Uniting Societies – Episode 2

Space Summary

The Twitter Space Uniting Societies – Episode 2 hosted by Somnia_Network. Unite Societies – Episode 2 delved into the intricate world of Virtual Society integration, emphasizing the importance of 300k+ transactions per second in EVM L1 environments with Interoperability Protocols. The discussions revolved around challenges, opportunities, and community-driven aspects of merging metaverses, gaming, NFTs, and social platforms. Insightful dialogues tackled scalability, innovation, and industry applications in crafting a seamless digital ecosystem. This space highlighted the significance of adaptability, technological advancements, and user-centric approaches for creating a unified Virtual Society experience across diverse platforms.

For more spaces, visit the Infrastructure page.

Questions

Q: How does 300k+ tps in EVM L1 benefit Virtual Society integration?
A: High transaction speeds enable seamless on-chain interactions and support real-time user experiences.

Q: What are the main challenges in uniting metaverses, gaming, NFTs, and social platforms?
A: Integration complexities, standardization issues, and diverging user experiences pose significant challenges.

Q: Why is community engagement crucial for the success of Virtual Society initiatives?
A: Involving the community fosters inclusivity, feedback incorporation, and sustainable growth of the Virtual Society.

Q: How do Interoperability Protocols facilitate seamless integration across digital realms?
A: Interoperability Protocols act as bridges, allowing data and asset transfers among distinct platforms, enhancing connectivity.

Q: What role do technological advancements play in shaping the Virtual Society experience?
A: Innovations drive improved cross-platform interactions, enhanced user engagement, and expanded functionalities.

Q: What potential use cases can Virtual Society explore in diverse industries?
A: Industries like finance, healthcare, education, and entertainment can benefit from Virtual Society through improved services, collaborations, and experiences.

Q: How can scalability and efficiency be maintained in a high transaction volume environment like Virtual Society?
A: Implementing robust infrastructure, optimized protocols, and streamlined processes are key factors to ensure seamless operations and user satisfaction.

Q: What innovative opportunities arise from the convergence of metaverses, gaming, NFTs, and social platforms?
A: New monetization models, digital asset ownership concepts, and interactive experiences are emerging as possibilities from this convergence.

Q: What are the key elements that contribute to a cohesive on-chain Virtual Society experience?
A: Seamless integration, intuitive user interfaces, secure data transfer, and cross-platform compatibility play vital roles in creating a unified Virtual Society.

Q: Why is adaptability important when creating a unified experience across multiple digital platforms?
A: Flexibility to evolve with technological advancements, user trends, and market changes ensures the ongoing relevance and success of Virtual Society initiatives.

Highlights

Time: 00:15:48
300k+ tps in EVM L1 Exploring the benefits and implications of high transaction speeds within the EVM L1 environment.

Time: 00:27:10
Interoperability Protocols for Seamless Integration Understanding how Interoperability Protocols bridge digital environments for unified experiences.

Time: 00:38:45
Digital Convergence: Metaverses, Gaming, NFTs, and Social Platforms The synergy created by merging diverse digital realms for a cohesive Virtual Society.

Time: 00:45:21
Challenges of Platform Integration Discussing obstacles and strategies in uniting different platforms for seamless user interactions.

Time: 00:59:02
Community Engagement in Virtual Society The importance of community participation in shaping and sustaining Virtual Society initiatives.

Time: 01:12:30
Innovative Use Cases and Industry Applications Exploring the potential impact of Virtual Society across various industries and sectors.

Time: 01:28:15
Scalability and Efficiency Solutions Strategies to maintain operational efficiency and scalability in a high-volume transaction environment.

Time: 01:45:09
Technological Advancements Driving Virtual Society The role of innovations in enhancing user experiences and expanding the capabilities of Virtual Society.

Time: 01:59:40
Monetization and Asset Ownership Opportunities New revenue models and ownership structures evolving from the convergence of digital platforms.

Time: 02:10:55
Creating a Unified Virtual Society Experience Key elements necessary to ensure a cohesive and engaging on-chain Virtual Society for users.

Key Takeaways

• Focus on 300k+ tps in EVM L1 with Interoperability is crucial for Virtual Society integration.
• The significance of uniting metaverses, gaming, NFTs, and social platforms for a cohesive digital experience.
• Exploring the potential of on-chain interactions for enhanced user engagement and ecosystem growth.
• Understanding the role of Interoperability Protocols in bridging diverse digital environments seamlessly.
• Challenges in achieving seamless integration across different platforms and technologies.
• Opportunities and innovations arising from the convergence of various digital realms.
• The importance of scalability and efficiency in handling a high transaction volume environment like Virtual Society.
• Adapting to technological advancements to create a unified experience for users across multiple platforms.
• Community engagement and inclusivity as driving forces for the success of Virtual Society initiatives.
• Exploring potential use cases and applications of the Virtual Society concept in diverse industries.

Behind the Mic

Welcome Message

Hello, everyone. We'll be getting started in just a minute. Just waiting for all of our speakers to join. Welcome to uniting societies. All right, just a minute. Let's see. Just bringing up some of our speakers. We have board coming in direct. Once you get in, please test your mic if you can. Test. Test 123. Beaming. I'm beaming in from the Internet. Amazing. I can hear you. Awesome. Gotten a couple more people up here. Let's see. Directive creator. I see you in there too.

Punctuality Acknowledgment

I just want to state for the record, I'm the most punctual of the guests today. Oh, I appreciate that. Thank you so much. All right, let's see. Let's get Luke in here. Paul. All right, not seeing Paul yet. Oh, there you go. And Luke, I see you out there. Yeah. Invite to speak. Just invited you. Well, at least we can hear each other this week, so I'm very happy about that because I was having anxiety.

Speaker Invitations and Confirmations

All right, we got Herman in. I think I just invited you to speak. If the last one didn't go through. Do we have everybody now? Let's see. I think so. MARCUS. MARCUS. Okay. Oh, yeah. Under direct. And Herman. I did request, I did invite Herman to speak, so hopefully he's able to get up. I know in previous weeks we've had some technical difficulties with bringing some people onto the space, so hopefully. All right, well, maybe we should start out while we're trying to get herman on here.

Introductions of Participants

We could go around and everybody could introduce themselves, I guess starting with the most punctual. I will accept that burden and the responsibility. Thanks for having me on today. I go by board or board. Elon, been around the Internet for about eleven years. And more relevant to this conversation, founder of Edison. It is a joint venture with improbable. A lot of folks in here who we are friends with, we are working with. Our goal is to spin up massive multiplayer events and let you take a vacation from your normal digital home.

Additional Introductions

So very excited to talk about that and what you guys were working on as well. All right, I guess. Paul, do you want to talk, introduce yourself? Yeah, sure. Hey, everyone. So those who don't know me, my name is Paul. I'm the founder of Somnia. We're essentially building a blockchain and a set of interoperability protocols for the metaverse and gaming. Amazing. Who would like to be next? I can go next. So, hey, everyone, I'm direct. Similar to what board is doing, we are building on the M Squared network Victory league.

Description of Projects and Interests

Victory is the sports metaverse. We can hang out. Everything is around sports, about like, your favorite athletes, getting closer to them, to the brands that you love, and just celebrating sports in ways that you couldn't before. So very happy to be here. Amazing. Very exciting. Very exciting. And I think also exciting. We did get Herman up. Do you want to test your mic and introduce yourself?

Technical Adjustments

Hey, how's that sounding? Is that okay? It sounds okay. Yeah, I. A little bit farther. Come to me last. I'm going to jump onto three g and hop right back on again. Give me 1 second. All right, sounds great. How about directive creator? Did you introduce yourself yet? I did not, but I'm directive creator, creative director at Socialeur, founder of Grylls Gang, and someone that's just very passionate about building with MML, the metaverse markup language. And I'm excited to be here and connect with all of the people here today.

Further Introductions

Awesome, awesome. Welcome. Now, Luke, would you like to go next? Yeah, sure. Hey, everyone, my name's Luke, also known as Alcazonda, previous content creator and streamer on Twitch for many years. I am now the head of user acquisition improbable, and I'm also the GM of a new project called Jitter, which I want to dive into a little bit later. Awesome, awesome. Glad to have you here, Pp man. How about you go next and introduce yourself?

Pp Man Introduction

Hey guys, just for the record, I was the second most punctual, so I need that title. P man here, VP of product at Yuga. I've been at Yuga for two and a half years, which is probably like 20 years in Normie time, building the other side, which is built on top of M squared and leveraging a lot of the tech Samia's building. So excited to be here. We're excited to have you. So, yeah, I was just going down the list. So I guess Twitter did you wrong there with placement.

Technical Difficulties

So who's next in line? I could try now if this sounds better. Oh, loud and clear. Perfect. Now. Nice. All right, well, hi, I'm Herman. I'm the CEO of improbable and one of the co founders of improv M Squared, and I've been working on stuff for about twelve years now. So ip man's mathematics, I think that makes me 1000 years old, which is concerning. But I've also written a book called Virtual Society about how to make this metaverse stuff act.

Herman's Experience

Actually spent a long time not just building technology, but working on a lot of games and content that's out there. Some games you played. So really excited to be here. Awesome, awesome. Excited to have you and I just finished your book as well, so I might be prepared to ask some good questions. But let's go globally. I'm very proud. Well, as an author myself, I know how it goes. Yeah. So if you want to add to the conversation, just raise your hand.

Engagement in Conversations

And no order or anything, just get in where you feel like you have something to contribute. So I guess we could start off by talking about what made you interested in joining and participating in the Somnia ecosystem. Anybody want to jump on that one? I can go first if you want, because I joined it. Like, I'm not. I didn't found victory like, I joined it, but I'm in the web three space for, I think, over three years now, like, and the thing that actually, that for me was a no brainer to get in there is that the, our lives, first of all, become more and more digital as, like, everyone being here is the proof of this.

Personal Motivation

but it's also going to the next generations and, like, digital assets, like social connections, everything is going to become more and more digital. So for me, it's a no brainer to go into this. Into this direction and found out about improbable, about Victory league, personally, being a. Being a super sports fan, like, very passionate and interested in this space. And of course, like, working with football brands, huge athletes, like, just doing metaverse activations and events that are happening online is something that is honestly, it's a dream come true.

Integration of Personal Interests

Like, it's combining all the passions, like, it's gaming, it's tech, it's web three, it's sports, it's everything that. That I personally love. And it's a pleasure to work here and working closely with improbable. And of course, like all the other people that are speakers here, most of who I like know personally or talk to regularly. So I'm very excited to be part of this space. Yeah, we are really building a great community here. It's very exciting. So how about directive creator? I know that recently we've been doing some integrations.

Directive Creator Insights

Do you want to talk about what attracted you to the Somnia ecosystem or anything that we've been doing together that you want to discuss? Sure. Yeah. I mean, I'm just, as you know, Orlando or you might not know, I'm just very excited about using MML, the metaverse markup language. And I'm very excited about bringing in different projects, different companies, different people together in these metaverse spaces and having assets and having nfts and things that are interoperable that can freely move between these different spaces.

Innovative Future of Metaverse

And that's what got me interested with insomnia, especially the new playground functions that were released. The big thing is, for me it's super fun thing to see where you can have the grills in this case jump into the playground and they get to play there. But they can also jump into construct improbable's test metaverse and hopefully in the future they can jump into other side and things like that as well. They can jump in Edison games and basically you get to move your NFT freely between all these different places that are seemingly unrelated, but you still get to use the same avatar, the same tools, the same objects.

Bringing Diverse Ecosystems Together

I think that's something that's originally even something where Ethereum was created to do. So I'm finally, yeah, I'm happy to kind of see that finally come to fruition and yeah, help support that, help build with that. And I mean, that's kind of the title of this spaces as well, right? The uniting societies. Like, I think it's super fun to be able to see all these different worlds and different people come together and just have fun and just like experiment new technology and new things. So that's what got me interested.

The Goal of Unity

Awesome. Awesome. Yeah, that's what we're all about is bringing everybody together, both in real life and in the digital world as well, because it's all connected. Does anybody else want to chime in there? We have our, I think one of our first partners was Yuga and our most recent partner board with Edison. And I know I just interrupted Herman as well, so. No, no, I just want to. Why don't you go?

Reflections on the Initiative

I just wanted to throw in two lines on what directive has said. Why did we like, help start Somnia and why are we. I wish we didn't have to, right? I mean, it's been like 1213 years and were supposed to have these like on chain games with all of this state and computation to the end, and it was all meant to magically happen. It just kind of hasn't. And so like, we're here reluctantly, we're here, you know, Thanos in the Avengers movies.

Addressing Challenges

Like, we have to do it ourselves because it doesn't look like anybody is going to build the kind of blockchain infrastructure that's necessary for really the next generation of happening. There just aren't the incentives to do. And so, yeah, like, you know, I think the goal of uniting societies and bringing people together is very laudable. I think we have to ask ourselves, like, why hasn't this happened yet? Right? So for me, it's like a chance to actually stop rather than wait for someone else to do it.

Experiences from the Past

I'm reminded of a time maybe 15-20 years ago, when games would get released and the games were so advanced that they were kind of clunky on your computer. Like, your computer was actually not powerful enough to run the games, or your Internet speed wasn't good enough to truly have the multiplayer. So the product was amazing, but the infrastructure wasn't there to support it. And that was kind of a bummer. And eventually the infrastructure caught up. And I think for me at least, the way I'm thinking about Somnia is blockchain was really built for simple operations and transactions, right? Financial movement, basic contracts. But if you think about something like the metaverse as this 3D world, there's a ton of information that has to be sent back and forth to people, and existing infrastructure just isn't really built for that.

Challenges of Current Infrastructure

You can kind of wedge it in and sort of make it work, and we've seen that, but no one's really built something finely tuned for that purpose. And that's the way I'm thinking about insomnia. That's what gets me excited, because I think that the infrastructure really hasn't been able to support the vision that a lot of us in this room have wanted to see come to life. Very good points there, PP man. Would you like to add anything before we move on to the next topic? Yeah, for sure. So the question was around, like, what's interesting? Like, what's the most interesting part of building in the Sonia ecosystem? Right? And I think building in a decentralized manner, you want as many people to build on top of what you're building.

Building Together in Decentralization

Take the ODK, for example, which is built on top of M Squared's world builder. You want it to be as extendable as possible. You want people to be able to get that and do whatever their own creation it is. And I think that one of the biggest edges Somya has is solving the interoperability issues that metaverses have. I think that it allows people to jump in, build stuff and take it across metaverses. What are the coolest things about the ecosystem? I'd like to chime in quick as well, just to add something on top. Perfect. I think for me, I joined Crypto after the 2017 bull run where went into the bear market, it was a lot about companies building and stuff for the future from a game or streamer perspective.

Value in Digital Assets

I was fed up with spending thousands and thousands on various in-game cosmetics and God knows what FIFA ultimate team over the years. And then at the end of the year everything I purchased basically became worthless. And I think that's what drew me to kind of Ethereum. You had a lot of these crypto games at the time, axie, infinity, cryptokitty, stuff like that. And that for me kind of revolutionized the idea of hey look, I'd love to be able to actually see the items and everything that I purchased have some sort of value in the long term. And obviously nowadays you look at Ethereum and the gas prices and stuff like that, it's not scalable and I think that's where we need a blockchain.

Interoperability and Secondary Markets

And specifically for kind of what we want to build in the future for jitter as well as we want people to be able to take these interoperable items and be able to actually have some value in the secondary market. They can actually go and swap and trade and stuff around and being able to have a blockchain that can facilitate that is quite exciting. Yeah, that's a very good point. And it's funny, I think a lot of, in some interviews in the past, Vitalik has said that it was a sword getting nerfed in World of Warcraft that taught him the value of decentralization and was a part of inspiration for what he eventually created. So it's fun how everything's coming full circle.

The Future and Virtual Society

So yeah, let's move on to the next topic. What is the virtual society and where did this idea come from? So I think we could let Herman start off with this and then the rest of us can kind of talk about what this idea means to us and if we have just anything thoughts to add. That's a, that's a high pressure question. I, I'm not going to plug the books into the question, actually plug the. I would just say most interesting question to ask ourselves is. I think that 3G is doing wrong. What value do people get from virtual experience? Right? And why do people play games? What is the utility of better or worse? Better or worse? Guys? Yeah, yeah, I appreciate you trying with the 3G there, Herman.

Creating Meaningful Experiences

Paul, do you want to continue? This might better. Is this better? Oh yeah, it sounds a little. Alright, fine. Sorry. I finally found Wi Fi. So there is no virtual society without Wi Fi. Never forget that. So the kind of key points, just to be quick on this, is it's about creating a context for people to have valuable experiences that are not just entertainment, but are actually an extension of their lives, right? So when you're in a stadium and everybody cheers and your team wins, is that entertainment, or is it more than entertainment? Is that actually. It could be something that makes you cry, right?

Values Beyond Entertainment

It could become something that's really important in your context. So, for me, a virtual society is taking the idea of games and generalizing that out into a different type of thing, something we've never seen before. Not just online worlds that are closed, like World of Warcraft, but online worlds that connect to our real lives and bring benefit back to our real lives and vice versa. And I think, you know, if you're. If you're money minded, then one could argue that as AI makes the marginal cost of all manufacturing and production and services go down and the world change, then the last thing that'll have value is fulfillment, right? It's experiences.

Embracing the Depth of Connection

So the concept of virtual society becomes really important. And if you're more, like, socially minded, then a lot of people in the world are kind of denied access to experiences that are really important, right? Really important. Not just because they're luxury, but because we know from psychology that without those experiences, people really don't have deep satisfaction with life. They don't have the ability to have and create meaningful relationships, to have a voice, to be creative, to do more. So, for me, a virtual society is about accepting and embracing the idea, even if people think we're weird, that games aren't just games, that they're more, that they can be more.

Community Engagement

And if you want an example of that, I would point to the Yuga community. I would point to what Ppman is part of and say, look at that community. Is that about entertainment? I mean, half the time, it isn't. It's about something deeper. It's a deeper form of connection. So, for me, that is what we're doing here. We're trying to take the idea of virtual worlds and take them to the next level in terms of their value to people. Amazing. I'm glad we got Wi Fi to get that. Does anybody have anything to add to that point, or did that spark any kind of inspiration for anybody?

Personal Motivations

Yeah, I think for me, this is why I do what I do and kind of gets me out of bed. This idea of a virtual society is two things. One is around what Herman was talking about, creating more meaning and fulfilling lives where people can connect online and be together and feel stuff together, which I think, for me, it comes down to what I call egalitarianism. So I wish the world was more equal. I wish that it didn't matter where you were born, who you are, that we all had equal opportunities, and based on the quality of your work and the merits of your outputs, you got rewarded in this world. That's not how the world currently works.

Vision for Equality

And I think this idea of a virtual society, the Internet, the metaverse, these concepts all help build towards that and make us have a much more equal society where we can all be together, we can all be on equal footing and then also economically benefit from that as well. I love the idea of being able to work online in these digital spaces, create for them, be creative in those spaces, and create cool stuff that people enjoy and people have fun with that. For me, giving that to the world, I think, is an essential thing. And I wish it was done faster every day. I wish we could just do it faster.

Virtue of Virtual Societies

Bored. I see your hand up. Yeah. I mean, just to expand on this, I think that virtual societies have also given people the ability to partition their existence. Just to put it in a very deep way. Right. You're born into a certain society physically. You are in a place, you are in a country, you are in a nation. Unless you are very wealthy, you can't really live in multiple societies at one time. You can certainly move and make that drastic change, but obviously it's not easy in the physical world.

Navigating Online Existence

And now we live in an Internet world where you actually can split up your time. You can live in the place that you physically live in. You can be on Twitter. If you consider that a nation you can be inside of fortnight, you can be inside of the other side, inside of Edison. You can basically be who you want to be and choose to live or participate in many societies at once. And I think that's good, right? That's healthy competition. Everyone's going for your time, for your attention. And hopefully, when all this collective attention is brought together, people can do more than just play and hang out, but actually build up societies that do more than that.

The Economics of Virtual Societies

Yeah, that's interesting, your Fortnite example there. Because, like, I would imagine I just kind of going off the head here, but I would imagine that their income is greater than some countries, you know what I mean? And if it was community owned, and not just owned by a massive corporation, then it would be a lot. Well, actually being owned by a massive corporation is a lot like a country but if it was spread out like a dow, then it would be more like a kind of country we want in theory, you know, that's. That's democratically owned and stuff. So.

Rethinking Governance

Yeah, I just think that's a very interesting point, and it's very comparable. Well, in the future of all, like, cyberpunk narratives is that, you know, multinational corporations are actually the government, but usually it's very dark. So we're. I think we're all trying to build a more optimistic and friendlier version of that versus, like, Apple being the new United States of America. Absolutely. That's. That's all. We actually have a blog on our website called, like, something about a utopian metaverse. And it's just all about how the metaverse started as this kind of dystopian science fiction idea, but we're kind of reclaiming it because there is a lot of value there.

Science Fiction and Reality

And a lot of times those kind of science fiction books are more of a representation of our present than they are of the future, really. So we can redesign that future by doing well in our present, I think. Does anybody have. Go ahead. I always like to take a more, you know, from the book. I mean, I completely believe in being driven by the way we would want the world to be, but I think we also have to build things that make sense when the world isn't ideal.

Risks in Building Virtual Environments

So one question might be like, well, what stops this endeavor, this project, all of us working together, Somnia, Yuga, M Squared, improbable. What stops us ending up becoming the bad guys? Right? Like, why won't we just end up like everybody else, with a closed network that starts open? And I think one of the main incentives for that is that our goal, the way everything's organized, is to enable, hopefully, billions of dollars of investment into the ecosystem.

Attracting Investment

Not just billions of dollars of value that we create, but we want to create something that other people want to invest in. And one reason why, like, a country run by a megacorpenna probably wouldn't work is that nobody else is going to invest into something that has no guarantee of ever producing a return or ever having any kind of relationship with its customer. That's kind of real, right? So this is why, in the real world, democracies do so much better attracting investment than tyrannical governments or dictatorships.

The Nature of Investment

It's not because they're bad governments. Tyrannical governments can often be very good governments. It's because nobody wants to invest in something where one person can change the rules and screw everything up. And this kind of happened a lot to people who invested in China, for example, where they actually couldn't get their money out, or they found the government would change rules and then completely alter the relationship they have with their local business that they've created. So while I want to be driven by ideals, I also want everyone to be aware that if we don't act this way, if we don't build the society that makes us all want to get out of bed, we also won't make any money.

Tensions Between Idealism and Realism

Very, very good points there. I appreciate the realism. I definitely need to be brought back down to earth many times every day, I think. Does anybody have anything to add before we move on to another topic? All right, so since we're all kind of in the space of virtual worlds, do you all think that everything IRL can come online, like any type of event or experience or there are some use cases that are just always, or that are best fitted for virtual experiences and others that are just always going to be IRL?

Enhancing IRL Experiences with Virtual Elements

Where is the maximum for both also? Any thoughts there? I'll start. I think that one of the things that excites me the most is having IRL experiences, being enhanced by virtual experiences. I think that value prop of being able to be somewhere that you can share with, you know, people that you could actually interact with IRL, but having that layer of enhancement that, you know, is a virtual world is pretty exciting. I think that Herman board and directive creator know that I'm like super addicted to Twitter.

Comparison of Real and Virtual Worlds

And if you think about it, Twitter is a virtual world, right? A 2D virtual world. But being able to, you know, have an IRL experience that perhaps is a social experience. Being enhanced by perhaps a 3D virtual world is, in my opinion, like something pretty exciting. That's a very good point. And I think that you were the best to give the first answer because you all have such great in-person events at Yuga, and you're now taking on the metaverse for web three.

Symbiotic Relationship Between Real Life and Virtual Reality

So very interesting thoughts. Does anybody else have anything to add on that about, you know, IRL events vs metaverse and the compatibility between the two and the symbiotic relationship, perhaps, as PP man was just saying? So I'll go a bit. So I think for me, the digital doesn't replace the physical. They're all the different modalities of doing similar things, basically. And the realm I see that you can do everything digitally is you just give more access to a broader set of people that can't necessarily go there.

Accessibility through Digital Platforms

So if you think of like a football match like Victory league is doing. That is something that I have to go to a stadium, so I have to be geolocated, and I have to have enough money to be able to get there whilst moving that to a digital means that anyone in the world can now access that, which is awesome, but I don't think it replaces the physical one. You're still going to have real life football matches, which people want to go to, similar to baseball matches, similar to live music events.

Balancing Digital and Physical Experiences

It just gives people more optionality, which I think is better for the world because it means that people can access these things, be a part of these things, even if they don't, can't physically get there, or can't financially afford to be there, which I think is awesome. That is awesome. And that kind of pushes back on that narrative that everybody's just going to be plugged into the goggles all day long, sitting on their chair or whatever.

Discussion on Being Seen and Heard

Is that a new hand, Herman? Yeah. Just one small point, which is attending is one thing, being heard and being seen is another. And I think when we're in the first world, we're always thinking about how privileged we are to be able to choose between going to a real event or, you know, watching it. But I think in a lot of the world, if you're a fan of a football team or a particular artist, you know, they might never come to your town. They might never see you. Not just you seeing them, but them seeing you. And I think that them seeing you part is, like, vitally important to why people care about being part of communities. And if, and in some cases, the virtual might be the only way to achieve that.

The Importance of Connection

I think kind of riffing on that point, that connection makes you care. I think one of the big problems you see in the world is what tends to happen with people is you care about the people who are closest to you because you see them every day and you know them. You don't care about people that are further away that may be much worse off than you because you never see them. If you give them spaces to interact online, you can learn about each other's lives and make a much more connected, unified world, which I think is a great thing to try and push for. We just lost some speakers a couple minutes ago, but I think we brought them back up. Are you with us, Luke and creative director now? Yeah, back in. Thank you.

Exploration of a Decentralized Metaverse

All right. Sorry about that. It's buggy sometimes here. Do you all have anything to add to the recent topic? Not on this one, no. I think my thoughts have been conveyed by others, but. All right, I'll chime in on the next one. We will move on to the next one then. Sounds good. All right, let's see. What do we need to get to that futuristic vision of a decentralized real-time virtual spaces and applications? What's holding us back? We talked a little bit about it earlier, I think, but let's get, I guess, more specific with it. I mean, just touch on what Herman was saying earlier, it does feel somewhat siloed still, right?

Concerns About a Siloed Metaverse

Like we are trying to not create a metaverse where it feels like you're entering through three or four hubs or that somehow it feels like it's owned by a small handful of mega corporations. Because if that happens, it's almost like we're recreating the current model, right, of it's epic or it's Apple or it's Microsoft. And that doesn't necessarily make sense. The Internet as a thing does feel very decentralized, and it took a while to get there. And even still, there's fang. It feels like there's a handful of companies that still control the majority of attention. I think with things like the metaverse, we are still working towards distributing, you know, the pipes that power it. Right.

Infrastructure of the Future

Whether that's streaming technology, blockchain technology, the engines that actually render it's still a low number of powers that control it. And I think that is the current state. And much like a lot of things in crypto, you progressively decentralize. You can't do it at the beginning, and we're towards the beginning of those things. But I think that we all have the. The goal here of expanding the number of participants and investors, and eventually it is just, you know, the next version of the Internet. It's a more 3D Internet, and it does feel like anybody can do anything, they can host anything.

The Need for Experimentation

We don't have to all go through the same two or three access points. Yeah, I have to agree with board. I think that if I had to, like, categorize it's like two things that we need to do, like, you know, to reach that. The first one, I think that is, it's like not being afraid to experiment, just like, as much as possible, keeping, you know, keep iterating and things will work. Things won't work. But pushing those boundaries is what's important. But to board's point, the second part is, I think, opening the tools so that anybody can experiment and anybody can push the boundaries.

Challenges in Creating Value

If not, we'll end up in that same situation that he described. So, yeah, agreed. Yeah. So I think it's infrastructure tooling is a massive part, but I personally, I'm a technologist and product guy, so that's what I think about every day. But I think the biggest problem is incentives. And if you think about the current world, companies are incentivized to kind of centralize, control everything and extract all the value for themselves. And so I think the biggest gap that I think about and talk to people a lot about is how you create a structure that means people who are on the network want to share value with each other and want to create this kind of interoperable global ecosystem that makes sense for them as a business because it grows the whole pie for everyone and then everyone can be bigger together.

Incentive Structures

Whilst traditionally that's not what happens. You try and basically corner off your bit of land, be that the Internet, be that the real world, and you extract as much value out of that as possible. And so I think the biggest problem is the incentive structure that makes everyone want to work together effectively. I don't actually have a solution to that. Interestingly, if anyone has an idea, it'd be cool to know. Anyone want to jump in there? Yeah, I'll jump in. I mean, just to say that this was a harder problem before the games industry's economics became so awful.

Challenges in the Gaming Industry

Right now, with all the layoffs, you may have seen 10,000 this year, 10,000 the year before. Getting access to community members and giving people content that they really want to enjoy. When competing against every piece of interactive content ever created, it's becoming harder and more expensive. So that forces collaboration. Right? Like the idea that, you know, we're going to make, even with our experience, even with our capital, even with where we are, that we're going to like make this hit new MMO all by ourselves. It's something we've worked on several times and, you know, seen a lot of content launch, it's just not a realistic outcome.

The Importance of Collaboration

But the idea that maybe if we can create like a Lego block system, so that we could create part of that MMO and then other people could create part of that MMO, and then collectively it might add up into something even greater that becomes more possible. Like I want to call out a project Dragon and maybe PPMan wants to talk about this, but what's really interesting is like Yuga is letting people use avatars, you know, in other side that are not just Yuga avatars, right? So that's good for Yuga. That's good for everybody, because it means that there's going to be more content, more options.

Value of Shared Contributions

Right. If you had to make a million skins by yourselves, that would be really hard. But the idea of importing communities and value, that helps to kickstart and bootstrap the value of new projects. Five, six years ago, ten years ago, maybe this wouldn't have been as economically interesting, but now, when we're up against Fortnite and Roblox, if we don't share, if we don't add value to each other's projects, we definitely lose. But I'd love to hear Pipi's view on that. I've also changed to my ape profile during this, just to confuse everybody more.

The Significance of Digital Identity

Wait, you did? Let me see. No, yeah. Very nice ape. I love it. I do have to say, Herman, that the background is off. It had to be orange, but that's fine. Aqua forever. But I'm not Aqua either. But there we go. Did you really go for Aqua, though? Was that your team? I was. I was always a fan of Aqua. You know that. I know that. I can say it now, but let's move on, right? We'll move on. The walls over.

Experiences in Project Dragon

I won. All right, I'll take it. yeah, like one of the. I think that one of the most exciting parts, and it was shown in project Dragon as well, but with improbable technology, being able to be with a bunch of concurrent users. I think that if you think of regular servers in real life, you're not with 100 people in the stadium when you're watching a soccer match or whatever it is that you're doing, and being able to experience that with a lot of people, that simulates actual life where people aren't separated into separate servers, in my opinion, was one of the most.

Joy in Shared Experiences

One of the coolest things that we experienced in Project Dragon, aside from being extremely chaotic, which that was, in my opinion, extremely fun, just, it added, it was very on brand, in my opinion. Just the amount of chaos in there. To kind of chime on to that as well. I completely agree. And I think that's one thing we need to, like, give props to is the tech from the n squared side of things. You know, I think for me personally, I've always looked at the Metaverse as, you know, ready player ones, oasis.

Towards a Metaverse Oasis

And the only thing that we're really missing from that in terms of, like, gameplay experience is the scale. You know, we have the scale on social medias, like Twitter, etcetera, but nowhere has that for video games. And that's where I kind of see it, and I think now that we have that technology behind it, I think the next thing is just seeding that content where, that's where the stage we're at, and then eventually getting to the point where people are building and we're getting community built, games, maps, experiences, social stuff, et cetera.

Realization of Digital Dreams

I think once we start seeing the people actually loving this and we get enough content out there ourselves, and people start building, then we're not far away from that reality and that dream of the oasis. Well said, everyone. Any more thoughts to add on that point? I wanted to jump in and say that I think one of the important ways to make these decentralized spaces is by also linking them together using a lot of open protocols, and things that people can build on top of, unleash their creativity, their ideas, and come up with new ways to do certain things.

Building Open Protocols

But the really cool part is also allowing those people that make those changes, make those different things happen, to own those contributions, and being able to not only move assets and avatars between platforms, but actually move these contributions and functionality between these different platforms as well. And I think that's a really good way to have these spaces grow and make them more decentralized. And of course, yeah, experimentation is key there. It doesn't have to be perfect.

Learning and Adapting

The cool part is that we're basically learning as we go. So that's what I would say is, yeah, facilitating that and supporting that. Good point, good point. So if nobody has anything else to add, I think we'll talk a little bit about games and applications, experiences, stuff like that. All right, perfect then. So what experiences, games, and applications do you really see pushing the boundaries of web three in the metaverse right now?

Current Experiences in the Metaverse

Not. Not something that's, like, in the future, but, like, something that exists right now. It can be in beta stage, too. I mean, we're so biased in answering this, so I want to. Somebody else. It's like, everybody has something to shill here. Yeah, I mean, like, where do I start shilling? I mean, but let's let somebody else. I mean, I think just to. Just to add maybe a thought that bridges the last conversation with this one.

Recreating Real Life in Digital Spaces

I've been thinking a lot about our collective tendency to try to recreate real life experiences inside of digital ones. And maybe that's impossible to a one to one parody degree. And I think maybe just making digital experiences feel more alive is what's important. And so I think about the tension and the fun that I have felt in playing these mass concurrency experiences where there's hundreds or thousands of people around me.

Digital Crowd Experiences

When you think about the traditional gaming market, things like Twitch and YouTube and any kind of live streaming apps have allowed thousands if not millions of people to watch one person play a video game. Right? Like, these are the streamers who are at the top of the top, and they experience something really special because they have that feeling of all these people around them watching what they're doing. But the average gamer, the average person doesn't feel that they might just see a bunch of people in chat that are nameless bodies.

Creating Connection in Gaming

Whereas in the experiences that you're seeing with what we're all building, I think everybody gets a little taste of that. When you have a thousand people around you. Sure, they're not all looking at you, but you still feel that. You get that same tension that single streamer gets. But instead of it being kind of, you know, stuck with that individual or, you know, only accessible to somebody who's at the top of their game and has a massive audience, it's accessible to everybody.

The Role of Technology in Social Gaming

So in that sense, I think we're starting to see, you know, the tech that improbable has built really just open up the opportunities for people to feel more alive inside of video games. And yes, that is definitely, you know, shilling our own bags here. But I think it's true. Like, I genuinely believe this is the case. Yeah, I did have a lot of fun there in Edison, I will say. When I was playing city shots with my controller, PP man, were you about to say something?

Personal Experiences in Gaming

Yeah, I wasn't. Sorry I got kicked off the stickage by accident, but, yeah, like, one of the coolest things about what board is saying is that being able to, like, have your own digital identity go into these spaces, whether it's a social experience, a game, whatever it is, and being able to interact with people that you know, even if you've never met them, you know, in real life, but people that you know, that you've interacted in discord, twitter, whatever it is, it's a really surreal experience just being, you know, having that instant connection even though, yeah, you've never actually met in real life, so.

The Continuity of Digital Connections

Yeah, I agree. And I think, Luke, you had something to say as well, right? Yeah, I was going to try. Obviously, it's hard to compare stuff to what we're doing here, but I think looking maybe back a little bit is stuff like Axie Infinity and cryptokitties when they first came around, specifically Axie building out a game where you can own assets at that point in time, that was pretty revolutionary. And I think that idea, and obviously having a blockchain that's a bit more facilitating.

Revolutionary Concepts in Gaming

I know they moved one over, but I think being able to have that opportunity to be invested in the game and then obviously building it out and doing stuff like Yuga are doing with the other side and taking that gameplay element to the whole new level of what we're expecting from AAA is what gets me excited most. And why don't you tell us a little bit about Jitter as well? All right, sweet. Well, so Jitter is a new project, improbable, and we are building out a video game.

Introduction to Jitter

A video game for streamers to be able to play with their audience. The idea is that every video game or mini game mode that we build has an element of twitch integration. So the idea is that you can play via the Twitch chat to varying degrees. Whether you are in control of an avatar with basic commands, or you affect an impact. The gameplay viewers love the idea of either elevating or completely ruining a streamer's experience when playing with games. And that's something we would like to build on.

Engagement through Streaming

And I think this is where for me, it gets really exciting, is obviously, yes, it's the streamer aspect. Building a game for creators to play with their audience and actually having the scale ability for larger streamers to play with their audience. If I think back to when I was a content creator, I used to stream GTA five with kids that were probably way too young to and shouldn't be allowed to play by their parents, but they did, you know, and I used to have to create new P's, new psns on PlayStation three to add people to my friends list.

Challenges of Past Gaming Experiences

I could play with more viewers all the time. You know, you were limited to first player lobbies or something. And we used to go through Rockstar social club crews like every couple of months. And I was never able to fully keep my community happy that wanted to play because were limited by that. So the fact that we're building something that allows students to play variety of different mini games with Twitch chat integration and having the scale, I think is really exciting with that.

The Control of In-Game Assets

But then the long term kind of play here, and I guess this is where Somnia comes into it, is for me, I always, as I mentioned before, I hated the idea of spending loads of money on various different games. And then when that game dies or a new game comes out, everything you invested is worthless. I would rather have the control over my assets that I purchased in game and decide when I want to cash them out or what I want to do with them, even if it's not the full amount of what I paid initially, I would like to be able to have control over that. And I think that's what I'd like to have for jitter in the long run, is that we are building a game where streamers can have their own in game assets, merch, whatever. And that is interoperable across all of the metaverse. And then they have an opportunity to sell it on a marketplace that maybe a community member decides. So, yeah, hopefully that gives a bit of an insight into what we're building and why. It kind of makes me very passionate.

Discussing Current Projects

Very cool, very cool. So does anybody else want to talk a little bit about something that you're currently building that you haven't already? Just give you an opportunity to do that now. All right, that's fair. I'll chime in. I have to plug something that involves both of us. So on August 22, we'll be launching a new game mode for Edison. It's called Summer Crush. If you've ever played games like Minecraft or Roblox, this will feel very familiar. Somnia is kindly acting as a sponsor for that event. It will be live for at least seven days. So August 22, show up. You're going to see some fun soumya areas inside of the world. And we're going to reveal more, but you can go to Edison. WTF? To sign up and add it to your calendar. Now. That was a great plug. I appreciate that one because we're in it. That's awesome. So, yeah. Anybody, any other plugs before we move on?

Trade-Offs in Creating Virtual Society

So here's an interesting question that I was thinking about, and this is kind of the way I always like to consider this question whenever I'm approaching any kind of new sector. I guess if trade offs need to be made between here and the creation of a virtual society, which ones would you be willing to make and which ones would you be unwilling to sacrifice? I can. I can start answering this one, like, on a personal note, I think, and I think there's other speakers here without pointing anything else that agree to this, but I think privacy is a big one. And privacy to a certain extent, I think a lot of people that create their wallets or that have a wallet are okay with having some type of data available, like being at the purchase history, like which nfts they get, or general other financial information. But I think when you go beyond that layer. There's a, there's a preservance that you want to have your actual privacy, like your real life privacy. In a lot of cases, like, still private. And for me personally, there's, my wallets are public. Like, people can see like how often I've been rugged and which the nfts I bought all went to zero.

Digital Sovereignty and Ownership

But, but there is a, there's a barrier for me that I don't want to cross. And that's like beyond the. On the real life privacy area when it comes to family, friends and anything that is like, in real life for me. And that's personal. I totally agree there. Pp MAndez yeah, I'll start with like. What I think I'd be unwilling to sacrifice, like, not willing to. I think that's like digital sovereignty and digital ownership, like true digital ownership. And that's probably like one of the biggest value props. Being able to like, take your digital assets and across instances, across metaverses in such permissionless manner is something that really differentiates, like, all of this. I think it was, you, genre, maybe it was Paul who gave the example about vitalik and how he got his. I think it was a sword nerfed by. I think it was blizzard or. But the whole point is that if, you know, that would have happened in an ideal state, he could have just taken his sword, which he truly owned, onto a different experience, even if, you know, whatever publisher decided to do whatever it was with that sword.

Pragmatism in Web Three Solutions

So that's probably what I say. It's like the most important thing that we shouldn't sacrifice. Yeah, I totally agree. That's kind of why we're all here, I think, for, you know, deep down. Anyway, anybody have anything else to add on this point or any other thoughts? Yeah, I mean, I think. I think the thing I'd never want to sacrifice is pragmatism to solving actual problems for people. I just don't believe in any kind of. I'm not a maxi of anything and I'll never work on a project or allow a project to become a maxi of anything. Right. The trouble we have with web three is we have this incredible energy and this amazing community and this powerful set of technologies that can solve a problem. But if we all really honest with ourselves, why haven't we had however long it's been since whatever Ethereum was? I think 2015, I want to say 2016.

Change and Adaptation

We've had so long to build wallets that actually show nfts or onboard that fabled billion other people, and I think a lot of what stopped it is maxis and people believing that their particular kind of concrete is necessary for the future rather than trying to build the future. And they kind of want to show their bags or show what they have. For me, I think being anti maxi is the single most important thing. What problem is this thing solving? What real value is it creating? And if it's not creating value or if it's not solving a problem, stop it. You know, one of the things people don't say about improbable is like, hey, you guys, you were building this and now you're building this, and now you've changed to building that. And when stuff didn't work, you did new things. And we're like, yeah, exactly. Exactly. Why would we have remained maxis for things that don't work?

User-Centric Approach

And that's very painful because it means sometimes communities will feel like we're, quote unquote, you know, going against them. But we're not, we're going for the user. We're not going against you. We just want to solve an actual problem for someone. And the second, the thing that you're shilling isn't that solution, we're not going to use it, you know, and I think that applies even to our own products and even the things we start, right? Yeah, that's very awesome points there, Luke. Is your hand up there? Yeah, good question. I don't know why I would sacrifice, but I know what I wouldn't want sacrifice, and I think that's accessibility, especially in the long run, you know, specifically for the metaverse overall. Like, you know, I'd love to see people using VR to access it one day and stuff like that.

Focus on Accessibility

But we need to also remember that, you know, if we want to have accessibility all around the world, we've got to be able to make sure that the metaverse is accessible by any type of, you know, technology because there's going to be a lot of people that you going to use basic mobile phones, you know, not everyone's going to have a high end game PC or a VR rig. You know, I think we need to try and make sure that obviously there's going to be limitations, but I think if we can make sure that accessibility is a key thing that we want to see in the long run, it's pretty damn important. Absolutely. Who else wants to jump in on this one? Any other thoughts? Going one more time.

Excitement for the Future

All right, cool. So one more question. What excites you most about the future of the metaverse or virtual society applications, what do you, what's the future looking like? Herman, you can go. You go first. Okay. No, for me it's, it has been touched like earlier on already. Like it's the fact of just building like on a decentralized fashion and together, which I think is something that like working in the gaming industry for like a long time now is rather still rather new. And I'm very excited about to see where this going. Like really just like enabling your community or like your holders or people that are passionate about what they're doing or what they want to learn and building together for a. Being at a being in the metaverse or being in another environment and just having the tools available just to build.

Opportunity to Build and Collaborate

I think today it's easier than never before to build your own product, to build your own game, like to build on M Squared or on other platforms on mobile. And I'm very excited to just see how like what comes out of this, especially as like major game developers and publishers are struggling. Like AI is changing the game on a lot of senses and like I'm very excited to see where this is going and before because I see that we always at the top of the hour, I have one quick shill for victory leak. So everyone that's listening here, you can see victory listening in because on Friday we're going to host like a small event to test the new environment that we are doing, which is exactly what I was talking to about. Like it's a, it's something where we have the tools to build something m squared and probable and Somnia, they're enabling us to do this and we just want to give everyone the opportunity to jump in and try it out and help us to build this and improve this.

Celebrating Building Opportunities

And I think this is like unrelated that it's like of course a vested interest on our side. I think it's very exciting just to see how quickly people can build on the platform and everything that's possible. Also shout out to directive creator from who I personally learned a lot on how to use like the unreal environment, the m squared environment, and just import like avatars, build stuff and just jump into blueprints. Herman, you're up. I mean, I don't know how much I want to reveal my level of deep personal obsession with this mission, but I mean, I actually am waiting to live inside virtual worlds. I grew up playing a game called Neverwinter Nights and you had to roleplay all the time on this particular server called Araleth.

Role-Playing in Digital Spaces

And if you didn't roleplay you were booted off. Even if you were by yourself. You had to roleplay. I played dungeons and dragons whenever I can. I think about other worlds, other realities all the time. I find living one life as one person deeply limiting. And the idea of, like, having more experiences and being more, being this multiversal self, it is the natural conclusion of any thinking person to want to make their dreams a reality. And if these other worlds can do that, it's really exciting. Now I'm going to give a very controversial answer to what I'm excited about. So I know VR is having a really shit time. I know I have publicly banned VR, including in my book, but the new Oculus generation was the first time playing a few games where I was like, shit, there is value to immersion, not only presence.

Immersion and Future Potential of VR

And I would really. I know our tech can handle it. And one day, maybe not too far away, I would love to have a mass meeting gathering with our voice tech with all the things you guys may have seen in VR, because I think it would be absolutely mind blowing, and I believe it would become more of a phase change and the experience we could have. I would love to just hang out with all of you in a big crowd and do that as we've done in our virtual events, but with that feeling of presence, that's what I'm looking forward to seeing happen. I don't think the moments just yet, the install base isn't high enough, and the ability for companies to invest in that space isn't quite there. But one more generation, maybe.

Multiverse and Entertainment

We're almost there. Anybody else? Any thoughts before we. I think. Who's up? Is that Luke? Go ahead. Yeah, yeah, you go fast. All right. Yeah. Like, I agree. Like, yeah. By the way, like, the multiverse that Herman mentioned, I think that I'm pretty excited about, too. But another thing that I'm excited about is, like, what the impact of virtual experiences have in real life. I think that one of the biggest value props right now that we're experimenting with, that everyone's experimenting with is entertainment. Whether it's a social experience, a gaming experience, whatever it is, it's. It's entertainment.

Real-Life Impact of Virtual Experiences

But seeing how, like, these use cases develop beyond entertainment and, you know, start spill into real life will be very interesting. I mean, I'm a huge fan of, like, what the made by apes people are doing when it comes to building on their ip. And if, like, what if we enabled, you know, communities to have a way to network with very practical outcomes. You know, it could be like jobs, it could be like building product, it could be like, whatever it is that has a bigger impact to people's actual life. That's. Yeah, that's what I think. It's exciting. I totally agree, Luke. For me, it's having that like a truly virtual social experience.

The Future of Virtual Social Experiences

Like I look back at, for instance, like PlayStation home, when that came out on the PS three many years ago and jumping into it with a few school friends and I don't even remember there was any much you could do in it, but it felt really cool. I could be walking around this little virtual town or something that it was city and chatting with my friends. And as an avatar, that for me was like, this is really cool. And I hate kind of banging on about it. If we can expand upon that and actually make that good and what we've seen from the oasis to ready player one, that truly virtual experience, that's what excites me most.

Creating Frequent Moments of Magic

Amazing well up board. Yeah, I mean, just a quick chime in. I think it's just creating magic in people's lives more frequently and more cheaply. Right? Like, you can go to Disneyland, you can go to a concert, you can go on vacation, and that will create moments of magic in your life. But it happens very infrequently. The metaverse can bring those feelings to you, even if it's not 100% the same, even if it's 85% the same. If you can recreate that feeling of magic once a week. Right. That's worth pursuing. I think that's really important. And you don't have to be bound by the laws of physics or the costs of making real experiences.

Breaking Boundaries in Creation

You can do things that break boundaries. So that for me personally, and I think this touches on, you know, what everyone was talking about was the reason we want to build these parallel realities is to just get away from the mundane and the anxiety inducing Internet that we currently have and have more magic. Perfect. I think that might be a good place to close it today. Unless anybody had any additional final thoughts. I think that was pretty good. Great discussion, everybody.

The Secret Word

But I know that everybody is waiting for me to say the secret word, which is dream. So, yeah, dream. If you are questing out there and you've been waiting for that, we'll catch you next time on uniting societies and check out what everybody is doing.