Max, I'm here as well.
Ah, we got both Tommy and Max.
All right.
You guys have already gotten two shout-outs on this call.
Maybe some of your glory has been stolen because multiple projects have talked about what you guys are building and what you have already built.
But, let's go over it again.
I want to hear it from your voice.
So, what is BoomDow?
What's the vision there?
Yeah, yeah, that's really kind that we've heard these nice things for their projects.
And, yeah, BoomDow is basically, you know, we're trying to solve this problem of it being really, really hard to build a fully on-chain game on the IC.
It's a very complicated task.
It requires a lot of R&D and a lot of effort from, you know, a team of experienced engineers who have built, you know, MMOs or other complex games on traditional architectures.
And so, what BoomDow was set out to do is basically how can we build a protocol that essentially takes away all this hard stuff that, you know, game developers would have to write smart contracts and write a scalable game server system in canisters.
And instead, you know, they can basically configure that within minutes and then focus on building, you know, a super fun game.
So, BoomDow has basically built the Game Launcher website, which is a website where you can deploy your game client build to a canister with one click.
You can deploy NFT and ICRC collections with one click, as well as you can deploy your game backend in a canister in one click and configure it.
And then all you have to worry about is creating your fun game.
Yeah, I love it.
Building out that infrastructure.
So, I'm going to ask the hard question first.
The BoomDow mascot, who designed it?
Does he have a name?
And why is he so lovable?
That was kind of a, yeah, we wanted him to look a bit like a game pad.
But then also, you know, we wanted a lovable character as well.
We haven't, I don't think we've actually named him.
Maybe we should call him Boomy.
But, yeah, we haven't actually given him a name yet.
That's, I don't, do you have any ideas, Kyle?
I don't.
I'm horrible at naming things.
And so, that's why all my kids are called, are named Kyle as well.
We just stick with the consistency.
All right, so his name is Kyle then.
It's good.
I love it.
I love it.
So, well, maybe that's the first job of the DAO.
Do you guys want to talk about your governance structure and maybe the next few steps coming up in the next few days?
Yeah, yeah, sure.
I mean, could you like maybe elaborate a bit more of like what do you mean in terms of governance structure?
Yeah, yeah, actually.
So, we had Dragons on earlier.
They talked about having a governance structure around the game so that there's a level of decentralization.
Boom, Dow, you guys are currently going through your SNS decentralization swap.
What's the vision there in terms of long-term, who's contributing to the project, who's controlling it?
I guess some of the listeners to this might not be aware of what an SNS is and how that changes things.
So, I was just giving you guys an open mic to talk about how you see the project evolving from that perspective.
Yeah, yeah.
Okay, great.
Yeah, so, basically, we built something called the World Engine Protocol, and you could imagine it as basically a game protocol for all the games on ICP.
And it's basically to create network effects between all the different games on ICP.
Basically, any game that is created fully on-chain on ICP would store their data inside of this World Engine Protocol.
And so, all this data is being stored inside of these canisters, and basically, the BoomDao SNS was launched so that all of this game data that is stored in these canisters can be decentrally governed.
So, if you don't know much about the SNS, basically, it's doing a decentralized swap where all these token holders can govern a dApp that's fully on-chain.
And so, what's amazing about the internet computer is that, basically, you can have your entire application be fully written in smart contracts,
and then you can have those smart contracts be governed by a bunch of token holders who vote with their tokens on how the dApp gets governed, how the canisters get upgraded, things like that.
And so, what's really cool about the World Engine Protocol is that it's this critical piece of infrastructure that, you know, we want every game on the IC to leverage
so that, you know, we're creating network effects between everyone and collaboration between everyone.
But because it stores such valuable data, it's really important that it's being governed by an SNS.
Is that, so, is that, like, is, like, the Zynga Facebook example pretty apropos for why that's an important clarification of, like,
who actually controls the engine there?
Yeah, so, that's a great example.
So, yeah, we could probably pull out a few different examples of games that have been built on platforms,
and then either the platform or the game developer basically stops developing and the game vanishes, right?
So, a good example is Facebook and Farmville.
So, Farmville was built on the Facebook platform, and eventually Facebook decided,
hey, we don't really want to focus on games right now.
We actually want to go a different route with the future of Facebook.
And so, they basically closed down their entire games division and basically kicked out Farmville.
And so, now, you know, Farmville players, you know, couldn't play Farmville anymore on Facebook,
and there's a whole, you know, Zynga basically lost, you know, its games.
So, what the World Engine Protocol does is that all the games that are built on the World Engine Protocol are permanent.
So, since they exist fully on the blockchain, that data will never go away.
And what's really cool about it is that since all the data is stored fully on-chain,
you, as a user, as a player, carry your data with you wherever you go.
So, if I play Cubetopia, and Cubetopia saves data to my canister in the World Engine Protocol,
and then I go to another game, let's say Paws Arena or Plethora,
that data will go with me to those other games, and those games will save data to that same canister.
And so, they can also read the same data.
So, they can read the data that Plethora saved to that canister as well.
And so, this allows for, like, extremely great composability between games,
because they can read each other's data,
and they can even grant permissions to each other to change each other's data.
So, Cubetopia can give permission to Plethora to, you know, create a quest in Cubetopia,
to give items to players in Cubetopia, and vice versa.
And so, it really creates this amazing interoperability and composability between games,
and it also allows players to keep their data and carry it with them from game to game.
That's, I mean, that's such a phenomenal vision, and you just articulated it so well.
So, is part of that vision, I mean, I've got to imagine that the vision for BoomDAO is that,
basically, the internet computer and everyone building on the world engine,
you called it World Engine Protocol, right?
Yes, yes, that's correct.
So, essentially, like, that might become, again, that hotbed of innovation,
and really attractive to developers, because if you already have an ecosystem in which is already built out,
you can kind of plug in with the tooling, go from zero to one quickly,
but also you can do that without, in a trustless manner, so you're not beholden,
you know, if your game takes off, you're not beholden to, you know, to that engine, right?
Like, that was the problem with Zynga, was they built a multi-billion dollar company,
but they were beholden to Facebook, and when Facebook pulled the plug, they lost,
I mean, it was like 80% of their market cap.
So, is that, I guess, am I capturing the vision correctly?
Yeah, yeah, that's exactly correct, and that's why it's so important that the world engine protocol
is governed by this SNS DAO, rather than controlled by us, right?
Because if it was controlled by us, then we could essentially, you know, decide one day,
hey, we don't want to support this anymore, or, you know, we're not going to work on it anymore.
But since it's governed by an SNS DAO, you know, anyone can contribute to it.
All the code is completely open source.
You can head to the boomed-out GitHub, and you can read all of it.
And we, like, really want in the future for all of this protocol to be contributed to by third parties
and basically become, you know, essentially built by many different developers.
And what's really cool, too, is that, you know, with this world engine protocol,
no one has to worry about their game data ever, you know, being deleted.
Like, with the issue with, you know, many games in the past, like, I used to play a lot of games
when I was a kid, and, you know, as I got older, some of those games closed down, right?
The developers, you know, couldn't make a profit anymore, you know, developing the game,
and so they turned off the game servers.
And so, you know, I could never play that game again.
A good example is RuneScape, right?
So the developers of RuneScape, you know, they couldn't support RuneScape anymore,
so they turned it off, and now there's no way to, you know, get your data back from the original RuneScape.
But with the World Engine Protocol, since that data is permanently on the blockchain,
anyone could create RuneScape version 2 or create, you know, an even better version of RuneScape
for PlayStation 4 with great graphics and amazing gameplay and connect it to the same data.
So that data exists permanently, and you carry it with you, and it's really amazing
because anyone can basically plug into it.
I'm laughing because it's reminding me of one of the final episodes of Seinfeld.
And again, I'm aging myself here, but there's the one where he's got,
George Costanza has the record on the Frogger machine,
and he's got to keep the machine turned on so that the data remains persistent
and his legacy continues.
This is the solution to that and so much more.
All right, so let me, I'm going to ask you a question.
You can't say Boondow and you can't say Dragon,
because I want to get some unique answers in here.
What is a project that you saw this week that really excites you
or you really think we need to be talking about more?
Ooh, yeah, that's a really good question.
Yeah, I mean, you took away my first answer, which I was probably going to say Dragon.
But there's been amazing projects this week.
It's been really fun seeing all different presentations.
We had, let's see, we had Inside Dark Studios, we had Cooptopia, we had ICVR.
Am I missing any other ones?
Oh, yeah, we had an amazing presentation from the WebSockets team.
So they're doing amazing work trying to get WebSockets on the IC
so that we can have multiplayer games running fully on chain.
Yeah, I mean, there's really amazing projects that are being showcased here.
I think I might actually give kind of my vote to the WebSockets team.
And maybe that's a bit, you know, nerdy of me because I'm a technical guy.
But I love what they're doing because what they're building with WebSockets
is benefiting everyone in the ecosystem.
So every game is going to benefit from it.
You know, if we can get multiplayer across all different games on the IC,
like fully on-chain multiplayer, that'll be huge.
You know, that's something that we're really missing.
So, yeah, I'm super excited for what they're doing.
And, of course, you know, like the rest of the projects, Cosmographs,
Cooptopia, Inside Dark killed it as well with their presentations.
That's been pretty common responses that, hey, it's hard to pick just one.
I'd almost rather just pick them all because there's been so many great projects built.
Let's go.
I know we had Dow Ball and we had Zondax.
I saw you guys floating around.
I'm not seeing any more, but if you're still there,
I know you guys are there at DFINITY as well.
Go ahead and request to be speaker.
We'll pull you up.
In the meantime, oh, also ICP Insider, I saw you.
You're hanging around.
I had you as a speaker.
If you want to come back on, just let me know.
So I'll go to Fairtale.
Oh, sorry.
Go ahead.
We see the Dow Ball team, so we're trying to get them over here so they'll join as well.
Okay.
Okay.
Awesome.
In the meantime, Fairtale, did you have a question or something you wanted to ask?
Hey.
Hi, everyone.
So I guess I just want to ask a question to all of the projects.
There was a lot of talk before about, first and foremost, making a great game.
I think that was a really, really positive approach to building, right?
So I wanted to give a chance to all of the projects to just talk a bit about what cool features are you building that are not directly related to, you know, transfers or NFTs or things like that.
I really love the thing about connecting different worlds, for example.
So more things like that, that, you know, just might get the community excited and that are cool to hear about.
Yeah, yeah.
So the question was more like, what other kind of ways are we connecting different game worlds together?
Cool features in general, just things that are not related to transfers and NFTs, but more, you know, related to the game itself.
Yeah, yeah.
Like gameplay or mechanics, things like that.
Yeah, yeah, definitely.
So, I mean, to the World Engine Protocol, I could talk about it all day because it's really something that's never been built before because it's really not possible if you weren't building it on the blockchain.
And what's really amazing about it is that, oh, I think there might be someone with their, with their, okay.
So, yeah, like the World Engine Protocol basically allows you to import users and configuration from other worlds.
So what's really cool about this is, I don't know if you guys are aware of modding in gaming, but modding is a really important aspect of gaming that has actually spawned some of the biggest games in the world today.
And so we have games such as Fortnite, which was a copy of PUBG, which was a mod of another game.
We have games like League of Legends, which was a copy of Dota, which was a mod of Warcraft 3, I believe.
So there's lots of, Counter-Strike is another example.
Counter-Strike was a mod of another game.
And so there's these huge games that have risen that were basically modified games of other, you know, previous games.
And what's amazing about the internet computer is that you're basically on no other blockchain could you host all of your game logic and data fully in smart contracts.
But since you're allowed to do that, all the data is transparent and anyone can read it.
And so what this enables is that if I, you know, love Cubetopia, let's say, and, you know, I'm like, oh, maybe Cubetopia could be a little bit better if they had a game mode where you could fight zombies, right?
So then I could basically clone the Cubetopia smart contract, import all of the user data from the Cubetopia smart contract, import all the configuration data, and mod it.
And you can do that right now, like, basically in two steps on the BoomDAO Game Launcher website.
You can basically take any world and import all the data from it and then mod it.
So that's something that we're really excited about to see what kind of world people create that are built on top of other people's worlds.
I really like that.
I also saw a discussion on Twitter where someone was asking you about what would happen if someone modded someone else's game and that you were thinking about ways on how to reward the original creator for copies or modding based on his work or something like that.
Do you have more info on that?
Because I thought it was super interesting.
Yeah, yeah.
We're actually having some really great discussions here at ICP Labs about that.
Basically, you know, it'd be amazing if a person deployed, let's call, a base world, and then there was a bunch of other developers or players who built worlds on top of that world, but it all gave royalties back to the original creator of the base world.
So basically incentivizing, you know, players and developers to create these base worlds, and then they get rewarded, right?
When people build on top of their world or modded, they get rewarded for that modded creation, you know, taking off.
And in the same way, the people who are modding these worlds would also get rewarded because they basically have this user acquisition strategy because they're building on an existing world.
So I think there's some really cool ways to build essentially like reward systems into the protocol, into the world engine protocol itself.
And so that way, you know, if a developer wants to build on top of an existing world, they know that, you know, there's an existing protocol in place that rewards them, you know, in case their world takes off.
So that's awesome.
Thanks so much for answering.
I see we got, oh, actually, Max and Tommy, I got to ask the question.
What pizza topping are you guys preferring over there?
So I'm more of, and this is going to be controversial, I love Hawaiian pizza.
So pineapple is my friend, and I know I'm probably going to get blocked by people from saying that.
But I really love pineapple on pizza.
What about you, Max?
I got the one with vegetable, and it was really good.
A lot of veggie prefers.
Tommy, don't feel bad about that Hawaiian pick.
I, too, love a good Hawaiian pizza, and pineapple on a pizza is good taste, in my opinion.
Yeah.
Thank you, guys.
We got to unite.
It's the pineapple takeover.
It's, you know, yeah, it takes courage to step out into a field where there's a lot of people
I have strong opinions on.
And anyways, I won't yuck anyone else's yum.
Just don't yuck my Hawaiian pizza yum.
So, Dao Ball, are you guys there?
All right.
Can you hear me?
Yeah.
There we go.
How are you doing?
I got the end.
Andrew, you just got it.
Ah, okay.
We got a little bit of feedback.
We're having a little technical difficulties here.
This is all spawned on me just a minute ago.
So, if you guys can hear me, we can go ahead now.
Yeah.
Yeah.
No, you're coming through really well.
Tell us, what is Dao Ball?
First, I want to say, long-time listener, first-time caller, big fan of the Rock Podcast.
Just want to put that out there first.
It's too bad you guys aren't doing it right now, but hopefully someone will, I need my
ICP news.
Hey, I really, really appreciate that.
Take this hiatus as a sign that we just both have so much good stuff going on.
And our time for it was getting short.
So, you might see, we might get the band back together at some point in the future.
All right.
That'd be awesome.
Okay.
So, about me, about Dao Ball.
So, just a little background on what I got going on.
So, I am not an entrepreneur, not like you, Jesse.
But, so I'm just, I'm a dev.
I've been working on internet computer stuff for over a year now.
I'm most famous for my .NET agent for the internet computer.
I'm working on a lot of Motoko libraries.
So, big believer in open source and building very boring infrastructure that isn't flashy.
So, a partner and I, more recently, kind of want to take things a little further and do
something with a little more impact, something a little more fun.
So, essentially, when I first heard about the internet computer in probably like, it was
like, early 2022, late 2021, like, some really stood out.
And I couldn't quite place it, but I knew I had to do something.
So, I'm a web developer by trade and I've always been plugged into, like, Bitcoin and
Ethereum, but as a developer, I never, ever wanted to build smart contracts.
And that's a whole rabbit hole.
But, essentially, like, the internet computer really, really flipped that for me.
And the idea that you can essentially have this web development platform instead of building,
like, writing in stone with these contracts and putting it up and having them be super
bare bones and slow and unscalable.
No hate to Ethereum or Bitcoin or anything, but just as a web developer, like, it just didn't
make sense.
So, the thing I found, like, super powerful was the idea of, like, creating, essentially,
like, what you do for, like, open source.
But in the typical world, open source means writing a bunch of cool code, but putting it
up on GitHub and that's it.
Like, someone else can use it and that's super powerful.
But, like, that's kind of where it ends.
But I feel like with something like the internet computer blockchain, like, you can have living
open source autonomous services that exist on this platform and that, like, I can be a contributor
to and help create, but using, you know, power of DAOs and whatnot, be able to, you know, just let
it free, like, and just be an open source service out there that can be super valuable to the
community.
So, like, there are caveats with that and, you know, maybe easy, way easier said than done.
But so, all that to say how we got to DAO ball was I was trying to create, trying to think
of something engaging, but also really be in this autonomous service or, like, some people,
you know, say they're, like, autonomous worlds, like BoomDAO, which I'm a member of BoomDAO.
And now I've given the .NET agent a BoomDAO, so we're close and we'll be working with them.
But so, like, I want to explore, there's a lot of theories around DAOs and how DAOs can
be implemented and how powerful they can be.
But, like, I'm plugged in and, like, I'm practically, like, there's no DAOs out there that I'm really,
like, involved in.
Like, there are fun DAOs, do, like, S&S one, but it's just kind of, like, no hate to anything.
It's just, like, there hasn't been a super utility for just, like, everyday people.
So I kind of want to create, like, what's something that could be fun, but also, like,
really lean on this DAO idea and kind of take the, like, DAO-first approach.
So instead of us trying to figure out, like, okay, what would be a cool experience or a cool game
and then kind of put in the Web3 aspects to really think of, like, what are the strengths
of blockchain or these autonomous services and, okay, take those properties and what would
make sense as some fun experience there.
So essentially what we landed on was DAO ball.
And DAO ball, in short, is essentially a simulated spectator sport.
And all this is, just to be up front, like, all this is conceptual.
I was invited to the ICP lab here for doing work with Unity, code, doesn't matter.
But I had this idea, and when I got invited, I was like, okay, I need to speed up development
of this thing.
So we kind of solidified a lot of this conceptual stuff, and we have kind of prototypes,
but it'll be a while until it actually gets there.
So the idea is you put out an autonomous service, like a smart contract out there, and all it
really does is just simulate a baseball-esque matches, which by itself isn't that exciting,
using on-chain randomness and kind of like taking baseball, tweaking the rules, making it a little
bit chaotic, a little silly, but using not only the power of the DAO to, like, actually control
and run this thing, but make it so that each team itself is a DAO.
So you have X number of teams, and you just kind of, like, open it up to the community to
say, hey, like, you want to be a part of a team?
You can, whether it's, like, staking or fees or something, we're still working out the details,
you can be a part of a certain team.
And really what the game, I'd say it's more of an experience than a game, because I feel
like games have a different image in people's heads.
So the idea would be that it would just kind of be this direct democracy, kind of chaotic
environment in which each team is just random people who want to kind of play, and the actual
game itself is people having to reach a consensus over, you know, things like lineups and trades
and different, like, in-between match things of, like, training and whatnot.
So taking this, like, simulated environment and having this, like, chaotic open DAO and having
to, like, utilizing social media engagement and having people work together, and the game
itself is consensus.
Like, can you reach consensus?
Can you reach good consensus to have, like, the right teams?
So ultimately it'll be, like, a pretty simple, just, like, in your browser, you kind of go to
DAO Ball.
Anyone can just go and spectate and just view the games that are happening, and, like, social
media will be, like, a big component that we lean on to have, like, you know, the games
will be streamed live, and people can watch them in a little chaotic nature, and people can
have steak because, you know, they're literally potentially staked in a team, right?
But that's kind of the basic idea of just you have this simple online browser thing in
which it's not, like, a very Web3-heavy thing.
It's just, like, the goal is to make it feel like a Web2 kind of experience.
You go on, you can log in.
If you've staked in a team, then you're able to, like, go and vote on proposals to, like,
you know, whatever the lineup is or if you want to do a trade or other things.
That's awesome.
So what, I guess, in terms of roadmap, do you guys have an idea of, like, when you might
have your first either alpha or beta out there?
Or too soon to talk about that?
Yeah, yeah.
Well, you don't have to answer it, honestly, when you're…
Developers always love that question.
So make sure…
When you're a genius, you don't want to put timeframes out there.
Yeah, honestly, I got no idea.
But, so, I think the difference here or where I'm trying to go with this is, so, as I was…
I said at the beginning, I'm not an entrepreneur.
My teammate, so it's just myself and a teammate right now.
And he's more on the UX side.
And the idea is to kind of make this, like, an open source experience.
Like, we'll be applying to DFINITY for, like, grant funding and whatnot.
But this is not going to be a business at all.
Like, I love this idea.
I'm probably going to be a contributor for a while.
But I think that's going to be the big thing is, like, I will be a contributor of this.
So, through the whole process…
Like, all this is very experimental type of stuff.
So, through this whole process, I will be, hopefully…
I'm a terrible writer, but maybe I'll use ChatGPT.
I'll be blogging my entire, like, development iteration cycles.
And it'll be a very open process.
So, like, we're very much in, like, prototype experimental phase right now.
So, like, I got this DaoBall Twitter account.
We got DaoBall.xyz.
DaoBall.com, apparently I'm mistaken.
So, you can go there.
And there's a link to the blog.
So, you follow Twitter, follow the blog.
And just kind of follow along and see how it goes.
That's phenomenal.
I think you're touching on an aspect that I don't think we've touched on much,
which is this idea of almost open-sourced ideas, not just code.
But you have an idea.
You want to get it to a certain point.
But then you want a community of people as passionate as yourself to take it from there.
And that's possible when you put everything on chain.
Because, as we've talked about, when you put everything on chain,
you can hand over the governance of that code to a Dao.
So, I love what you guys are thinking.
Baseball is particularly top of mind for at least us Americans
with the Major League Baseball playoffs coming in just a few weeks.
I, myself, am located in Maryland.
So, go O's.
And I love your idea here.
Yeah.
One of the twists of this story is I'm on the West Coast.
But I am not a sports person whatsoever.
So, I think it's kind of funny how we landed on sports.
There's some technical reasons why we landed on specifically baseball.
So, I might reach out to you for some baseball knowledge.
Because we'll probably struggle along the way.
Definitely.
I'm available.
Whenever you need me, just reach out.
All right.
I got to ask, because we got to wrap up the space pretty quickly.
Meta Riders and Jaywalker, I do want to get you both up here real quickly.
But, Dao Ball, I got to ask, what's your pizza topping there?
Oh, well, like, there were a bunch of options.
And my headspace was you look for the most fancy, expensive option.
Right?
So, obviously, I went for a prosciutto.
So, hey, when in Rome.
Awesome.
Well, I appreciate your time.
Let's go real quickly to Jaywalker.
You were in the original space that we had the technical difficulty.
So, I appreciate you making it over here and making it through the space.
Did you have a question or anything?
If you can, Jaywalker, come off mute.
Or maybe by now, you've sat through the hour and a half.
You went to go get a drink of water and missed your chance.
Let's go to Meta Riders real quickly.
How are you?
Good.
How are you?
I just wanted to jump in real quick.
I'm actually on my way to breathe for the convention this week.
So, first of all, I'm in communication with ICP.
This is Hermie, CEO of Meta Rides behind the PFP.
We have been a victim of not having enough time in the day to get to everything.
So, ICP is still on the burner.
It's just not on the front burner at the moment.
But I just wanted to jump up and say great space.
First of all, Dow Ball.
I've actually owned a business called Everything Baseball for 23 years.
If you Google us, you'll see my mug on Google.
And you can reach out if you think that we can help in any way with what you're doing.
And in addition to that, you know, I think that the ideas that you guys have kicked around today about gaming and metaverse in the future, you know, it's the topic that I'm actually speaking to at Breathe.
I think it's important for all of us to realize, again, I'm reiterating the point that was made earlier, that the Web3 technology is just something that needs to be integrated and make the games better.
But the games still have to be games.
And I think that that's the part that, you know, a lot of people in Web3, A, they're focused exclusively on Web3 people.
I think that's a mistake.
And B, they're so hyper-focused on ownership, interoperability, and those types of things.
They're great.
But they need to be additions to games that are very, very cool to play and keep people coming back.
So, I just wanted to jump up and say hello.
Gaming and metaverse spaces are my favorite.
So, I really enjoyed listening in today as I was preparing to travel today.
But I appreciate you guys as well.
And thanks for having me.
Hey, I really appreciate you jumping up here.
Such words of good words of wisdom, right?
The idea that somebody should be playing a game and not even know that it has a Web3 component.
If you can reach that, then that seems to be the pinnacle of designing Web3 into your game.
I mean, that's kind of when we know we've made it.
I appreciate it.
And Jay Walker, are you still there?
Probably not.
All right.
So, we're going to wrap this up.
This was a phenomenal space.
I really, really, truly appreciate all the speakers who came on board.
You guys are doing incredible work.
Keep it up.
You're building out basically the next generation of games that my kids will be participating in.
So, I really appreciate how forward-looking you are and taking some time away to talk on this space and let us all know what's going on.
Like I said, give a follow to all the speakers.
If you've enjoyed this space, the best way to keep in touch with them is giving them a follow.
Stay up to date on what's going on.
There's so many exciting things and this is an evolving space that you want to make sure you're up to date on.
All that's going on in gaming and Metaverse.
And really just want to say thank you to everyone on this call and say let's get back to building and let's keep going forward.
Everyone have a good day.
