Simplified #36 |

Space Summary

The Twitter Space Simplified #36 | hosted by MattSteffanina.

For more spaces, visit the Innovation page.

Questions

Q: How do blockchain interoperability and NFT utility contribute to the digital landscape?
A: They enhance digital asset functionality, cross-platform compatibility, and expand opportunities for creators and consumers.

Q: Why is community engagement crucial for the growth of new technologies like NFTs?
A: Involving diverse communities fosters sustainability, inclusivity, and broader adoption of innovative technologies.

Q: What are the main considerations for content creators regarding digital ownership and intellectual property?
A: Understanding rights, licensing, and provenance is essential to protect creators' work and maintain trust in the digital space.

Q: How does DeFi impact the evolving digital landscape?
A: Decentralized finance introduces new financial models, opportunities for digital assets, and reshapes traditional monetary systems.

Q: How can NFTs revolutionize immersive experiences in the Metaverse?
A: By providing unique virtual assets, spaces, and interactive elements, NFTs can enhance user engagement and creativity.

Q: What strategies can content creators adopt to navigate the fast-paced digital environment?
A: Adopting agile content creation methods, embracing new technologies, and engaging with the community can help creators stay relevant and innovative.

Q: How do unique content projects contribute to the future of web experiences?
A: Innovative content projects push boundaries, inspire creativity, and pave the way for novel digital experiences and interactions.

Q: What market opportunities are emerging in sectors like gaming and social finance?
A: Technological advancements open doors for growth in gaming economies, social financial platforms, and innovative trading systems.

Q: What role does technology play in shaping digital content strategies?
A: Technology influences audience preferences, content delivery methods, and the overall user experience, impacting content strategies and engagement.

Q: How can creators utilize NFTs and virtual reality for immersive storytelling?
A: By leveraging NFTs for unique assets and combining them with virtual reality technologies, creators can craft immersive and interactive narratives for their audience.

Highlights

Time: 00:15:45
Blockchain Interoperability and NFTs Exploring how blockchain compatibility and NFT functionalities drive innovation in the digital space.

Time: 00:25:10
Community Engagement in Tech Adoption Importance of community participation for sustainable growth and acceptance of new technologies like NFTs.

Time: 00:35:20
Digital Ownership and NFT Provenance Insights on protecting digital assets, intellectual property rights, and maintaining transparency through NFTs.

Time: 00:45:30
Evolution of DeFi in Web 3.0 Impact of decentralized finance on digital ecosystems and traditional financial paradigms.

Time: 00:55:40
NFTs and Immersive Metaverse Experiences Exploring the transformative potential of NFTs in creating engaging and interactive Metaverse content.

Time: 01:05:15
Web 3.0 Content Strategy Insights Strategies for creating engaging content in the evolving web 3.0 landscape and reaching digital audiences effectively.

Time: 01:15:30
Innovative Projects Shaping the Future Unpacking visionary content projects that redefine digital experiences and storytelling.

Time: 01:25:50
Market Opportunities in Tech Sectors Exploring growth prospects in gaming, social finance, and trading thanks to technological advancements.

Time: 01:35:10
Technology's Influence on Content Creation Understanding how technology drives content strategies, audience engagement, and the digital user experience.

Time: 01:45:25
NFTs and VR for Storytelling Utilizing NFTs and virtual reality to craft immersive narratives and enhance storytelling capabilities.

Key Takeaways

• Key web 3.0 technology concepts were discussed such as blockchain interoperability and NFT utility.
• The importance of community engagement for the sustainable growth and adoption of new technology.
• Insights shared on digital ownership, intellectual property rights, and the implications of NFTs.
• Discussions on evolving trends like decentralized finance (DeFi) and the impact on the digital landscape.
• Innovative ideas on immersive experiences in the Metaverse using NFTs and virtual reality.
• Web 3.0 content strategy considerations to engage audiences and stay relevant in a rapidly changing digital environment.
• Exploration of unique content creation projects and their potential impact on future web experiences.
• Emerging market opportunities in sectors like gaming, social finance, and trading due to technological advancements.

Behind the Mic

Church Visits and Summer Memories

Christopher Poppin went to church's pentecostal candy painted new and Paula spinners on it. Plus I dropped summertime Nick is not your sweatshirts picking pockets more hopping Rennie carpet we ain't got nothing on the summer drop. I'm in my other drop. From beanies to buckets, $100 in my polo socks. Remember summer drop? We was at uncle spot three niggas with nothing to do but wrestling slap box back when the summer drop you would cut me for practice my 9th grade about 360 waves was flashing stepping up the cash to get some food that's platinum fat boy with braces, a ones and glasses when the summer drop I wanted to make beats and rap my big brother said I need the NPC for that next summer I was cooking up a Easter batch egg selling sandwiches I used to faint for that in the summer time cash and blew it down.

Reflections on Summer Experiences

I guess I'm going overseas for that when the summer drive pussy popping with the church's pentecostal candy painted new and all the spinners on it plus I drive a summer job Nick is knocking sweatshirts pick your pockets more hopping render copy we ain't got no fucking number I'm a drop, I worked at the barbershop I swept up the hair from under the chair couldn't talk a lot I saved up the summer I got school clothes I brought some pumas and some fake change that was fools gone, my nigga what you know about those hot summers? No air condition my nigga got rare ambition but pain impaired division I done lost so many homies and summers I cherish living, nobody cared to listen they suffer from their decisions I've never hit that 711 on bend and roll while wearing them trendy clothes pick up niggas like gimme those kids a season they robbing and scheming to knock your block out just make sure you safe when it's hot out here Nick is knocking sweatshirts pick your pockets mall hopping friendly copper we ain't got no fucking options.

Labor Day and Acknowledgements

popping with the churches pending costume candy painted new zone niggas knocking sweatshirts picking pocket small hopping ring the copy we ain't got no fucking popping with the churches pendant tosser candy painted new Impala spend his own dollars yo, happy, what day is it? Labor Day. It doesn't even feel like a holiday. But it is a holiday. So shout out to all the Americans that are here working on a holiday. Appreciate you guys a ton. we have a really awesome episode of simplified today for actually five really big topics that I think are going to shed some light, both for consumers and also for founders and people that work in the space.

Health Concerns and Reflections

But real quick, before we get into introductions, I just wanted to say our boy knock, unfortunately, is currently hospitalized with pneumonia that hasn't been getting better, and I was just absolutely devastated to hear that today. He's one of my favorite people on planet earth, even outside of web three gaming. Just incredibly genuine, incredibly smart, incredibly curious and supportive and so many great qualities. So please, you know, drop a nice message for Noc or, you know, just keep him in your thoughts and in your prayers, because we're really hoping he has a quick turnaround. But they said he'll be in the hospital for at least a few more days if everything kind of goes to plan. So we're just really keeping our fingers crossed and wishing you the best if you're listening to this, buddy, we love you, man. I'll give it another 60 seconds to just kind of let the awkwardness of that statement roll off, and then we'll kick off some introductions.

Exciting Introductions and Guest Highlights

All right, guys, back to business as usual. Ladies and gentlemen, gamers and gearheads, get ready to meet a man who's been through the fire, literally. And now he's here to ignite the web three world. Our next guest used to save lives and battle blazes as a firefighter, but now he's taken the ultimate challenge, user acquisition. In the wild west of web three, he joined forces with uptick, showing us all how to turn up the heat on growth without getting burned. Welcome to the panel. It's the flame taming user acquiring Jerry the golden God singer. Amazing. Another great omen for the start of this show, a storm brewing at Salt Lake. And me and Jerry, of course, are two blocks apart. So if his power goes out, my power goes out, and it's just Matt waxing poetic by himself this episode. So fingers crossed that doesn't happen.

Tech Challenges and Anticipations

Jesus. Apparently Matt's also in a storm because his Internet is down bad to maybe hop off the Wi Fi or something if. If that's causing that, Matt, fingers crossed. Not off to a great start yet, but thanks, everybody, for hopping in. Up next, embarking on an epic esports expedition, he masterfully melded media, making his mark across Twitch's tapestry. Handpicking the platform's prime players, he propelled f two k to phenomenal peaks, accounting for a whopping 1% of the total viewership on Twitch tv. At a certain point, he also orchestrated over 100 influencer campaigns, translating pixels into profits, transforming talents into titans, and channeling charm that clinched him a spot in the top 0.06% of Twitch broadcasters.

Uptick Gang and Personal Accounts

Now he's also with uptake. We got the whole uptick gang here today, challenging conventions, casting charisma, and crafting champions. Behold the beacon that is my boy Matt defies. Oh, my God. Thank you. I don't know if I can live up to the. To the intro. You might have overhyped me here, but yeah. Also a cold, rainy day in the UK, but it's a spicy day in web three, so I can't wait for the. For the show today. I like the way that you did that. Yeah. Cold, cold, rainy day outside. Moy Caliente on the inside, just like we like it.

Energetic Engagement

Ladies and gentlemen, pack your virtual bags and grab your gaming gear because our next guest is a jet setting juggernaut. A relentless globetrotter in an unstoppable force. In the FPS arena, he's taken down targets from the far reaches of soulbound to the heart pounding world of shrapnel. Get ready for a dynamic dynamo who's always on the move and never misses a shot. Welcome to the stage the lethal legend, the sharpshooter of shrapnel. It's dub. Let's freaking go, baby. I'm still riding the high from that 24 hours stream. My dude. And the 3000 selfies I just took at PAx west. It was absolutely amazing.

PAX West and Acknowledgements

So many waifus, so many Goku's. I just couldn't believe it. It was an absolute gem. Let's freaking get it. That's amazing, dude. The pictures that you and Tony have been posting are making my entire day. You guys are a gem whenever you're together. Glad you're enjoying yourself over at PAX and thanks for making time for the show despite all the festivities. Up next is creative director who's dreamed up more virtual worlds than most of us can count. Each one more imaginative than the last. He swapped the battlefield for a keyboard, but don't let that fool you.

Creative Endeavors in Gaming

He's still got that unshakable determination, and now he's using it to guide projects to sustainable success in the wild west of web three. Welcome back to the panel. It's the voracious, the venerable, it's Vidar. Wow, it's good to be back for the second time in a row, finally hearing everybody's voices. I see dub. I see you know Peyton. I see Jerry. I see everybody here. It's good to be back. I'm sure that we'll have some very feisty and nasty things to say about each other as we talk about the topics, setting the tone.

Introduction to the Current Topic

Glad to see it's a compelling topic here. I'm going to go to Vidar next and we're going to tag in Matt Stefanina and keep working through the hands. All right. As much as I like to be the contrarian in this case, I'm going to have to agree with most of you with some caveats. So let's work through this a little bit because some of you said some absolutely retarded shit. So let's work through it a little bit first. The user base first, okay? Once Steam and epic. Epic to a lesser extent, but Steam. Let's talk about Steam when it decides to support crypto in the near future at some point, okay? Because if this becomes a thing, it's going to do it. Anything that's a native solution is going to die because they don't have the community, they don't have the legacy, they don't have the game hits, they don't have the web two studio connections, they don't have the polished UI, they don't have the APIs, they don't have discoverability, they don't have any of that. And all of that is way more important than brand loyalty.

The Importance of User Base and Branding

No one really thinks about brand loyalty. Okay? When it was in the nineties, when you were using a search engine, you used like ask Jeeves or Yahoo. Once Google came in everyone forgot that ask Jeeves and Yahoo existed. But now, because it's so ubiquitous, you say I'm going to google it. You don't say, I'm going to search engine this. You literally use the company name to do the thing. So when people think about PC games, they think Steam right now and it's too ubiquitous. You're not going to overcome that with a native solution. Right now it's not possible. I don't see anyone doing that. Youre just going to self destruct, especially since you see large companies. I mean, look at Sony and JPMorgan Chase. Theyre coming in. Theyre either making their own solutions or theyre hiring a company that already exists to make the solution for them. Theyre not going to adopt any native solution.

The Future of Platforms and Solutions

They will use their own. So same concept is going to occur with steam. If they come in here, theyre going to make their own adjacent or parallel solution to steam or theyre going to just change steam to support whatever web three is going to offer them. That's it. I don't see any sort of native solution getting any sort of real traction. And long term, having all of these different steam competitors is actually long term detrimental to the web three space because we're going to disseminate our community, which is already small, and we're trying to facilitate user acquisition. We're not trying to make a walled garden. So doing that makes a walled garden to the people who have no idea what your platform even is going past the actual platforms themselves. I'll take it a step further. I'll say it's not just launchers in the space, but games the next blank, right? We say the next steam.

Challenges Facing New Game Studios

So the next blank games, they're going to die. If a studio isn't trying to develop their own unique game with their own unique experience, it's doomed to fail if they're simply trying to copy what's popular in web two. There's no reason for players to switch to a newer, lesser polished experience with less players and possible barriers to entry with stigma attached. You either make a unique experience and infra that your team was passionate about, or you fail trying to make a copy of a solution that already exists. I mean, look at the MMO market in the 2010s. Every company tried to copy or alter World of Warcraft's formula and spent hundreds of millions of dollars trying to do that. And pretty much every single one of them failed to meet the mark.

Personal Experience with Game Launchers

Man, this. You gave me a flashback to a game. I can't even remember the name of it. But I remember I was doing an AMA and this back before I had a reputation really as a spaces host at all when I was talking to them about their product and it was a MOBA and I love MObas. So I was really excited to speak with them. And I go, okay, you know, now that we've gone through all the basics of the game, tell me about the web three integration. And they go, so it's League of Legends, except for you own your skins. I was like, okay, what else? Like what holy shack for guy co hosted that with you. Oh my God, dude, that was one of the most painful experiences of my life because I still had 45 minutes to go and I knew this guy was fucked. And I haven't heard of them in like 16 months. Since then, for obvious reasons.

Reflection on Market Trends and Experiences

let's move on. Dub. I think I'm still cracking out about the axe chiefs. Dude, that was a throwback. You ask Jeeves. That's how you search, bro. Everybody knows that. Everybody knows that. Dub, over to you. Fuck, dude, I'm still using Yahoo. So I feel real offended at this point. I was also gonna, I'm contrarian on this too. Like, I agree with a lot of the points made to the counterparty here, but really for me, like, my biggest thing is giants aren't immortal. And I'm honestly would be more concerned about Valve and Steam just because they are making their own game and they can severely fuck that up and just ruin their entire brand at some stupid move here and there.

The Future and Opportunities in Web 3 Gaming

Like, and that's, I feel like that's just bound to happen. So, like, I give a lot of props to the web three, like games like Elixir and all those launchers for doing it now because you have to do it now to be a part of this and to build up a play for, like, if these giants do go down in some sort of fashion, to be there and to have something built and to be able to grab onto that momentum because if they're not doing it now, they're not going to be able to just like Flash start that if the opportunity arises. I mean, sure, they're missing a lot of stuff now. Like, I think there's a freaking, like, even a custom nike like thing going on with elixir right now and no one really cares. So it's, it's a wild space, but like, ultimately I'm glad they're here doing the things they are doing now.

Market Dynamics and Product Visibility

And I think it's smart because it's the only way to, like, really be in the game and to participate. Yeah, it's tough after seeing a lot of integrations with Nike to get super excited, but I will say I am getting a pair of those, and I'm pretty excited about just having the shoes more than anything. Matt, I want to tag you in, bro, and then we'll go to John Allen. Yeah, I was bummed I couldn't hear Vidar because I'm sure he said something spicy with lots of dramatic pauses, but my best vidar impression. Yeah, I mean, look, I can think of a few times that I was told the dream in web three. I mean, I still have a great sandbox plot of land that I was convinced to buy because it was across the street from Snoop Dogg, and everyone told me I could have a barbecue with them in the metaverse.

Reflections on Previous Experiences and Market Expectations

So at the end of the day, these marketing things, they do work not on maybe people that are more seasoned, but if you're newer in the space, you have to kind of be able to sift through the bullshit a little bit. In the end, long term, the projects that are really strong are going to rise to the surface. Look at where sandbox is kind of athlete now. I don't look at the price of my land anymore, but I still have it. But I think that in the short term, especially once the market gets going, there is something to be said for the marketing of any project, whether it's a chain or it's a game.

Future Strategies and Market Trends

I mean, we have guerrilla on here. We have Johnny. They're not going to put up a YouTube video being like three tokens that I feel pretty good about that I think might multiply in the next five years. No, it's like ten things are going to five x by September, right? And people are like, oh, shit. And so when these chains come out and say they're going to be the next steam or League of Legends with tradable assets or any of that stuff, I think it's just playing the game. And I think it's something if you're a trader to keep an eye on and maybe play a little bit. But if you're newer and you're looking for projects to invest in, definitely be a little bit wary of projects that are coming in a little too hot on the claims out the gate.

Transition to Further Discussions

Matt just spoiled my next video title, man. What am I going to do, change it to 343? Johnny, it'll work again. Got it. There you go. That's why he's the best man. That's 13 years of dominating YouTube experience right there. Just in a flash, let's go over to John Allen. Cool. Yeah, so I mean, I think obviously historically, I think a lot of the positions here, I'm going to take a bit of contrarian kind of stance on this, right? Because I think historically, like a lot of you are right, it is super easy to take a position from something that's already like supported where it's like, hey, like, content comes first and then you do the launch.

Contrarian Perspectives in Game Development

But it's like one, it's like nobody gets rich off taking consensus bets. Honestly makes me a little bit more bullish on this. I kind of neutral positive. But it's like hearing everybody just like bash on this and be like, no, it can't be done. Because let's be honest, giants innovating and crushing competitors is the biggest meme I did venture for six years. Let's be honest, it's like everybody's like, well, what if Google does this? Literally there's entire industries being built up the shit that Google does not want to do or can't even do, right? Because let's be honest, some of these large incumbents could crush absolutely anybody they wanted, but they're not going to.

Opportunities for Indie Studios

And I think it's like, for me, it's, we know this model works. We know launchers are compelling. And I think that it's like non trivial to build these things. And for me, I really take the stance that I think a lot of the largest games in web three, especially early on, are going to be indie studios. And then you kind of have to like split and say like, hey, do I want to build like really good content or do I want to do distribution? And I think a lot of people aren't going to be able to do both. Or even if they are, if they make it huge, they're making a shit ton of money.

Experiences and Insights on Crypto M&A

Crypto MNA, baby. Like, you know, like, I haven't seen a lot of it, right? But it's like if somebody's building something really compelling, cool, you could absorb that and like, just being like, hey, I'm the steam of web three. If you get an exit for a couple hundred million to one of the biggest games on web three just wants to acquire you and have a leg up on all the competition, I still think that's generally like a win. I think the other piece that I wanted to say is like, if you can own a piece of the launcher that you're engaging with, right? If you can do all these kind of growth hacking mechanisms that are super native to web three.

Security and User Engagement in Web 3 Gaming

That's something that Steam is just not going to do. And I think it's like, honestly, to be blunt, I think it's going to be years before, like, steam or any of these other launchers is supporting web three in a native way. And so I would just say like one super PvP out there. All these games, a lot of you well know, are desperate for users. So having a place to aggregate things, I think is really compelling. And then just to plug hyperplay, because clearly I'm biased, I'm super close with a team, but it's like, for me, it makes me really uncomfortable downloading stuff and connecting my wallet to it.

Trust and Safety in Gaming Platforms

And so if you have a launcher, they're saying, hey, we're already doing a lot of security checks. We're properly sandboxing things. You're not going to get rugged just by playing a game. That's a little thing that, those little small things, plus a lot of the web three, native growth, hacking and native mechanics, that's something that I think is compelling at this point. A lot of people just want users, and a lot of users want to play games and feel safe kind of doing it. So, yeah, it's my two cent, bro. I loved that. John Allen's first time on the space and he goes contrarian against the entire panel.

Engaging Discussion Dynamics

That's how we do shit. I haven't said this in like 20 weeks. I used to say it all the time, but Peyton, the founder of the wolves dow over there, who I'm about to send the mic over to, literally founded the wolves Dow based on the idea that, like, iron sharpens iron and that we shouldn't necessarily agree to all the time. We should actually disagree more often just because it allows us to actually test our beliefs and really forge them in the fire of other, you know, intelligent opinions. And I never want my shows to just be consensus, unanimous across the board, obviously be authentic to your real perspective. But I love whenever people offer the contrarian point of view because that's how you truly educate people, is by giving them a broad spectrum and letting them decide based on their own logic what is actually the correct answer.

Insights on Web 3 Development

Thank you so much for that, John Peyton, I'm sending it over to you, bro. I appreciate it. Yeah, I was actually going to bring up something that Dante said about, like, ronin and that, like, so there was actually a couple of people that said, like, hey, the game has to be really good or whatever, but I have seen from Ronin, it doesn't matter. Whatever it is, Ronin put something out, it will automatically sell out. Like, it doesn't really matter what the game is, what the NFT project is. If it's Kaidro, if it's TMA, whatever it is, it will be literally Max minted and it will probably be bought it if you leave up some for like, public sale. Right.

Trends in NFT Gaming and Market Reception

So I do think that like, to kind of, I guess, give a point to John as well, is that there is probably something like from a fundamental, like, cult like, following that could really like, move something with a belief. Right. I think I. John, you're coming from g seven and it's like a kind of like a network state that is trying to move towards like a common good. And if that common good is going to be like this theme of web three that like, is talking about ownership of assets and all that stuff, I can see something doing that. But anyways, I want to bring that up because I do think that the Ronin thing could be challenged a little bit.

Market Dynamics and Community Impact

I think no matter if the game is good or bad, people will always mint out Ronin stuff just because it's Ronin as the brand. Yeah, it definitely feels like the case lately. I think we have Tony behind the sparkball account. Tony, over to you. That's correct, boys, you have tony behind the sparkball account. You know, one of the things that hasn't been mentioned yet that I think is really important is the retail Pokemon dynamic that Steam has created through its summer sales and holiday sales. So, like, there are entire communities and ecosystems and I and businesses that exist simply to tell people about their steam library.

Impact of Steam's Dynamic Market Practices

Right. Like, how many hours do it take to play through your backlog? What? You know, when the last time someone played something in your backlog was just like, all kinds of interesting metadata? And I do think. I don't think. I know that's very powerful. When I. When I started at Amazon, my first job was running marketing for the digital video games team. And we spent, like, a lot of Jeff's money trying to get people to buy DRM free games instead of buying Steam games. And it took us a year to realize that the only way were going to sell video games was if we sold Steam codes.

Historical Insights and Market Evolution

And so, again, that was ten years ago. So a lot has changed. But I do. 15 years ago, shit. But I do think that the collection aspect, the dopamine that the people who own a shitload of video games get when they look at their steam library and have a bunch of stuff in there that they don't even play is really powerful. And I don't know that it's unsolvable for a new platform, but that is certainly the thing that would be the problem to solve in my eyes. Great stuff, Tony. Sorry, Dante having some trouble re adding you. If you can close the app and come back, sometimes it's a problem with the route at that point. Jerry, over to you, brother. Then we'll see if we can tag in. Dante again.

Exploring The Future Market Dynamics

Yeah. I would say that I like some of the things that Jon said, and I don't. I respect him for taking the contrarian opinion. I take a couple issues with some of those things. And I think initially my biggest issue is that the people who are building launchers and chains used to be this way and they've grown and the BD teams have done a lot to educate themselves. I'm not confident that these launchers really even know what a game needs because they've never built a game, right. And that's a kind of a shitty thing to say because it's like when a professional athlete, you know, in an interview is like, you never played football at this level, so you don't know what the fuck you're talking about.

Challenges of Game Development Knowledge

And they're right, but it's like, you know, it's still kind of a lame thing to say. Cause, like, I can't counter that, all right? I'm not six and 280, so. But I think, you know, for the launchers, they don't, they've never built games. So how do you know how to solve a studio's problems? Or how do you know how to solve a publisher's problems? Or how do you know how to help a marketing agency take a game to the next level, right? And until. And the reason valve does is because they built the games, right? The reason epic is kind of, they kind of suck. Maybe not a good example here, but, like, Sony's the same way, right? Xbox, somebody, you know, so anybody who kind of, like, takes the walls down and lets any game, you know, launch on there, like they understand what the game's needs are and how to help them start to solve some of the problems, right?

Understanding Distribution and Content Creation

The other thing is that they understand distribution because they built the content. So those two things are very different, you know, understanding distribution and understanding how to build good content. But because they built the good content, distribution becomes easier. And that's why we see Ronin knock everything out of the park that they do because they understood distribution and now they know how to bring that to anything that they touch, right? Whether it's a totally different game from Axie and pixels or whether it's TMA. They know how, they know their audience and they know how to get the word out and a product into that audience's hands. And I don't think the launchers are there yet. I hope they get there, but they're not there today.

Assessing Future Growth and Development

And you know, it's going to take some work to get there. Yeah, fair play. Let's tag in Dante from scale that. I want to go back to John Allen, who put the hand back up. Curious to see his response. But Dante, over to you. Yeah, I kind of want to just pose a question here as we're talking about like a lot of the differences between web two launchers and web three launchers. Like what is the purpose of a launcher in everyone's mind when it comes to on chain games, right? Because when I think about it, like, the launcher's goal should not just be to sell out nfts, right? That's ridiculous.

Purpose and Function of Launchers

It doesn't translate to users. It doesn't translate to buying time in any way, shape and form. Right? When people go and sell out steam passes, it's not because people are investors and DJ's trying to flip it's because they want to use those passes to play the game, which is the core of what everyone is trying to do here. When we look at a lot of these web three launchers, we're like, oh, you're super successful because you went out and sold the entry and a teapass for these games. That's not success. You having a collection of dgens, not a collection of gamers, like fundamentally speaking. And so for me, that's why it's like, okay, how do we take these launchers and make it so that the games are actually attracting gamers?

Engaging Gamers and Defining Success

Because that's where a lot of the distribution power and revenue is going to come from. In this space is the in game purchases, the in game trading, things like that. Web two is very much just like, okay by the pass and you're good, right? Web three actually is able to elevate that revenue stream, elevate that distribution more than anyone. So when we think about, okay, web three is great because X, Y, and z, we also have to recognize that the infrastructure around it, specifically launchers, also has to adapt to that in many ways, shapes and forms. So when we're talking about building a web three native launcher, whatever that might mean, we cannot define success on, oh, this small group of dgens went in there and aped on some game or whatever it might be.

Addressing Community Engagement in Gaming Platforms

We need to define success by, okay, how many gamers are actually in there playing the game? And in order to do that, it becomes way, way more than just selling out the initial passes. You need to go in there and actually target gamers, not investors. So wanted to pose that question to group is like, when you guys think about success, what does that look like to you guys? Appreciate that. Dante, I see some more hands up. We do have to move on eventually to Sugar Town and Zynga because that is going to be super curious. But I do want to give this some opportunity to breathe because this has been a great topic to this point.

Transition to Sugar Town and Future Implications

John Allen tagging, you back him in? Yeah, definitely. So I mean, yeah, just going to answer back, Jerry, because like, yeah, definitely respect your opinion. Like really appreciate the input. I mean, I guess, like let's play that logic out, right? Like Satoshi never built a blockchain. Like Vitalik never built a dap, right? And so it's like, what are any business do they have doing these things, right? And so it's like, I mean, let's kind of like distill it past that, right. Because that's obviously a little bit of ridiculous comparison.

Fundamental Principles in Web 3

But for me, it's like I have a little bit of problem with kind of like aligning those things, right. Because, like, I think in general, like, we're fundamentally trying to do something different in web three. And I think that's kind of like my core premise for like why I disagree with a lot of the kind of like takes, right. I think that, like, in general, if we're just trying to replicate the large incumbents, then yeah, we are going to fail. And I think all these things are true. But I think that web three is unique. I think that web three is different.

Community Ownership and Decentralization

And so I think if you're trying to target being like the steam of web three, a lot of folks are. Right. But I think if you're trying to take a different path, right. And talk about the community ownership, right. Decentralization, like all these things that we hold near and dear that really stem from this original kind of cypherpunk movement that started all this, that we kind of strayed from it was we gotten into like regulatory and ETF's and, you know, like massive scale adoption, right. I think, like, we lose a lot of it. And I would say just in general, I mean, I think, like a lot of this misunderstanding kind of come from, you know, steam of web three.

Challenges of Pigeonholing in Web 3

It's a really useful kind of mnemonic, right. Because, like, if you don't come up with a three word description. People are going to get confused. They're going to be like, what are you doing? Right. But then what's really unfortunate is when you finally come up with those three words, people then pigeonhole you into being like, oh, well, if you're the steam of web three, like, here's all the problems with it, right? And so I think, like that's kind of my core premise where it's like, I disagree with a lot of what you're saying from the mental model that you have, right.

Differentiating Mental Models

Whereas I think it's kind of like having a fundamentally different mental model is how the space in general just wins as a whole. Guys, I feel like we're being watched because ultra just followed me on. Peyton, over to you. oh, buddy. Don't send them this segment. Maybe the last 30 minutes would be good. To go back to Dante, I think you think the launchers, from a fundamental standpoint, I think the launcher to a fundamental base use case for going back to first principle is to drive revenue for the company.

Revenue Generation from Launchers

The distribution, the codes and all that stuff is really a top funnel for what the ultimate use, which is revenue. And what Ronin has kind of done and have shown or any of that stuff, even with the NFTs type of thing, is that you are generating revenue. And even if that's FOMO induced or whatever, and you can like it or not like it, regardless, it is driving revenue to the company that is currently doing, which I feel like that's what the ultimate use case of a launcher is. And going back to John's point about fundamentally breaking down what we first think about in terms of first principles, like in terms of web three, what is unique about web three, in my opinion, and I'm obviously biased because I drive a community is really the community and that like specific communities do things for that project, right?

Case Studies of Successful DAO Involvement

Like wolves Dow shines light on projects. You have the Pallinsdao that has high level of execution in terms of production, that helps projects be seen on a better light. Wardens gives feedback to like a specific one. So if you can conglomerate all of these like little communities and bring them towards a common goal, which is making a launcher or a specific thing thrive, and those guilds get like a revenue share from that, maybe that will work. But anyways, that's kind of going back to it. But to kind of go back to Dante's point, to not wax poetic too much, I think it's fundamentally driving sales to the company on that.

Evaluating Functional Differences in Market Strategy

And I think Ronin has done a great job at that. Then what's the difference between a game launcher and an NFT marketplace? Like, if it's just to sell nfts, is there a reason why we even have game launchers? Or can we all just use Opensea? I think we could use Opensea. If Opensea decided to do it in terms of like a, terms of selling nfts for it, why not Opensea doing it? They don't probably want to, but why? Why couldn't they? Because then it's not about the games anymore whatsoever.

Reflections on Gaming Ecosystem Philosophy

You're just using the promise of a game to sell some nfts. And if the game is good, fine. If the game is not good, whatever, right? Like, why are we in this space in the first place? Does it like, build an incredible, like, community driven gaming ecosystem? Or is it, you know, to sell a few jpegs so that, you know, a few thousand people who are really passionate about those jpegs can flip it six months later? I think how I look at, in terms of nfts, there's a whole like, network effect around nfts and what it could have possibly do right for a specific brand.

Innovative Aspects of NFTs and Their Potential

Nfts have metadata into them. If you attach that to collab, land inside of discord can really move a specific network of people to help that specific studio for a network. Good. and it's really fundamentally breaking down what can be done with nfts. And that thinking about it from Opensea, of being an NFT launcher, thinking about it from a different angle of like, what it could be, I think is very interesting. But, yeah, that's just my take on it. Great stuff, guys. I think this has been a really enlightening discussion and something I hope to talk about more honestly, whenever we kind of uncover more of these big statements that maybe represent things that are a little bit impractical in actual execution.

Final Thoughts and Transition to Sugar Town

We are going to move to Sugar Town. Getting bought out by people that were working on Sugar Town. So I guess it's the internal team actually bought the intellectual properties and is going to maintain them. But Zynga and take two are leaving web three, unfortunately. I think we can all agree that's a net negative for the space. Sugar Town regularly shouted from the rooftops that they were owned and operated by Zynga and take two. That was a huge part of their marketing campaign. If you missed that, you were not paying attention.

Marketing Impact of Brand Collaborations

I almost never saw the word Sugar town, not next to the word zynga, or name, I should say. Over the past week, they had a countdown to a big announcement. That countdown, or the announcement behind it, was that they were being acquired by d 20 labs. D 20 still has Tommy camel, Matt Wolf and others that were, you know, regularly interfacing with web three on sort of behalf of Zynga, for lack of a better way of putting it. The announcement, though, was poorly received in the NFT collection is down about 25%. However, I will say it was not as poorly received as I personally would have expected it to be.

Community Reaction to the Announcement

Like to do a countdown to announcement that is pretty negative and to have people respond with only a 25% floor drop, be generally supportive on Twitter, from what I've seen, has been pretty impressive. So what do you guys make of the countdown to this announcement? Instead of a town hall or other types of damage control that might have allowed for more two way conversations? And what does this mean for the future of Sugar town in your eyes, I will add, camel just tweeted today, said genuinely can't think of another example of a team inside of a company acquiring their project and bringing it independent.

Historical Significance and Community Implications

In literally any industry. Sugar Town is making history and y'all are part of it. So he's keeping the optimistic forward looking.

The Moment of Independence

We're making history. We're independent. We're going to do this thing, pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and make it even better kind of thing. But what do you guys think? I think John Allen had the hand up first. Nice. Yeah. I mean, happy to kick us off because, I mean, I think it's an interesting situation. It's like actually a good segue from what we just talked about, right? Where it's like, hey, you have these large incumbents and it's like, hey, what if they innovate, right? Like what if they build some really cool stuff, right? And it's just, I've been in the space long enough that like, it's just kind of funny. Like every cycle it's like this whole, the institutions are coming, right? You know, like whatever vertical that you're talking about, be it like gaming or just anything, right? And for me, like, I'm personally really excited, but it's like, I think it's like we need to focus on continuing to build and I'm really excited that the project's in the hands of people who are excited to work on it and are really going to see it through.

Skepticism Towards Large Companies

But I think, again, it's just like you have all these big companies that are so worried about losing face and it happens every cycle where it's like during the bull market, you have all these major announcements of huge companies and then all of a sudden they die on the vine because then all of a sudden the market goes down and there's some negativity and people are just more worried about losing face than actually innovating. And that's why I'm just fundamentally so bearish on these large companies, because it's so easy for things to get killed off. For me, when I was first at Berkeley, I worked with Airbus, Qualcomm, BMW, Exxon, with all their innovation centers. And I built so much cool stuff for them. I mean, one, like, told a bunch of these, like, other folks who were building stuff that they were building trash and it didn't even be on a blockchain. But like that's kind of beside the point, right. But it's like built so many of these things that they said that they wanted and then I just never saw them come out.

The Reality of Major Companies

Right. Because, like, they don't want to rock the boat. Like, the fact that a lot of these major companies are still sending excel files to each other is absolutely insane. And that has nothing to do with blockchain. Right. It's just like, it's just so, like entrenched and ossified so many of these companies. And for me, again, I think it's going to be like, bottom up a lot of this innovation, and then the incumbents are going to come in when it's a sure thing. And by then, I think a lot of them are going to be playing catch up. Right. And trying to, like, chase kind of like what other folks have been doing. So. So for me, I think it's like a general net positive. I think it's kind of status quo for the space. And I'm really not surprised. Great. Take John. Let's go over to Hustlepedia. Yeah, like, I think I. If we look at the, like the organizations that have come through. Pardon my dog.

Concerns on Project Development Post-Zynga

Sorry about that. Let me, let me corral her toy. Sam, go to someone else really quick and come back to me. She's completely lost the plot over there. Let's go to Jerry. Yeah, it's Johnny. Okay. I can't hear Johnny if he said anything. So if I agree with anything he said, yeah. I don't know what happened, but hustle, I miss you. I. I. Listen, they. The reason this wasn't received as poorly as it was is because the guys like Camel and Acol and ackle, I don't know how to say it, but Tommy, like, they have built up really good brand equity for the project that is Sugar town. That the web three project that is Sugar Town, right. They have done a very good job of building that up, but I think people really like them and believe in them, and I'm in that camp people.

Concerns for Sugar Town's Future

I like the sugar town team and the public facing people, I think really highly of them and I want to see them succeed. But I think this is a really dangerous spot for the web three project that is Sugar town. And it's just to me a clear, you know, divestment from Zynga of saying, like, we don't give a fuck about this stuff anymore. And that's fine. What worries me is that now, you know, they had the Zynga resources, they led with that. That was the only selling point of the project at first, right? And think of what Sugartown was when it came in and it was a recycled project that was dead that Zynga said, here's a lifeline for the project. Go do what you can with it, right? But now they don't want anything to do with that. And what concerns me is now it's cool that Tommy and this guy has acquired the IP, but now they have to go build a studio, now they have to go get devs, and now they have to go do it all on their own.

The Dynamics of Moving Forward

And that is a huge ask when you have come from Zynga. I don't know how long they spent at Zynga, you know, I know some of them have been in web three for a long time, but if all, you know, is big gaming and how you have to be a scrappy startup, that's a scary place to be. And I believe in the guys. I'm probably not gonna sell my asset because it's down, but I. There is a mountain to climb for them and I wouldn't want to be in that position if I was just as Zynga, you know, I don't know that I'm happy. I think last week we're all happy that we have, we're part owners in the project that Zynga is building this week. I don't know that people are happy to see, you know, now they're invested into a startup that has to go start from zero and try to get to one.

Reflections on Market Dynamics

Yeah, it's a great point, especially whenever one of the biggest monetary injections, capital injections into the company has already been done, which is the auras being launched and being able to hopefully make some money off of that. Now they maybe have a TGE but it'll all be locked up for multiple years. We don't know how much runway they have, et cetera. Would be super curious to see some of that, because that's probably where I would make my distinction of whether or not I think they could do it. Jerry. Yeah, sorry. Sorry. That was one thing I forgot to mention. But if I'm the sugar town team, I am full posting so many things, like, I'm gonna. I'm coming out and saying, like, this is how we acquired it. This is what we got. This is how much money we have.

Strategic Communication and Future Plans

This is the plan forward. They need to be doing all that stuff, like, right away because, yeah, like I said last week, this was a Zynga backed project. This week, it's D 20 labs, which didn't exist three days ago, and now it does. So, yeah, they need to come out with a plan, I think, soon to tell people, like, how. How do you go from, you know, zero to one? That that's a huge challenge, and then you got to go from, you know, two to 100. Yeah. Much tougher sell. Much tougher sell. Let's go back to Johnny. All right. I think I'm good now. So I think it's not a coincidence that, like, the industry names that have come into web three to try to build, they have been the Zyngas.

Individual Perspectives on Industry Innovations

They've been the ex supercells, that type of brand, whereas it feels like they're more like grasping at straws to kind of stay relevant in a way. Not. I mean, obviously, Clash of Clans is a different beast, but like, saying, you know, former supercell or, you know, incubated by Zynga, whatever the term is, there's no coincidence that we're not seeing Riot Games, Epic Games, built web three games. Like, I think what John mentioned is 100% true. The big guns are waiting to see that this actually works. So we need, like, a native hit, maybe, like, a Godzilla type of thing, to kind of spring into the landscape and show that these big studios, that it's a tangible business model before they were to ever pivot into this side of the industry. Whereas these other studios, these mobile game studios, the Zyngas, who made their hay during the Facebook gaming era over a decade ago, I feel like they're more, like, trend hopping to get over here.

Views on Project Management and Game Design

So it's not a surprise to me that they're trend hopping away from it, to be completely honest. I hope Sugar town the best. I think it's a, you know, it was a good project as far as, like, optics speak so, you know, hope that they can pull through and that the new kind of ownership can continue building. However, definitely it's not. It's also like we're having our FTX Celsius moment right now with Zynga selling their game. We have dimensionals leaving the space. It just seems like we're having a big mass capitulation, which, you know, and my side of it, I focus a lot on the market, makes me bullish on gaming, man. We have a lot of people folding at a time period where I feel like gaming is on the cusp of actually major growth with some of the things happening.

Zynga's Strategic Moves and Market Sentiments

So I see it as bullish and bearish, but I hope the best for him. Yeah, I heard somebody say that might have been on Ready Up, actually, Peyton's show. Somebody said, like, Zynga sold the bottom on web three gaming. And I really hope we're able to prove that true. Let's go to Vidar. And then we have Bearsnake joining us, the co-founder of Forgotten Runes. Vidar, over to you, man. Oh, yeah, I'm in with hustle with Johnny on this one. I think that with all of these smaller companies, these mobile companies, which really haven't had a hit in a long time, where they're kind of not as relevant, they came in with a fire because they're thinking, hey, maybe we can do some UA and pull these guys into our sphere.

Concerns Over Market Viability

But once they're now seeing that, hey, maybe this isn't the giant fire that I was expecting, they're pulling out without even really giving it a real try. So that's fine, because if we wait, we can do our, either do our own thing or we can wait until Sony comes in and then they're going to do their own thing. Once you have a big company come in, that's a much different situation than someone coming in with, like Zynga and like, oh, make a mobile game, or. But I like how Johnny went in and he said, incubated by, you see a lot of these companies coming in, and not just companies, people that worked for a lot of these other studios. And they're saying, oh, well, I helped make this, or I drove this to $50 million in revenue.

The Reality of Workplace Contributions

No, you didn't. The studio did as a group. Right? So there's a lot of people overselling themselves, and there's a lot of companies overselling themselves. So I agree. We either need a native hit that's going to make a unique experience, not copying somebody else, and then have their own unique infra here. Then you can start talking about what the previous topic was about, right. Then you can start talking about your own launcher. If you have a unique experience and a unique game that's bringing its own people in and people are coming in from web two because, hey, this game is just fun, not, this is a web three game, then we have a different conversation on our hands. Oh, can't wait for the day, man.

Anticipation for Future Developments

I can't wait. Bear Snake tagging you in, man. Thanks for joining us. Hey, what's going on, guys? Yeah, I've been thinking a lot about what happened with Zynga. I mean, not too much. We're busy with our game. But I also think there's a lot of stuff in these conversations, like when you see announcement like the company's breaking off from Zynga, there's a lot of things under the hood, right, that I don't think we're like, privy to understand, right. I think, you know, I have no idea. I don't stay super close to Sugar town, but, you know, when you look at, like, if they are moving towards TGE and launching a token, like, those are things that, like, a company like Zynga really aren't ready to sort of get involved in, right.

Reflections on Market Trends and Company Dynamics

I think, you know, maybe they started this and they thought the ecosystem and regulations would be sort of cleaned up and it would be a little bit more sort of straightforward the path. And, you know, maybe they're like, listen, we like this game, but we just can't be involved. The mothership company be involved in a token. And so maybe, you know, maybe this is their way of like maybe supporting the game but not having it underneath their banner and having it as a separate company, do they give the guys who are sort of leading the charge under this new banner? Did they give them the resources to keep going? I think there's just a lot of things that we don't know why they would do such a thing.

The Legal Landscape and Division of Responsibilities

And, you know, I also think that, like, I know for a fact, like living in Los Angeles and knowing a lot of game developers who work at these bigger studios, they all have, every single one of them has a department that's working on blockchain, right? They're all like, they're all working on little experiments here and there and they're just going to wait. And I think, like, I forget who said earlier, but whether it's Sony or it's Activision or is Riot, you know, they have the ability to wait and see what works and what doesn't because they can just, they can afford to, like, pick up the winners, right? Like, their business model is, you know, they have, like, their temple games, but they acquire studios. That's what they do. That's how they scale.

The Future of Gaming and Big Companies

And so, you know, I think. I think we're going to start to see, as games start to come out that are native, web three will start to get wins. And that's when I think they are going to start picking up and acquiring because they can afford, if the game works, of course the acquisition cost is going to be more expensive, but they can afford it. That's the business. So I think it's really hard to judge what's going on. But, yeah, that's kind of my take. I don't even know if I'm saying anything relevant. It was a good take there. Yeah, I think it was. It was solid. Interesting to hear also the sort of goings on around a lot of people experimenting. I remember we talked to Ken, we the CSO at Activision Blizzard a while back, and he said.

Perceptions of Industry Movements

We asked him, hey, man, like, what do you really want to accomplish in this space? It's interesting that you guys being a $60 billion company, already looking at blockchain, he goes, yeah, we're just kind of, like, poking around. We'll probably just. You know how we bought King Mobile, like, five years after mobile gaming took off? We'll probably just do that again. I was like, all right. That's exactly right. Totally. That's like that. They can afford to wait. Like, they. They are not like. And I'm sure everybody on stage knows this, but, like, no one, none of these big studios have any reason to, like, fuck with their financial model behind their games, because they don't have to.

Market Conditions and Future Strategies

It's working. I think, you know, we see these large media companies, gaming companies. You know, we are, but. We are, but just like a bug on the windshield when it comes. Like, we haven't even started taking market share from them, so they're just a. No, Harry, I don't think. Yeah, it's a great way to put it. Let's tag in Dante from scale, and then I want to hear from Matt defies. All right, well, sorry. No, I think. I think I got rugged and then it fixed itself. You can hear me, right? Yes, sir. You're all good. All right, sweet. All good. I appreciate it.

The Experiment That Was Zynga

I think that, you know, a lot of people are spot on here in saying that this was very much an experiment for Zynga. Right. I think they wanted to put their toes in the water a little bit and just see how this felt. And I think that the fact that we saw D 20 take this over is Zynga's way of saying, all right, experiment failed, let's move on. And to me, I think the reason that the experiment failed is because Zynga did not take the Zynga approach to this. As in, Zynga has a core competency of building out really amazing mobile gaming experiences. Right. I don't know if any of you guys actually played this as opposed to just like bought the assets, but it was like a pretty bad game just over.

Expectations Versus Reality

I kind of liked it. I mean, it was good. But like, for, from a Zynga perspective, I expected way more out of that game. And I think that built it as like a djen first type of game where they, you know, wanted to push the assets and see a lot out of the assets. And obviously they launched it in a bear market rather than building a game the way that Zynga knows how to build games, the way that we all know that Zynga knows how to build games and then using blockchain as an underlying technology underneath it. When I look at Sugar Town, I actually see this as a positive thing. I hope that D 20 realizes, okay, we have some momentum from Zynga now.

New Paths for Sugar Town

Let's go and build a real game. They've launched assets, they've done the D gen stuff that they need to do. And in my opinion, now it's time for them to say, all right, we're going to grab the steering wheel of this thing, and now we're going to go out and focus purely on the gameplay so that we can actually start onboarding users on a scale that Zynga would want to see. Normally. I think that when these big companies are experimenting here, what they're soon going to realize is, hey, we have a core competency of building really amazing games. There's absolutely no reason to build what is essentially an NFT collection with, you know, a tiny little reskin game on top of it.

Insights and Expectations for the Gaming Industry

If these big studios want to be successful, they're going to need to stick to their guns. They're going to need to stick to their core competencies and build an actually fun game. And in my opinion, like, where I see this going is, okay, it's going to be a really fun game that we know that these games know how to play. And then underneath there's going to be some type of invisible layer of blockchain. And that's when I talk to these massive studios, which I do very often. That's the conversation that we're starting to have. It's not like, okay, how does Activision build a quote unquote natively web three game? But how does Activision take what we know to be a great Activision game and improve upon that experience with blockchain?

Reflections on Past Experiments

So I think that the type of deliverables that we're looking at are going to be fundamentally different than what we're seeing now out of the likes of Zynga because people realize, okay, Zynga tried to do this and they failed. Yeah, fair points across the board. Dante. VGF also just slid in my DM said GM joined a little bit late. Curious, has anybody brought up the potential legal liability component? Like, for all we know, Zynga didn't want the legal hazard and they spun it off so that Matt and company could continue without the legal risks towards Zynga proper.

Addressing Legal Concerns

I mean, I think that's well within the sort of sphere of, like, totally possible and tangible that became too much of a risk for them. But. But, probably also included in the bucket of things that we just do not know the answer to at this moment, which is, again, I wish they did a town hall or something so that people could have asked questions, but just doing a countdown to a Twitter announcement and then being like, surprise, guys, this terrible thing happened. Just felt tone deaf to me. Even though I really liked the team, I want to be clear about that. I like them and I'm rooting for them. I just was disappointed by that.

Conclusion and Thoughts on the Future

Matt defies over to you. Yeah. I wanted to give some context in terms of another POV, which is, I also don't know all of the nuance and politics behind of the Zynga and Sugar town, right. But I do have a couple of anecdotes from some other, let's say, web two giants that tried or put, you know, to dip their toes into web three. And the one thing I noticed is that, like, they're all kind of like 1ft out the door, you know? So for example, Ubisoft, right, with champions verse. I remember earlier this year when they were marketing, right, they were marketing hard.

Concerns Over Misleading Branding

I mean, if you go to OpenSea, it still says Sugar Town auras by Zynga and then the collection or like the company is still Zynga with a blue check mark and stuff in it. It really feels uncomfortable from my perspective. I don't know if anybody can shed more light on that. I know Opensea kind of notoriously like takes a long time to update things, but to Gorillas point, I mean, if it's on the website, you have control over your own website. Yeah, there's a logo, there's the logo at the bottom, right, left. If you click it takes you to the website and it's still like even the copyright in the bottom, it says, you know, or the c. Copyright to 2024 Zynga Inc. A bunch of Zynga trademark. Like, yeah, it feels, I don't know why they didn't switch this out or have a plan on the day of announcement. Maybe everything rebrands or. I don't know how to do it, but yeah.

The Importance of Website Updates

I mean, if they had a countdown, they could have taken some of that Twitter time and instead focused on fixing their website so it wasn't misleading anymore. Cab from Kleinosaurs, thanks so much for joining us, brother. Would love to hear your insight on this. Hey, thanks for having me. I feel like in the future I'm going to be on these sort of spaces a lot more often as far as gaming is concerned, but I'm happy to be here. I think bear snake kind of like hit on most of the points I would have talked about, which is these companies don't often have to be first because they can afford to let others do the work or the research for them and then come into an ecosystem that's a lot more mature. I think in this case, Zynga was probably way too early. But the second piece of the puzzle is oftentimes these companies are a little bit tone deaf, like you say.

Community Engagement Challenges

They come into the game wanting to just launch an NFT collection or a token. They don't really incubate community and oftentimes it falls flat. You saw the same thing with the IP game where Momoguru tried to incubate and it was a. An absolute clusterfuck. I think really what's going to happen is what's much more likely to happen is that these larger companies are going to come into the ecosystem through partnerships with web three native IP, leveraging those ips, because those ips have provenance and authority in the space. But it has to be ips that are battle tested or communities that are already battle tested. Like these are the forgotten runes, the Azuki is the doodles, etcetera.

Future Partnerships in Gaming

And I think that's going to be the way to go, I guess. Softshell one of the reasons I'm saying that is in about probably a little bit under two weeks, we're going to announce a partnership with one of the biggest mobile games developer on the planet. We're building this game so that it's airtight for Apple Store, for Play store. We're doing all the research we possibly can on what it means to be on chain. It'll be their first ever on chain development. It's going to be a crazy adventure. But the exercise we're doing with that company is it's very much a partnership. It's one in which they've been looking at web three for. And you guys already pointed this out, most of these companies have been looking for years, but they need an ip that's pretty airtight and they also need a team to leverage rather than having their own go to market and their own creation off the bat.

Strategic Moves in the Industry

I think that's the sort of moves you're going to start to see is these companies leveraging existing ip in the ecosystem, learning how to properly incubate and develop alongside those companies like ourselves. I don't know if that makes sense, but to me that's the way I see it play through, because for them, it de risks the whole process rather than starting from scratch, primarily. And also it's a good way for them to really kind of get into the ecosystem and learn as much as possible. But you got to do it with companies that kind of like our forward thinking. In our case, I guess a clue would be this is a company that took a bet on mobile gaming before the Apple, sorry, before the iPhone showed up.

Marking Trends and Consumer Reactions

And so in light of that, it's a company that's always been quite forward thinking. They just needed to wait for the right time. But I think you guys have mostly pointed out all of the important points here, which is oftentimes the companies are tone deaf. They don't have to be first. And when they're in the space and they're doing it alone, not through a partnership. For now, anyways, it always feels a little bit like a cash grab or opportunistic, I think would be the right word. And then the sorry, guys, I'm rambling. I'm a lot like Bear Snake, which is why we're both, I guess, founders of IP, just creatives and super scatterbrained.

Quality of Gaming Experiences

The last thing you guys mentioned is, dude, it has to be good. Like, I don't care if it's on chain, whatever, like being on chain is. Brings so many beautiful opportunities. If you're underneath layers is blockchain. There has to be reasons, but the game has to be playable. It has to be really interesting and something that most normal people would want to play. And it just so happens that it's on chain as a way to future proof, but as a way to have really interesting touch points, some of which are interoperable. That obviously adds complications with the Apple Store and play Store, but these are things we're figuring out obviously with legal, but I'll leave it at that.

Setting Expectations for Game Quality

I think most important is, like you guys pointed out, is that the. Did the game, you know, does it look ready? Does it look like something that's fun. And I think that's like, that's the number one thing when all sentence. When all is said is and done. Like the. These games just have to be playable, man. Gab coming in hot and just dropping Alpha his very first time on simplified. Sorry. Excited for that announcement, man. Yeah. And feel free to come back anytime. Appreciate you. Likewise. Yeah, thank you, guys. I'm going to send it over tony from Sparkball, then we're going to have Johnny tag back in as well.

Market Optimism and Future Trends

I did have one more topic. I know we're running out of time, but I do have one more topic just about kind of where we're going and people's optimism about October that I'd love to cover if we can squeeze in a few more minutes. But Tony, over to you. Yeah. You know, the thing that I haven't heard mentioned in this conversation and just a piece of insight around, you know, why I think Zynga may have done what they did is because we keep calling it Zynga. But Zynga is owned by Take two, which is a pretty traditional game developer. They're one of the few people that still make Dollar 60 single player game experiences. I think we all know.

Insights on Zynga's Strategic Decisions

I think it's public knowledge that Grand Theft Auto is coming out in Q three or Q four next year. And so, you know, I could see, and I'm pretty good friends with some of the leadership over there. Like I've hung out with Steve Blixtein and Max Tenkai and they run sales for Take Two most of my career at Amazon. And no, Jordan Chu over there is head of brand. And like I can hear them in meetings saying like, hey guys, like, there's no chance that we're doing this web three shit during GTA year, right? Like I could, I can see that room and like been in that room when those conversations are happening.

Experimentation vs. Execution

And so like, I just think that. That. Yeah, I think that it was an experiment, clearly, and that it's only chance at life in a GTA year was to be like an incredible breakout success and not just like something that this group of people hope is successful. That's again that speculation. Just like knowing some of the players involved, but that's really what I would believe probably happens or something. Something like that. Yeah. If anybody doesn't know, Mister Tony managing $100 million budget for Twitch prime.

Navigating Market Sentiments

So he's been in a few of those rooms, I've heard. Johnny, over to you, man. Yeah, I was following up to what Vidar said earlier, so my take here isn't going to be as high IQ as some of the most recent ones. But gone are the days where we're investing in projects because someone developed one campaign level on a 2006 call of Duty title or something like that. Like, let's stop putting so much stock into the graphic designer who goes and says, I scaled this studio and now we're here in web three. Surprise. Yeah. But I just love Vidar's point, so I just wanted to shout that out, dude.

Emerging Optimism in the Market

I love everything Vidar says. And on that note, we have crypto gorilla here, Johnny here, Vidar here. And I'm sure some of you other guys are amazing at reading the market as well, but I wanted to get everybody's perspective. We have a lot of optimism all of a sudden emerging despite some negative, you know, web three gaming stories. People seem like they're kind of accepting that September is going to be a wash. And I'm just hearing over and over again that October is going to pump and that the latter half of the year is like bull run is coming back and everybody's excited about this and it's just a sentiment change.

The Market Trends and Predictions

Like, the markets haven't really done anything to indicate it from what I can tell. Of course, nothing you hear from this entire show, but especially this topic, is financial advice. If you need financial advice, please consult a financial advisor. We're just a bunch of dudes with opinions up here, but I'm curious if you guys can explain. Johnny, you had some great tweets here as well. Oh, actually, Matt, why don't you take these tweets? But I want to hear from people, what's the rationale for the optimism that we're hearing? And do you agree with it?

Analyzing Market Cycles

Matt, do you want to add some more context to this subject? Yeah, I mean, I think it's great to send it over to Johnny because his tweets were really good. Maybe we can pin one of them up there. But obviously, September just kind of historically hasn't been a great month. And October is known as uptober. Up, only Tober. So, yeah, I would love to get Johnny and gorillas takes on this, especially them having been through so many of these cycles and seeing the patterns.

Expectations for Upcoming Months

Yeah, let's send it to Johnny. And I see Vidar with the hand up, too, I'm sure has some market insights here. Johnny, over to you, bro. Yeah, so I think, yeah, traditionally, I think over the last like 13 years or something, there's been three times that September is green, so, like, it's not impossible. And we did just come off of a pretty bearish month. I think the 30-day, I'm not in front of my computer, but I think we're looking at a pretty down month in August already. So could it be a September that retaliates against history? Maybe, but, yeah, typically, September is the worst month in crypto's history by red perspectives.

Economic Indicators and Historical Patterns

The way that I see it unfolding, though, and on my Friday YouTube video, we kind of dug deep into this. If you look at the TA around election, it's like Satoshi built crypto and bitcoin around economic narratives. And, like, election seasons, like straight up a year before, typically the four year cycle ends, which is about a couple months from now, the election season. There's an indicator over on trading view, and if you look all the way back to Barack Obama, Trump, Biden, now, coming up to this election season, there's indicators of when the election is. And the trend of price action after that is ridiculous.

Market Reactions to Elections

So, like, you know, Satoshi is a genius the way you set this thing up around these narratives. But I do see a strong close out to the year. I think typically, because the markets are pretty stimulated around election seasons, is we're probably going to see some good price action from October onward, as the meme is October. And it. It gets kind of cringey whenever it gets to October, and everyone's saying it. But I think that the narrative does play out pretty well, to see some price action relief around that time. And, that's the way I see it, at least.

Historical Trends vs. Current Circumstances

Like, just history doesn't always repeat itself, but as they say, it often rhymes and. And bitcoin and the cycles, they've typically played out that way. So that's the way I see it. I think September could be choppy, if not negative. But heading into October and beyond, I think we start to see some pretty solid price action. Interesting stuff. Vidar, do you agree? And if not, what's your take, brother?

Long-Term Insights from Experience

All right, guys, pick up a seat. Grandpa is going to tell a fucking story again. Here we go. All right, so for those of you who are listening and who don't know, I'm just going to very quickly tell you again, I have been in bitcoin since 2009. I've been mining this shit since 2009. So I may or may not have a unique perspective. But then again, you know, you guys have charts, so maybe not. But here's the thing. We are in a year where there has been a having. We are in a year. That is an election cycle. We are in a year where the biggest institutions and asset managers in the fucking world have decided, you know what? I'm going to buy bitcoin.

Institutional Influence on Bitcoin

We have Blackrock buying bitcoin. Just wrap your head around this for a second. We have asset managers. There was a withdrawal, I think, like two days ago where someone just yoinked $500 million in bitcoin off Coinbase, not onto, off. I don't understand why people can't look at historical trends. Johnny is 1000% correct on this. We always have a bloody August and September guys heading into an election season. Why, you might ask? Well, because the people with lots of money want to accumulate bitcoin. We want your shit.

Market Stability in the Upcoming Months

So we're going to chop for a while. We're going to chop last month. We're going to chop this month. This is an accumulation phase. We're not nuking. We're just down so that we can buy people stuff when they capitulate. It's really that simple. We almost always go up in October, and then we go up in November and December and everyone's freaking the fuck out. Oh, it's the next thing, and blah, blah. And then, you know, you sell the top again, it's a cycle happens over and over again, guys. It's gonna be a big one.

Cautionary Advice for Investors

As usual, just chill. Don't sell your stuff. This is the time to accumulate. If you want to buy stuff that's low, go for it. Buy it. You know, just relax, okay? It's not the end of the world. I see so much dooming, probably because there's so many people on Twitter that just got in. Either this cycle and they're just buying a bunch of shitcoins. Like, shit coins is their first exposure to cryptocurrency. And like, oh, my shit coins are down 120%. It's over. It's not over. Just have a little patience.

Patience in a Volatile Market

Things will be fine, guys. Okay? This is the first time ever where we're going into an election cycle where the. And I don't care what your political slant is, I personally don't give a fuck, okay? But whatever you're going into, it's the first time we've had politicians actively talking about cryptocurrency and what they're going to do about it. It's part of their campaign messaging. Have you ever seen that before in your life? Think about it. Why is that occurring?

Impacts of Political Discussions on Cryptocurrency

Do you think they just personally love crypto? No, they get shoveled tens of millions, hundreds of millions of dollars for their campaigns by these asset managers who want to control their messaging and control whatever laws they're going to be passing when they're elected. Big people with big pockets, which means those people are the ones who are buying into cryptocurrency and they're going to affect what messaging is going into the election. So you're in the right spot. Just relax.

Closing Remarks and Future Considerations

Fedar delivering that message the only, the way, only Vidar can dub at the hand up. Next thing, gorilla dude. I love Vidar, I love Johnny, but I also love being the dude to throw caution in the wind. And just because it's crypto booming and the cycles look right, that doesn't mean that translates 100% over to gaming. Definitely be cautious there. Like, from my retail perspective, like we would be seeing, like, we would know exactly what the games are that we're going to be really excited about for Q four.

Future of Gaming and Market Sentiments

And I don't know what those games are. And unless, like, all of a sudden, September is a month of enlightenment and everyone freaking unveils their plans and we're full shebang with great launches and stuff in October, November, and beyond, I just don't see it. And knowing retail, it's just Q four is the time to get hyped. It's the time for companies to execute on campaigns that they've been working on since the previous year. And that always is from a Q three launch start point, or at least Q three or whatever.

Market Dynamics and Consumer Behavior

And we're just not seeing that. Yeah, it's great for bitcoin. Yeah, it's great for Ethereum. All those other ones. And yeah, I'm up on meme coins because I'm a fucking baller. But you got to be careful out there, especially for gaming double boys finding a way to sneak that in. Gorilla, over to you, brother. Yeah, I think I agree with what he's saying about the timeline is extremely toxic, especially in the last week or two with the price action we're seeing.

Recent Market Behavior and Challenges

You know, we just went to then all of a sudden, in a two hour period, we're back to 58k. People are very doom and gloom right now. Meme coins are down. I think the cycle is a lot harder than 2021. 2021. Man was easy mode with nfts, you literally meant any whitelist you'd get. Whitelist and gave you three mints. They're all in profit. You could flip right away, or you can hold it and it goes up. It was easy mode.

The Current Environment of NFTs

All the investment rounds were doing well here. We kind of got tricked with the portal round everything after or not everything, but a good portion of them have been disaster or they've just been delaying for quarters, not even just months, quarters at a time. So I get the doom. I mean, looking at the ETF, we just had four days of negative like, outflows. We had our second day of Blackrock actually selling. So it is scary a bit when you look at Ethereum, like it's just a sea of red thanks to grayscale.

Overall Market Sentiment

So that's no fun. So I do agree with the whole, you know, institutions buying, but it's been pretty up. And overall it's major positive, you know, plus $17 billion. But it's still not as, you know, as I thought it would be a lot more bullish. Looking at the charts, we always get like this six month period where we kind of trade sideways and hopefully we're near the end. I mean, I'm not a TA guy. I follow a lot of, I'm in a lot of groups with calls.

Market Predictions and Uncertainties

I follow. I watch all the YouTubers that do this stuff. They're all over the place. Like nobody knows where we're going to go. I agree with the whole rectember thing, but I think we kind of pushed ourselves into it. I think a lot of people sold before September expecting to go down, and it did cause a bit of a drawdown. But I think the same thing can happen in October where everybody's going to be like, oh, October, we're going up, I better buy now.

Possible Market Movements Ahead

And maybe we go up in September because everybody's trying to front run October. But it's definitely a rough cycle. It's definitely a rough period right now. I think a reason, an extra reason for the toxicity is a lot of people in web three, they don't have like a lot of us on stage do like an income in web three. So they kind of just bought their holding and praying like this is their one shot to make it out of their nine to five or escape the matrix or however you want to word it.

Emotional Responses to Market Volatility

So I think that really gets on people, gets to people when they're not getting rich all of a sudden. And you're seeing people on the timeline post like, oh, I just made $100,000 on this shitcoin from $12. So I understand all the pain, but look, I don't have no idea where we're going. Like nobody else does. We can all try to predict it as best as we can. I'm seeing a ton of recession talk on YouTube now I'm going to, it's going to be in my next video.

Market Analysis and Upcoming Indicators

All the YouTubers I follow, a lot of them are posting these videos and there is some data that shows when the rate cuts come. There's a lot of things that are hitting. And the main one that I'm going to be looking at, I think it's in three days. I want to say the fifth, maybe it's the 6th, where we're going to get the job numbers. So I think those are going to be really important. And then we got to see what happens with the rate cuts.

Current Financial Expectations

I think it's priced in. Like we all expect rate cuts, but I don't know. I do think there is a chance the rest of the year could be pretty damn rocky. I get it. We have the elections and everybody thinks if Trump wins, we're just going to be up only and the market will price in a lot of bullishness if he does win. But he's not going to be in office till next year. And even at that, it's going to take him time to start implementing stuff to hopefully fix America.

Speculation on Future Bitcoin Purchases

And then even the buying bitcoin, his bitcoin fund, if it's real, when does he start buying bitcoin and pump our bags? I don't know. So I think, I guess I didn't really give any clear direction. It's kind of, we can either go up or down, but I guess I'm hanging in there. I'm not selling anything. If we dip, I do think we're going to go back under 50. I don't want to be a bear, but I do think we're going back under 50.

Preparedness for Market Changes

If we do, I have capital ready to buy. If we don't, my bags are packed already, so I'm good. And I'm trying to think what a longer term mindset than just trying to get rich in the next three months. Yeah, great stuff. Krillin I never think it's necessary to give us the buy now or like, here's exactly what to, you know, just give people frameworks, ways to think about it.

Long-Term Mindsets in Trading

Johnny had a great tweet that I did pin up a little while ago, speaking about having that eight to twelve month mindset instead of the overnight mindset, because things have changed and maybe that's a good thing in a lot of ways as well. Thank you so much to all of my incredible panelists. That's all for today's show. But the adventure doesn't stop here. If you're craving more strategy, more excitement and a whole lot more fun.

Engagement and Opportunities in the Gaming Market

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Spotlighting Innovative Partnerships

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Exciting Developments in the Gaming Landscape

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Upcoming Gaming Events

And don't forget, YGG plays summit is in Manila spanning five days starting November 18. So get ready to team up, level up, and rack up those rewards. Thanks to Yieldguild Games for being an official sponsor of simplified. And seriously, if you are new to web three gaming, there is no reason why you shouldn't be on YGG helping navigate the space by virtue of all the great things that they do to help people get onboarded.

Acknowledgments and Gratitude

Again, huge thank you to our amazing panel, including bear, snake and cab, both joining on the fly. Appreciate you guys a ton. You're welcome back anytime. Of course, we have Vidar Dove, Tony behind the sparkball account, Johnny Mister Hustlepedia from Nexus Labs crypto gorilla, make sure you watch his YouTube videos. And Jerry coming in, clutch with the co host while Knock is down bad.

Well Wishes and Future Notifications

Again, thank you to everybody that sent amazing thoughts to knock in the comments. We'll keep you updated on his health situation best we can. Fingers crossed in a couple of days he's back to normal. But in the meantime, we love you, brother. We hope you're doing better. And of course, my big bro, Matt Stefanina. Thanks so much, bro. Another great episode. We'll see you guys back same time, same place next week.

Adjustments for Future Sessions

There is announcement coming up though about transitioning to some asian hours because we're going to be in Singapore, so we might be making a little bit of an adjustment. Just like three weeks or something. We might test out some asian hours since so many of us will be over there. Anything you want to add to that mattress? Yeah, we'll keep you guys posted for sure on Twitter.

Plans for Future Engagements

I think we'll mostly all still be in the US next week, so we're looking at keeping the same time most likely, but then going into token 2049, I know a lot of us will be over there, so we'll try to find a little bit better middle ground. I'm sure some of our Asian and Dubai regulars will appreciate that. Yeah, and that's a great time to plug again that we always put these episodes on Spotify as well.

Accessibility for Global Audiences

So if you guys ever want to listen on demand and the Twitter player isn't working very well, which sometimes happens, you can always tune in, usually about 5 hours after the episode. We have it up on Spotify, so even if we're in Asia and you guys aren't able to catch it live, please catch it on Spotify. Catch it on Twitter after the fact. We love you guys.

Closing the Episode

We'll see you same time, same place next week. Peace.