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Today the Game AMA | Ancient Seeds
Recorded: April 5, 2024 Duration: 0:57:57Space Recording
Full Transcription
Thank you so much for bearing with us, guys. We're going to get started in just a minute.
Michael O'Connor, I think, might be having a little bit of trouble getting the speaker invitation.
Twitter never ceases to amaze us in all the wrong ways, but we're going to stick here with us.
And if people drop great questions throughout the show, you might be able to entice me into giving out one or two of the merch mystery boxes that we have from GDC.
I also have been told from the Stardust and Stardust and I can give out some of their Web3 gaming is going to be big quadruple XL hoodies that have been highly, highly coveted.
I had 10 or 20 people ask me at GDC if I could get them one of those and I couldn't, but apparently now I can retroactively, which is awesome.
So if you want to win one of those, drop a great question and tell me you want one of those hoodies, maybe tag Shrapnel or Stardust and make sure that the question is something.
Hopefully people haven't heard a million times because I know that today the game has been doing the rounds on the spaces, but I'm excited to jump into it.
I'm going to kick you guys off in case you don't know too much about today the game.
Today the game was conceived by the visionary minds of Oscar winning storytellers and leading luminaries from the gaming universe.
It offers you an island so customizable that it's like painting with the palette of the gods themselves.
You're a creator, an architect of dreams and a weaver of worlds.
In this gaming odyssey, you're not just playing, you're embarking on a journey of discovery and relationship building with AI-powered residents.
In today the game, the island is but a reflection of your innermost dreams and desires.
Here, every pixel pulses with potential, every decision dances with destiny, and every moment mirrors the majesty of your imagination.
And who's leading today the game, you ask?
Well, emerging from the esteemed echelons of Nintendo, where he wrote our childhood dreams into the fabric of reality,
this trailblazer transformed play into universal poetry, crafting experiences that cradled our hearts and captivated our minds,
making fantastical, familiar, and virtual visceral.
But as the digital Don beckons, he now stands at the forefront of the future,
fusing the fantastical finesse of gaming's golden era with the uncharted universe of Web3 technology.
This man isn't just making a game, he's engineering an epic, a betting intelligence, so intuitive, so ingenious,
it blurs the boundary between the born and the built.
He's a pioneer perched at the pinnacle of progress, the architect of artificial wonder, the Nintendo nostalgist,
it's the revolutionary reimaginer of reality, it's Michael O'Connor.
Wow, thank you so much, man.
That was a very unique one there, and it was very detailed and very, very solid.
Yeah.
Up there with your best for me, I'd say.
Let's go.
All right, starting off on the right foot.
Good to see you again, Michael.
If anybody doesn't know, too, I'm just going to acknowledge my bias a little bit.
I'm, of course, Sam Stefanina.
Michael is one of my absolute favorites, and I've been a huge fan of Today the Game for over a year,
so I just want to acknowledge that maybe I'm a little bit on the biased side.
But with that being said, I wanted to jump right into the deep end again,
hopefully touching on things that we haven't heard a lot of times from you.
We spoke last year in an AMA about Today the Game,
and I'm curious if you could point out a few of the biggest things that have changed
when it comes to development of the game over the past year.
Oh, that's a juicy opener.
What has changed over the last year?
Whoa, so much.
I suppose one of the things that we have worked to do first was to validate the core game loop
to make sure that we actually had a game that was fun and we weren't all just wasting our time.
So that took some time to really get to the point where we're like,
okay, hold on, actually this game, this way can be a lot of fun.
That's easier said than done.
And then we validated that with testing.
So like we took it to the community.
We took it to people who weren't part of our communities.
We did all sorts of different QA.
And the QA basically gave us the results that we felt that we were going to get,
which was people will stay engaged inside of today for a long time.
And that we were able to kind of back up what we felt about our game
by getting statistical evidence.
I think that was a pretty massive step forward for us.
You know, I think it's a massive step forward for any game developer,
to be honest with you, to be able to actually really look at those
and see the data and go, thank God what we're doing is working, you know.
And by the way, it didn't just happen.
We kind of had to iterate a few times and it didn't go so well.
It didn't go so well.
And then it did, you know.
So that's the nature of game development, that level of iteration.
So I think that's probably a big milestone for us.
Another milestone I would say is, you know, we knew that we needed to –
we knew early, I would say,
that we needed to multiply the engineering resources in AI.
So we recruited heavily and brought on a lot of engineers,
a lot of data scientists, a lot of PhDs who were particularly skilled
in the things that we wanted to do.
And what that main thing was, was how can we create resonance or AI NPCs
whereby you can really garner profound emotional connections?
And that's a huge part of what we've been doing.
And there's been significant successes in that,
some of which will be revealed inside of the next kind of builds
that we show the community.
So I think that that's kind of been a huge for us.
And then I would probably say another relevant –
another relevant bit is like news that was just going to come out today,
which is that we were able to close a venture capital round,
whereby we were able to inject $5 million into the company,
thereby provide the treasury so we can accelerate development,
we can accelerate how fast we can bring product to market,
we can accelerate how fast we can recruit.
So these are some particularly big milestones.
And then – okay, then the last one –
I could probably go on forever on this one, Sam, to be honest with you.
The last one I would say is just the reemergence of what happened
when the market reemerged inside of crypto
and being able to grow the community again.
You know, we had really fast growth about a year ago.
And then it was really about kind of making sure
that we could keep people engaged.
But it was really difficult to grow the community,
you know, further than about $130,000 where we were.
But I guess we've put in –
we were able to catch the wave of the market.
And inject the community with a new lease of life.
And that's been a really amazing milestone for us to –
I think, you know, two days ago to a broken 200,000 people
inside of the community is a big achievement,
especially for my head of growth, Donaldo,
who's worked tirelessly to reach those kind of KPIs.
Dude, it was so awesome getting to see and meet Donaldo
for the first time at GDC
and realize that you guys have the exact same energy
and way about you,
which I didn't think that Lightning in the Bottle
could be found twice at the same company.
But here we are.
Great to meet him.
My next question for you is, you know,
I remember talking to the guys at Starkware who –
well, specifically at Influence, shout out to Etherway,
and how they were building something that was truly so cutting edge
with coding languages that are still being developed
to the point that it was constantly changing.
There's no real guides or documentation even developed
for them to be able to follow along.
And I'm curious how much your own experience working with AI mirrors that.
Like, are you guys so on the cutting edge
that you just feel like every single day is a discovery process
and you're kind of building the bridge while you're also trying
to walk across it?
Yeah, I think so.
I think there is an aspect of that.
It's interesting that you use that analogy.
I recently was watching an interview with Peter Jackson
talking about Lord of the Rings and what it was like directing.
And he was like – he described that it was like you're just right
in front of a train and the train's moving
and you're just laying the tracks, you're laying the tracks
as the train is moving.
So sometimes there is an aspect of that when you're working
in so much R&D.
I think, you know, we're definitely working on, you know,
at the absolute frontier of what AI is doing in terms of NPCs.
You know, we've had to bring people on who have an R&D mindset.
I mean, when I say – like, I really focus in on the R there as well.
Like, we had to go into the realms of academia in order to be able
to find some of the skill sets, you know, the people who are actually
writing the white papers.
So by recruiting a number of PhD AI folks and then merging them
with more industry-sized engineers, we've been able to kind of get
the best results from our R&D and being able to get to the point
where the kind of goals that myself and my co-founder, Ben, set
are being engineered, you know.
Of course, I'm not in the trenches of the low-level development,
and those folks are.
Yeah, like, my vibe also – I'm like – you know, I say silly stuff.
Like, it's like, why can't they be more funny?
And they're like, oh, because we're trying to find you
in the large language model in order to develop more humor, you know.
So I kind of see it more from a product side, and that's always my vibe,
whereas the guys who are in there are in the absolute trenches
of engineering and, you know, constantly staying abreast
of new research papers that are coming out.
You know, we're in an extremely fast-moving industry.
Probably – it's funny.
It's like I sometimes think that crypto is the fastest-moving industry
to work in, potentially just – and with AI just behind it, you know.
And we have made the sadomasochistic choices of taking out, you know,
both of those verticals.
Yeah, man.
I love that you put that sadomasochistic decision-making on your part.
You mentioned earlier, you know, trying to find the fun,
but then there's also this giant engineering threshold
that you have to find a way to cross, right?
And I'm curious how you balance those things and to what degree you think
that you've found the fun with Today the Game.
Maybe if it's a scale of 1 to 10 or 100% as you have found all the fun,
you would say, I think we're at an 80% right now
and we know how to get the next 20 or something like that.
Yeah, I think that's probably about right, 80 and 20.
You know, the hardest thing is, you know, getting that first thing right
is the big battle that you've got to take as a game developer, I think,
you know, is the absolute core of this video game,
something that people want to play.
And I think that most people actually never get there inside of games.
So I was happy that we're going to be able to get there.
But now it gets into the real nitty-gritty,
and the nitty-gritty is where it gets really, really challenging.
You know, fighting to get it from 80 to 81 to 82, 83.
And then ultimately creating a structure for the game
whereby people can play in different ways.
You know, we're very UGC-driven as a game,
and we want people to be able to go in there
and find their own types of play patterns.
You know, so, of course, with influence from lots of other existing games,
but we're trying to create quite an open experience here.
So I'm quite certain that there'll be things happening inside of today
that we would have never predicted.
So I think, yeah, I think the 80-20 number probably stacks up reasonably well.
You know, because actually the core game loop
is genuinely just so hard to nail inside of video games.
And to get those type of engagement scores that we got from our closed testing,
you know, it gives me a lot of confidence, I would say, moving into it.
But, of course, it's like everything else.
You know, it's like, it's really challenging to make a good game,
you know, largely because trying to get that core game loop really fluid
or make sure all the other business stuff is happening around it.
So that's kind of, that's a big challenge.
But to make a fucking great game,
that's where you have to go in and start battling for each little tiny percent,
you know.
And I'm very, very lucky to have a co-founder in Ben Cleary
who is just an absolute fighter when it comes to those small percentages.
You know, and it's why he's been very talented
or it's why he's been very successful in film.
Most people just think, oh, you know, it's okay.
Let's move on.
It's a seven.
That's not Ben's approach.
He'll go in there and he'll take the nitty gritty
until he takes that seven to a ten, you know.
And that kind of attention to detail is very useful.
Yeah, that's a fantastic point.
I'm inclined to think about the developers that I really respect in the space.
And, of course, it's no secret that Paul Bettner is the top of the line
as far as I believe we have here.
And he always talks about, you know, finding the fun
and that Wildcard, I believe, now is in its seventh year of development,
which is hard to believe on the scale of a lot of Web3 games.
And he says so much of it is just tweaking and tweaking and tweaking,
trying to squeeze every ounce of enjoyment
that you possibly can out of these things.
So it's great to hear that you guys have that same sort of mindset.
I'm curious, in the few different play tests that I've seen you guys do,
was there any really surprising feedback?
And how did you guys end up adjusting based on that feedback?
Or was it all just amazing?
You were like, great, let's keep working in that direction.
How did you guys handle that?
No, it wasn't all great.
Definitely not.
You know, I think for people who know today or who follow us on socials,
know that we kind of have an extremely transparent approach to development.
We show Work in Progress Wednesdays.
You know, we're constantly showing people what we're doing.
That was strategically.
I don't digress too much here, but we did that strategically
because we have to compete against teams who have bigger marketing budgets
and, you know, more ways to engage in community and all that kind of stuff.
So the way that we could compete, especially when we, you know,
we're not, last year when we weren't flush with capital,
was we went with this hyper-transparent approach
about who we were, what we were building,
and the game development process, broadly speaking.
So in that, I think that people will have seen that sometimes we've done things
that haven't worked as much as we wanted them to.
And that's game development.
Like, that's how everyone deals with that.
But I guess normally it's behind a bit more closed doors,
whereas we were like, let's just get it out there and be honest.
Inside of that closed testing, that session, we had a feeling, for example,
that myself and Ben spoke, we were like, I think this creator tool
that we built, you know, we were using procedural generation,
and we were like, I think it might not be that cool.
And some of the team were kind of like, no, I think it's fun.
It just needs more work.
And we were like, no, I think it might be just, like, foundationally shit.
And we're just doing something that, like, sounded, like, really cool,
which is, like, use procedural generation in a new way.
Like, but actually it's just not fun.
And there was a lot of internal debate about that.
And then actually we put it out to the closed, into closed testing,
and ubiquitously, like, and unanimously,
that was the feature that people had the most difficulty with
and the one that was least meant to fun.
So it was really nice to kind of get that validation of our own concerns
that, like, we'd fucked up.
And we went back to the drawing table,
and we totally redeveloped our creator tool.
And now my gut is that we've nailed it.
And I wouldn't have been able to have the same level of confidence
in doing that without going to the community,
speaking to the people who know what we're doing,
and also listening to the people who don't as well.
And so, yeah, man, you know, we're not afraid to fail
when it comes to trying really unique features.
And sometimes they work, and sometimes they don't.
And being able to exercise speed in trashing the stuff that doesn't
is something that's very important.
Dude, you had me on the edge of my seat
because the procedural generation of buildings and structures
was one of the things that originally got me
the absolute most excited about your game.
And I thought for a second you were going to tell me
that you just trashed it and decided to lean fully into the NBC stuff,
which would have been devastating for me.
No, no.
Yeah, no, no, brother.
No, no, no.
Just to be clear.
So what you're going to be able to do inside is
you're still going to generate these beautiful structures using AI,
but then the way that you adjust the structures
will be a lot more fun.
So before, you used to kind of, for folks who played the prototype,
you used to kind of stretch things.
You'd kind of stretch these shapes.
Yeah.
And it was really hard to control.
And we've removed that type of interaction,
and we've created a more block-based interaction.
So it's component-driven.
You're taking things out and putting them back in.
And that basic vibe of how you interact,
it's a hundred times more fun, man.
That's awesome.
I remember playing the stretchy version of it
and having a tremendous amount of difficulty using it.
So I'm stoked to hear that you guys completely kind of redesigned
the way that you could do that.
That makes me even more excited to playtest it if I was not already.
We had a great question from Icy in the audience.
He says he wants one of those Stardust and Shrapnel hoodies.
But man, this is a deep cut.
He says, my question for Michael O'Connor is he knows that you're a passionate drummer.
So I'm curious how his love for music and drumming maybe has influenced the development
of Today the Game, and if there's any drumming Easter eggs in the game by chance.
That's a great question.
Thank you, Icy.
Oh, my God.
I met Icy in New York there yesterday or the day before.
By the way, Icy, if you're listening, did you?
We just had an earthquake here in New York 30 minutes ago or something,
or maybe about an hour ago, which was pretty insane.
And there was an aftershock just there as well about 30 minutes ago.
So pretty crazy, but it's not like, I don't think it's dangerous or anything like that,
but it's pretty nuts.
So I hope you're safe and okay wherever you are there, Icy.
Probably, hopefully, we'll be able to meet each other for a drink or something later on today.
The drumming, the listen music and sound is a big component of what we're doing.
My co-founder is actually a former sound engineer.
Before he went into film, he was a sound engineer and a musician.
And I was a drummer up until, like, that was my job, up until I was about 25,
where I was like, oh, God, I need to get a real job.
So, yeah, that was, yeah, like, I studied music as my undergrad.
And so music remains a very large part of my life.
And certainly for a lot of our team, we're all very passionate about sound and music.
So it's going to play a very important role for us inside of the game.
Folks might be familiar that we've had the opportunity to work with some pretty cool sound designers
over the course of the last probably, like, year.
So the folks who did the sound design on Dune, you know,
the amazing sci-fi films that are out now.
We've had the pleasure to collaborate with those folks in order to be able to build kind of sonic,
I suppose, like sonic wonders for the game.
Ultimately, it's a useful tool in immersion.
And because we're so passionate about it, we'll lean into it.
Amazing question from Icy.
We are going to hook you up with one of those quadruple XL Stardust Extratinal hoodies.
Thanks so much for the deep cut.
AK29 in the audience also says,
glad to hear that you're willing to scrap things that you initially thought were cool
and be objective about how they turned out.
I'm so stoked to see this at Michael O'Connor.
I want to speak to you about the multiplayer optionality.
We'll get into the NFTs and stuff just so everybody's on the right page towards the end of the AMA.
But can you speak to some of the multiplayer options that the game might have?
Like, will I be able to explore other people's islands?
Can I influence them at all?
Can I build on them?
Can I affect the weather?
Can I trade?
Any sort of integration that we might be able to look forward to?
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
So there's a soft multiplayer angle for us, at least initially, inside of today.
So you're going to be able to, what we call tourism,
everyone's going to be able to visit each other's islands.
You're going to be able to hang there.
You'll be able to play a collection of, like, mini games and stuff like that there.
But overall, it'll be quite soft.
You're not going to be, the core game loop isn't so multiplayer rich, right?
Now, it used to be a lot different, actually.
We were, core game for us before was all about doing this as a one-to-eight player experience.
But one of the reasons, honestly, was that we pulled it back to kind of protect the core game
was scope.
We're making something pretty massive.
And we're doing all sorts of complicated things.
And we were like, you know what?
Let's pick a few battles here for our version one.
So we're going to be able to get the kind of game that will be really compelling
and we're not going to have to sacrifice other areas.
So we're like, okay, so the core game loop is largely kind of one player.
But then you're going to be building these beautiful places.
Then you can invite your friends.
What we call kind of tourism, right?
People can go and experience each other's kind of beautiful creations.
They can host events.
And as I said, they can have kind of like, there'll be kind of mini games, table tennis,
pool, things like that, where you can kind of go and hang.
For folks who are familiar with VR chat, for example, there might be some equivocation there.
It's places where people can socialize and have some soft interactions.
So that's what we've got for now.
The additional thing is trade.
The trade is obviously extremely multiplayer.
Of course, what we're doing is we're creating a huge trade economy, a massive marketplace.
So there'll be tons and tons of different resources and cosmetics inside of the game.
And, of course, all of these assets are fully owned and controlled by the player.
They have different types of utility.
They have different types of aesthetic beauty, different types of rarity, of course.
And players will have the ability to be able to connect.
And, you know, I could go to your island, Sam, and I could be like, oh, my God,
you've got this particular resource on your island which you've been cultivating and crafting.
I would really love that because that would unlock something for me on my island.
So I'd like to make a bid for that particular resource.
Or, of course, like, wow, look at these amazing cosmetic options that you've got.
Why does your island look so much cooler than mine, Sam?
You know what?
I'd love to make a bid on one of the buildings that you created or, you know,
some other aspect of your island.
So it's going to be a very large trade economy in order for people to be able to trade
and ultimately create the kind of canvases that express their own unique tastes and preferences.
In order to be able to do that, you can go build all your own stuff.
You can buy stuff from the game or, of course, you can buy it from other players.
So that's kind of the core of the multiplayer for version one.
But for version two, we'll definitely move back towards bringing multiplayer foundationally
into some of the kind of more core game loop aspects as well.
So you'll be able to control the island together.
You'll be able to kind of have group conversations with NPCs and with what we call co-pioneers.
So people who have multiple stakeholders in one particular island.
That's really cool.
I'd love to hear that.
ICO Beast, one of my favorites in the comments, says, wait, today has multiplayer?
I guess I should have expected that, but I completely didn't even think about it.
And then NFT CAF said, had the pleasure of meeting Michael at NFT NYC.
If their team accomplishes even 10% of what they have planned,
and I'm confident they will accomplish all 100%,
today the game is going to be incredibly successful.
Very excited to see more post-Mint.
Mike, I wanted to ask you about your specific experience for a second.
I know, obviously, you come from Nintendo, which I always put in your intros.
You have some experience in VR.
Now you're taking on blockchain and AI, which we alluded to earlier,
being super ambitious on the cutting edge of two different technologies at the same time.
Is there any mental models or heuristics that you can take from your experience of being on the cutting edge previously
and sort of extrapolate to help guide other people trying to do the same thing in this industry?
Wow. Interesting question there.
I suppose, yeah, one of the things I'll reiterate is having the flexibility to fail.
When you're working on cutting edge stuff, if you're not willing to take risks
and apply resources into areas that you think might end up getting results,
then you're going to have a very tough time.
So we need to have the ability to fail and the ability to be able to act fast, to pivot.
And, you know, that's from a technological perspective.
I think, you know, for us, I think having a vision of what you want to do on a broader level,
like I don't want to sound like super cheesy here, like follow your own dreams and shit,
but like, you know, but having like a really deep vibe of why you're doing this
and what you're really trying to achieve, like what is it at the end of the day you're really trying to achieve
and stripping out as much clutter and going like, what is the principle here that we're trying to get towards, you know?
And for us, one of those principles was like, we believe that there's going to be a future
in which people are going to have emotional connections that are heightened inside of virtual worlds.
And those emotional connections will, in some cases, be with AI and PCs.
How can we facilitate that in a positive way and use that to tell amazing stories?
You know, that kind of principle, those ideas are quite foundational.
So when we're trying to go, okay, should we look at this aspect of the engineering solution or this aspect?
Sometimes being able to look back and go, well, hold on.
How does it contribute towards the greater goal?
You know, I think also trying to think about who we're building it for is important.
You know, what are the kind of players that we're building it for?
You know, having that level of being really customer-driven also gives you a window by which,
an important lens by which you can make the right decisions.
You know, like a lot of people would be like, oh, well, you know, we should do this
because it's going to be so much fun for us to build it.
It doesn't matter if it's fun for us to build it.
What matters is, it's fun for people to play.
Will it really grasp people?
Will it help attain people?
Will it create social dynamics for people?
Will it build connections between them and their friends?
These are the things that actually really, really matter for game developers.
So trying to remove as much of the clutter and take that bird's eye view is really important.
And that's something that personally I'm constantly trying to bring to the table,
humbly enough, inside of our own company.
It's just to try to zoom out and just to kind of go, okay,
this is the thing we should be doing and this is why we're doing it, you know?
So, yeah, that's what I'd say to that.
Yeah, I think that's amazing.
It's clear that you guys have a really strong North Star for the current stage of development
that you're in.
And I would love to hear, what's your North Star over the next five years, right?
I assume in the next year or two, it'll be heavily playable.
And I'm curious, beyond that, when you get into live ops and stuff,
what do you use as your grounding principles?
Is it just continuing to make things as fun as possible?
Is it leaning into the innovation of AI and blockchain even more whenever you get to live ops?
What do you use as the guiding principles for you guys?
Yeah, so I mean, I view today as this thing that will blossom into this expansive
and diverse digital experience where we'll have hundreds of millions of players.
And gameplay will always underpin what we're doing and what we're committed to.
And we'll, you know, as you mentioned, live ops will be essential for that,
you know, to provide eventfulness and freshness, new opportunities for players.
I think that's central to, you know, even to maintain and to keep growing the community
and facilitating the creativity of the community is just part and parcel of what we are
as a company and what we envision.
But I do think that people will increasingly view today as this kind of, you know,
like what happens often with a lot of really successful virtual worlds,
a lot of them become social spaces.
And I believe that today in the future will become, you know,
a decentralized, creative and beautiful social platform
where friends and co-workers and colleagues are going to get together
and hang out, interact, play together, build meaningful connections.
I think, you know, they'll have digital companions in there in residence
that will add, I think, unprecedented depth and new types of emotional experiences
to the social aspects of their lives.
So, yeah, the game is the fulcrum around which we're always going to be building
the brand and the community.
But our broader vision does include developing a media franchise for this as well.
We've, you know, we've written a novel worth of material for lore,
which we're exploring, you know, what we might do with that, you know,
publishing a novel versus, you know, looking at a TV series or movie trilogy.
Obviously, we've got a very strong background and connection with Hollywood,
you know, particularly with people like Anonymous Content, WME,
folks like that in Hollywood are very close to us.
You know, you know, Apple previously funded, you know, Ben's last feature film,
which was a $45 million budget film.
So we've got a network there which we can exercise.
And ultimately, these ventures, these transmedia ventures,
they will offer additional revenue streams, which is great.
But most importantly, actually, it's a way and a means by which
we can penetrate public consciousness.
And, you know, mainstream culture and ultimately established today
as a premier entertainment brand, which is something that we're driven to do.
So every aspect of this kind of franchise that I'm discussing with books, films,
it'll all interconnect and enrich the full universe of today.
And ultimately, the aim will always be to funnel audiences back to the core
of our business, which will always remain the game.
That's awesome.
And real quickly, I just want to share an anecdotal experience
that I think might connect to that a little bit.
Whenever I last played today the game,
and I think I talked to you about this a little bit,
one of the AI residents visited my island,
and her name was Joyce.
And Joyce happens to be the name of my ex-girlfriend.
I have a fiancé now.
This is like over six years ago.
So it's a long time ago.
But Joyce actually happened to have a lot of similarities
to my ex-girlfriend, and then another AI resident came and visited the island.
And guess what his name was?
Oh, it was Sam.
Of course it was.
So Sam and Joyce, what's one of the missions?
I have to actually send them to find each other,
and then they end up becoming, like, I think they became friends.
I don't think they became lovers or anything,
but it was such a surreal experience.
And it just opened up my mind to not only the transmedia stuff
that you're talking about, but, like, in the future,
if there's an option to just, like, upload your Facebook profile
or something, some source of data so that people can,
or so that AI can actually implement all these different aspects
that make you feel like you are inside of your own history
or something like that.
It was just an absolutely surreal singularity kind of moment.
And I assume none of that was intentional, right, Michael?
Just tell me that you're not spying on me, right?
Yeah, no, we actually had – we've got the Sam development team.
There's a department over here where we just basically –
it's like, you know, they're all, like, former NSA people,
and we just make sure that we know everything about your goings-on.
Ah, thanks, man.
Well, I feel flattered and creeped out in equal amounts,
and that's my sweet spot.
I want to get a little bit to the NFT.
We'll dig into the nitty-gritty in just a minute.
But I know that a ton of people were clamoring, including myself –
my apologies – for you guys to release an NFT or a coin last year
whenever we first started seeing the game and really bought into the concept
and before there was really a lot to show.
Whenever I think about today the game as a studio
and you as a figurehead, I think about patience
because of your decision not to release.
I'm curious why you decided to wait and why you want to release now
and how you feel about that decision in hindsight.
I'm feeling absolutely delighted about it.
So the reason that we didn't release was because, you know,
there was no liquidity in the market at all.
As soon as there was a change in the market, you know,
the moment that that happened, we were like,
okay, it's time to get our community involved here and to execute.
I think that, of course, I'm aware that what's going on in the market
is a huge amount of flow of meme coins, you know, a lot of hyperbole,
the usual crypto hyperbole about crypto is dead, NFTs are dead.
You know, it's like – listen, I think for the folks who've been through
a few cycles before, even if you've been through one cycle,
you've probably noticed that these things are cyclical.
And likewise, we're just in cycles.
That's it.
So there will be liquidity moving back into NFTs.
There's no doubt about that in my mind, no doubt.
And I think that we're going to be a catalyst to drive a lot of liquidity
back into NFTs.
I think we're probably, you know, the –
I think we're probably the most hyped kind of NFT collection that's dropping.
I certainly feel that way for Web3 games.
You know, I think a lot of people have been looking forward to this for a long time.
We've got a great kind of white list of holders.
I think we've done it the right way over allocation, all those kind of things.
We've tried to be fair as much as we can, you know,
get that kind of core community mobilized and, you know,
expand the ability for us to have more smart, cool product evangelists
for us outside of the market.
It's a small connection, 777.
But as I said to Peyton and GDC,
if you've got 777 smart people fighting your corner,
you're in a pretty good goddamn position.
So, of course, we plan to expand out to hundreds of millions of players
and stuff like that.
But we're grassroots, you know.
We've always been grassroots, you know.
We have to be grassroots to survive.
And luckily, we work inside of Web3 where grassroots is rewarded.
And that has – that community, that has – you know, you folks,
the folks who are on here, we've been able to do what we do
because of you folks, you know.
So you've rewarded us with your attention, your patience,
your interest, your feedback, your testing, all sorts of great shit,
you know.
And it's time that we find ways to reward you back, you know.
And, you know, the market's the market, man.
But we're here for the long haul, you know.
This is like – this is a life's work here.
And we're building something that we want to impact culture,
broad culture.
That's what we're looking to do here.
So – and this is going to be a great entry point for folks
who want to be right up at the top of that funnel,
really close to us, who have really great game benefits as well,
you know, people who will be able to do all sorts of really cool stuff.
And, you know, we want to – yeah, it's time.
It's time.
It's time.
There's no point waiting around anymore now, you know.
Everyone's focused.
Everyone wants to see it.
The community wants it.
We've got massive support from institutional investments,
from mega whales.
You know, there's a massive, massive amount of demand for these NFTs.
I, of course, don't know what's going to happen when it comes to price
and stuff like that.
But all I can say is a lot of people want these NFTs and a lot of people
who are, like, serious movers and shakers.
So I'm feeling very, very positive.
And I feel very privileged that the people who have been with us inside of our
community, who I respect, are going to have the ability to hold what I think
is going to be an incredibly valuable asset, you know.
And we're going to give it to them for free.
And then from there, I'll power to them.
That's awesome, man.
I couldn't agree more with the strategy that you guys have taken with low supply
given to the most loyal people that have been excited about your project on a
long-time horizon.
I really think that's the best way to operate for long-term-minded projects.
I'm curious if you want to dig in at all to the difference between the Ancient Seeds,
which are minting on the 9th, and then the Mythic Seeds, which are coming later,
and the choice of doing 777, et cetera.
Well, the Ancient Seeds are at the top of the funnel.
It's an important collection.
And what the Ancient Seed is going to do from a gameplay perspective is, for folks who
are familiar with today, so you're going to design and build your own virtual worlds.
You're going to spawn islands, and then you're going to make beautiful things on those islands.
Now, when you spawn your islands, you're going to have a different program and allocation
of resources on that island to work with.
Different islands have different biomes and different opportunities.
And resources are interconnected.
They can be crafted in different ways to make different types of resources.
Again, all of this with rarity and with value attached,
as well as aesthetic beauty.
With the Ancient Seed, you're going to spawn at your island.
You're going to, you know, basically use the Ancient Seed to spawn your island.
So every island is spawned from a seed.
Some seeds are just free.
You'll just get, you know, a nice generic island.
But the Ancient Seed will give you a particularly beautiful and special island that is bountiful.
So that's what the stuff is from the gameplay perspective.
And then, you know, in the future, there'll be other rewards, especially for the player, for our, let's say, the meta players.
You know, the players who may not exist specifically inside of the game, but exist inside of the ecosystem.
I think that there's going to be a lot of opportunities for those folks as well by holding on to the Ancient Seed.
And then the Mythic Seed, I won't go into too much about now.
You know, it's a different type of thing.
Of course, it's going to be a seed which will have the opportunity to spawn a different type of island because all seeds spawn islands.
But, yeah, probably I won't go into too much on aspects of the utility on that one because, realistically, it's all focus for now is on this, dare I say, this NFT collection, which has extremely highly weighted rewards for the holders.
You love to hear it.
I'm curious, too, whenever you look around, I know that there's been some comparisons drawn to Today the Game and Parallel Colony.
Very different, but still, you know, heavy implementation of AI.
And then AI Arena, I know, is another favorite.
I actually met you at the AI Arena event whenever we were at GDC.
AI Arena has a token coming and they have an NFT collection out.
Parallel obviously has a token out and a ton of NFTs.
And then there's also more NFT or another token coming, I think, for Colony, something like that.
I'm curious, whenever you look at them in both the way that they're implementing AI and also their NFTs and tokens and stuff, is there any iterations that you want to make off of what they're currently doing?
Or do you feel like you're just approaching it in your own complete, you know, unique way and not really measuring against them?
Um, I don't, yeah, I don't, it's more about the latter.
I don't feel as if, I think we're building things that are very, very different.
So, um, from a product perspective, I don't really feel as if there's a huge amount of crossover.
Um, there's some, there's a little bit, um, more, probably more so with Parallel Colony, you know, seeing as there's aspects of simulation gaming involved in that as well.
Um, but listen, those two teams are great teams, you know, um, I have a huge amount of respect, um, for what they've done and what they're continuing.
I mean, you know, Wei, Koji, these guys are just great, great people to have in, in our industry.
You know, I'm very passionate about the impact that AI can have on video games.
Um, and we work at the frontier of, of how to, how to, I suppose, leverage this technology in order to be able to drive forward aspects of the whole games industry.
Um, and I, I, I, I really believe that the Parallel team and AI arena share, uh, this kind of principle, um, that they really do want to work at the frontiers and, and, uh, experiment new ideas and find ways to, um, to evolve.
Um, I think, you know, it's, it's easy for people these days to say that they're an AI game, right?
And everyone's an AI game.
Everyone's an AI studio these days.
Um, and it's a hot narrative and I get it and all powers of the people who want to catch the wave, you know, you, you know, you do you and, you know, whatever way you want to market your business, go for it.
Um, but I think that there's some teams here that are actually genuinely working at the frontier who are working at the top of the game, you know?
Um, and yeah, and two of those guys are folks that you've mentioned.
There are other aspects that I have like huge amounts to, to learn from, and from what some of those folks are doing as well.
Like, you know, I mean, parallel have been amazing and cultivating the community.
Obviously they've been able, incredibly successful in launching their token, which is, you know, an incredible success story, which I'm so happy for them.
Um, so yeah, there's, there's huge amounts of stuff that, that, that interests me over there.
Wayfinder, their new, the new, uh, kind of AI, AI agent software that they've built fascinating piece of software.
Um, and of course way over there, you know, the, the AI arena folks, their geniuses, they're doing, they're doing some really, really interesting stuff in particular targeting how to, you know, you know, approaching some very complex issues around some of the challenges that competitive gaming are going to have, uh, in the future with AI.
Um, and there's not many people who are looking for solutions.
In fact, most people just have their kind of blindfolds on and think everything's going to be fine in competitive gaming.
Uh, it's not, it's not AI is going to have a serious impact on competitive gaming and we need people to build solutions in order to be able to protect competitive gaming.
Um, from like the bot destruction essentially, and AI arena and those folks over there are very smart and they're, um, and they're approaching those, uh, those problems.
So all power to them.
Whenever you, uh, joined the, the NIM AI gaming coalition recently, uh, I'm curious what it was they, uh, they sold you on in order to get you to, to buy into what their, their vision is.
We, we, we obviously got the NIM AI airdrop shout out to NIM for, uh, giving it to the, the Wolves Dow PFP holders.
We were really excited about that.
And, uh, I would just love to hear your thoughts a little bit more on those.
Yeah.
Um, well, yeah, the NIM guys are great and they've been very kind to the communities who, um, who, who decided to engage.
Uh, they were very compelling team when I met them, uh, very interesting, passionate, uh, folks.
And, um, you know, uh, they, they came with a proposal, which was to, to try to help advance the, the narrative of, of AI crypto gaming without that convergence.
Um, so anyone who wants to advance that narrative is, is of interest to me, uh, honestly, Sam, that's really it.
It's like that, this is a really important narrative to us from a business perspective.
Um, I think, you know, everyone knows that it's a very interesting, like there's huge amounts of speculation and interest in the narrative as well.
Um, but I genuinely believe it's only the tip of the iceberg here, you know, I mean, like we're yet to start seeing some of the impact of some of this technology inside of games.
And, you know, there's a few teams that are going to be able to show that over the next, of the next one, including our own.
And when people actually start seeing this open up close and in action, God damn, it works.
It's, you know, it's, it's truly astonishing.
It does like before and after, and the after is a paradigm change to the industry, the whole games industry, arguably the whole entertainment industry.
Um, so I really think that we're at the cutting edge of something that is a cultural change.
Um, and, you know, folks like them who want to advance those narratives, they wanted to set up a coalition with, you know, with some of the, some of the teams that we've mentioned here.
Um, and, uh, and yeah, I said, I tell them if that's the narrative that you're looking to, to, to advance, I'm with you, you know, let me know how I can help the, that's how that partnership was built.
Yeah.
Well said, uh, Jay world in the comments wants me to ask about lottery ticket winners.
Uh, how will lottery ticket winners have a chance at the ancient seed?
And I'm curious just in general, uh, if people want to get involved cause they're excited about what we've talked about today, what would you recommend?
Is there a way for ancient seed outside a secondary market at this point and for mythic seeds that might be coming up in the future?
Uh, how might they be able to position themselves to be able to, to engage with that?
I would say engage with the main account is what I would say.
So, and for, to really go into the particulars on, on, on the lottery and stuff like that, I'd say reach out directly to, to Donaldo or onto the main account, ask how you can get involved.
Um, you know, we're always looking to bring impassioned, smart people into our community.
And if, if some folks are not in our community now and they're smart and they're impassioned and they're, and, you know, um, and they're, they're cool, you know, say hello, just come say hello.
We're pretty open people.
We write back.
Um, you know, so, um, so get involved and it's same guys for, for, for the mythic and future collections and everything, everything, like for everything that we do, we're always going to be here to be able to be spoken to.
And, you know, we're not like faceless anons.
We're like, just, just come say hello and we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll chat, you know, hop on a zoom or, or whatever.
Do you know what I mean?
Um, you know, we have a policy of, of literally writing back to every person who, who writes to us, you know?
Um, and I think, yeah, that's all I'll say about that.
Just get involved.
You know, we, you know, we're, we're really interested in people who are advancing the greater good of the space as well.
One of the things that Sam, you probably noticed this, but one of the things that we, we did during the bear market, where there was a, let's say a less interest in what everyone,
everyone was doing, all of us were doing in this space.
One of the things that I spent some time doing, um, was to try to find some of the up and coming commentators and thinkers in the space and to try to cultivate relationships with them.
Some of the folks who were only, you know, 500, 1000 followers, but they were writing really interesting threads.
You know, we, we, I reached out to those folks and I wanted to get chats with them and just to tell them that I loved what they were writing and I appreciated the way that they thought about the space.
And some of those folks over the last kind of three, four, six months, I suppose, I've seen rocketed interest, which is amazing to see because, you know, there's a lot of space for good thinkers and a lot of space for people who are able to offer commentary.
And I think Wolves Dow is probably the home of, of the best of them, you know, and being able to integrate into Wolves Dow has, has been really pivotal for us.
So I think that would probably be the last thing I'd say for, for all of the people who are, who are listening.
And, and they want to engage one great lift off point.
If you want to engage with us is, you know, be part of the Wolves Dow, because if someone from the Wolves Dow ever wants to chat to me, they just get a direct line and, you know, and we can, and we can bounce ideas.
That's amazing, man.
Thank you so much for the trust that you've given us.
I've said it before, but especially, you know, with alpha night and people coming to the house at GDC, it was 15 minutes away from the main conference.
And so to see people take time out of their day to come and share with their project and to trust us that it was going to be a safe and fun environment.
A lot of these guys in our industry are celebrities, you know, Michael among them, Kathleen Osgood, et cetera.
And for them to give us that trust that, you know, the Wolves Den was going to be a place that they could really enjoy themselves, let their hair down and share things about their project really meant the world to us.
And the fact that you're a member, Donaldo also should be getting into the Wolves Dow soon.
It just is, is a tremendous honor whenever we look at what you guys are building.
That's going to do it for our show.
Michael, I would love to give you the stage one more time.
Anything you want to want to prep people for with the mints coming up.
I don't know if you can talk about the token, any estimated timelines, anything that you want people to know leading into this busy, busy, busy week that you have ahead.
Yeah, it is a busy week.
Yeah, flying back from New York tomorrow and we'll get back into the grind and, you know, we've got a big week with the mints.
Yeah, listen, I'm just, I don't really have much more to add.
But I've got, you know, April 9th, we've got, we've got an important piece on the chessboard is going to be moved.
It's a very important menu for us.
We appreciate you folks who are listening.
We appreciate the folks who are holders.
We appreciate the folks who are interested in being holders.
I'd urge you to get involved, you know, just get involved, come join our community.
This is a rocket ship and it's taken off.
We want you folks with us, especially if you guys are, are wolves.
So, have a look, you know, I don't want to give anyone financial advice about what they should do, but I would, I would urge you to try to get involved in our ecosystem.
I can't go into lots of details about why, but over time, these things will become increasingly clear.
Now is a very, very opportune time for folks.
Yeah.
And yeah, strike while the irons hop.
Strike while the irons hop.
Appreciate that, Michael.
Of course, nothing you hear today is financial advice.
Please don't take it as such.
If you need financial advice, consult a financial advisor wherever you are in the world.
But I'm very excited about today, the game.
And can't wait to mint myself on April 9th and Michael, again, for the trust that you've given us to do this AMA for the over 200 people in the audience right now.
Thank you guys so much for joining us.
And it's been an absolute pleasure yet again.
Can't wait to see you at a conference or in an AMA soon.
And we'll see you guys on the next one.
Thank you to everyone.
Cheers.
Cheers.
Cheers.
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Cheers.
Cheers.
Cheers.
Cheers.
Cheers.
Cheers.
Cheers.
Cheers.
Cheers.
Cheers.
Cheers.
Cheers.
Cheers.
