Projects
![]()
No projects found
Investors
New
DAO Treasuries
DATs
Lend / Borrow APRs
Chains
Categories
Spaces
Xtalks: What's The Holy Grail of web3—Tech, Defi, or Games?
Recorded: July 9, 2024 Duration: 1:03:54Space Recording
Full Transcription
Wherever you're at in this world.
Thanks for tuning into Xtalks.
We're still waiting for a few people to come up on stage.
But in the meantime, let's get started with a few introductions really quick.
So Adam, if you want to go first, that would be great, my friend.
Yeah, great, great space as always, always look forward to Xtalks, they're just definitely a higher quality.
But Adam Myers, but Adam Myers, head of business development for player gaming blockchain and our main net live, got a bunch of other stuff going on, give us a check out and looking forward to this talk. Thanks.
Awesome. Well, thanks for coming back, Adam, well, thanks for coming back again, Adam, we always love having your input. So let's go on to the next one. Chin, if you want to go, that would be great.
Hey, everyone, GM, good afternoon. Good evening, wherever you are.
It's good to be here on Xtalks. And yeah, it's gonna be a be a interesting topic, right? I might I may or may not have some spicy takes, but we'll see. We'll see how it goes. But yeah, thanks for having me on.
We love the spicy takes. So yeah, thanks for being here. Roy, if you want to go next.
Hey, guys, Roy here, CEO of Patriots Division, indie game company working with Web3 and NFT technologies.
I just had to kind of set some balance in the room. So, you know, happy to be the villain of this chat. But yeah, really an honor to be invited here. Actually, I haven't done a Twitter space in like a week or so. So it's been a while to kind of get get back into it and chat with the boys, chat with the friends and talk about, you know, this industry we we so hold dear. So yeah, that's that's me.
Well, thanks for being here. And it'll definitely be a great discussion, I think. So I think Beast League was next. Let's go there.
Yo, I'm gonna have to start getting myself an intro. Because I'm absolutely loving this. Yo, this is Marcello from the head of community here at Beast League. We're a mobile sports game on iOS and Android Play Store. We're also working on some other stuff that acid games or game studio behind the scenes will be we're working on Boinkers, your second game, and we're launching a telegram game very soon. So we're busy out here.
But super happy to be here. Great set of panelists as usual. And thanks for having us again, Layer 1.
For sure. Thanks for coming. Tropic, you want to go next?
Sure. Happy to be here. We are here. We just survived like a crazy power outage and everything. So when I heard I haven't been on spaces in a week, it's like the same thing I was thinking.
It's like, even though a week doesn't seem long to most people, us in Web3 that are always in spaces, like that's forever. And hurricane came through Jamaica and we just lost all power utilities and everything for about five days. So that was crazy right in the middle of our game launch and everything.
So we're we're updating the list and reaching out to communities and then bam, power outage.
So happy to be here back online first base since power was restored and everything.
Not too much damage on our island, but some of the other islands were just wiped out completely.
So, yeah, happy to be here.
Oh, man. Glad to hear that you're doing well.
I noticed last time we chatted, you mentioned it was coming through, but glad to hear all is well there.
So Arena Games, go for it.
Yo, GM, GM, guys.
This is Fatih from Arena Games platform.
I'm the product manager here.
Oh, guys, by the way, I'm sorry for being late.
I was trying to get into the space, but, you know, Twitter doesn't always allow.
But, yeah, I'm here and, yeah, Arena Games is here, too.
So let's go.
All right.
And thanks for everybody who's listening in.
We definitely have a good lineup of panelists today for our discussion of what the Holy Grail of Web3 is.
Is it tech, DeFi, or games?
And so today we're definitely embarking on a quest to uncover that true Holy Grail of Web3.
And so we'll be diving into a couple of different rabbit holes.
But before we do, if you haven't and you're just listening in or if you're a panelist on this episode,
please be sure to share the link to this so that we can get it out to more of our communities,
because this is a great topic to discuss, especially during this next bull cycle.
So likewise, be sure to give our panelists a follow.
They are taking time out of their busy schedules to participate in today's topic discussion.
And so they would greatly appreciate a follow from you as well.
But, yeah, let's just kind of get started and just jump in, shall we?
So I'll just throw the question out there.
What is the Holy Grail of Web3?
And what are we hoping to get?
Beastly, go for it.
Gaming.
Somebody jumped in and that's the answer.
It's just gaming.
We'll just leave it at that.
I'm done.
Bye.
No, I'm kidding.
So I think that this is a great topic.
You know, I think gaming for sure, just because, you know, I generally, generally, like from the bottom of my heart,
I believe gaming will be the catalyst that will onboard the masses into, quote-unquote, Web3, blockchain, crypto, NFTs, whatever semantic we want to use.
I really think this is a technology that's going to bring people on, you know.
I think, you know, tech is great.
We all love DeFi.
But I think games in general are just, it's the one industry that overcompasses everything, I think.
It's the world's biggest entertainment industry, everybody in one form or another, whether it's even a casual mobile game.
You know, I think we all have our fingers spread into gaming one way or another.
And I think that when we involve the blockchain, it's really interesting because it really opens up this door to so many other folks that wouldn't naturally get into DeFi or any other thing that has to do with Web3.
So, it's really interesting.
It's really interesting.
But I don't believe gaming is the holy grail of Web3 just because it's something so much more relatable.
I personally, you know, I personally got into DeFi first.
I didn't even know Web3 gaming was a thing when I started my career in DeFi.
But, hey, it is.
And I find myself, obviously, as a gamer, but just in general, just finding myself more interested when it comes to game mechanics.
And I'd rather buy personally like an in-game asset than buy any other form of an investment vehicle.
So, it's just something that, you know, connects with me better.
And I feel like it connects a lot more with other folks rather than buying stocks or options or all these other things.
Like, if I were to invest in anything, I'd rather invest in in-game assets that have their value, you know.
So, and I think that the sky's the limit.
You know, we've seen, you know, trading assets, play to earn, all these things are not new.
We've seen, it's been going on for over a decade in the gaming world.
We just don't call it that.
And it's frowned upon.
You try selling your RuneScape assets, your CSGO skins, all this stuff, you typically get banned.
So, the market is already there.
I think that Web3 is just, it's the perfect outlet for a lot of these things that we've already been doing in the gaming world.
And it just opens up so many more doors when it comes to, to not just gaming, but everything else around that.
So, yeah, I'm just bullish.
I'm obviously very bullish.
But, yeah, if I were to answer this question, I would, like, as a TLDR, I would definitely say that games are the holy grail of Web3.
That's my take.
Well, Marcel, I couldn't tell if you were passionate about games or not.
So, I'm glad you made that very clear.
Adam, go for it.
Yeah, so, one thing to look at, too.
I mean, look at our speakers.
How many of us are gaming, right?
One, two, three, four, five?
Five speakers?
I mean, I feel like that says something, right?
Of course, it's probably the title of the spaces.
But I feel like I agree.
I'm definitely biased on gaming.
I think it is the holy grail.
But another thing to look at as far as, like, the holy grail is, like, a time period.
So, you have to look at this cycle, next cycle, cycles after that.
Will gaming be the holy grail this cycle?
Or will it potentially be in a later cycle?
And as much as I want it to be this cycle, I mean, we're talking, we're in it right now.
I mean, yeah, we had a bit of a pullback.
But, I mean, this is it.
This is the finish line.
We're going to see the next 12 to 16 months of craziness in the crypto market.
And are we going to see that all in gaming?
I mean, I would love for that to happen.
But I just have a feeling it won't.
A lot of that comes from the gaming sector is still developing.
We have some great companies out.
And some games are coming out that are playable and are fun.
I feel like that's a big change.
But, unfortunately, I think we are going to need to see a AAA-style game like Fortnite or Call of Duty or something big
that really, really brings on a lot of gamers for us to really see that influx of new individuals.
I have a feeling I'm going to have to go with tech for this, for this cycle.
I feel like tech, in general, will win every cycle.
They're going to go after the biggest networks.
You're going to see the big hitters like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Avalanche, potentially Layer 1X.
I'll give you guys a shout-out because, I mean, we talked and you guys have a great platform and a great network.
And it's amazing the amount of transactions you can process.
And so I'm still going to go with tech for this answer.
But long-term, I will definitely say gaming will be that pivotal point.
Well, I do have to preface that in the title, we do have tech and DeFi.
And we had a few tech and DeFi projects lined up to be on this episode.
But apparently, you gamers all scared them off.
So kudos to you guys for sure.
But, yeah, I definitely agree with you on that one.
I'll kind of play the devil's advocate in this conversation.
So don't worry, Adam.
We'll definitely make sure that tech gets its word in for sure.
But thanks for your insight.
Tropic, go for it, my friend.
Yeah, obviously, as one of the gaming teams, what have you, the obvious thing would be like, yeah, definitely gaming.
But funny enough, I think the holy grail is like the sought-after thing, like this aspirational goal to get there.
And I think it's DeFi.
However, I think that the games are the better gateway.
And the way I like to look at it is like, say, like the whole Apple ecosystem, whatever you want to call the whole world that they have there, right?
Like the iPhone is the gateway drug in there.
Like you get the cheapest iPhone, even if it's the SE, just to get on spaces because it's most stable, such as myself, even though I'm an Android person.
Then you find yourself dabbling and looking at all the other things within the ecosystem and seeing, oh, yeah, this just works so much better with this.
And you start to really explore the whole landscape of things.
And I think that's what gaming does, right?
It's the most relatable, the most easy, friendly touchpoint to get people in.
So Morseed is the gateway.
And then the holy grail, obviously, is the whole peer-to-peer transactions without the middleman and all the stuff being verified in between.
And, of course, the tech is the layer that glues everything together without the tech.
I mean, it can't go.
But I think the holy grail, the goal, like that real aspirational thing that we hope that we get to is DeFi.
But the rails that we're going to get there and the way we bring people in, I think it's through gaming.
So it's kind of like a political answer, dancing between lines, trying to get votes from everyone.
But that's how I truly believe it is.
I think, really, gaming is going to bring the most people in.
But DeFi is the ultimate goal.
So that's what I hope and I would like to see.
But we'll see how that plays out.
But either way, I'm in it for the win.
And I love this space, though.
I love it.
In for the win.
Beastly, go for it.
Yeah, no.
I absolutely love the points being brought up.
I think that tech is definitely underrated.
One other point that just came to mind that I wanted to kind of jump in and say, you know,
I think when it comes to gaming, what's really interesting, what makes it unique, apart from, let's say, DeFi, for instance,
is that I'm excited for where we get to a place where, you know, our Web3 games, our value isn't determined based on a floor price and market, you know, market prices.
Everything moves up and down.
And I think that eventually we will get to a place where, you know, that, well, it's not so much irrelevant.
It's just not so much of a focus of the conversation anymore just because we're building fucking games, you know.
So I think that, you know, going back to games, just, you know, I really thought this was a really important point.
But, you know, again, going back, unlike DeFi and, you know, other things within the crypto world, because we're actually, you know, we talk about utility.
I think one of the biggest utilities is actually gaming, and I think that gaming is one thing that stands on its own two feet, regardless of the floor price or the market price or what's going on in the crypto world.
So, you know, I love what Adam said.
It probably might take some time.
It might not even be this cycle.
But in the long run, it's really interesting to me because I think gaming is one thing that stands on its own two feet.
And unlike DeFi and everything else, in the long run, I don't think being impacted by the market is going to be such a hot focus just because at the end of the day, gamers just want to game.
So that's another reason why I think gaming is the holy grail of Web3.
It just really makes it interesting.
And I think that, yeah, I think that's where we're going to end up going.
But anyways, I just want to get that point in because I think it's an interesting one and an important one as well.
Yeah, definitely a good point.
Thanks for sharing.
Chin, go for it.
Yeah, I definitely think Web3 gaming definitely is like something that can reach Mesh as the option or get people to explore Web3 blockchain.
But I think right now, when in terms of like holy grail, kind of like Tropical saying, like, you know, I think of, I don't know, I'm thinking of like Indiana Jones and the, you know, the holy grail.
Right.
I really think in Web3, it's Bitcoin.
Right.
So that's right now the holy grail, because look, when Bitcoin goes up, the price, when the price goes up, everyone's sentiment is high.
Right.
Everyone's like, oh, NFTs are back.
Web3 gaming is back.
This is back.
This is back.
And then when Bitcoin goes down, like right now, everyone's like, oh, everything's dead.
Oh, no, everything's dead.
Sentiment's bad.
Everything, whatever.
So right now, I feel like Bitcoin is the one, the Bitcoin price or just Bitcoin in general is the one deciding factor right now in Web3, regardless of what sector you're in, I feel like.
And when it comes to like even mainstream attention, right, usually it's Bitcoin, right?
Like when people talk about crypto, they think Bitcoin, right?
And so for me, yeah, I think Web3 gaming is great for mass adoption and is huge.
But let's be real, like not everyone is a gamer, right, in the world, right?
But everyone, you know, likes money, you know, once price go up and all that.
And so I really feel like the holy grail of Web3 is Bitcoin.
You know, that's the one that's going to stand the test of time.
Again, I'm not super maxi, but I'm just being observant right now.
It really seems like Bitcoin price determines the sentiment in the whole Web3.
And so, yeah, I would say for me, my take is it's Bitcoin.
Yeah, that's a great take.
We'll be circling back to that one.
Don't worry.
Arena Games, go for it.
Oh, yeah, man.
I completely agree with Chinsanity.
And I see that usually the problem is the speculative nature of crypto.
Like in all seriousness, we don't usually look at the project's actual real value.
We rather look at the hype and the current sentiment that is going on in the market, right?
This is usually applicable to most of the coins, most of the altcoins that are out there.
And how we price them is like it doesn't really matter.
It is all up to hype.
And we don't actually really check the profit margins.
We don't check reports.
We don't check anything.
We just look at the price action and how it's going to go.
But in the real world, it doesn't work like that, man.
If your company is going to go up in value or go down in value, there needs to be some quarterly reports you need to check.
If you're smart, of course, like if you're just a basic investor that throws money at anything, yeah, that's going to burn you up.
But when we look at the actual real space and the price action, it doesn't usually follow the actual usage of the token.
Like that's it.
That's a reality.
We just price it any way we want based on hype.
But the good thing, the good side of the market is that when it comes to gaming, there are no roadblocks.
You don't need to have a gamer to know about tokens, know about, actually know about anything.
They don't need to.
That is the reality.
Gaming is the most well usable business to customer side of the crypto industry right now.
Like when it comes to business to customer, actually getting real actual customers and actual real profit, gaming is the best tool that we have in crypto.
Because the rest of the rest of crypto is usually really speculative or requires high level of knowledge.
For example, if we want to go into DeFi, decentralized finance, we cannot expect a lot of people to come into the space and use DeFi protocols.
Those are going to be the not the cause, but the symptom, you know, like at the end.
The games are going to be onboarding many users to Web3 and the rest of the Web3 is going to be using these users to, you know, bring more value to their product or the usage of the actual product.
Because when we look at it, when we look at DeFi, there are hundreds of thousands of DeFi protocols and, you know, like liquidity aggregators and whatnot.
So like there are thousands of them.
Do we need more?
I don't think so.
I don't think so.
But when it comes to gaming, do we need more games?
Hell yeah.
Hell yeah.
You know, like when you look at gaming, it's a new industry within crypto.
Of course, within crypto, gaming is of course a big industry.
But within crypto, it's the biggest industry that is going to be and it has the biggest potential.
And when it comes to tech, tech, yes, even though we love tech, even though we love new protocols coming out, helping us out when it comes to making access easier and whatnot.
But this is business to business.
No one is going to be going into a normal user is not going to be using into tech industry and use it.
What they can do is invest.
Only the companies can use it.
DeFi protocol, it's, yeah, it's customer business.
It goes both in.
But when it comes to actual gaming, it is directly to the customer, man.
Like when it comes to the hype itself, do we need hype when it comes to gaming?
Yes, we do need hype.
We do need hype, some kind of hype.
But we don't depend on it.
Actual real gamers are not going to check the price of the token that you're providing, you know, like if their intention is not, you know, like earning from the game and whatnot.
So like the real user does not care about the price of the token, but cares about the enjoyment of the game and the assets that it provides or what kind of higher level access it can provide or how can it better the gaming experience.
So like when we look at games, eventually, after all the hype dies down, after the market is stable, games are still going to be there.
But when the actual bear market hits, yeah, man, those DeFi protocols are going to have a hard time because money is coming out of the space.
But Bitcoin is coming out of the space, but Bitcoin going to zero or 100,000, it doesn't matter for a gamer or it wouldn't kill a game just because the prices are going 80% down.
So the games in and of themselves are really stable, really stable income providers when we look at it.
Yeah, those are definitely some good points.
We're going to circle back on a couple of them that you brought up.
But yeah, I mean, from my perspective, playing the tech and DeFi component of this panel, I guess you could say, for me, I'm a firm believer that it's user experience is the holy grail of Web3.
And I feel like that helps bring people to the games, it brings people to DeFi, and it also introduced people to the tech aspect of it.
And so, however, with that being said, I'm a firm believer as well that it doesn't matter if it's a tech, DeFi or a game, all three have game mechanics underneath it, right?
So if you look at some of the token projects, the meme coin projects that are out there that are trying to provide utility, even towards some of the tech that's out there, if there's gaming mechanics built into it that keeps drawing the person back for more and more and more exposure or kind of just use of it, those are the things that are thriving.
So if you look at some of the projects that maybe you've come across in the last bull run that survived the bear market and over the last few times, you'll notice that there's kind of a resonating theme.
It's just that those that have good game mechanics built into their ecosystem and their infrastructure are the ones that are able to last thrive and grow.
And so I'm a firm believer in game mechanics, that's for sure.
But for me, the Holy Grail is definitely user experience.
So going down the main vein of kind of what you guys are talking about here with games, you know, it is interesting, not only in Web3, but in Web2 as well, mobile.
Everything you do has the stars, the moon and the sun all have to align in order for things to usually go viral, as we call it.
And so, you know, one of the one of the things that faces gaming industry, especially games going mobile are the Apple and Android stores regulations there.
Likewise, trying to get people to move over to Web2 or excuse me, Web3 from Web2, you know, a lot of people try to introduce new new components into the gaming thing, such as, you know, crypto wallets, cryptocurrency, all these different things that they have to keep up with.
But what are some of the ways that you guys are innovating currently to basically overcome those hurdles?
Adam, go for it.
Yeah, that's user experience.
I like that you chose option D.
It wasn't listed on the test.
I agree.
User experience is a great, great point.
That's something that we kind of obsess about at Player is how do you make things easier for the user?
Because at the end of the day, we're a gaming protocol.
Our long-term goal would be to have game developers developing on our protocol, using what we have, using our tech, and making some sweet games.
So as far as like making of the game, that's really on the game developer side.
But making things seamless is really our biggest focus.
And I like what you said about bringing over the Web2 to Web3.
It's something that we think about every single day because it is probably one of the biggest issues in crypto gaming is how do you bring over all of these people who are already gamers into crypto gaming?
One idea that I've thought about is you just need a big, awesome AAA game.
That would be nice.
But another thing is ease of use is probably one of the easiest ways.
And then also having the game that they're playing, not necessarily, they don't know that they're playing a crypto game.
That's another way of having them brought over.
But creating an easier user experience is something that we focus on a lot.
One of the ways we're doing that is right now when you play our games, part of the issue with other games is you have to connect your MetaMask wallet, make an account, play the game.
You have to trust the website that you're connecting to.
You have to trust the download of the game.
And we wanted to be able to make it so you could play basically as a guest account where you're not connecting your MetaMask wallet.
You're just straight up, get in the game, play it, test it out.
Because we feel like a lot of people just say, oh, I'm not messing with that.
It's too much of a risk.
So one unique thing with that is we kind of took it a step further, is not only can they use a, we call it an instant play pass, they can use their guest account.
But not only that, we track the information from their guest account.
So if they earn rewards or they win a few games, all of that is tracked.
And if they want, they can take that information and actually port it over into their full-time account.
And so we thought about that as one way of really making it, the user experience better.
And we're doing other things as well, but I'll let some of the other panel talk.
Not all at once now.
Yeah, no, I think, yeah, that's just really funny, though, that you threw in the option D, which was the same exact thought that I was thinking.
I was like, wait a minute, that was up there?
I scrolled up to the top really quick.
I was like, did I miss that?
But yeah, no, definitely, I think, just tying everything back together, right?
I think a lot of what we do within this whole Web3 crypto space has to do with, like, price movement and, you know, tying everything together.
Of course, watching Bitcoin, where that goes, and that gets people excited.
For whatever reason, when things are at an all-time high and it's the worst time to buy it, that's when everyone gets excited and wants to jump in.
That's just human nature.
We want to jump in at the top, not the bottom when it's actually a good time.
But one thing that I noticed is, like, if you are playing these games or you are someone who is a contractor that's getting paid in crypto and you don't necessarily look at the price movement per se, you're just looking at the benefit of it, right?
So, for example, I have clients that will pay me in crypto and you can pay me pretty much any of the top, maybe 50, 100, as long as I can get in and out of it pretty easily.
That's cool.
It's like, to me, as good as cash, you can pay me for my services.
And that really has nothing to do with the price movement because at the end of the day, I'm not going to hold it for that long as long as I know that by me selling it on an exchange is not going to dump the whole thing.
I'm going to get paid half of what I'm getting paid.
So, price movement is not as important to me in that case.
It's not like I'm saving it for the long term.
And going back to, like, gaming, why I think this is so cool, the same thing, too.
Whether or not the value of overall crypto market or even the specific in-game token is at an all-time high and all-time low, if the game is cool, it doesn't really matter.
You're just going to use it for the benefit that you're getting, right?
And so, that's why I think also it's kind of a unique thing in the sense that if your game is good and people just want to play it anyways, they're not necessarily on CoinGecko and CoinMarketCap every 15 minutes refreshing to see exactly what's going to happen if they're going to play the game or not.
I mean, that's just not how most people think.
I'm sure there's always going to be those people that are there that are not really playing it for the fun of it and they're just mining it and have 50 cell phones on a wall doing whatever for whatever reason, right?
I mean, that's their prerogative.
That's not why I play games.
I play games because they're fun.
And at the end of the day, I think just like a contractor getting paid in DeFi, I think gaming as a whole has a unique opportunity in to just move away from price talk.
And I think that's why it's kind of unique, why we're all kind of so bullish on gaming and so favorable on gaming.
It's, yeah, you don't have to lead with the wallet connect.
You don't have to lead with all those other things.
So it just makes the whole onboarding for the tech and the whole space as a very just user friendly.
And again, going back to point four, right, the whole user ability of it.
I think gaming has a unique ability to kind of tie and bridge all of these aspects together to then just open up the whole world.
So that's why I say it's like the gateway drug.
And I find it just very exciting that we're all in agreement, which is kind of rare in space, like people agreeing on something, right?
That we see the value in gaming and we are excited about this.
And it's not like we're up here shilling a specific game or shilling a specific ecosystem or chain or anything of that nature.
We're just like, yeah, this is definitely the space that we're excited about.
And this is the reason why.
And I think it's just really it shows the power of gaming and entertainment.
And anyone who's ever been through a time when there's a lockdown, there is no power or whatever it might be, that you just want something to kill time.
Entertainment's a real thing, whether you're on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Netflix, playing games, whatever.
It's just keeping people glued and entertained.
That has some serious value.
And you can't really quantify that by looking at candles going up and down.
So that's why I think it's almost independent from the market.
Yes, it's going to be impacted by the market where funding goes and so forth.
Of course, when the market's up, it's easier for projects to get funding and VCs are more interested in the space and so forth.
But from the user perspective, like they don't care about that, right?
You have their attention.
You're giving them some fun.
That is value that can't be quantified.
And I think it's just really a good place to be.
Great points.
Great points.
I'm going to pause there really quick before we move on to the next question.
So thanks, everybody, for joining.
My name is Cody.
I am the Chief Experience Officer at Layer 1X.
And you are listening to Xtalks.
What's the holy grail of Web3?
Tech, DeFi, or games?
Apparently, I threw in a fourth option there, which is throwing many for a loop, which is great.
That's what we definitely want.
We're definitely going down some good rabbit holes.
So if you happen to have any questions for our panelists, please be sure to drop those in the threads below.
I'll bring those up a little bit later in the episode.
Likewise, if you haven't done so already, please give these panelists a like and a follow.
They definitely deserve it, taking time out of their schedule to kind of wow us with their knowledge of the gaming space, telling us what their holy grail is.
Apparently, it is all gaming because we've definitely scared off the DeFi as well as the tech.
However, I am here representing the tech side and potentially the DeFi side as well.
So kind of moving on with this, you know, it's an interesting take, you know, when we look at, you know, people talking about needing a triple.
I think it was Adam that was talking about the need for a triple A game to kind of set things off.
So I'm curious, I'm just throwing this out there, but what are your guys' thoughts on what I like to call toilet bowl games or hyper casual games?
Do those have a space in Web3?
Yes, 100%.
Oh, sorry.
Go for it, Tropic.
And then we'll go to Beastly.
Yep.
Sorry about that.
Yeah, I was going to say 100% because I consider myself to be one of the most casual gamers ever.
And for me, I just don't have 12, 14 hours a day to grind on a game.
I don't care if they're giving me solid gold bricks.
Like, I just, it's not going to hold my attention necessarily.
And usually when I think about gaming, it's when I'm in line for something, or as you said, you know, the toilet bowl gaming or whatever it might be, something that's very casual and is not really planned.
It's not something that I schedule into my day.
Whereas I have a calendar for spaces and calendars for all sorts of other things.
I mean, date nights and everything else.
Gaming is just something that has never, ever been on my calendar.
It's what I use to fill in the blanks, right?
So, I think, yeah, casual gaming, as someone who is extremely bullish on Blood 3 and Love the Space and everything, I think, for the most part, there's always going to be more, actually, no, I won't even say I think.
There's always going to be more casual gamers than they are hardcore grinders.
So, yeah.
Love it.
Beastly, go for it.
Yeah, absolutely.
I think there's a place for both, you know.
I resonate with both.
I love, you know, my AAA hardcore games.
But at the same time, you know, when you're on the shitter or, you know, you're waiting in line or you're doing stuff, it's always fun to pull out, you know, your iPhone or your Android and just being able to squeeze in some games.
So, it's really interesting.
And, you know, I don't know the statistics behind it.
I'd have to look into it.
But intuitively, I feel like casual games are bigger.
More people would naturally just gravitate to that just because it's much more easier for players to play, you know.
And it's something that we do also here at Acid Games.
Beastly is one of them as a mobile game.
It's a very, it's a competitive, fun game, but it's very casual where you can just pull out your phone and play two to three minute games.
And I think that there's tons of casual games that people love and some of the biggest games, I think, you know, I think of things like Angry Birds, for instance.
What they've done over a decade ago, they absolutely crushed it.
I was literally on a plane coming back from the Philippines a few months ago.
And it's like you have that little projector or that little screen in front of you to watch movies.
And I was looking at games and it's like, oh, shit, Angry Birds is here.
And it's just interesting to see how big that IP got as just a casual game.
So I definitely think that Web3 casual games have a huge place.
Definitely, you know, not everybody's going to want to play hardcore games.
You know, I grew up playing games like World of Warcraft and that was literally like a full-time job to play.
I can't play that anymore just because I got stuff to do.
But so it's interesting.
But I definitely think casual games are it.
And, you know, we're seeing a lot, you know, I didn't mention at the beginning we're building on Con right now.
We're building a Telegram minigame.
That's another reason I think the Telegram ecosystem is growing so big.
It's just, you know, there's many other variables.
But one of them is just how accessible it is.
You know, with casual games, it's the accessibility behind it, I think, as one thing that really attracts people.
Anybody could play it.
It doesn't take a huge time commitment.
You can jump in and out of games and that's it.
You know, and I think that a lot of people want that.
Not everybody wants to be a hardcore gamer playing 12 hours a day to level up and to do all these things, to run on raids and do all this stuff.
People just want to play a game to just, you know, they're on break at work or they just come home and they have an hour to themselves.
So they just want to kind of have looking for that fun.
So absolutely, absolutely agree.
I think there's a huge place for casual games.
If anything, I think there's more casual gamers than hardcore gamers in the world.
Again, I'd have to look at the numbers, but I just feel like that is the place.
My girlfriend, she plays casual games.
You know, I sometimes try to get her to play some games, but it's just not for her.
You know, but casual games, I see her playing all the time on her mobile phone.
So, quote unquote, making her a gamer too.
You know, so I think when we really extend that olive branch, it really goes to show how many gamers we actually have out there compared to just the pool of hardcore gamers that just want to get sweaty.
But yeah, that's kind of my take.
Yeah, it's interesting that you bring that up, you know, the short kind of attention span or the short amount of time that we have in a previous life in when I worked in Silicon Valley for major corporations out there.
It was interesting because we did a study, and this is clear back in like 2016, that the average person picks up their phone anywhere from 130 to about 188 times a day in two-minute increments.
And it's interesting because if you look at like Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, specifically Instagram and Facebook, they have it built into their algorithms that if they can keep you for two minutes, you're guaranteed to stay 40 minutes or longer scrolling through the feed.
So keep that in mind, so keep that in mind, that it is, they've kind of taken the hybrid approach of, you know, using hyper-casual activities to make it into a long-term thing.
So there is a lot of psychology.
So if anybody ever wants to go down that rabbit hole with me, I'm definitely game for it.
So, Chin, go for it, my friend.
Yeah, I think going back to Layer 1X, you were talking about, you know, having user interfaces, user interfaces and all that.
Like, easy-to-use case.
Like, I feel like these kind of games that are just like hyper-casual are great because they are easy to play.
Like, I think someone mentioned, you know, Angry Birds, right?
Like, I remember when I first played Angry Birds, I'm like, man, this is like so addicting.
It's so easy, but yeah, it's so addicting.
And then I forgot, oh yeah, there's that one other game, Fruit Ninja, right?
That's another really like numbing game, but it was so addictive.
I want to cut the watermelon, you know, in half or whatever like that.
And so, yeah, I really think like this, actually this type of gaming is more likely to reach the mass adoption versus like a triple-A game.
Like, you have to sit down, FPS.
And the reason why is because I think someone mentioned, right, like their girlfriend can't really play those, we say like those little sit down, play the game, but she likes those casual games, right?
Like I think of, you know, not my grandparents, but like my other friends and their grandparents.
And they're like, oh yeah, they're playing Candy Crush or they're playing this.
And you would never imagine someone like that playing, you know, games like that, right?
But here they are, they're addicted to it.
And so I really think not only these hyper-casual games have a play in Web3 gaming, I think there could be a key to mass adoption for other games as well.
And I'm not too sure about this because I wasn't here in the previous cycle, right?
But like Axie Infinity, I feel like, was a pretty, you know, casual game.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but like I know it onboarded a lot of people.
And obviously it was more like the financial thing, but like, yeah.
And so, yeah, I would say definitely casual games have a say or, yeah, a thing in Web3.
Good point.
Good point.
Tropic, go for it.
Yeah, I was just going to say one of the things that casual game also has going for it is just the technical limitations.
Because even one of the things that we saw that was kind of difficult is a lot of people that were trying to play the game, their system can't handle it, right?
And not everyone around the world necessarily has, you know, an NVIDIA graphics card in their system.
They might have some very low budget laptop or maybe no laptop at all.
They might have mobile phones.
Mobile phones are by far the most easy way to get onto the Internet and more popular.
So just by sure numbers in that case, then, you know, you can just look at the number of devices that can actually handle some of these AAA games and the number starts to go down.
Then, you know, Internet connections and all of those factors and then you get to the time, how many people that have those things are going to dedicate the time to that specific game.
So I think that's why or one of the other factors that you have to look into, too, with casual games and, you know, the bowl gamers or whatever you want to call them, is that they just might not have the resources or want to dedicate the resources to a game that can to a system that can handle, you know, some AAA game with the best graphics in the world.
Yeah, that's definitely a good point there.
There is some good tech around that to help out with the graphic side of things, especially for Web3 that we've done at Layer 1X by able to tapping into the kernel of the device, which will up the speeds and performance of things.
So there's definitely some move on the horizon there.
Adam, go for it.
Yeah, so two things.
Traffic, I like what you said about the mobile phones, mobile gaming as being a big push in the future.
And then you said accessible to the Internet.
Something that I want to point out, Elon Musk and his Starlink, man, that thing is really growing.
They're shooting up rockets all the time, putting out new satellites.
Here pretty soon, you will be able to access Internet anywhere in the world, in the middle of the ocean, any country.
And it's pretty amazing because you talk about how many people have phones.
That's great.
But how many people will be able to access the Internet even more with all those phones when they have unlimited access to the Internet?
It's a pretty amazing opportunity that everybody, every project in crypto is going to have because you'll just have access to that much more users.
So great, great point on that.
Thanks for bringing that up.
I did want to go back to what Beast League was saying about the casual gaming and the numbers.
And you are completely right from the monthly active users.
Let's see, Fortnite has about 80 million monthly active users.
And then something like Candy Crush has about 270 million monthly active users.
So you're completely right.
And more people are playing casual toilet ball games.
I love that.
That's funny.
But one thing that does set AAA games apart is the amount of money that's spent in the game.
More people playing casual gamers are really just playing the game.
They're not necessarily doing those microtransactions.
And you can kind of look at it from the company itself, the company behind Fortnite, Epic Games.
I did a quick search.
Their revenue is about 2.5 billion.
And they just have a huge amount of advertising dollars that they can spend towards some of their games.
And so that's just something I just wanted to highlight.
I definitely agree.
There is a place for both.
And I would love, don't get me wrong, I would love to see a casual game take on the masses and be the bridge for everybody to come over.
That would be amazing.
But, yeah, thanks.
Great points.
Thanks, everybody, on that one.
So kind of moving on to kind of the tech side of things.
I wouldn't be representing L1X if I didn't talk about seamless interoperability across the different chains.
How important is that for games?
Can you ask again?
Did I miss the question?
I think I did.
Yeah, no problem.
With interoperability, being able to go bridgeless across different chains, obviously that enhances the user experience, grows communities, things like that.
How important is that for games?
Or how important is that for your project?
Go for it, Arena.
Well, this is going to be a hot take, but in my opinion, it's not really important, though.
When we actually want to look at it, it's not really important for games.
If you're a gamer, if you're building games, you don't necessarily care about which chain that you are using,
but you're mostly looking at how easy it is to on-ramp and off-ramp.
How do I put in money?
How do I get my money out?
If the chain that you're currently using as a game provides those, the rest is up to you.
The rest is up to your skills of UI and UX and making it easier for the user to access.
So let's take one of the speaker's point here.
He said that being accessible, for example, the hyper-casual games being easily accessible to everyone,
it created a huge market.
And now a lot of people are reaching their phones and they're just using it.
They don't care.
It's there.
It's easily accessible.
It is fun.
So they just go ahead and do it.
So like when it comes to using blockchain elements or using blockchain tools within your game,
you just have to make it as accessible as possible.
You just have to make sure that people can on-ramp and off-ramp easily.
So like that is more important to a user than which chain that they can swap their tokens to
or how many chains they can use.
That is usually for the really OG Web3 users, the OGs.
But when it comes to the average user, it stops being relevant.
So like when we look at it, the real OGs, the real people who have been here for years actually want that.
But is it that necessary to be interoperable for a game?
I don't think so.
If your systems work, don't try to fix it.
You know, if it works, just let it work.
That's a good point that you brought up.
I'll go with Tropic first and then I'll circle back to that.
Yeah, just really quick.
I think it would matter more to the developer and to the hardcore crypto user
because the developer that wants to use popular assets, let's say a pudgy penguin or board ape or something,
let's say you just know that something that's going to bring a lot of attention,
any mainstream brand or builder within the space that you'd want to bring in some sort of asset
from their ecosystem into your game.
Well, that's important for you to be able to easily do that.
Now, the average person who just wants to play a game, they're not necessarily thinking of that.
The crypto enthusiast that's already in the space, they have a wallet full of NFTs and different assets.
Okay, cool.
It's great for them, but the number of those people, including ourselves that are here, are so few that at this point, I don't think it really matters.
I think down the line, it's going to play a big decision into which games and ecosystems people might jump into as everyone has a wallet.
But at this point right now, I think it's more important to the builders that they're able to just bring in some assets.
That way, they can get some quick attention from people who already care about those specific assets.
And as these SDKs and different things are built out, these developer toolkits,
we get into more of an open source developer where these independent game studios can use the same assets.
Well, then, yeah, it would matter.
But again, that's more so on the developmental side and not necessarily the casual gamer who's going to,
while waiting in line at whichever restaurant or whatever it is, to just hop on a game really quick.
I don't think they're necessarily thinking about that.
Great points. Great points.
So let's think about it this way.
And again, I'm just being a tech advocate here for a bunch of gamers.
So, you know, when you look at it, setting aside the asset component of it,
you know, I look at the different blockchains as different gaming platforms.
Take, like, Nintendo, Xbox, PlayStation, you know, things like that.
By putting yourself onto one platform, are you limiting yourself?
Are you requiring users to come to you rather than you going where the users are?
That's where I can definitely see interoperability helping games in the future,
is by making it easier for people to gain access to their games.
Yeah, they can still stay on the same chain that they're on that they originally did.
But wouldn't it be important for your game to basically be able to grow and scale
rather than spending mass amount of money trying to recruit people over to a chain
that they may not have used before?
Requires them to set up a new wallet type.
If it's not EVM compatible, you know, that kind of stuff, it's kind of a new ecosystem.
Think of like the first time that you went from, you know, playing PC games to when, you know,
a platform came out.
I, you know, think in like clear back to Atari and Sega and, you know, those kind of things.
It's, it's those kind of platforms take some of getting used to.
So why not be able to just take your game to wherever they want?
Chin, go for it.
Yeah, no, that's a good point.
Personally, I still don't think people really care about the chain.
But when it comes to interoperability, I feel like when it comes to like a use case,
I'm thinking about like a selling point to get users is like being able to take my character,
let's say Pudgy Penguins or Master Chief across different chains and across different games,
I think it'd be really cool selling point like for people to be like,
oh, wow, that's the difference between Web 3 versus Web 2.
Because in Web 2, I can't really do that.
I can take Master Chief all around different games, right?
Unless I'm playing like, unless he's in like Super Smash Brothers or whatnot.
And so I think for me, like, yeah, I think there, there is a, it could be an important thing
that people might consider, like, but more, but more or less, at least in my personal opinion,
less more of the chain, like, oh, if I'm on Avalanche or Polygon or Cardano or whatnot,
but more like, okay, what, what is the benefit of it?
Like, and for me, I feel like the benefit is like, man, taking games, skins, guns or whatnot,
emotes even across different games, across different chains,
I think would be a really cool selling point for people, even in the Web 2 space.
Like, oh, wow, I, I grinded so hard for this character.
I gave him the coolest skin, the coolest gun.
And man, now I can take that, not just in the game that I created him in,
but across other games too.
I think that would be really, really cool.
Yeah, I, I agree with the asset, being able to use across chains.
So maybe that is the web, the holy grail of Web 3 gaming
is the ability to use your assets and other games in the future.
Maybe that's what we all need to strive for and move towards.
But unfortunately, until games start collaboratively working together
to make that a reality,
that will definitely be one of those holy grail things
that will be in the far off future for us.
So, but, uh, interesting.
Well, thanks everybody for kind of, uh, participating in today's, uh,
uh, conversation.
I think it was a good one.
Even though it was a little one-sided on the game side,
I was hoping to have a few more, uh, tech and D5 representation here,
but, uh, maybe we'll have to do this topic again.
Uh, and we'll definitely get, uh, our game, uh, representation, uh, back again
to, uh, uh, kind of dissect that, that conversation with those
if they're not too chicken to join it.
So, uh, but anyways, in the interim, thanks everybody for listening.
Uh, we appreciate you.
Uh, again, if you haven't already,
please give these, uh, games a like and a follow.
Uh, they are definitely worth it.
They've provided some great feedback and insight
into what is the, uh, holy grail of web three.
So thanks again, everybody.
Uh, tune in next Tuesday for our next episode of X talks.
Until then, keep uniting, uh, all the crypto
and let's make it that, uh, universal seamless experience.
We're all kind of vying for there.
So thanks and have a great rest of your week.
Bye-bye.
Bye guys.
Goodbye, everyone.
Host
LayerOneX
from
Layer One X
