What did I do to the side of you, I don't even know what I did, I don't even know this
This is just love if you say so How you get on there, how do you make sure?
Girl, I'm wild, they serve it, they play for usin' We talkin', it's not DNA, we're ready to pop out
We got a lane, so I really got it going down Boy, I ain't been generally just letting it get in
Show me my spirit, it's my bestie You know he said I got him blessed, I swear he's dancing me on
I don't forget he said I said he blessed me on
I don't say I got him blessed, I have to be fine
Don't know why I hurt him, it was all I did for my time
Cause I was someone who caused the trouble
He can get me back to talkin' more about
I'm the body that you are for
Yo, yo, yo, GM, GM, everybody
I think we're waiting for a couple more people
So we can give them maybe like a minute or so and then we'll get started with the conversation
I'm with them, I'm with them, I'm with them
I don't got to hurt you, girl
I'm the first one by the name of the spell
Tell her you got her, she got me here
Girl, if she has a key, I'll take you back
Alright, GM, GM, everybody, how we doing?
How you doing, Leo? How are you, my man?
Good, I'm good, just joining over here from the official account
Man, I'm doing great, brother
It's Tuesday, Tuesdays are always great, man
So I'm excited to be here
I had my space earlier today and it was pretty fun, man
So I'm excited to kind of hop on here and get into this conversation
We have some amazing speakers up here
I think we're still waiting for just a couple more
I think I see Colton Ties down there so you guys want to come up
We're waiting for a couple more speakers
But I think we'll go ahead and get started with some introductions
We have some amazing speakers up, like I said
So I want to pass it over to Coco
How are you doing, Coco? How's it been?
It's been a little minute now
Hello, Juan, yes, it has been a little minute, hasn't it?
Yeah, I'm doing really well
And I'm really happy to join you again
So thank you for having me
Now, it's always a pleasure having you on
So I appreciate you taking the time out of your busy day
And coming and joining us
I know I want to get over to my man James, man
We haven't hopped on the space in quite a bit now
But how's it going, James? How have you been, my brother?
Hey, Juan, agreed, it's been too long
It's been stupid crazy-pizzy
We just launched another project today at FSL
We now have our own wallet, our own decks, our own marketplace
Multiple games across four different blockchains
We just keep cranking out new products
And have a major web2 collab we're about to announce
A lot of fun stuff going on
It feels like 15 to 18 hour days, 7 days a week is just the norm
I wonder sometimes if everybody else works this hard in web3
Yeah, man, I think that's what you got to do, right?
At the end of the day, you just got to put in that work, man
So I'd love to see it, I mean, I know you guys have been absolutely killing it, man
I'm excited to get into this conversation
We're going to talk, you know, we have some amazing founders
So we're going to talk a little bit about, you know, kind of the whole web3 gaming ecosystem
And, you know, how founders and teams are kind of building into space
But I'm going to pass it over to my brother Mizzi, man
How have you been, my man?
Hey, guys, what's up? I've been great, man
Happy to be on the space with all these base people
See some familiar faces, see some new faces
For those of you that don't know me, I'm the co-founder at Catalyst and Paladins Dow
We do a lot of stuff in the web3 gaming space in a nutshell
And, you know, Juan here has been, you know, a homie of mine for some time
I remember when he first, like, started getting into the web3 gaming space
And it's been great seeing you grow over all these months, bro
So, you know, cheers to you
My brother, no, man, I appreciate it, man
Yeah, I remember, you know, when I was kind of getting into the waves of the web3 gaming ecosystem
And kind of the whole space
It's been super fun meeting all these people
Some amazing founders, some amazing teams, man
I'm excited and, you know, thank you for supporting the journey, man
The golden ties, how you guys doing over there?
I know you guys launched recently, so how's that going?
I mean, in a slow NFT market, it's been a good launch overall
For 11 pieces of art, we did pretty well
And, you know, it hits the goals that we need to get done for this short-term period
Obviously, our goals are to eventually integrate web3 in a way
Where you don't even know you're interacting with it
And then launch on the web2 sphere
Like, that's why, if you go to our website, we don't really mention web3 at all
Because our target will be web2 gamers
And, like, that's always been our focus
But Juan, it's been a while since you and I have connected
Obviously, Mizzy and I are boys
But, you know, good to catch up with you guys
And happy to be here today
Yeah, man, shout out golden ties, I love playing that game
We got some big stuff coming up next month
We'll be on Epic Games Store and get our early access going
That's the alpha, man, that's the alpha
I think that'll dive a little bit more into it as well
But I think as we wait for, I think, one more person
But I want to pass it over to Jordan, man
How are you? It's very nice to connect with you here
Happy to be back on that spaces grind post-GDC
For anyone who wasn't at GDC, our industry has the energy
You don't even know, like, we are all gonna make it
There aren't that many of us yet
The rest of that conference was, like, a little muted
You know, it's not going great for the normal gaming industry right now
But the web3, we had that energy
We're the group of people with a growing list of ways to make money
Which is, you know, I think the core of it
And, yeah, this is gonna be a hell of a year for all of us
I'm also building this game called Eureka as well
But that was enough for me
But you should check us out
Yeah, no, absolutely, man
I've definitely been seeing you around
But I've been seeing you putting in that work lately, man
So I'm excited to have you aboard
That's why my voice sounds like this
I've been putting in that work
I've seen a lot of people, man
So I kind of got the foam off it
But, no, man, I think this space is definitely making some noise, man
And I'm excited to dive into this conversation
Where we're gonna be talking about, you know, kind of what the future holds for the space
And kind of what some of these founders up here have been doing
So I want to actually dive into the conversation right now
Starting with the first question
Seeing all of the previous gaming enough demons in the past few months
What insights can be drawn regarding the common success and shortcoming experiences of these games?
I want to pass it over to Leo to start us off here
Oh, that's a big one for starters
And honestly, I'm keen to hear from the games
Because, like, you know, from my perspective, you know, we're building infrastructure for the game
So I want to hear what the founders of games are struggling with
What their opinion is and all these things
Feel free to move it around the panel
We'll get to some of the games first
And I want to pass it over to James for this one
I know it's a bit of a long question, so I'll kind of run it back
But seeing all of the previous gaming enough demons in the last few months
What insights can be drawn regarding the common success and shortcomings experienced by these games?
Yeah, James, take it over
With GAS Hero, we launched the beginning of January with our NFTs
We've had a little bit over, I think, $156 million in trading volume in the last couple months
And we've definitely learned a lot in addition to what we learned on Steppin
I think one of the things that we wanted to achieve was to have this user base
That could grow from 5,000 to 10,000 to 100,000 to a million and beyond
Like we've done with Steppin
Steppin, we're over 5.4 million registered users
And we want to add another million
And I think one of the things that we learned very quickly is that our project was so hyped
We had individual 24-hour trading days that had more volume than every project on the Ethereum blockchain and polygon combined
And with that hype comes acknowledgement and people recognize your product
But at the same time, the value of the NFTs can escalate so high
Because the demand is so much greater than supply
That all of a sudden you reach this unsustainable level
And so what I think that we're thinking about going forward for our future games
And even as we continue to develop on GAS Hero to hit those millions of gamers
Is how do you hype the product where people learn about your game and they want to play it and they can log in and start for free
But at the same time, not over-hype the value of the NFTs to an unsustainable level
Where people are buying in at 5 grand each
And there's no way to maintain that and grow it
Because all the Web 3 gamers want a 5X, 10X, 30X
They don't want to spend tens of thousands of dollars to play a game
And then all of a sudden blink their eyes and the day later it's worth 50% less
So is there a way to maybe even flip the paradigm?
In some ways what we've done at FSL is kind of the opposite of most gaming projects
A lot of games will launch a 10,000 NFT collection
And then they'll try to figure out how to take the money they raised in that collection
To then go develop a game
That's a really hard way to do it
Especially if the core team aren't game developers
They're community builders
They're great at doing the whitelist and minting out the collection
But not at making the game
We allowed within the game itself
For the NFTs to be able to breed and multiply
And more weapons and more pets and more heroes could be created
But they weren't creating them fast enough
For the demand that we had for people coming in
Largely based on the trading volumes and everything else that was going on
So I'm almost wondering now if I were to redo it all over again
And how would it rewind back to January 3rd
What happens if we launch with millions of NFTs available?
So the NFTs have a lower price point
People aren't buying at the top with as much volatility
And that price going up and down
Would we actually be in a more successful place right now, right?
So if you've got three different models
You've got the 10,000 NFT collection for a game
You've got the, you know, less than 10,000
But they can grow up within the game
And deal with the hype spikes that we did
Or maybe have millions of NFTs available
We're almost leaning towards number three
But it really depends on each game and each project and each community
Because I think it's so different depending on what you're building
Yeah, no man, that was an amazing point
And I think you guys have some hands going up here, man
So I may actually pass it over to them and see what their dots are
But I want to pass it over to Coco
I think you had your hand up first on this one
James, you bring up some really interesting points
Because these are the sorts of things that I'm constantly thinking about
And you know, the idea that in an ideal world
We would have something that on boards more people
And is so much more inclusive
And yeah, it doesn't risk you having a really scarce NFT
That pumps to like five grand and people buy the top
And then you've got other issues
Because you mentioned doing a mint that was free
And I think while that's a great idea
We're still kind of responsible in a way
For the price that it gets to on the secondary market
And when I say responsible, of course you're not responsible for like the trading
That's like free market trading
But the way that you message things and create speculation
And drives the price up, right?
Because of the speculation and the hype that you're creating
But it's almost like a so contradictory thing
Because if you have something that is unlimited in supply
Half the excitement and hype and energy comes from the fact that these things are scarce
So giving it unlimited availability
I almost worry that and wondering why it hasn't yet been done
Is because the motivation to do is to get the eyes and the attention
And then the floor that rises is something that gets the project
To sort of a milestone that they need to do
To whatever the next stage of their phases
And I think that's also something that like is something that needs to
I guess if we're talking about failures and wins
But you really need to think about like the long term plan
And where the price will go and what the contingency is
And how do you manage speculation that it goes to your benefit
But doesn't go so far that it really can hurt your community
Yeah, no, that was an amazing point, Coco
I don't want to chime too much in here
But I want to pass it over to Jordan so that he can kind of continue the conversation forward
I think what both of them are saying are perfect examples of my point
Which is this is like this is incredibly new technology
Right, we're all here inventing all of this in real time together
And I think subconsciously whenever something like people kind of just like
You know, here's the things on my project I'm focused with
And then like, you know, oh, we'll use a wallet solution for this
And we'll use this for this, right?
And oh, we make an NFT collection watch at first because that's what you do
And I think that like the power here, the opportunity here
Is in really pushing that innovation forward on each specific element
Like what's amazing about a game versus a DeFi platform
There's an entire world around it and lore and mechanics and all this stuff
And there's so many ways that no one's even come up with yet
To really customize the way that you're integrating
All of these different typical Web 3 elements
Picking and choosing them but also like building them in
To be really, really coherent and unique
And I think that people it kind of it happens because like a GDC
There's like twice as many people selling services and infrastructure as a service to games
As there are people building games, right?
Because that's like a solid business model
But that kind of like I guess what I'm saying is like
We shouldn't be so quick to standardize around things
When we are so quickly innovating that is that I guess
Yeah, no, that was an amazing point
I think Missy, you're on your PC
So you might not be able to raise your hand up
Go ahead, take it over and then we'll go to Golden Tides after
So the initial question was
What are insights and things that we've seen over the last few months of the NFT gaming market, right?
Alright, so I've seen a few things
You know, I love the points that everyone else made
You know, Coco made some valid points with you know
A lot of people do by these NFTs because they have the
The hype of you know, the speculation that things are gonna go up
And a great example of that was Sarah
A lot of people haven't been talking about this myth
But Sarah is a Diablo 2 style game that released a mint about a month ago
And you know, I've actually been playing the game since November, December on and off
And they minted their NFTs about you know, like a couple weeks ago
And you know, they minted them at a very fair price
And the whole collection of 6,000 NFTs sold out
Sent out like almost a 1E4 or something like that last time I checked
And I think like it was very interesting because it wasn't a game that minted within our bubble, right?
It wasn't something that I heard the traditional like gaming NFT people talking about
They were they're actually backed by Shen Don Global
Which is one of the bigger, you know conglomerates out in China
So they had like their own network, their own market makers, their own setup
And it was very interesting to me because everybody's been talking about how
NFT gaming myths haven't been going well
But like we had this, obviously they're kind of like a unicorn example
But it was still really interesting to see them just go through with it, right?
And then we have, you know, what James mentioned earlier
Like creating ecosystems with millions of NFTs
Like Axi's done that actually because of their breeding system
And the way that the breeding system in Axi works is you can actually like breed
You know, the Axi's together to make a new Axi and combine different combinations and different abilities
And they did it in a way that was organic to the gameplay
So I think it's very possible to get to that point within your ecosystem
Like maybe not from launch
I think with the way that like Web3 game theory currently works
It's really hard to have millions on launch
But it's really easy to scale an NFT ecosystem to millions
If it's like within the core fundamental game loop
I don't think there's ever going to be or should there be a one size fits all solution
Like everyone really should come up with their own solutions for their game
Otherwise, everything would get very cookie cutter and boring
For example, like Serif, the reason that the PFPs and the things that they did work
Is because based on Diablo 2 style game theory and itemization
So it's very like the whole point of that game is to find rare items that are going to be valuable
So it wouldn't make sense for them to like dilute what they're doing by making it super accessible to everyone
Like that's the point of the game is supposed to be hard to find cool shit
But for example, someone like Axi
I think a big reason they've had the you know, the IP success they're starting to have
Because you know, a lot of people don't give them enough credit for having a popular IP in my opinion
It's because there's like millions of NFTs on the blockchain
Not to eventually become a fan because you see it so much
And that's completely, you know, tied into their game loop where it's like we're breeding pets all day
So of course we have millions of NFTs
So I love when I see that like the NFTs around the game should reflect the game loop
And to me like that's that's the alpha really like that's what tells me like how good a game developer is
Which tells me how I want to invest within that gaming ecosystem
Yeah, no, and I think touching up a little bit on the on the IP side of things
I think that's something very important that a lot of games kind of lack or like they really miss on
But I think that's something that we're gonna see projects take more serious in the coming months and years
But I want to pass it over to Golden Tyson that will go to JRP
Well, I'm gonna start out by saying that
Eventually games are gonna have to understand that it's not efficient for everything to be an NFT
I think when you have a million axes or whatever
It just doesn't really support what the real goals are for gamers
And I think that eventually like right now everyone just caters to the like trying to make profits
To get free marketing type of thing
And just like trying to cater to the Gen nature of web 3 is also an unsustainable perspective in this industry
And what we're doing at Golden Tides right now is like we're setting it up where the token that you collect while you play the game
Will be used to mint the things you collect in the game
And the minting portion is an optional thing
So you have to think if you want to make something an NFT
Then you have to spend your token
One this is a burn on the token for us
And then two that makes people decide what is actually worth taking on chain
Where you might have a skin that a million people have
And then it'd be like well there's no point in taking that on chain
Because it's like a Caterpie Pokemon cards worth nothing
But there might be a skin that's an ultra rare
And it's like the Charizard and that one actually has an innate value that you want to put on chain
So you can capitalize on it
Now focusing on not like diluting what the chain can do
Also is like productive for both the game and the chain
So what I'm seeing like right now is a lot of people are just trying to take advantage of the like the degen nature of web 3
Instead of focusing on like trying to create a product that the web 2 players would want to play
And our only focus with what we do at Golden Tides is to create a system that like will attract non web 3 gamers
Because right now if you had all the web 3 gamers in the space
You have less than 50,000 people playing your game
And that's not enough people to sustain any economy
So focusing on the web 2 gaming side
You need to create it in a way where one you don't need web 3
And it's an optional thing
And two that like everybody can participate in like the most appropriate way
I don't know if that like came off clear but
Essentially creating a system where you choose what you want to sell for actual capital
Versus staying in the game on the database and just collecting the token
So like you have two off like the value accrual actually goes into the assets of the game
In the same way that it works for CSGO and other things
And it's a business model that already exists
Versus like just trying to flood the market with things
And trying to collect like the royalties and whatever
It's just like it's focused on what's important and not like just everything on chain
Yeah no I mean I fully agree with that
But I want to let JRP take over here and see what his thoughts are on this as well
JRP my man go ahead and take over brother
Yo what's good yo hey Juan
Yeah really great conversation I think we should be talking about this a lot more
In terms of like what are some of the new mechanics that we're working on to bring people into the space
To get people excited to bring entertainment back into gaming
Jordan with Eureka you know I've been helping him out a lot lately
And being able to come out come out with features that allow us to bring in people
In a way that's sustainable but at the same time rewarding those early adopters is really interesting
And at the same time I think a lot more people are starting to use infrastructure companies
To actually go to market in a more effective way
An example of this just recently at GDC was able to learn about them
With Vader research doing a post TGE economics engine
That allows people to see where to best either airdrop tokens to
Or actually just kind of push their ecosystem their tokenomics in the future
So there's things like all over the space really right now popping up
Which is really really interesting and is going to continue to pop up
I think it's going to be data driven and then for those building games out there realizing
What are the things that we can do to incentivize gamers to join
And ultimately keep them in the long run
Which is exactly what the conversation is around right now
I think there has to be some sort of incentive to kind of get people to kind of stick around for the long term
And I think that can't be done through tokens
That can't be done through a couple of different things
But those are some amazing points
And I think this is a good way to kind of go into the next question that I had here
And it's just something that I've been actually very curious about
I know we have some people out here that have been building projects and teams for quite a while now
And I'm curious to hear you guys' perspective on what comes after a big activation
We've seen a lot of project founders like, hey, we just want some mint
Project founders need to take a break
Or like project founder passed out
Those are the big announcements after a sellout or like after an IDO
Like what should come after one of these big activations that happens
Like selling out the NFT or maybe doing an IDO
Like is there a second step that founders should kind of be following through
Or is it just kind of depending on the project
Dio, go ahead man, I want you to take this one over
Sure, I mean, I don't have a precise golden one-size-fits-all answer
I think it really depends
And I think it really depends on the one thing that James said at the very, very beginning of this space
How you initially set up the game and the reward system for the people
You can go about having a more exclusive collection that's going to increase potentially in value
But then you always have this potentially issue of people getting involved for a monetary reward
So if you started with that, then probably the roadmap and the next announcements have to look different
Then if you were to start with, I think James called it in his explanation, option free
Where you have, let's say, 100 or 200,000 NFTs
But with a lot less value that kind of get you in-game usage
Or can be combined or something like this
This, in my personal opinion, is something that would be a little bit more sustainable
But also something that's only doable for companies that maybe have funding before they launch
This is something that we haven't really touched base upon at all
I think how you can structure post-min, post-release, post-big event
Really also depends on what your kind of financial capacities are
Did you already raise beforehand and did you have longer roadmap
Or is the next steps kind of depending on the initial mint
Because that then limits your ability to act on top of what happened
Now I know this is a very generic answer
But that's just kind of like my thoughts on this from someone that sees all the games
But we're not developing one ourselves
So it's always easy for us to say and judge
Yeah, no, and I feel like that's why we have some of these people up here
That have been very hands-on with some of these projects
Some of them have worked with multiple projects
We have Coco and James up here
So I'm very curious to hear the thoughts
Because obviously we see a lot of games that usually when they come out
And it's like, hey, we minted out and we're going to take a vacation for now
But I think that there should be something that kind of comes after
But I want to pass it over to Coco
I think you had your hand raised first
Yeah, I mean, I will caveat what I'm going to say with like
This is from a very specific experience
And I think, you know, back to what Stahl said
It's very much like what was the purpose of your, say, mint, for example
And then you need to follow through on the whole purpose
Because the mint process is just the first part
And then the actual roadmap really begins, right?
But one thing I think is super important
That might not necessarily be as widely appreciated
Is that, you know, in the process of doing a mint
In which you hopefully are successfully hyping
And getting a lot of eyes and attention on your project
It can quite quickly change the makeup of the community
That you have inside of your community spaces
And I think one thing that can be really, really valuable
Is once you've had the mint
It may look like maybe to the outside
That you've suddenly dropped off
And maybe there's something to be said about
Maintaining a level of outward energy
But there is something to be said as well
About actually sitting inside of your community spaces
And really getting to know the new people
Because what's the point of doing the whole thing
If you get a bunch of people joining the community
And then they just bounce as soon as the mint has happened
You always get a lot of dropouts, of course
But you want to be able to use this time
To really embed those new members
And bring them into the community
And that comes from sitting there and really listening
And understanding the new faces and new voices in the space
Because then you'll start to really understand
Okay, who are these new people?
What drove them here? Why are they here?
What are they excited about?
And just knowing that will make such a huge difference
In the next steps that you make
And making sure you don't walk into any other issues
Of expectation management
And any other disappointing things
That can potentially occur after a mint
Yeah, I think there has to be a way, right?
Because a lot of community members sometimes get
They get let down because projects don't know what the next steps might be
So I feel like there should be something that projects must follow
And I think it's just sticking to that roadmap
And then actually sticking to the plans that they made beforehand
Before actually thinking about launching the NFT
But I guess it can be hard sometimes
But I want to pass it over to James
And then I want to welcome Scott into the conversation
I might have a bit of a jaded opinion here
Just because I've been in this space for so long
And I've quote unquote invested in so many of these projects
Where the founders literally take a vacation
Right when their token launches
Or right when the NFT collection launches
And that's such a massive red flag that I've learned over time
Where their entire team is built around the initial mint
Around the initial whatever it is
And all that utility stuff they were telling you about was bullshit
And they don't actually have a plan
And the team was built to sell out
And somewhere down the road
Maybe they'll be able to build an actual product
To me those aren't the products that I want to spend my time with
Your initial mint is just the very first baby step
And bringing that community on board
To actually start playing your game
If you were to put it in terms of
It doesn't even have to be game
I mean imagine if you invented the PlayStation
And the day that people started buying that phone on day one
Or that console on day one
All of a sudden you disappeared for months
And you don't give any service
To put the games on there
And to be able to buy and sell and trade
I mean that's a massive red flag
That this team isn't built for long term
This is the kind of product
Could pump up in value over the next couple weeks
But you're putting it at high risk
I want to participate in the kind of projects
And invest in the kind of teams
That they see that as the very first baby step
And they're actually working harder the day after the mint
And even harder the day after that
Because they're building the community
They're releasing things about whatever it is
Because that's just where the work begins
I mean I fully agree with you there
And I feel like project founders
I think the reason why a lot of projects fill in this space
Is because they don't know what it really takes
To become a project founder
And I think being like a founder in this space
Not only in this space but like overall
This is like probably one of the hardest jobs
Because there's so many things to take care of
And I feel like there should be a way that
You know like somebody to kind of lead the way
And you know I think Luca Netz has done a great job at that
Is you know kind of showing the way for what founders should be doing
But I see you got your hand up Jordan
I want to go to Scott real quick to kind of give him an introduction
And then we'll go over to you
Scott my man how are you man
I know you were a little late so no worries
But thank you for coming through man
If you don't mind tell us a little bit about what you've been up to
And then we can get you into the conversation brother
Hey what's up boys and Coco
I heard Coco speak I know she's not a boy
My name is Scott Herman I'm one of the co-founders at Wagney Games
We're a mobile defense tower defense strategy game
We've been building for about two and a half years
We're actually ramping things up right now
Leading into our global launch
I see some of my boys in the speaker panel as well
Nice to be on a speaker panel with you
And lots more down below listening as well
Really great conversation you guys are having here
About what it takes to be a founder in web 3 gaming
Sorry I was late I had a previous meeting that I had to do before I got in here
But you know you guys are talking a lot of truths
And I think one of the hardest things about being a founder in web 3 specifically is
Web 3 is literally the land of FOMO
And everybody wants to be a part of the FOMO
Everybody wants to have that excitement
And everybody wants to get their communities riled up
And if there's excitement happening over there
And you're stuck over here
You kind of want to go over to where all the excitement is
And often times what that can do is lead to founders
Maybe announcing things too early
Releasing things too early
And starting to build a little traction and momentum too early
Before the main product is done
For example at WagMe Games
We really didn't announce anything for like a year
Maybe a year and a half of straight building
I mean we had small announcements here and there
But we weren't really hyping anything
Because we knew that if we hyped anything in that moment
Because there was nothing to continuously move the roadmap forward at that point
That's why you guys see all these huge hypes for mints
And a free mint is coming
Ronan just did one with Kyjro
As soon as that mint was over
I didn't see anything posted about Kyjro for the last week and a half
Because sure a free mint was great
But their game isn't ready
There's no additional content that creators can make around that mint
So you have to have a strategy and a plan in mind
You have to always focus on building your solid foundation first
Once that foundation is solid
You need to plan out your next three or four announcements
Before you make that first one
So that you have a goal in mind to keep people excited
Man that was right on point brother
And I feel like this is something that I see a lot with project founders
That we're usually taking on
So when we're prepping a strategy for a good market strategy
The idea is to not go all out in the first week or two
Because then you don't have anything to announce
Just kind of get stuck into that cycle
It's like okay I have all this hype
Because I don't have anything else to announce
And I feel like it's just
You have to be able to set yourself up for success in the long term
And not focus on the hype at the moment
And I think that's something that
A lot of project founders really need to double down on
I want to pick up traction here
We're going to have a time where it's going to be a little bit more steady
And we're not going to have much traction coming in
But I want to have another big announcement coming in about a week or two
So that we get more traction and more people coming in
And I think that's the right way to do it
But I want to pass it over to Jordan
And I think Missy's trying to talk here
So we'll go over to him after
So I'll just keep talking and we'll never even get to Missy
So I couldn't agree more with what Scott was saying
I think we could take it a step even farther
And saying it shouldn't be at all
The first step on a project's road map
That's kind of what we're saying
And a project that does it
They do it because they basically started with the reach
Or maybe they had something that got hyped early
They were really good at this
And so they have the ability to make a bunch of money selling something
But like everyone is saying
If you sell a ton of NFCs to your community
And it's going to be a long time before anything else happens
None of those people are going to be happy about it
You're taking your core group of people who are hyped about your project
And you're kind of telling them like, screw you
And any project that's willing to do that
To their core early hyped group of audience members
That's like a huge red flag in my book
We've been moving very slowly and methodically
On our plans to actually sell something
There's going to be incredible game play out
Long before we actually sell something
We're going to be doing super cheap sales of things
Just for people who want to get in on something early
And there isn't even a supply cap
Because it's not an NFT collection like that
There's just so many things that a project can do first
And I'm being incredibly careful about that
Because the number one group of people
That I want to make sure stays happy
Are the people who are excited enough
To spend money on what I'm building first
And there's also in talking about
Innovating with these mechanics
There are ways to, yes, sell a NFT collection
But have there be gamified elements
Structurally within that NFT collection
To let it be something that people can do something with
Instead of just sitting there with it
And waiting for the project to do something else
We're not going to move away from it
Some project with 100k Twitter followers
A single animated vibe trailer
And a paid mint you see getting hyped everywhere
If they knew what they were building
And they had the plan to build it
That's not the order they'd be doing things in
Because you would never risk
Making all those people who are excited about your game
To start off your whole roadmap
That's not what you would do
That was right on point, man
I want to go over to Missy, man
I want to see what his takes on
I think you were trying to talk
And then we'll pass it over to Golden Tides
Nah, I don't believe in Dev go to sleep
I asked for a bunch of people's money
Essentially when you launch something like this
I recently announced the IP partnership with
where I'm going to be an ambassador for their game
And the reason I work with them is because
Scott got into the room with me
This dude laid out the next year
And I'm sure many of the other founders
I talk to Maeso at Golden Tides all the time
I talk to Jordan from Eureka
These guys aren't my friends
These guys aren't my homies
These are people that I build with
Because we have the same type of ideology
That's putting a crying emoji
Because I didn't shout him out
He's been there from the start with me
I don't really believe in this whole mantra of
Yeah, I fucking minted out
And now I'm going to sit here
And just sit in a jacuzzi and chill
Imagine if someone went to your store
And you're like, thank you for your money
I'm not going to bring it out from the back
Because I'm going to go rest now that I got paid
It's a really weird thing
If you're truly running a startup
You have to think about it from a perspective of
I know exactly what I'm going to be doing with this money on day one
Because I've been planning this roadmap
And all the things that I've been doing for the last six to nine months to a year
And now it's time for me to go
That's when Steam needs to pick up
That's when you need to start executing on shit
As soon as I hear our devs talking about
Or any kind of founder talking about like
Oh, now that this has happened I'm going to rest
And I think no offense to anyone
But I kind of think you're a loser
Because you clearly don't know what the fuck you're doing
Just like if you don't answer your fucking DMs
But it's something that you should have a plan in place
If you're taking a rest, you don't know what you're doing next
Yo, there's also so many jobs that you could do
If you want to make a bunch of money and go on a fucking vacation
You don't have to be the founder of a Web3 game
Well, we should talk about intentions here
Because people do it with good intentions
And people do it with bad intentions
So you think they're taking a vacation
But really, they never intended to build anything
And that's the bad intentions route
And then the other one is people like totally underestimate
What it takes to make a game
And if you hadn't like had any experience prior to your Web3 journey
You are going to have not raised enough money
The reason why Golden Sides raised
Like we raised around 5 million in 2021
Like we got all of our money up front
Because it probably still wasn't enough
In reality, to make a game is so hard and expensive
To make an elaborate and quality game
If you mint out, you make all this money
And you think, alright, we got a million bucks
We're going to make this sick game that we promised everybody
But I'm guessing like most people who did these projects
Somebody said they're community-focused people
And they're not game developers
And you're going to walk into this without the proper experience
And almost every single game goes over budget
And over the time that they initially thought
It's just like it is the nature of building a game
Where there's so much trial and error to get the code correct
Because you fix one thing and it breaks another thing
And it's this constant like cleaning up the issues
And it's not a perfect process ever
That one game ever has had like a no bug situation
It just is part of what you're doing
So I think like when you think about it
People might have good intentions
But they don't know like what they're doing
Especially I think you should be like
Nobody should be getting into a project
That doesn't have gameplay footage
Or something available for us to consume
To know that there's like an actual team behind it
There's like so many people who just like
They're just dropping they're like
And it's this shitty 2D art
And it's like okay like show me your 3D models
Show me your animation team
Like who's gonna look like you got some guy off of Fiverr
Like it's just like there's so many layers
Like our studio has 70 employees
Like it is not like a couple guys can toss something together
Situation like to make like a quality game
And I actually view it like if
Blockchain is about something where it's like
It's supposed to be on there forever
Which therefore means that the game needs to have
The ecosystem that lasts forever
And it is so rare for any game to be
Like something that is a forever game
Now people will like take popular assets
And move them from game to game to game
And that's one of the perspectives that web 3 brings
Like when a game died in web 2
It was just move on to the next game
But I think like games like Fortnite
And Overwatch the ones that are
You know I wish Blizzard was better
But I'm just using as an example of a game
That's constantly being played
Like those assets will tend to have more value
Because like people keep coming back over and over again
They let you roll over your assets
From each version of the game
That would be awesome right
And then the value of your asset
Every year a new Call of Duty comes out
You can bring your old asset over
And every year you're like
Oh this is from Call of Duty 1
And I mean now we're in Call of Duty 5
That Call of Duty 1 asset actually increases in value
Because you can bring it over
Like that is like what the future of web 3 should be
When a title has longevity
Then the asset will actually be valuable
If you're popular for a day and then gone
Like it's just like you know
We don't want to put out assets that increase in value
Because the truth of web 3 is that
Every time somebody is making like $100,000 profit
That means there's a bunch of other people who lost that money
And the idea is not to create value loss for anybody
Like in order for web 3 to be sustainable
You can't have people who feel bad
And then some other dudes walking away with it
And it's like that's where we live right now
And that these hype cycles and speculative markets
Are not like actually what we should be trying to build
And we need to be building like things that are
Have value because people want to be there
Not because they want to make money
Yeah I mean I think that was right on point
And I think right now the space is very driven on monetary gains
I don't think it's you know the gaming space is a whole
I don't think in web 3 is driven much on actually having fun and playing games
I think it's just like hey how much money can I make out of this game
Or like how much money can I make out of this mint
And I think that needs to change for the space to really become successful
And I guess kind of reach to a broader audience right
That's what I mentioned earlier right
Whereas like we need to focus on bringing in regular gamers right
Because if you don't have like an ecosystem that people want to be immersed in
And like the only true game that is like ever
There's two games that really pulled it off like beyond anybody else
And it's World of Warcraft and RuneScape
And RuneScape is probably the number one like economy based game
Like it's not it wasn't about the art whatever it was
It was just about like some things were worth more than other things
And some things they were always exclusive
And somehow RuneScape like did it all like
It was just one of the most impressive economies to be pulled off
With the way they were able to do it
I like the story lines for the early quests in RuneScape
Yeah I mean but that's what like that's what drew you in right
It's what immersed you into the world of RuneScape
Made you want to stay there and build there
And when you're building there you need the stuff to build right
You need the lobsters the snow Santa hats and all those things
Because it made you feel good in the world that you love
So if you're not immersed into the IP that you're playing
Then the stuff doesn't have a long term value
Wow player supremacy but yeah RuneScape is like the wow reject club
Yeah but wow also like catered to just giving people whatever they wanted
And like monetizing them and like and not necessarily limiting items
Where RuneScape dropped stuff and was like this is it no more
You know like it was never like you could always get a hand of rag if you got lucky right
But in RuneScape they had like the Santa hat it was a one time offer right
And I think that's where the economy actually was built off of
Was these exclusive items where World of Warcraft had great rare stuff
But everything's inflationary in World of Warcraft
Well it's also because I mean RuneScape's like the perfect example
My game is very inspired by it in some ways
And it's that RuneScape so they didn't just give these like one on one items right
It was an entire world of limited resources right
But RuneScape is a perfect like example of like what kind of games need an NFT collection
And what kind of games will those NFT collections thrive?
Games that demand an economy right
Not a game where one is inserted
A game where if you didn't have one the players would build one
Which is what they did with RuneScape right
Those are the games that are going to have incredibly sustainable economies
And NFT collections and floor values or whatever the hell you want to talk about
Like that's what people should be looking for
And games that reward good players as well right
You know I wouldn't have been able to buy my mom's presents if I wasn't carrying people through arenas
Yeah that's what you got to do man you got to do what you got to do busy
But no I mean I think it's been a great conversation so far
I actually want to switch it up a little bit right here
Before we wrap it up I think we have about five minutes here
But I want to actually pass it around one last time
And if we could keep it kind of short I think that would be perfect
Because this is just kind of like a simple question
But how do you personally feel about being a founder in this space
In a new and emerging industry right
I know a lot of people up here
Majority of you guys are founders of some sort
But I want to start off with JRP
I want to hear your thoughts
How do you feel about being a founder in such a new industry?
I like to think of myself as a BD founder
So that means that I'm able to create BD relationships
And then from different kind of communities or at least sections
Add to Legos on top of that
It's been really interesting to navigate as a founder
But in reality I think everybody who's in Web3 Gaming
Probably feels like a founder
Just because of everything that's going on
The communities you have to be a part of
The conversations you're having
And so everyone in reality seems like they're putting in the same amount of work
And roles don't, titles don't really matter at this point
In my opinion I think it's like everybody's pushing forward to
Really bring what they're gaming to the forefront
And at this point we just need to execute
And those few founders that get to build out
The next hit is what's going to get us there
Jordan I'm looking at you
Yeah no and I think that's right I want to pass it over to Leo
How do you feel about being a founder in this Web3 ecosystem
That's super early and it's kind of like a new emerging industry
For me personally the one thing that's super exciting
But also the one thing that's very difficult to navigate
Is the volatility and the uncertainty
And the well uncertainty you have in every startup
But the boundness to the crypto and blockchain market as a whole
And I mean I understand that if you want to do sustainable web
Pre-games and sustainable products in this market
You should build regardless of the cycle
Everyone knows that and we can all agree on that
Yet I think we can all agree as well on the fact that
If you do certain things among the cycles
It helps you get the eyeballs needed to build a sustainable business
And this is something that's very much difficult
Or more difficult to navigate than other companies
That I've personally built in the past in Web2
Where if you have a market that's been established for 10-15 years
And you're just building a new tech product on top of it
It's a lot more foreseeable what's going to happen
And you don't have that here
Which also makes it very exciting but certainly difficult
Man I think this is very exciting
But at the same time just like you said
It's a very difficult space to kind of be a part of
And kind of grow into but
I want to pass it around before we wrap it up
Scott how do you feel about being a founder in this space man?
Thanks guys I really enjoy it
What I enjoy most about being a founder in this space
Is that I've been able to really leverage my experience
Both as a creator and a business owner
For the last 13 years to make a lot of really good connections
And really expand my network of friends in this space
I've always wanted to do something big in gaming
And having original IP and lore
And a game that's fun to play
All I do every single day is just reach out to people through DMs
And just chat and get to know people
That's why I've gotten to know so many people here
So for me being a founder in Web3
It's an opportunity to see significant growth
Both monetarily but also within my own network and circle
And people that I want to interact with
I just love meeting new people
And hearing their stories and doing cool stuff together
And that's what this space is for
Look how much cool stuff we've created in the last few years
Look how many connections you've made
How many new friends that you've made
Everyone is just really wanting to help elevate each other
So that's what I'm most excited about
Yeah man I feel like as a founder myself
Half of my day it just goes through
Meeting new people, connecting with new people
And I think that's the reality of being a founder in this space
And it really comes down to who you know
So you've got to double down on what's working
But Golden Test, I want to go over to you guys
How do you feel about being a founder and kind of building in this space
That is so early and it's uncertain
I'm going to echo Scott on the most unique element to the Web3 founder
Is the how connected I am with the consumers right now
We've become friends, we chat every once in a while
And it's really interesting because normally
In the development process
You don't get to interact with your customers
Because you have to complete the product ahead of time
Where we're still in our pre-alpha phase
But the people who are very excited for Golden Tides
I actually have the list of all the people
I know exactly who holds our collection and stuff
And I feel directly connected because the technology
The people who are actually building through the bear
It's very clear who wants to see this world succeed
And so on the founder side
Getting to connect with their customers, friends, allies
It's this whole new level of team to consumer connection
That I haven't experienced in my other lines of work
And in terms of just being a founder
My best advice to anybody is
Disignore anyone who gives a fuck about your floor price
Because if you guys know me
Like I'm making the best fucking game ever
Like I only have one goal
I'm going to make the most fun experience
And then I'm going to expand on it
Like you got to build the game loop
And then build out the economy from there
You know, economy right away
If you bought this for profits
Then you're not here for games
And I only cater to gamers
I only make the best game
Because I'm not here to onboard web 3 users
I'm here to onboard web 2 users into web 3
Because I see the importance of web 3 in gaming
As a value retention tool
If I could just get the money back
On the Fortnite skins I've purchased
I would have extra like thousand bucks
And that's just retention
And then some people will make money
For collecting the rare things
But I think just from the founder perspective
You need to close out the noise
Of anybody who cares more about their pockets
And shut them down real quickly
My experience as a web 3 founder
Is I love it because I really do love
The connection with the people
And I know right off the bat
Who cares and who doesn't
And the technology just provides
So much intel and data for this stuff
You have to kind of just be able
To cancel out that noise like you said
And just like focus on what you're building
Because at the end of the day
Your goal is to build a unique experience
And like a fun experience
That people can kind of come into
But I want to pass it over to Jordan
Then we'll go to a couple more people
And then we'll wrap it up here
How do you feel about this man?
How do you feel about being a founder in this space?
I mean I think it's incredible
Personally to quote a smart character
From a book and television series
I won't even name because it was
The ultimate rug in history of media
This is such an amazing time
We're literally all inventing
I don't think there's been an opportunity
An industry with opportunity like this
With the beginning of the internet
This is a moment where anybody
And the ability to get it built
Or can inspire that everyone else will end up using
Or inspire people to do something else new
We're writing definitions here
It's so much more powerful
Than a time where there's an established industry
And there's major players
And this is the way that things are done
And then if you're trying to disrupt that
We're all in a pot of boiling soup right now
We're all just bouncing around in it together
There aren't hurdles to overcome
And to have everyone tell you
No, that's not how they're doing it
And then you have to have that story
Like, well I overcame that hurdle
And proved them all wrong
There's no one to prove wrong right now
We're all figuring it out
I think we're all cut on the same boat
We're all trying to figure out
Trying to pave our own way
And I think over the next couple of years
We're going to see some of these founders
Kind of have to have the road kind of set up
For some of the founders that are coming
But I want to go over to Missy man
I know you're building some amazing stuff brother
How does it feel to be in this space so early?
Bro, I feel honored and privileged honestly
I love every single day that I spend in this industry
I have the coolest job in the world
No offense to the game devs, I love you guys
But I get to play all the games
I get to lobby up with the homies in our guild
Then I can go host a really cool tournament at Paladin
Create some epic content with Catalyst
Do the art, all the stuff that we do
I can do a 1v1 and consider that work
There is a lot of stress that occasionally comes together
With Paladins, we do have mints and NFTs
And things that we've taken care of
I do occasionally take on clients for promotion and marketing
We have KPIs, we have to meet and things like that
And there is some pressure there
But I don't know man, I just love everything I do
I don't ever feel down on my luck about it or anything
And I'm very carefree about the experience that I get to have
I'm always very careful when we take on clients and we do certain things
But ultimately it's been an incredible experience
Meeting all these people, working with them, playing the games
I think often, if I were to talk to the younger version of myself
And tell him that I was doing this shit today
He'd think I'm pretty badass
So for me, that's really the margin of how happy am I
And I really enjoy every second of it
I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world
Brother, that's what you gotta do man
As long as you're enjoying it, as long as you're having fun
I think that's the importance of being in the space
I feel like everybody in here enjoys what they're doing
I think to me that's one of the most important things
Everybody enjoys what they're doing
Everybody's having fun while they do it
And it's a great space man, it's a great environment
But Coco, go ahead and take this over
How do you feel about being in this space so early?
I mean, I think I've got to echo everybody's sentiments
I think that the one thing I absolutely love about this space is
When you're a founder, there's no playbook in this space that's kind of set
So you can just really, it's down to your imagination
And if you like to work with your imagination and come up with new ideas
Be inspired by the community
I think, I can't remember who said it, but
Being able to build a product, and yes it's hard
It's definitely no doubt extremely difficult
And it's full of challenges working directly in the open with the community there
But then there's so much to gain from that as well
And it's a really kind of exciting experience
Especially I have worked in Web2 before
And there's just nothing quite like it
It's exhilarating and it's one of those things where you just get up
And you're like so happy that you're in this space
Man, that's exactly how I feel Coco, to be honest with you
But before we wrap it up, I want to pass it over to my man James
James, my brother, I want you to close this off here, man
You've been in this space for quite a while, you work with some big companies in this space, man
How do you feel on your end about being in this industry so early
And in an industry that's so uncertain, how do you feel about it, man?
I love it, I absolutely love it
I bounced around throughout my career, I did Big Pharma working for Pfizer for a while
I streamed as a Twitch partnered broadcaster
I was in e-commerce in the early days
Being in Web3 gives me that vibe of you're early
And something that's just so special
I feel like every night I've got a million different new ideas running to my brain
Every morning I wake up just hitting the ground running
Like before I even make my first cup of coffee, I'm already doing a dozen different things
I'm in Discord servers and Telegram chats and in Slack and talking to partners
Every day is literally something different if you allow it to be
There's this startup mentality where you've got these emerging products
You're interacting in these emerging markets
You've got small teams that you get to work with
Where everybody gets to wear multiple hats and gets to move around
And find what they do best within the company
You're constantly breaking new ground
We just launched with FSL, a brand new product today
It's almost like taking three different products and merging them together in one
And launching it in a way that I think it's going to break completely new ground
In the Web3 world in a way that we're going to be able to reach out to other products
And they're going to want to be a part of what we're doing because of this new thing
If you want to learn a little bit about it, that's at FSL Web3
To give you an insight to what we're building
I have this buzz and this desire to...
It doesn't feel like work
I don't know how else to say it
It doesn't feel like work
I'm just having a fucking blast doing it every day
Alright brother, that's how it should be, man
And I feel like for me, the first thing when I wake up, there's so many things going on
And everything's different every day
And it's just a fun time and I really enjoy it
But man, I think it's been an awesome space
I appreciate everybody coming through
I want to pass it over to Leo if you have any final words, any final thoughts
Tell everybody a little bit about what you guys are doing at Salomon
And then I think we can wrap it up here
Yeah, well thanks everyone for joining our space
I don't want to take a lot of minutes, we're already over time
I want to show something super hard
But because there's a lot of founders here
And not only in the panel, maybe also listening
If you're keen on 3D infrastructure
What we do at StipeProCall is we make assets interoperable across the world
So your IP in other environments, outside NFTs, blue chip or other IP
Usable in your environment
Yeah, not here to pump any bags
It's fundamental 3D infrastructure that potentially could be helpful for your game
I'm not delusional, I actually think not every game would utilize tech like this
Because if you have a certain storyline, you want to stay in this aesthetic
But if you have like Rambo, I don't know, multiplayer
All that kind of stuff where in-game aesthetics
I'm happy to talk, we're very approachable
DMR, so DMR personal profile
Leo should be in here somewhere with the listeners
Yeah, and again, thank you all for coming
Thank you for sharing your insights
And let's build this together here
Yeah man, I'm excited for it
Thank you guys for coming through, I really appreciate it
We'll be back next Thursday
I think 12pm ESTs around the same time
And I'm excited to get into this conversation
We've got some amazing people coming through
So it's gonna be a banger
I hope to see you guys there
And I think we'll wrap it up there
I hope everybody has a good day
And just keep building man, keep killing it