Space Summary
The Twitter Space New Era of Funding Game Dev hosted by LizLabsio. In the exciting space of ‘New Era of Funding Game Dev,’ game developers are venturing into the dynamic realm of Web3, discovering a wealth of opportunities reshaping the industry. With a focus on innovative funding models, community engagement, and technological advancements like NFT integration and blockchain benefits, the landscape offers a playground for creativity and growth. Embracing collaboration and strategic planning, developers can navigate challenges, leveraging the power of blockchain for transparent, efficient funding. The synergies between gaming, Web3, and NFTs pave the way for a revolution in game development, empowering creators to Scale Up Their Game™ in this new era.
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Questions
Q: How does Web3 impact the traditional funding models for game development?
A: Web3 introduces decentralized and innovative funding mechanisms, reshaping how game developers raise capital.
Q: What role does community engagement play in the success of Web3 gaming projects?
A: Community engagement fosters loyalty, feedback, and support for game development initiatives, driving project success.
Q: How can game developers leverage NFTs for funding in the Web3 space?
A: Game developers can tokenize assets, offer in-game NFTs, and create unique experiences to attract funding in the Web3 ecosystem.
Q: What advantages does blockchain technology bring to funding game development in Web3?
A: Blockchain ensures transparency, security, and efficiency in funding mechanisms, enhancing trust and scalability for game developers.
Q: Why is collaboration important for game developers in the Web3 gaming landscape?
A: Collaboration enables sharing of resources, expertise, and networks, fostering innovation and growth opportunities for game developers.
Q: How can game developers stay innovative in the rapidly evolving Web3 gaming industry?
A: By staying informed, experimenting with new technologies, and adapting to market trends, game developers can drive innovation and stay competitive in Web3 gaming.
Highlights
Time: 00:15:42
Web3 Funding Revolution Exploring how Web3 transforms traditional funding models and opens up new opportunities for game developers.
Time: 00:30:16
Community-Centric Approach Discussing the importance of engaging with communities and building loyal fan bases for successful Web3 gaming projects.
Time: 00:45:09
NFT Integration Strategies Exploring innovative ways to integrate NFTs into game development for funding and asset monetization in the Web3 ecosystem.
Time: 01:00:25
Blockchain Advantages for Game Developers Understanding how blockchain technology enhances security, transparency, and efficiency in funding game development projects.
Time: 01:15:37
Collaboration for Success Highlighting the benefits of collaboration among game developers, investors, and tech experts for driving innovation in Web3 gaming.
Time: 01:30:44
Innovation in Action Showcasing real-world examples of game developers implementing cutting-edge strategies and technologies for success in Web3 gaming.
Key Takeaways
- Understanding the significance of Web3 in revolutionizing funding for game development.
- Exploring innovative strategies and opportunities for game developers to secure funding in the Web3 space.
- Embracing creativity and technological advancements for sustainable growth in Web3 gaming development.
- Collaboration and community engagement play a vital role in the success of game development projects in the Web3 ecosystem.
- The intersection of Web3 and gaming opens up new avenues for financing and expansion in the gaming industry.
- Adopting a forward-thinking approach to funding and development can lead to success and scalability in Web3 gaming.
- Navigating the challenges and opportunities in funding game development projects within the Web3 environment.
- Building a strong network and leveraging blockchain technology can drive innovation and growth in Web3 gaming.
- Exploring the relationship between NFTs, game development, and funding mechanisms in the Web3 paradigm.
- Strategic planning and adaptability are essential for game developers to thrive in the dynamic landscape of Web3 gaming.
Behind the Mic
Time Marches On
Time marches on never ending time keeps its own time here we stand at beginning and in those passing us by and I I can’t dream for us all now I will make the same mistakes time and time again time marches on never ending time keeps its own time now have no fear of my fears and no more tears to cry and mourning morning won’t never be. The same now I will make the. Same mistakes time and time again time and time again. Time and time again. Time and time again GMGM everybody.
Welcome to Lizard Labs
Welcome back to another banger show with Lizard Labs. Embrace your inner lizard and join us as we pioneer play with top web free studios. Today we’re going to talk all about new era of funding in game development. I can’t wait to dive into probably one of the most on topic conversations you can have in web three as probably, you know, definitely one of the sources of different funding that you can access in this space for sure. I cannot wait to dive in with the amazing guest speakers we have. We have Annie with us today, the chief ETH Lizard officer at Lizard Labs. We also have Metamona, former news gal at Wesh building trustworthy media for web free brands, vp of media at not Corrupt Mediaev and also broadcast journalist, producer and part of the Lizard Labs community and team.
Guest Speakers Introduction
We’ve also got Lems with us today, the Lizard Labs IO market and growth also wolves Dow core contributor. We have game GPT by prison with us today, AI driven game engine supported by Jewel Token. We also have age of Dino, web free strategy game Exterior’s first party game exterior games backed by Binance Labs. And we have blast royale web free mobile top down battle royale backed by Animoca brands mechanism cap. Look, basically we have a number of speakers who are genuine experts in the conversation we’re having today, which is what Lizard Labs does best. It brings the best names, the best guest speakers and the real experience to talk about these subjects. And I cannot wait to dive in. Annie, I’ll throw the mic over to you. How excited are you for today’s show?
Excitement for the Topic
Cannot wait to get this one kicked off to start on Mondays. Yeah, I’m pumped here, Jack. I think this is a topic that is really at the heart of why web three gaming has been interesting for the past three years. We talk about why people are here. There’s certainly an element that’s around the financialization and the ability to use nfts and tokens for ways that are unique to monetization. But I think frankly the funding is why a lot of the studios that are here in web three gaming are here today. So it’s definitely interesting to see how this has evolved. Where do we think this is going to be going? A lot of the folks on the panel and different friends of the Lizard family that’s here really keen to get their takes on it too, because many of them have been building for a while and have either benefited or seen some challenges with this different funding models that we bring up. So really keen to get into the topic today.
Innovative Game Development
Me too, me too. I really, genuinely, this one I looked at and thought, yeah, this going to be a fun conversation, one that actually doesn’t happen that much in the web three gaming space. We never talk about the funding aspect. I guess it’s probably of a concern of like, it seeming extractive, but it genuinely isn’t. And I’ll give you like a quick summary of what you’ve seen in the space from my perspective as a gamer. And what like, led us to the conversation today, in a way, is you’re looking at terminology like codification being thrown around, which basically means when a game just decides to replicate and stay as linked to what they’ve done before as possible in really in concerns of a safety in a growing development studio, gaming studio, whatever they basically refer to themselves as. And the basic principles are be safe, make sure the bills get paid.
Challenges in Gaming Studios
And unfortunately, that’s not really what gamers want. I don’t think a lot of us are here thinking, oh, I really just hope that the devs can get paid next month. Like, I think most of the gamers are like, I want to see the most interesting, innovative games that genuinely are going to blow my mind and going to make me feel like I’m in the future. And I think that has really, in a bunch of different industries, just been absolutely scratched and broken down to a point where most studios in entertainment right now are just in a position where they’re like, look, if we don’t play it safe, we’re not sure we can pay the bills and we all still want to play games. I think that’s one thing we can all agree on. So I cannot wait to dive into this one. I think it’s going to be really fun conversation to have.
Listener Engagement
I can’t wait to hear from the experts today for the listeners. If you are excited for this conversation too, which my assumption is you are, you’re in here. So must be at least a little bit bullish on this one, then let’s get the likes and the retweets out of the room. As we dive into the conversation today with no further ado. Look, Annie, I’m going to throw the mic back over to you for a second and then we’re going to get to our amazing guest speakers and the rest of the team. When you said this fascinates you and it’s something that you believe, you know, we don’t talk about a lot, but it is really at the core of what interests a lot of gaming studios to, you know, get involved in Web three.
Funding Challenges in Game Studios
What are the specific challenges going on outside of this space right now that have led these gaming studios to be interested in Web three, in your opinion? It’s so difficult for game studios to acquire funding today. This is not in Web three, right? This is a web two challenge also, you know, I’ve been to, in the past couple of months, Gamescom in Germany and Tokyo game show, and in both cases gotten to meet a lot of really interesting teams that are building, you know, small scale indie studios, some more mid tier sized projects and pretty much across the board. They all have challenges acquiring funding.
Competition for Funding
And you see these amazing game designers and developers that are incredibly passionate about what they’re building. And I would say, frankly, have some pretty interesting gameplay mechanics and loops that I’ve been able to play at these events. And it’s just so competitive in the market to try and acquire funding that topic alone is one of the main reasons that we’ve seen people be driven from Web two into Web three. And I think there’s a couple of points, some good, some bad. But fundamentally that’s what’s happening, is we’re seeing studios that are able to raise funding in Web three a lot easier than in Web two. And some of it’s a liquidity topic where there are more people with excess liquidity that want to deploy capital in Web three than in traditional finance in Web two.
Liquidity and Information Gaps
It also, though, comes from the fact that many folks that are looking for early activations and early participation in rounds or funding with studios, they want that access they can get in Web three. It creates challenges though, because there’s so little information on many of these teams and there’s a lot less transparency in the web three space to some degree than in web two. And I think these are some of the pros and cons that we’re going to get into today. But that’s what in my mind, is driving a lot of the interest for studios coming to web three is it’s easier to get funding.
Crowdfunding Activations
It’s effectively like a Kickstarter type of approach to game developments that we’ve seen have a lot of success in this sort of crowd sourcing, crowdfunding activations over the past decade. I love the take. I love how, honestly, I love how balanced it was. Like, we’re not saying that we’ve different abilities to fund that. It’s all positive. And I think that’s a really important thing to outline from the beginning of this show. I love that you went there because with that does come a bigger responsibility. I think you referenced Kickstarter.
Transparency in Funding
You know, it’s really, it’s this source of like, crowdfunding with people who are, you know, engaged enough to want to almost invest in a game or contribute to a game, and it’s potential and hopeful success. With that comes a different level of experience and with it also does, in this space right now, with it being so new, a nascent stage of, you know, the transparency side, like in VC funding, you know, there’s all these disclosures that have to happen. There’s also to get into the rooms. There’s absolutely so many barriers that aren’t there in Web three, which is a huge positive in respects of, look, not everyone needs that golden ticket to know somebody who knows someone to get them into that room.
Exposure and Protection
At the same time, it does mean the people they have exposure to are not as protected. And I think that is a great sense of, like, where this conversation will likely go. I love we’ve started that way. I’d love to start throwing these questions out to the panel. So, look, I’m going to welcome age of Dino to the show first, and then we’re going to go round to all our amazing guests, game GPT and blast Royale. Similar questions going to come to you here. What is your take on the conversation today in terms of the new era of funding game development?
Web3 and Problem Solving
What do you think it means when you read the title of today’s show? What’s the first thing that sort of comes to your mind, especially with Annie’s context of that good and bad, that pushing pull. So, age of Dino, I’ll throw the mic over to you first. Yeah, I think for me, it’s really the broader aim of everything we’re doing in web three is seeing the problems in web two that are plaguing the industry at the moment and thinking of how, what are ways that blockchain technology gives us new abilities to try to solve the problem in a way that wasn’t available before.
Funding Innovation in Web3
And funding for me is one other angle of that. Right, where there’s limitations, there’s a lot of games that can’t get the funding they need in a web two. So how can we use this new technology and the ethos that comes along with our space and potentially bring about a different paradigm where there’s other participants beyond the same parties that only exist in web two, or that different parties are able to participate in a different way? I love this. Yeah, I definitely think there’s some crucial areas where web two is just really falling off that path.
Developers Facing Challenges
You know, we alluded to it earlier on in the show when we talked about this idea that, you know, these game developers are having to play very safe just to pay the bills in some sense. But I think there’s a lot more to it than that as well. You know, there’s really some extractive processes that are going on in this space right now when it comes to game development and continuing Runway in terms of, you know, creating skins, creating these things that, you know, people don’t have ownership of yet. They’re just printing them out.
Frustration Among Gamers
They’re not given full access to games where they should and they’re making them additional packages, all these things just to extract more from the player. And I think there’s a lot of gamers out there that are a little frustrated with that now. So. Yeah, definitely really on the page for moving that conversation forward too. Mona, I’ll throw the mic over to you and then we’ll get to game DPT and blast on this one. Yeah, you said a trigger word that triggered me.
Marketing and Game Development
I mean, we, you know, we come from the marketing angle and we know that in web three, gaming marketing is not the part of the development process as an afterthought. And so one of the. What you said, the trigger word there was, there’s a lot more that’s happening here, and it truly is because, and you guys can correct me if I’m wrong, and this is going to end up in a question that I want to ask you guys. Because when a vc looks at where the project, where the gaming project is today, when they come and look at the inside of what you’ve built, one of the things that we constantly see when we talk to gaming projects about their marketing is that we notice that they have built so many elements.
Tokenomics and Game Design
The building on building tokenomics and in world economies, we see that this is an issue here because these features, first and foremost, don’t motivate anyone outside of speculators. Additionally, when you look closely at a game that is not fully developed, explore is not a game community, is not a game creators making stuff for avatars is not a game. None of these reasons, none of these are reasons for any gamer or creator fan to stop using Twitch and YouTube and Spotify and Fortnite or Roblox and start using, creating or buying stuff, right?
Challenges in the Gaming Market
All of the above must be built on top of game design or it’s very pretty straw house built on sand. This is why we see projects struggling. But this is why there’s also potential. So the question I want to pose to you guys is do you think VC’s look at this and say okay, what have you done so far? What is the game here? Right? The way we see it is there’s potential here and the potential is to start messaging and probably producing from the game design up.
Funding Requirements
But that would mean founders will have to deprioritize some tokenomics or marketplace feature production burn if they don’t turn key turnkey into game design. So do you guys think VC’s look at that and say well you can’t get the funding because you really are not ready? I love this mona. I think this is honestly, it’s a two part question of the good and the. Well actually the bad and the bad of both different funding sources at the moment.
Bureaucracy in Game Development
With web two you really have this idea of like honestly it’s just, it’s almost bureaucratic, it’s almost business like in a world that should be nothing of the sort. You know, games, gaming should be creative, should be innovative and it should really play to the community that it’s been built for, which feels like it’s just, it’s gray at the moment. There’s just no joy left as these guys just try and print out more money by just creating the same thing as cheaply and as effectively as possible. Web free side to summarize, it really is that other side of the coin where there’s all these ideas and there’s all this understanding of the issues that are currently really just spreading through web two.
Gameplay Quality Concerns
But is there enough concrete, executable, tangible, playable gameplay? No. No there isn’t right now. So I really love this. It’s like these are the two negative sides of that coin. So I think, you know what, let’s just talk about the challenges. Let’s get transparent. Let’s open this one up to these incredible speakers and then I’m sure we will also get to the positives as well because there’s a really bright future behind all of this. But we can’t, you know, we can’t just paint over the stuff that really does suck about the space right now because otherwise, you know, if you don’t know it’s a problem, you ain’t going to solve it.
Game GPT’s Perspective
So game GPT, I want to say we’ve got Devon behind the mic, but correct me if I’m wrong here, would love your take on all of this, the two negatives and maybe a little positive spin on how game DPT are looking at this. Yeah, what’s going on everybody? Thanks for having me on, Jack, you are right. It is Devin, really happy to be here. I’m going to add my own perspective because I think the original question was Jack, what’s your first thing that comes to mind when you think the state of funding game development?
Concerns and Optimism
And then I’m going to answer the prevailing consensus that I’ve heard here, which is like there’s good but mostly bads about where we’re going right now. I’m actually optimistic. Jack, I think you’ve been on enough spaces with me to know I’m like the resident techno optimist. We’re an AI company and I would like to think we’re AI first and I think that is going to lead to a better future for where we are. In terms of the way I see it, I’m actually thinking a lot more optimistically here.
AI and Game Development
We have AI and a whole bunch of other tools that game developers are learning and other tools that are coming out every day that are going to drastically lower the cost of what it takes to build a game. And on the other side of that coin, how we capitalize gains, it’s also completely changing with web two.
Funding and Game Development in Web 2 and Web 3
I believe, like Lizard Labs mentioned, we have normal vc’s, we have fundraising where you can go on Kickstarter or whatever, and then sometimes if you’re a really scrappy dev, I think some of the best games have just been able to bootstrap it themselves. They come out with an MVP, they launch it on Steam. And then the early access funds that they create from the community that they have is really what they use to improve upon the game. I do think that having like an early access, kind of like bootstrapped approach doesn’t really work in web three because web three people like to speculate and web three people like tokens and being really early with a product. And some people would kind of like clash you for it may not be the best thing for web three, but nonetheless, web two people have been able to figure it out over the years and years that web two games have happened. But on top of all of that funding that happens in Web two, Web three has also completely opened up the accessibility on being able to fund games.
The Role of VC Funding
Right. If you’re lucky enough to have VC funding, I think that is a great step because people, these guys are people who are okay with taking risk. And whenever you’re just kind of like a vision and a group of people who are going after something, I think they’re the type of people who are with taking risks at funding what you need to actually get that game to a position where consumers and everyday gamers are going to be okay with buying an NFT or perhaps buying the token. But nonetheless, if you don’t have VC’s in your game, plenty of other people have been able to launch a product that I think has been awesome. Whether it’s through like a fair launch and there’s plenty of project, plenty of places where you can do that, whether it’s through a launch paddle or even just tgeing and kind of doing it through that way. I think there are a lot of ways that games can fund themselves.
The Impact of Technology on Game Development Budgets
But as it has been mentioned a few times, I think this because there is no lack of accessibility to capital so that people can build really good games, it has led some people to take nefarious intentions. But I think this is kind of just something in an emerging market. And obviously it really sucks when this happens to people. But I think because the dramatic reduction of what it costs to build a game through AI and other tools, that’s kind of happening that it’s going to lead to a lot of games to be built on lower and lower budgets. And that’s just going to be great for the consumer where there’s always going to be an amazing game that comes out, whether it’s for the month or for the year, that are getting built by more and more skilled people and at a lower budget because of what’s happening through technology.
Hope for AI and Community in Game Development
This is my hope. This is honestly my dream about AI mixed with web three and the ability to fund in different ways. I do hope that basically people who are genuinely passionate about the industry, who genuinely want to improve it, want to innovate within it, get that opportunity to, and then it’s really down to the community, the gamers themselves, to derive where the success comes from. Annie, your hand flew up earlier. So I feel like I definitely cultivated a hot take that I want to latch onto before we get to blast Royale as well. So throw the mic over to you on these two maybe darker sides of the coin, both for traditional gaming and web free gaming. The either mass production sort of really gray feeling of how web two gaming is currently being built. But also the other side of this, where web free gaming is just in a stage where the transparency isn’t always there and people are supporting things that actually turn out nothing be a tangible game at the end of it.
The Importance of Reform in Web 2 Gaming
Yeah, look, Jack, I think that’s exactly the point, right. Is that we see over and over again in web two why the sector needs reform, right? And some of our panelists have already shared, like, it’s such a horrific industry to work in, and that’s been the case for decades now, and nothing’s really improving. In fact, I would argue it’s probably getting worse when you look at the fact that most game studios have really had the actual designers and devs really shipped out the door and replaced with these deep psychoanalytical data scientists who are just focused on the maximum value extraction through microtransactions and loot box mechanics and so forth. And the actual question like, is there a game loop that’s worth playing? That’s here, you know, is completely put on the back burner.
The Lack of Creativity in Game Development
And similarly, I mean, we talk about studios that have a lack of creativity. You know, we can look at all of the sports games just as like the perfect example where every year they’re going to release a new title. You’re going to pay $60, $80 for the same exact game as you did the year before. Just a completely, you know, rebranded set of numbers and names put on the jerseys. But there’s nothing that’s being done that’s innovative. These studios are very much coasting off of previous successes and there’s so little innovation that actually gets funded because it’s very difficult to stand out in the space. And so I think these issues are well known in web two. And what many of us that are here in Web three had hoped over the past, let’s call it four years now, is that web three would solve that. Right?
Expectations of Web 3 Gaming
I mean, we talk about the space being inevitable because asset ownership is better for gamers. The ability to fund studios and founders that have a deep and passionate vision for what they’re building should make this better. Right? The challenge that we’ve seen is that being able to identify studios that can build a good game is no easier in Web three than it is in web two. And in fact, it’s probably harder because too few of the teams actually have good pedigrees of game designers and developers to build something out. And so I think the visions are very, they’re incredible in web three. The execution though, has been pretty lacking to date. And so we really need to focus on finding these builders that have the experience and the knowledge and understand how to put together a good game.
Balancing Execution with Innovation
And then we can leverage the web three elements to make it better. But, but really it comes down to that execution missing to really pull us out of these challenges that we see in Web two. Yeah, this is, I think, the crux of this whole conversation. In all honesty, from my opinion, at least when, you know, we discussed doing this as a show, is this idea of, okay, we know Web two is broken. Like definitively. We know that if you’re a gamer in Web two, not one of you, I don’t believe, is like, oh, this is the best it’s ever been. I think for most of us who, you know, maybe are little, you know, touching our thirties right now have definitely got nostalgia from the past.
Nostalgia and Reality
But right now is not a moment where I would definitely say this is the best gaming has ever been. That was like 15 years ago for me. Now some of that’s going to be nostalgia. But realistically, the most part, the big part of this is, as we’ve said now, pretty fundamentally, these games and the studios have got to a position now where they are coasting by creating stuff that they know is going to be paid out without, you know, with almost these data scientists are saying this is the minimum you’re going to have to spend to get the maximum value, which is not what the gaming industry should be about. But web three is right now at a point where it has all the technology, all the infrastructure to solve these problems. But it’s now got its own issues that we need to resolve as part of this conversation.
Building Trust in Web 3
I’d love to dive into that a little bit more. So let’s get over to some of the other speakers we haven’t heard of yet, blast Royale, haven’t heard from you yet. This has been a really fun conversation for me. So apologies, we haven’t got to you yet, but this is the question for you is how do you see this? How do you see web three solving the problem of not the infrastructure, but the trust factor that now has been a little bit lost? And also, how do we ensure gamers as they come into the space that, look, this is the place you want to be and these are the games that you want to be involved in? Whether that’s as a collector, as a, you know, an early crowdsource, funding, like whatever that might be, how do we bridge that gap that has now clearly been made since the you know, really since 2021, when the gaming really took off in web three?
Addressing the Challenges in Web 3 Gaming
Talk about an easy question to answer. Not. I think I could spend about an hour just answering that alone. It’s such a fascinating topic. I think you’ve got so many different conflicts of interest in terms of what people want. But to try and be concise and answer you specifically, I think we can learn a lot from the Kickstarter model. But I learned both what’s good and bad, because Kickstarter also had a lot of bad problems where people sort of over promised and gamers didn’t really understand what was required. I think something that we see in the crypto space already is that it’s so hype driven that people invest into something and then they don’t understand why the game isn’t ready the day after and why it isn’t better than grand Theft Auto seven, forget six. You know, that’s expectations when you’re really, like, hyping into a project.
Building in the Open
But how we can get there is by building the best possible thing, but also fully embracing building in the open, which I think is a topic that comes up in a lot of these spaces. So I think what we need to do is we need to educate people who are coming in to about what we’re building and how we’re building it and showing how we’re iterating and making the game. I think giving people access to the game early, now that is a risk someone’s already said before, and I totally agree with the point, if you release a product too early, then it might work against you with the hype. And I think that is the case right now. But I think that’s not where we’re going to need to go, because otherwise I think you’re setting yourself up for a failure, whereas you can sort of manage expectations.
Investment and Motivations
And I would say one good thing about the web three, space is not like you just have to invest up front, right? You can invest any time in the project. You could invest right in the beginning when it’s just an idea on the back of a napkin. You could invest when you see some cool graphics. You could invest when you’ve got a cool gameplay loop, many things, and you can get involved that way. So that’s what we’ve got to do. We’ve got to provide high quality and experiences that people really like. Obviously the conflict of interest is that then, though, some people are just investing under the pretense that they’re going to make more money, which I think is a fine reason to want to invest. I mean, at the end of the day, that’s why VC’s invest in games, right?
The Reality of VC Involvement
I mean, they’re not there to be your friends. And I can tell you that I remember one VC that I spoke to writing earlier. My journey was like, you do realize that this isn’t a lifestyle, right? We’re here to make money. That’s literally what they did. So that deal didn’t happen as you can kind of imagine. But you know, people are pretty candid in that. So, yeah, I think most people in this space are passionate about what they want to do. They want to make great games. You’ve got to get that across, but you’ve got to walk the walk. You can’t just talk the talk. You got to really show that’s the case and work fully in.
Building Trust within Communities
And I think the studios that will get it, I don’t think they’ll get it overnight. But like I say, building out in the open, build up the trust of your community. I think your community will actually forgive you for a lot more than you might think that you would as long as you show that you’re listening to them and you’re building something that’s great and provably making it better. And I can speak purely about blast around our game. We’ve had our game out for like 18 months and there have definitely been times where people are basically messaging me saying, dude, I think you should quit the games business, what you guys doing, etcetera. But eventually we get to the point where like, oh my God, this is actually quite good and are you guys actually doing what you said you would?
The Journey of Trust and Improvement
And we kept doing it and they’re like, oh my God, these guys are the best ever. So you can win the trust. It takes a while and that’s all we need to get to. I’ll be really curious to hear other people’s stories around that as well. But I think if we get there, what my hope is that actually we’re going to show the existing games industry that’s where we’re going to need to go to. In the past, the games industry had magic. You couldn’t wait to get that brand new super Nintendo game. You’d run home, open it, your mom or dad would tell you off because you played it for 12 hours.
Nostalgia and Anticipation
We need to get back to those days. Definitely. And again, too concerned with sounding like a boomer on this show. But that’s. I am so aligned with this take. And when I say boomer, I don’t mean an age thing. I think it’s more of a lifestyle at this point, being a boomer. And I’m just there. I’m just at that point, guys, where I’m just like, no. Back in my day. Anyway, look, blast for someone who started the take with, well, that’s an easy question to answer very sarcastically. My God, brother, did you absolutely crush that one out of the park?
Embracing Transparency and Community
Because it just definitively, building in public is a huge part of that building in the open. I definitively agree. And there’s a lot of concern right now in this space about doing exactly that and getting people frustrated at the. How early they get access to it. And also this idea that the transparency could come back and bite you if you do something cool that another team then, you know, basically manages to steal and replicate faster in getting to market. But I think overarchingly this is the world that we are going into. Everything is becoming content. Like, that’s just definitively what’s happening right now, people, if you’re not aware of it, YouTube has more viewers on a television at this point than Netflix.
The Shift in Gaming Consumption
About 8% to 6%. Like, people watch content on anything. And if you don’t think the gaming industry more than just the game being played is of interest to literally maybe even half of the 4 billion people who call it a hobby, I don’t know what to tell you. I’m just. Well, I do, actually. It is. I disagree with the fact that you don’t think that it’s as simple as that. So, yeah, very great take. We’re going to get over to Lem’s and then we’re going to go to avalanche gaming to get their take on this. This is a great conversation, by the way, guys and listeners, let’s like.
Acknowledging Support and New Listeners
But I’ve seen a ton of you have. So thank you so much for the support and thank you for all the new listeners. Definitely recommend going back to the start of this one because it’s been hot the whole time. Lem’s over to you.
Web Two Gaming Industry Concerns
Yeah, I’ll echo a lot of the same thoughts around, you know, the way the web, two games industry is now on a lot of this, you know, cookie cutter pushing it out. And to your point, Jack, like you even said, sometimes it’s about just paying the bills. But honestly, at this point, it’s, you know, you can call it corporate greed, call it capitalism, whatever you want to call it. A lot of the time it’s just they are doing it because it’s in their best interest and they know people will come back and buy by the next year and they can just keep making the money and have less expenses. But it’s definitely drained a lot of the creativity out of gaming and I think we’re, you know, maybe I’m just being an optimistic gamer, but seeing a couple of these indie titles break out this year gives me some hope that people are getting a little bit more jaded from these big, you know, massive game studios that are pumping up the same stuff.
Indie Titles Gaining Recognition
You know, we see like hell world and helldivers again, like doing amazing this year, just coming like from the indie side of things. I think web three definitely like empowers the more indie side of things. Even though yes, you can still have bigger studios come in and build inside here, but I think it definitely empowers the indie smaller people. And someone mentioned Kickstarter as well. I think web three has the ability to be a bit more like a transparent and reliable kickstarter. Still, people, we’re subject to some of the same issues. We’ve seen people pitching a big vision and then have to execute on it and all those kind of things. It can be a whole process in itself, but it does allow people to get involved early. And I think that’s a big part of the. We talked about community building. There was a week or two ago on here getting the community involved early.
The Importance of Community Involvement
But I’ll push back a little bit. I’ll play a little. I’ll play a little steel man’s argument here on the building. Totally in open. I think this is almost like a human thing as opposed to just a games industry thing. We tend to go from one side of the spectrum to the other and it’s like, oh, if games are all building in stealth and then they come out with this big hype moment, which is very valuable. Don’t get me wrong, coming out because you have this big reveal and then going to the other opposite end of the spectrum of being like, hey, we’re going to be totally transparent about the whole development process. But I think the biggest challenge with that is people don’t understand how long it takes, as we’ve seen over the last few years. Like, I’m guilty of this too. When I got in the space, I was like, oh, it’s really cool to be a part of the ride from the onset and seeing like each step piece by piece.
Understanding the Development Process
But I think for most people, they don’t understand the process and how long it takes. So I find it almost works better if you’re doing these like milestone moments where you’re showing things and you’re still showing the development, but maybe not at a super granular level. And same with like playtests letting people in the game too early. And there’s not no good, like first time user experience those kinds of things, people then can sometimes be left with a little bit of a sour taste in their mouth versus if you get the game to, you know, you have like a vertical slice which is one full game loop and you actually have built out that so you can show that experience to your community. You’re not revealing everything all at once. That’s why I think, like we can strike a really good middle ground.
Fundraising Dynamics and Building in Public
And then I, you know, like we talked about here, like you can bootstrap with web three, right? You know, the term investor can get thrown around a lot and you know, sometimes it can be a little scary on the regulatory side when it comes to, you know, securities and all those sort of fun things when it comes tokens and nfts. But like, even if we take a step back and don’t even think about it as an investor, like, I think about it more like a, you know, in a Kickstarter, which I guess you could still call it an investor, but I often, the way I would think about it is more like a collectible. And you can have speculative upside on a collectible if you collect, whether it’s Star wars figurines, Nike shoes, whatever it might be, you’re not investing directly in those companies, but you’re buying it with speculation that it’s going to go up in value over time based on its success.
NFTs and Their Potential
I think there’s nothing wrong with that. You can still have that and you can buy into an NFT early and be like, hey, it gets you these things in the game. But people are also looking at it on the perspective of side of this could increase in value if the game is successful. And I think those kinds of things are really interesting and definitely like can change the whole funding landscape when we’re looking at web two versus the web three world. I love this. I think you know what? I think you’re dead right. I think, look, it just like a documentary series isn’t going to be just live footage of whatever the activity is for 50 to 150 to 200 hours.
Documentary Style and Audience Engagement
Like, I don’t want to watch the guy sleep for one. I definitely don’t want to watch the guys eat. Like just not interested in that side of things. There’s another thing that comes alongside sleep and eat that I think most people’s minds could go to naturally. And I’m not going to mention, okay, poop. I don’t want to see people poop on the show. Like there’s these things that look, they can be edited out. Like they can be cut out and then realistically the conversations in the background as well. But there is definitely probably more content than people understand is actually entertaining and engaging and honestly reputation building that I think is also happening.
Examples from Helldivers
And I’ll give you a really good example or I don’t know if it’s a really good example. That’s a big ego of me just being like, yeah, I’ve got a great take here, guys. But you just mentioned helldivers. They did a 40 minutes run back of the developers going through all the updates they recently made to the game based on negative feedback from the gamers on how they’d nerfed a lot of the weapons, how they’d increased a lot of the PvE, the player, this environment. So the environmental things they were playing against, the monsters, they basically made them undefeatable or just really grindy. And the feedback they got, they took it away. They listened and then they did basically they released the updates.
Engagement through Developer Communication
But they released a 40 minutes conversation with the developers on why they did the updates play by play. It was the 8th most viewed video that week on YouTube. It was millions and millions of people watch that thing. And the amount of times I have heard, guys, no one wants to watch a developer talk or no one wants to really get, you know, that level. It’s like actually guys, when people feel passionately about it and they feel heard and you can do that in a way that isn’t watching the developers build. As Lem’s mentioned, all those updates, no one wants to see those guys and the freaking matrix screen that they’re looking at coding away.
Educational Aspects of Development
Especially if you haven’t got that background and you’re just watching a screen look literally like the Matrix. But they wouldn’t mind a little education on look, this is what we did. This is why we did it. And I think this is the thing that a lot of people don’t understand and just something that I am so passionate about in terms of even these spaces I think are a great example of that. Look, we haven’t heard from Avalanche yet. And then we’re going to get to age of dinos with the hand raised and then we’re going to get this really organic for the last 15 minutes section avalanche throwing the mic over to you where do you sit on building in public?
Diverse Perspectives on Transparency
And where do you sit on this idea that we need some form of transparency and we still need some form of solution that maybe isn’t quite there yet when it comes to investing or collecting or, you know, basically in some way funding a project without really understanding if that game is genuinely going to be developed. Heck yeah, Jack. So I think I can take this from a few different angles. Thanks for taking me up here. Sneaky che behind the mic. Great to see so many legends up here. You know, at Avalanche Gaming, we invest directly into portfolio games through a few different ways.
Investment Strategies in Gaming
We have our equity funds like Blizzard Fund, which directly provides equity investment into projects. And then also we have grant systems. And those grant systems are more, I would say, tailored toward products and communities that are more so existing versus the more speculative nature that like startup investing and equity investing has to take. So I think it depends on obviously where you are in terms of like timeline of development, pedigree and all these other things, right? So it’s like if you look at something like a maple story, right? They have so much history and provenance in terms of the web two side of their business.
Provenance of Established Entities
So when they say, hey, we’re going to come into web three, build on avalanche, have our own layer three, those commitments and statements have a lot more weight behind them coming from, you know, maplestory as an entity than a brand new player in the space. So I think like, your track record of execution speaks loudest when there is no product existing today. So like it’s fine to, you know, be pre product and just be a pitch deck and try to raise capital. But like you’re saying, Jack, like, why would anyone believe that you’re able to execute well, it’s going to be on your history and if you’ve executed previously, otherwise, if you don’t have that, you know, it’s really hard just to get folks to believe in you for the first time.
Bootstrap Your Project
So I think other folks have suggested this. You know, if you’re able to bootstrap and, you know, try to start small and start as like more of an indie project, ultimately if you’re able to garner traction by, quote unquote, building in public, you know, ultimately when you do raise capital, you’re going to be in a much better position. Well, you’ll actually have leverage to use in those negotiations to where you’re going to be able to keep a larger piece of your vision in pie. And so unfortunately, the sort of state of the market is like, if you don’t have that bulletproof resume of pedigree of like, what you’ve done.
Challenges of Idea-Only Pitching
It’s really about, I would say the better path is going. Building in public and putting something out there and showing that you’re able to get some initial results. And then it’s a lot easier for folks to want to pile in if you’ve shown, you know, some proof of concept. Otherwise. Yeah, it’s really, I think, difficult to raise on just ideas or merits alone because there’s a lot of folks that have pretty impressive merits and backgrounds. I think you’re dead on there.
The Importance of Due Diligence
It’s, I think the due diligence, you know, especially with some of the, what’s the word? Like some of the guys not necessarily being fully doxxed is a question as well. Like, you know, if people are saying that they’ve developed X, Y and Z, but they’re saying that behind a PFP with an a non name and these sort of things, I think that’s one thing that we need to look to resolve. But overarchingly I agree with this take and I do think the building and public side, you know, probably a conversation we could have a part two of because this is such a fun conversation, but I feel like we’ve only just scratched the service.
Pivotal Points in VC Funding
I wouldn’t even change the guest speakers. Like, you guys have been incredible. I would just literally run this back and, you know, basically just keep diving into this. But one part I don’t think we’re going to have a chance to get today, but is a really pivotal point of this conversation is even when it comes to VC funding, it’s not the idea that look you like when you can get it, you should take it straight away. It’s also, as you’ve just mentioned, it’s that piece of the pie. And I think a lot of gamers, in the same respect, don’t want to see the game studio that worked so hard, give up such a large piece of that pie and then beholden to people that aren’t the gamers in the same way that we had referenced earlier on.
Incentives and Pressures in Game Development
Like, these guys are in it for the money and there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s what makes the world go round. It’s definitely what gets some of these games that are our favorite games funded in the first place. But there’s definitely in this space there’s a tip for tat and you know, you talk about pressure to go and run a Tge before it’s ready. You talk about pressure of like, we just need to extract the initial money that we’ve invested. All of that probably could be, you know, just, that could definitely be a show in itself.
Continuing the Conversation
But I just, I love to take avalanche. I just want to expand on that a little bit for the audience because I think that’s, you know, a pivotal part of the stuff we haven’t discussed yet. But we can only touch the surface on let’s get over to blast Royale and then we’ll go, oh, actually, let’s go. Age of Dino. I believe I said I’d throw two next and then blast Royale. Would love to hear your takes on the conversation so far.
Building in Public: A Balance
Yeah, I would love to expand on that building in public play. I think, like everything, it’s a balance. And like you brought up, it’s not the right answer. Isn’t swinging from one extreme of the pendulum to the other. But to put it in context, even in a traditional, pure web two setting where the only investors in a company are the VC’s, a game company is usually not. The VC’s usually aren’t interested in talking to that studio every day or even every week to see the intricacies of what did your engineers work on today?
Traditional Communication Expectations
Often the founder might write a monthly investor update with some of the key things. We made these few hires. This accelerates whatever. Here’s our Runway, here’s our big milestones. Here’s unexpected things. Here’s what I need your help on. So it’s not, you know, because like you said yourself, like no one really wants to hear. Okay. Today I thought about what this tree should look like, and tomorrow I started kind of drafting the tree, and then this leaf didn’t look right.
Discussing Game Design Insights
So it’s like here, let’s do a five minute segment with the costume designer and they’re going to talk about why they designed the clothing and look for these characters in this new region and how it matches, like, theme of this new region. Right. They’re nature, people, whatever. The level designer is going to talk about why the puzzles and challenges in this new environment are the way they are and how it makes sense with their vision or hey, we introduced underwater swimming for the first time and you think it’s easy, but we actually had totally change where we do camera angles. And as a gamer, for me, that stuff I find fascinating, right? It’s like, oh, this. Learning all the stuff I didn’t even realize about all the thought and detail that go into something that I enjoy, right? And seeing all these people live who are so passionate about what they do, talking about the thought process that goes into, I think that’s super interesting.
Web Three vs Web Two Insights
And obviously once a year is a little bit far away. It doesn’t have to be such high production value, but taking hints from that of just like talking, remembering that the difference with web three is you’re not just dealing with pure vc’s, your pure finance guys that are crunching numbers and looking at a spreadsheet and a model that says if I put this money in, am I going to get, you know, the percent return that I’m mandated to hit or stay above? We’re talking to people who might see themselves investors and put money in. But a lot of the people in here are also in addition to maybe that Persona gamers or have some affinity and love for gaming. And as a gamer, that’s kind of cool that in web three, something that web two doesn’t really offer right now is we can peel back that curtain a little bit and let them into the process a little bit of hey, let’s share some more with you.
Investment and Community Engagement
Let’s get some education about how your favorite games are made or some decisions you didn’t realize go into or why it takes so long. I again, love this, take, love the direction this conversation has gone. And I’m just, I completely agree. There’s not one point you’ve just made that I would disagree with. I think it’s almost as well, you know, these people, even if they do see themselves, is supporting like through like a crowdfunding or like a collectible sense. I think even if you did say, look, this investment, if you were to call it that, is worth x amount. However, as long as you keep the investment at this amount, you can have all this additional access. Maybe when we do Gamescom or a different IRL event, you get special privileges, you get access to that content and Q and a sessions with those game developers and maybe you get like specific flexes in game that don’t even add to how you play or give you any competitive edge, but give you full like, flex on the fact that you were there early.
Defining the New Investor Persona
Some of these guys would never take a penny back out. Like they would just want that. So I think, yeah, it definitely. We don’t have a term for it yet. Like, this is the thing. We do not know what to call these people because there is. We haven’t defined it properly yet. And this is, you know, the SEC and everything that’s going on in broader regulation. This is the thing. Like this is new. Just the way we call web free. Web free. This is. This is completely new. And I can’t wait to see where it all unravels. But I do definitively agree that, yeah, these people aren’t just VC’s and they definitely don’t just see themselves as fundamentally financial investors. Like, they want more than that.
Building Community and Long-term Value
And they’re prepared to give more than an investor or a VC would in term of time, passion and engagement, and a community side as well. Blast Royale, I’d love for you to finish this one off. We’ve got a couple minutes left before we have to get over to the Lizard Labs team to end off the show, so I’d love to hear your final take before we run this one out to all the listeners, though, likes retweets. Let’s definitely follow the people up on stage if you’ve enjoyed the takes today, because they’ve been incredible and these guys are real builders. So look, you’re just going to do your TiMelIne a favor and just get a couple more goats on the feed for whatever Elon’s doing at the MinutE with all the sporadic stuff that also hit your feet. Or maybe that’s just me over to blast RoYaLE.
The Importance of Time in Game Development
Yeah, no pressure to rattle in. I wanted to just talk about some of the Avalanche gaming, which I think is really interesting because they mentioned that they do equity investments, and I think that’s really good because I think one issue that we have in the space is that basically you need time to make great games. That’s the secret. How to make great games. There’s a reason why Rockstar Studios takes about ten years to make every game, but the games are really good. If you remember the Blizzard bangers from back in the day, like World of Warcraft or Starcraft two and things like that, they take ages. They’ll even reboot the game completely after two years if it’s not good enough. That might be a bit crazy, but I think that’s my point. So I think that’s something we need in the space as well, and I’m not sure we’re there yet.
Investor Expectations and Studio Development
I think people, especially the sort of investors that we bring into the space, they expect immediate return to, you know, building a game studio isn’t something that can be done overnight. It’s about having faith in that team. And if you give enough smart people, enough resources, they will probably get there, if you believe in their conviction. But are we there yet? I’m not entirely sure. I would like us to get there. And I do think that this year is going to go some way to help people get towards that space. I think studio tokens are another way that you can get around doing that so it doesn’t have to be extra investments.
Navigating the Flood of Projects
But for example, I think that, for example, a few years ago, post axie boom, that was a big issue, is that the space got flooded with a lot of cheap, easy, free money, but not the support and not the understanding that follow these projects. I mean, with them for a long time, you can get that. But it’s an interesting discussion. Anyway, I love it. You broke up for the final second there, but I think everything just followed. So we got the whole take, fortunately. But sorry if I interrupted there with the. Oh, as it did, give me like a couple seconds of a pause and look, I love it. I love every time you say, this is really difficult, I can’t believe, Jack, you’ve just thrown this to me and then absolutely crush out the park.
The Future of Gaming Tokens
I love this idea of project tokens, by the way, and like, gaming tokens more broadly, I just. Yeah, I think we will get there definitively. That’s why I’m in this space. That’s why I love the sort of conversations we have, and I love the projects up on stage. There’s an issue in web two and web three can solve it. And these sort of conversations are genuinely, I believe, going to lead to that, solve and leave real gamers a little bit more optimistic to get involved. Because I think once they see the genuine passion that is within these conversations, they’re going to know like that there’s definitely a couple of us out here, you know, a couple real, genuine builders who aren’t here to extract, who do want to solve some of these issues.
Acknowledging Challenges Ahead
But it’s a new space, and with anything new, there’s going to be people who look to extract that value in nefarious ways, but there’s also going to be a ton of people who believe in it and are going to win in the long term. Annie, I’m going to throw the mic back over to you, but happy for this to go to any member of the Lizard Labs team, any updates, any milestones, anything at all you’d like to leave the listeners with today before we end the show in a couple minutes. Jack, I think you nailed it right there. There’s a risk in any nascent early stage industry like we are in web three gaming. I do want to share though.
Recognizing the Efforts of Builders
I think it’s real easy to paint founders and early teams in the sector with a very broad brush, as this project was a rug and this team scammed everyone and just took funds and left. And certainly there’s some of that. There’s more than I think there really ought to be. However, there are quite a lot of teams that I think just frankly, either underestimate the challenge of building in the gaming sector or b they’re underfunded and are unable to raise. They’re able to get to maybe an early stage, but they can’t ever push past that alpha because they can’t make the product market fit, really appear in the amount of time they have available.
The Role of Support in Development
And so I do want to give credit to the builders that are out here trying, even those that may not fully succeed, and obviously those that are experienced builders that have left maybe more stable and sustainable roles to come and try and build. Knowing how difficult it is, I want to give credit to them too. Because without them, this entire industry just doesn’t exist. And I think we’re back looking at the challenges of web two and just wondering when things are going to get better. And so, kudos to the teams that are out here actually in the trenches, grinding and trying to build something meaningful.
Focus of Lizard Labs
From our standpoint, at Lizard Labs, our primary focus has always been on supporting those teams. It started as investors in early stage projects a few years ago, and over the last couple of years we’ve scaled up now to offering business to business solutions and services, to building out our own mini games and metagames. And so for those that are in the space, if you are someone that believes that web three gaming is the future of the industry and you want to support some of these early stage projects that are trying to do it the right way, one easy way that you can do so is come join us at Lizard Labs.
Engaging the Community
And we’ve got pinned in the nest here that the second tweet is a really easy to access approach. To do so, come join us through the Lizard Lounge app. And once you sign up, you’re going to be eligible for part of our $3 million airdrop of Liz Coin that’s happening imminently. This is real soon, not web three soon. And as part of this, we’re incredibly focused on pulling in these top studios in the sector and creating experiences that make their products better. We’re so focused on adding value and infusing value to these studios and not just being extractors.
Final Thoughts and Audience Engagement
And so if you’re someone that has that same ethos and philosophy, come join us because you ought to be part of the underground Lizard lounge with us. So that’s the main message that I would say for anyone that’s here. And again, we’ve had an amazing audience today. I’ve seen lots of good comments. The panel has been straight fire as you shared Jack, I think, but I’d love to just go for another 2 hours on this and related topics with everyone here. We’re incredibly proud to be a partner with many of these studios on stage and building alongside them. So thank you for the audience that was able to join us, for those that are listening on the replay and I look forward to seeing all of you in the underground lizard lounge.
Concluding the Show
Amazing stuff. Amazing stuff, guys. And look, really, you got nothing else to add to that? Just been a great show. Mona, just to throw you the mic for a second, do you, are you still having the shows with the girls? Is that still going to happen this Thursday? Listen, we’re having a huge hurricane, category five right now in Florida. So if I have electricity, water, toilet paper, the lizard lookout is happening rain or shine, Thursday at 02:00 p.m. eastern. And we’re going to talk about market makers as it pertains to web three gaming.
Encouragement to Tune In
Love it. So guys, if you’ve enjoyed that show, then definitely go tune in to the next one on Thursday. And we run this one back weekly as well. So thank you to all of our incredible speakers today. Thank you Annie, Mona, Lems. Thank you game DPT, age of Dino. Thank you blast Royale and avalanche gaming for just coming in clutch through that whole conversation. It was an incredible one. Lemz, you have to hand raise, so I might have missed something out.
Final Remarks and Excitement for the Future
So I’m going to throw the mic to you and then we’ll close this one out. I promise. I promise. Guys, I know I’ve said that three times now. It was my, I forgot to give you a heads up beforehand. We have a quest going on Guild XYZ, which is our little questing platform. So the secret word for today’s space is funding. Keeping it on point with the track. So funding is the word if you want to go claim those bounty points for your loot boxes. And yeah, thanks again, Jack, for another killer space.
Closing Praise and Appreciation
Thank you, brother. And yellow. I love that. Funding, guys. Funding. You and me out on a weekend. Tracing every high and never coming down suddenly it’s like we’re dreaming sucking in. Euphoria I don’t want to get out I’m about to cry loose let me feel my car I ain’t really looking. For nobody to love high like a. Balloon above if I’m gonna take you.
