#28 How to Choose a Blockchain for your Web3 Game?

Summary: Choosing a Blockchain for Web3 Gaming Development

Major Themes:

• Importance of Chain Selection: The conversation underlines the critical decision of selecting a blockchain platform for developing Web3 games. Factors like ecosystem support, technical capabilities, user base, and grants or funding opportunities play significant roles in this decision-making process.
• Ecosystem Support and Marketing: Developers express a need for platforms that not only offer technical robustness but also strong ecosystem support including marketing assistance and a vibrant player community. Emerging platforms like Beam (Merit Circle rebrand) and Ronin are noted for aggressive marketing and developer support strategies.
• Technical Considerations: The discussion highlights the importance of blockchain characteristics such as transaction speed, cost-efficiency, and ease of onboarding for both developers and gamers. The suitability of a blockchain's tech stack to a game's specific requirements is also emphasized.
• Interoperability and User Experience: The panel touches on the challenges and aspirations towards interoperability among different blockchains to enhance user experience. However, practical difficulties and the current state of technology somewhat limit these ambitions.
• User Acquisition and Onboarding: Strategies for attracting traditional (Web2) gamers to Web3 platforms are discussed, with emphasis on the need for superior game quality and seamless onboarding experiences. Concerns about the friction caused by blockchain complexities and the necessity of offering tangible benefits to players are addressed.

Memorable Quotes:

• "It really comes down to exactly what you're trying to do in this space." - Golden, on the importance of aligning blockchain choice with game development goals.
• "We need gamers more than we need the tech." - Graslo, highlighting the urgent need for a larger player base in Web3 gaming.
• "We're building the same thing in Web3... we went full circle." - Host, reflecting on the paradox of evolving from Web2 to recreate similar systems in Web3.

Actionable Takeaways:

• For Game Developers: Carefully assess the unique offerings of different blockchain platforms, considering both technical capabilities and the level of ecosystem support. Prioritize those that align with your game's needs and your goals for player engagement and growth.
• For the Web3 Community: Encourage and support platforms that innovate in reducing user friction and enhancing the gaming experience. The future of Web3 gaming lies not just in leveraging blockchain technology, but in creating games that are fundamentally more engaging and accessible.
• For Investors and Enthusiasts: Pay attention to platforms and games that are actively working to bridge the gap between traditional gaming experiences and the benefits of Web3, such as ownership and interoperability. These projects are likely to drive the next wave of growth in the industry.

This episode underscores the complexities and strategic considerations involved in selecting a blockchain for Web3 game development. It also highlights the community's ongoing efforts to address challenges related to user acquisition, interoperability, and creating compelling gaming experiences in the Web3 space.

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Transcript

NoAutopilot: 0:00

Hey, this is Noel Autopilot, host of the Token Takeover podcast and founder of the Gaming Startup Collective. In today's episode, we are sharing a very critical conversation around how Web3 teams should pick and choose the blockchain protocol for which they should build on. Enough of me talking. Let's go ahead. Let's jump in. All right. The topic that we'll chat through today was around chain selection. Now, from what I've seen, there's kind of an interesting scene developing where, like, some of your more proven chains, you know, obviously, like, Polygon kind of made the shift away from gaming with the partnership with Immutable, kind of scaled back a lot of, like, their grants, um, and marketing support. For games and, but the tech is, is quite proven, right? But then on the other hand, you have a lot of these like upstarts, like the merit circle rebrand with beam. Ronin is on my feed, literally like anytime I open my phone. And so, yeah, I think it'd be really cool to just kind of jam out and talk through how should game devs, indie game devs. think about chain selection. So I guess let's start, uh, let's start there. If you're in the game and you have not yet built your on chain elements, how should you start that process of looking at chains?

Graslo: 1:18

I think it, um, it really depends on the developers and just like where they are, you know, like what are their needs? Maybe they're, they're tech developers and so they already kind of understand blockchain and they, you know, Maybe they want, you know, more on chain elements. So they want something that's extremely fast and low cost, something like an immutable or, you know, a ZK Rollup or something. Or maybe, you know, their, their needs are more like ecosystem. You know, they want players and attention and marketing support, uh, or maybe it's just capital. And, and I think all the blockchains are kind of, uh, all the L2s, you know, they're all kind of addressing this in different ways. So I think it really depends, um, on who the developers are, what their, what their thoughts on their needs are. Go

Golden: 1:55

ahead, Golden hit it. Like I haven't actually told them to change yet. So. Me personally, I think it, a lot of it boils down to, um, what exactly your goal are, your goals are in the, in this space, because this is a very small space in terms of gaming right now. So, I, I really think it's what, what your goal is for your game and who you have on your development team, because if you have like a solidity developer, then you're, you're more than likely going to go into like ERC 2020. That's a 2028 ERC 20. But if you're like a, just a game developer, like myself, it's, you have a little bit more options, I guess, because I haven't actually chose the higher our partner with any smart contract developers, just because I'm looking into different chains and I'm trying to figure out exactly where and how I want my game to go going. And I just think it's really, it really comes down to exactly what you're trying to do in this. Yeah,

NoAutopilot: 2:45

I guess I'm kind of curious, so have you guys kind of mentioned at the start of the call, where maybe some of your longer standing chains have kind of scaled back some of their support for her smaller studios and like some of these other chains are really aggressively positioning themselves to try and win your business? Are you guys seeing that as well? Like when you go out trying to research?

Golden: 3:05

Well, I saw a couple months ago when I was a lot more active that a lot of the newer chains are the smaller chains Were like basically giving out a lot of a lot of money to help with development I wasn't comfortable taking anybody's money at this particular junction, but i'm not really familiar with what's going on right now

NoAutopilot: 3:20

You might you mind adding on to that a little bit more. Why were you uncomfortable with that? With taking a grant money to build

Golden: 3:26

because I want my game in a better state than it currently it's currently in before I even attempt to do anything. Um, like I want my game to be in a certain state before I even really advertise a lot like that.

Graslo: 3:36

Yeah. I'll just say like, anecdotally, I've heard a lot of the, the larger grants, the more traditional ones that have been, been available for a while have kind of slowed down or kind of pivoted to having different kinds of metrics and milestones, but you know, the space is steadily evolving and we've got new L2s launching. And of course you just, you just talked about the, um, The announcement with the immutable polygon and you know, they're, they're branded chain. And so you have these like new things spinning up and with those, sometimes you see like new funds, new, new opportunities for grants or investment. And so it's a fluid space. Like there's always something new to kind of like grow on, but, um, definitely a lot of the more traditional ones, it seems like have kind of slowed down or changed a lot from, you know, where they were a year ago or more.

NoAutopilot: 4:18

So, so when you guys look out right now at the different, Tech stacks that are out there, all things being equal. Who do you feel is the best like user experience right now with their tech stack?

Golden: 4:28

Vcoin has the best at this in particular moment because they, they, like most people in this space don't even talk about Vcoin or IMVU, but they have a, you know, they have their own ERC20 and it's a combination of private and private use and it's government, they're the non action from the SEC. They have more users than anybody just because they, a game for a longer period of time are metaverse and. Or a longer period of time than like, we've even had blockchain. So I, right now they probably have the best tech stack just because they, they took their time and developed everything in a, in a street line manner and got like A-A-S-E-C non-action. So it's, it like bitcoin's just a, a currency, it's like a cryptocurrency, but it's just a currency. So like you don't have to worry about the SEC and all that stuff coming at their

NoAutopilot: 5:12

users. Okay. So you're, you're, you're melting my brain a little bit right now. Like I'm familiar with IMVU and their metaverse and their, they moved to immutable last year, I think, but I didn't realize that they were onboarding other games to, is it decoy? You said?

Golden: 5:29

They haven't, they're looking to do it, but they haven't actually put anybody on their chain yet. They're still in talks with some different developers.

NoAutopilot: 5:35

Interesting. Okay, cool. Fun fact. At one point, you know, I was in, uh, I was chatting with their, uh, their growth team about being their, uh, their community marketing guy. Didn't work out. You know, I don't quite fit. I don't know if you guys are familiar with IMBU. It's again, It's like a metaverse, but it's all about like fashion and drama and like backstabbing and I did not fit the vibe But a guy was trying to get paid, you know and bills to pay. Wow, I did not expect someone to drop that Okay, I guess i'll pause any other user experiences Falling in love with love with, um, like wallet, wallet management, new player, onboarding market experience. I guess anything else out there before we move on to the next topic?

Golden: 6:12

It's I like the tech and anything that, than anything they've done as far as that and the, the onboarding experience. But I, I'm really obsessed almost with engine because I like the way the tech stack works with, Like when you mint an NFT, you have to lock up a certain amount of engine coin for that NFT. And then if you burn the NFT, you get the, the, the engine coin back. And I, I really like that for game development, because if your game shuts down, at least people can recoup some type of, some type of money.

NoAutopilot: 6:39

With that situation, then how does the game studio like collect revenues from NFT minting, if it's kind of locked in that box? Smart contract that can be burnt and withdrawn.

Golden: 6:48

Well, I, I believe I'm not 100 percent honest, but I believe, um, you don't have to lock up a full amount when you met the NFT. Like say you met some, you could lock up 5. I believe that's the way it works. I'm not 100 percent certain on that.

NoAutopilot: 7:00

Yeah. You know what engine is really haven't heard a lot of lately. Same thing with flow. We used to have, I don't know if it still does a tremendous amount of user metrics. They were one of the top gaming blockchains that even going into last year. And, you know, I kind of have a. A love hate relationship with B& B. You know, during the bull run, it seemed like it was a, a shitcoin printing factory. And they really kind of didn't seem to do enough to kind of curtail that a bit. It does seem like there are like some Some mainstays from the last cycle, maybe haven't developed enough or attracted enough developers to be in a position to in this upcoming bull, I guess, any, any other chains that you used to hear about that you don't hear about anymore. One thing I'm curious about. So, so when you're choosing a chain, like how, how can I phrase this? The, the moral compass of block bridge link was like, It's on chain, decentralized, it can't be edited, permissionless, but with gaming, you know, we've kind of found a lot of these hybrid models where there's a good amount of data that's on chain, but then you have like this off chain roll up to help with computation or gas fees. Do you guys think about? Is that at all like staying true to like crypto origins and like that level of freedom, digital freedom when you're selecting your chains? Or is it more, you know, at the end of the day, we need to have something that helps us ship a fun game. In order to have a fun game. You have to have good tech. Hopefully that made sense. I felt like I rambled on, but go ahead, you guys, let's kick it.

Graslo: 8:24

Yeah, I know this is like my theme, but I think it depends. Like, I really feel like that right now, the biggest need for most games is an audience, you know, like we need, we need gamers more than we need like the tech, um, which is unfortunate because it should be all about the tech, right? It should be like. You know, the, the least friction, the smoothest experience, the lowest cost, you know, fastest transactions. But I think right now, like you just need, like, what, what is the best way to be able to reach an audience and onboard them in a way that doesn't have burden of friction, or if there is a little, you know, a little bit of friction, at least like once players are in the ecosystem, then there's no friction beyond there. You know, like, Once they bridge something over or buy some assets or something, then, you know, staying in that ecosystem in that, you know, game or on that chain, you know, so it seems like that is the immediate kind of need for, for a lot of projects. But, um, and another thing is a lot of games are doing this totally differently. Like they're looking at it from multi chain kind of point of view, they're looking at. Not necessarily onboarding millions of gamers, but they want to capture the Web3 gaming market that's here now. And so, their strategy is more like be everywhere, you know, just deploy on as many chains as possible and integrate them all into their game. That's

NoAutopilot: 9:37

a whole other kind of strategy. Yeah, you know what, so, so two things on that. The first one is, and they're not here today, And maybe I shouldn't name drop because I don't know if they want this on Twitter, but I was chatting with a game dev I look up to and he mentioned that exact thing where they're looking at a multi chain approach as well as Simultaneously for multiple chains build different pieces of their on chain system And I think the vision there is like potentially to to have your cake and eat it too. Yeah, and obviously being forthright that this is happening It's not like cloak and dagger or anything, but I thought that was an interesting concept. I haven't heard Uh, that before, and then another kind of spinoff question from, from what you just shared there, Graslow is which of these chains are you guys seeing the most potential when it comes to user acquisition? I know Immutable is huge and it's like Immutable kind of fan, fan boys out there. Then you have like Merit Circle with like their huge DAO backing. I think there's some interesting applications there. Treasure on Arbitrum. Not only do they do marketing support. But I believe that they've even onboarded like a roster of content creators that games can, you know, somehow through the relationship kind of plug it and play to hype up certain events, which I thought was quite novel. But, uh, but yeah, I guess from a chain standpoint alone, like marketing, user acquisition, support, who are you guys seeing is, is kind of the best right now. Don't say it depends, bro. Come on.

Graslo: 11:00

I mean, I think, um, right in the top is, is probably Beam or Merit Circle. Like, you know, they are, they're killing it lately. Their branding, their marketing is really well. They, they seem to offer a lot of support for games that are on there. I'll also say, um, Avalanche, which is, you know, kind of a part of that. You know, Beam is on, uh, it's a subnet on Avalanche, but Avalanche doing a lot for Promoting its ecosystem and how it helps games. So I think that's been, you know, something that's kind of great to see lately. I know Ronin, like you mentioned Ronin earlier, they are all over the timeline. They seem to be really focused on a small number of games, but they are really putting a lot of attention on them. You know, we've heard a lot about pixels. And just seeing like Ronin as a, as an ecosystem. Uh, and I think that's, that's the way to lean into it. You know, not like really focus on system aspect and like, if you're a game building on that chain or that, like you have support from the chain, you have friends and, and family almost that, you know, you work with and share resources. And, and so it's great to see that not, not just as a developer, but I think gamers and like, uh, investors in the space, like they see that as well as, You know, like if a game launches on Ronin, like they immediately see that as a really strong signal that there's a built in user base, there's all the support, there's investors. So yeah, that and uh, Immutable, like Immutable is very good at big branding kind of announcements and partnerships. You know, they've had a larger partnerships in the space. So, you know, they have that going for them. But yeah, I won't say it depends, but I'll say there's, there's definitely some, some chains that are doing it really well. They're making big moves and it seems like a way to really

NoAutopilot: 12:32

support like games. Yeah, that, that Ronin play is, is interesting to me. Obviously no one has really done what Axie has done. Now it's like legacy old news a few years ago. But I kind of have the same sentiment when it comes to the overall crypto market, unlike Bitcoin. Not financially biased. Like the, the surface area, all the people who bought. BTC during the last bull run, and since they've already done it, they're familiar with doing it, and likely a good portion of them are going to feel some sort of FOMO when, when, you know, Bitcoin inevitably begins to rally again. And I think it's potentially the same thing when it comes to, you know, obviously like the AXIE element is, you Nowhere near what it was. And I don't think it will ever be there again, but you got, you know, entire, uh, demographic of people almost that have really jumped in and got behind that brand and they're familiar with it and they know how to log in, they know how to play, they have friends who play. It doesn't, it seems like it would be a great place for a game who kind of targets maybe like that's Asia vibe. To do really, really well. Yeah. I don't know if anyone has any other comments on that. Go ahead. Hit it, Gold.

Golden: 13:37

From, from based off all my research, Southeast Asia is actually a very easy market to get popular, to get popular in. It's just a lot of, uh, Western developers don't develop things that people from Southeast Asia would be interested in playing. So that's another demographic that people, people look at, but they have no clue because they're not actually like crunching the numbers and seeing what people are playing. I know that, that got a little bit off topic. You brought up Southeast Asia and my ears perked up a little.

NoAutopilot: 14:01

No, man, I think you're, I think you're spot on and it's kind of interesting. Like, Game 7 had this, uh, date of the game report, something like that. The vast majority of players are based in Asia when you talk about Web 3 games. But the vast majority of development, Is occurring in the United States. And then kind of similarly, you know, shout out to all our friends in South America. I know that there's a thriving, credibly growing, rapidly user base of gamers down there. And for game dev is based in South America. It's like a single digit, you know, it's like 8%. I don't know if anyone's based in South America, but it seems like a killer opportunity to potentially launch a business down there. Get some nice user acquisition going on. I guess another question I had, so, you know, when you guys are building out your games, like, what is, what is your plan or vision around interoperability? I know two years ago, like, the vision was that all chains would connect to each other, and so the chain you choose really wouldn't have that significant of an impact as, as most thought it would. Um, flash forward to now, we've made some progress, but it's kind of still the same. Or like, it feels like EVM stuff does well, but outside of that, it gets a little weird. Yeah, I guess how, how do your teams think about interoperability? Is it important? Is it like pie in the sky unnecessary at this point in your company's life? Hey, are you a builder looking for a grant to build your ideal web3 gaming startup? If so, you should take a look at the Arbitrum grant program. With grants up to 25, 000 and a specific focus on supporting early stage indie game devs, it could be the perfect fit. Link is in the description, make sure to check it out. Now back to the podcast.

Graslo: 15:41

For our genre and for our target audience, we want to, we want to build a great game with our own great ecosystem. We don't see, just being honest, we don't see like a ton of value in working really hard so that users can bring in assets from, from some other chain or some other game. We do see a lot of opportunities there for select partnerships. We see a lot of opportunities for like, you know, kind of game models where you have some, I hate to name a brand that's actually working. If let's say you buy like this. Walmart game pass, you know, just to throw out like a somebody we definitely aren't working with but like you buy like a walmart game pass They take that into old or you can take that into castle blackwater, you know Uh, you can take that into god hands and you've got special like either benefits or maybe discounts, you know something So something like that. I think we would be really uh interested in we're not as interested interoperability for now But I do I really love the idea of Ecosystems like for, for old or like we want old or to be its own ecosystem. But like if we're on a chain and we've got other games that we're working with. Um, I think we're more incentivized to, you know, do special things with them, even if maybe the genres aren't exactly matched up because it, um, it allows us to more easily have players, uh, go from one game to the other. You know, there's the, the onboarding from, you know, two games on the same ecosystem, same, you know, L2 or L1. That's going to be a much lower lift than, uh, some totally different chain. But again, you know, there's some games where their whole strategy is like the interoperability, the. Let's launch on every blockchain and their goal is really like, let's go ahead and this market that's already here, users that are already familiar with blockchain spending money, you know, and we can just provide some utility to all of them, you know, like, let's say you bring your ETH assets over or your polygon assets or, you know, um, whatever blockchain that you're currently on, you know, you can just bring that into our game and then, you know, you feel like that you are being recognized and you have some. You know, benefits, um, and, and you're more likely to like spend, bring awareness. Um, so yeah, I think different strategies based on like your kind of target audience, you know, you looking more, um, for the, the current wave three audience, are you looking to grow? And then I, I think personally the interoperability between everything is still a little potty in style. I think building like this metaverse kind of game, there are ways to do it. Like if it's a roadblocks kind of. You know, multi genre game where people can build different kinds of experiences. And there's a lot of UGC, you have a lot more freedom to bring things in, but it's the, the technical challenges are definitely, you know, AI may help with that for now, uh, being able to bring in like models that are done completely differently, maybe not rigged, done in different engines and software, you know. There's a lot of technical challenges with having interoperable assets.

NoAutopilot: 18:31

Yeah, I think you're, I think you're spot on with that. People, when they would mention the interoperability piece, I would always struggle to envision, okay, how are you going to bring your pirate ship into this first person zombie game that I'm building, you know, like, it just, it just didn't make sense. But then I think, like, there's some interesting things you can do where if you're able to, like, scan their wallet and you can understand, maybe they have this tier of NFT, you do a partnership with that project and you can do some sort of a, a cosmetic reward for them, like, I guess I'd kinda, or it would read that and maybe it would generate AI based comparable version for your game. I'm, I'm with you on likely more pie in the sky than, than anything at this point. All right. So with all the chains that are out there right now, it is helpful if they have. The current ecosystem of gamers, they've already set up once, and now they just need to jump between games. But it's also like, there's a finite amount of money that you can kind of pull out of the same users. And, you know, potentially you guys would be competing with each other. Which is understandable, it's a business. I guess more broadly, Which teams do you think are best positioned to attract Web2 users? Just throwing my two cents in, again, I think what Ronan has done is super interesting. You know, Axie Infinity is likely one of the best well known Crypto projects outside of maybe Bitcoin and Ethereum. I mean, shoot half the, it's just getting people to know your name and it seems like they're, they got a bit of a jump on everybody else, but, but yeah, curious. Anyone else have thoughts on it? I got two hands. I was tabbed away. I don't know. First, we're going to go with golden first.

Golden: 20:02

We're as low was first, but I'm going to go real fast because I know what I'm going to say. It's like. Probably not going to go over too well, but I, I, I think they're all positioned equally, you know, right now, I believe that, you know, not, I believe, I know our traditional gamers aren't really in the blockchain and because, you know, there's a lot of influence out influencers out there who don't actually understand the technology and there's been a lot of scams and stuff like that. It's just not something that's super popular amongst normal gamers. They don't see the purpose for it. And so all chains right now have an equal opportunity to acquire, acquire a user base. From, uh, traditional gamers.

Graslo: 20:38

Gotcha, okay. What you got, Graslow? Yeah, I think that was a very great point and very well said, Golden. Um, the other thing I'd throw out is, I don't want to say it depends, but, and so, you know, looking at the demographics and like what the player motivations are. Like obviously, Ronan, the early iteration of Axie appealed to, uh, people who were interested in earning revenue from playing games. That was the whole narrative, right? And so many of my in real life friends were talking about play to earn as a, as a genre. And, you know, like, oh, I can buy this asset, get a return on my investment. That was something I heard continuously. Like, I can get a return on my investment in days or, you know, so many days. And, uh, then it's, you know, I'm just making money. That's. Will draw in gamers, uh, it'll, it'll draw in non gamers too, but you know, you'll be able to jumpstart that user base very quickly with those kinds of mechanics. Of course, there's a whole lot of long tail problems with that. Those users probably aren't the best for your long term growth, um, because they will flee just as quickly as they come. Those users will come despite. Friction, despite, you know, the, the technical challenges, like it's hard to, to really like turn those users away because they're in it for financial gain, so they'll deal with some hardships getting there. Having said that, like you have to boil it down to like the. The user friction, like the user flow to get to your game. Also how you're handling those new users. I mean, for example, let's use God hands, for example, uh, let's just say golden's game is out and, um, he's got blockchain elements in the game. So you download God hands, but then you need some NFT to play, or you need some crypto to be able to do anything, but you'd have to go buy that from Coinbase or wherever, but, but that blockchain doesn't have a coin listed there, or it's not, you know, you've got a bridge chains, you know, you're immediately like turning people off with every one of these steps. Mm hmm. You know, every complication. But if he's instead saying, okay, you don't have to have this, or we're giving you an NFT, like you get it for free, you don't have to have gas, you know, so like, that's another consideration. Like, does the blockchain require gas? Is that something that the, that the game can realistically subsidize? Or is it something where the user has to go fund a wallet, actual crypto? Because if it's, if they have to fund a wallet, that could be a deal breaker for so many users. And it could turn off whole regions where they don't have the accessibility of that particular crypto because, you know, if you're in the U. S., you know, that's a little more complicated to buy, you know, and, and acquire, and you have to buy some crypto and then move it to Metamask and then bridge it, you know, there's a whole lot of steps. So, these are all considerations when you talk about like, which chain has an advantage. Smart games will be able to thrive on almost any chain because they can. They can mitigate those issues, but, um, but then there's some chains, you know, that are really focused on that ease of onboarding to where, you know, you can get in and get out very easily, but for some games, if they do it right, maybe the onboarding and offloading of a currency works to their advantage. You know, if it's a little complicated, gamers may be less likely to leave the ecosystem. So it's like, why would I spend. 30 selling my assets and moving them off this ecosystem when I can just stay here and keep, you know, keep playing the game. And maybe I'm being onboarded with a credit card and just buy game assets with my credit card, trading and spending money in the game. But the friction actually makes me a longer term player and a bigger spender.

NoAutopilot: 23:50

Yeah. I mean, I think that, I think that's definitely a possibility. I guess when I look at the, the best web three user flow, you know, you download something on your computer or your phone, you sign up through Google single sign on, they have some sort of a Fiat on ramp that'll you convert your cash to whatever the end game currency is. Then you buy whatever cosmetics or game pieces that interest you. And you play the game. It really doesn't sound that different than, than Web2. In some ways, it makes me wonder if I'm, if a Web2 user, this is a tangent, by the way, let's just ride with me on it. If, if Web2 user doesn't know that they're using blockchain technology, like NFTs. Did they be using NFT technology? Why wouldn't they just use a typical

Graslo: 24:35

Web2K?

NoAutopilot: 24:36

Yeah,

Graslo: 24:36

go ahead, Grazzle. I had an interesting conversation with someone the other day. I really believe that there's this narrative that we're going to see about Web3 and I feel like that most users probably won't use the elements of Web3 and, and even when we start moving things more on chain where there's like provable randomness when it comes to drops and things like that, which I believe is the future, like I believe we will be moving in that direction. I think that just knowing that it's there, for gamers to have more confidence and be more sticky. Like when you, when you think about the early iteration of blockchain, they had a lot of like crypto casinos that popped up. And they had this concept called, you know, completely fair gambling, where They used ashes to be able to get random numbers and you would be able to bet. And then if you thought that the house was cheating you, you could go prove that the numbers that you got were random. You know, you can do this with card games, with dice rolls, with, and this is something where. 99 percent of users didn't go like, verify all their rolls were random, but they played at these casinos because they believed that they could do that if they wanted to and they knew that somebody was doing it. When you, when you go shop at, at stores that you think have the best deals, but you may not be actually comparing the price of all the goods you bought. You just trust that somebody is doing that. You know, somebody is going store to store, making sure that, you know, like this store has the best deal. So it's, it's, it's. You know, you feel like that. It's kind of like keeping the prices in check. And that may be a weird analogy there, but, but I think that gamers are going to do this as well. Like we're going to see, uh, this, you know, knowing that your items are on chain, knowing that things are, are, you know, more transparent and more fair doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to go check block explorers and, you know, verify all the items you own or NFTs or all the, you know, the quantity of things in the game. Actually reflect what's on chain, but it gives you that confidence that you could do that if you wanted to. Like, I, I do believe that that's going to be a narrative that we're going to see in the future. And it's going to really distinguish 3Games Games. Yeah, I think for, for a lot of users, the blockchain element is just going to be in, you know, in game and kind of masked. Like where you don't necessarily interact with all the, the features that NFTs, but, but it will be a comfort to know that, you know, you can take your NFTs and put them in cold storage or you can, uh, You know, go trade them on another marketplace that pops up, maybe add some additional rewards or gamification. But yeah, I think there's a lot to it, but I do think that we're going to see this narrative. Yeah,

NoAutopilot: 26:59

man, it's crazy. I've been in Web3 gaming now three years, a little bit more than that. Like we've made so much progress in some ways, but in some ways it kind of feels like we're still struggling with the same. Patience is a virtue, you know, I suppose you don't change the world overnight. So my. My last question, my last question is around, uh, gas fees and you're changing. So there's some trade offs, right? So, you know, obviously moving from an L1 to an L2, huge reduction in cost, a lot less capital, a lot less liquidity to participate in, in your game's economy. If you're working with a smaller L2, again, like an up and coming L2, That challenge is, is magnified even more, or maybe there aren't a ton of players who have a ton of cash. How do you guys think about gas fees as part of your game's economy? You know, and we've seen things that have been successful with massive gas fees, like shout out CryptoKitties way back. And obviously we've seen a lot that have been successful with, with nominal gas fees. Curious how that particular topic gets thought through when you're developing your game. I think we're going to see a

Graslo: 28:02

lot of games Mitigate this issue by having, um, a centralized wallet and kind of like check in your, your NFTs and they don't actually move on chain. The NFTs, you know, move basically within the game. And then when you bring them out, you know, you're bringing them out to your wallet. I don't know that this is going to be the long term strategy, but it definitely seems like a short term, uh, fix for any kind of gas consideration. But then you've got more kind of on chain utility of games, um, that. It's more complicated. You definitely need gas to be able to move items around. So yeah, it's going to be a lot of different, we're seeing a lot of games do like subsidies, some, some change, you know, you mentioned like the benefits of certain chains, like some chains. Give you a grant that is purely subsidies or, uh, some, some type of benefit there. And we have seen some chains where the gas token is not something that's intended to have value. And so, uh, it is kind of distributed. And so that's a whole other thing. Uh, so there's a, there's a lot, I mean, this is a, such a new space. Like, uh, when you look at like the flow of blockchain, which I don't think they have gas fees, but they have some like account limits. You have to have certain amounts of flow in your wallet to be able to. Store and, and receive, uh, NFT assets. So it's complicated. It depends on the chain you're

Golden: 29:16

on. Hit it, Gold. Me personally, I actually don't think about gas fees. I hate them. I know it's a cost of doing business, but I agree 100 percent with Graflo. As far as I think it's going to come down to like almost a centralized exchange. If you think about, like, PC gaming, console gaming, right? They're really closed marketplaces. I know, I understand it's not closed marketplace, but if you look at something like, what's the biggest leader in PC gaming right now? It's Steam. Imagine Steam had an NFT, er, a crypto wallet and its own currency, and they allowed games to, like, do stuff there, and that's where you, they would take their 30 percent fee or whatever and handle all the security for you. I could imagine, like, Like, when I was looking at, like, these launchers, these Web3 launchers or blockchain launchers, I was like, why didn't anybody come out with a currency and, like, just let you just push your game there and then give you, like, an API that allow you to, that would allow you to do that and then take, like, a fee for launch, for being the game launcher and stuff like that. And so I think we come down to something like that, because if we get on consoles, there's no way PlayStation is allowing You to make money outside of it. We just had a lawsuit with Apple and Epic and Apple run the day it's these walled gardens and that's, it's going to come from something, something like that in the future going forward. I think Google will do it. I think Apple will do it. We know Amazon's already making a blockchain and so it's going to be something, it's going to be a walled garden in, in, in the future. It's not going to be super open. That will allow games to be more secure, maybe less scams, you know, uh, something easier for onboarding new users.

NoAutopilot: 30:39

So you said something there. I'm going to go off on another tangent. These Web3 game launchers, I feel a little frustration with them, to be honest with you. If you guys remember, I don't know how long y'all been in this space, but like, like three years ago, like the purpose of Web3 gaming was to move on chain away from Google, Apple, who, you know, rake indie devs over the calls, take their percentages, and then on the other hand, they take user data and sell it to advertisers or whatever. And like, we're like, no. Screw that. That is trash. We're not doing that anymore. Web 3 gaming is here. And like, that was cool. I was with that. And then like, Flash Now, and like, all these game launchers and explorers, which I have relationships with. I have games I've built off of, or like, launched off of them. So, you know, it's just the cost of doing business. Now it's like, we're just building the same thing in Web 3. Like, now they're incorporating tools to scan my wallet, to see my NFT assets, to type some of my Web2 identity, be able to turn it into an adverting, is like their main form of revenue. I don't know, I'm just bitching here, but we went full circle, and sometimes I wonder if we even got better through the, through the process. Go raise a hand for his talk. Go, go, go. Go ahead,

Golden: 31:47

Grasshopper. Go ahead, Grasshopper.

Graslo: 31:48

Sorry. Well, I was going to say like, I know this is a bit off topic, but I can't wait to kind of like see where this evolves. I mean, I definitely think that we could see this gym between web two and web three to where we build our own thing and we are borders until we're big enough to, you know, not be ignored anymore. I mean, that's what happened with, with so many different industries that build kind of disruptive technologies, the early adopters. Kind of get to define how that technology evolves, uh, until, you know, the, the, the legacy kind of comes over. And so that's kind of the future that I'm seeing, but you know, there's also the possibility, you know, we're, we're seeing on what three games pushed to steam, push to Epic when complication happened, uh, or was talked about yesterday, uh, gods and chain, you know, got pulled from Epic because of the ESRB rating being rated as adults only. So that, if you read the, the article rated adults only because, and they didn't like clearly define why it was rated that way, but it seemed to be a combination of being able to purchase something in game and also being able to earn rewards or have some kind of random rewards. So to me, it sounded like it. You know, it was leaning towards like gambling and like, you know, it's all this, uh, because they weren't exactly clear in that. But, um, but something like that, you started seeing ratings across the board for any kind of games where you could earn, um, blockchain or purchase something and have rewards. You know what I mean? I could think of basically dozens of web three games that would fall into those same kind of problems, you know, big time, like eager games we're talking about now. So if you're saying that all of those games can now no longer go to Steam or Epic at all, like there's just out of the realm of possibility. Then, uh, we kind of have to build rain. And so it, in a way helps the hyperplay elixir, uh, Sedona's, uh, flame, you know, other, uh, launchers that are purely web three focused, it helps them to build and be more innovative because they don't necessarily have to compete with Epic or Steam, you know, their, their own ecosystem where, you know, They have this captive user audience. They've got games that can't go elsewhere. But if we're having to build for both and games are launching on Steam and they're launching on Epic, but they're also trying to manage this Web3 ecosystem, then it gets really complicated for Web3 launchers. Like how do they compete, show off like the, the usability of Web3 in a way that, you know, can't be seen on Steam and Epic.

Golden: 34:06

I'm going to answer that question really fast. It's simple and I hate saying this over and over and over again But i'm gonna use one quick analogy before I say it in every aspect of life that you go to there's pie Right and everybody has to get their piece of this pie in web 3 You got to be willing to push somebody else out the way to get your piece of the pie because the pie doesn't get any Bigger it's always going to be a pie and that's the gaming the gaming audience And so in order to push some of these web 2 companies out the way we're going to have to develop You That's better than what they already have because gamers don't want to come here Like we've been there for and we have the smallest piece of the actual gaming pie and in order to get gamers over here We actually have to develop something better because you look at something like let's say escape from Tarkov. They're not on scene They're not on epic They have their own website, and that's where you download the game. Dark and Darker started on Steam, got kicked off of Steam, launched on their own website and some crazy Korean website, but everybody just went and bought it from there. So in order to bring, like, users over, we have to develop something that's bigger and better, and then we can begin to, like, onboard people into whatever chain we go to. But until then, we're just, like, blowing smoke almost.

NoAutopilot: 35:21

Dude, I think you're so right. And honestly, it's part of the reason that I created The Gaming Startup Collective is probably half a dozen different Web3 gaming teams over the last three years. Guys, we gotta stop doing the same fucking thing, okay? If we keep doing the same fucking thing, we're gonna get the same fucking result. Pardon my language. But I think you're spot on, man. I think, I think someone really needs to come up, upset that apple cart. And it can't be small. It cannot be small. It has to be big. Has to be resounding. And I don't know what that is. I'm hoping that that one of y'all, one of y'all are that person. And I can be like, yo, I need this guy. We were on Twitter spaces. Just the six of us in late 2023 before I got big. Uh, hey, what's up, Rahman? Welcome to the stage. Go ahead and take it. Why don't you go?

Guest: 36:03

What's going on? What's up, my peoples? I see Henry Grasslow golden in here. Typical fam. I like the small space, I like the small chatter, I like the small talk. Since we're talking on launchers, I mean, there's a whole bunch of shit I could talk about. You guys are touching all kinds of stuff over here. But, like, when we're talking about launchers, right, there's even another launcher that had just come out. It was, like, Ultra. And we've got fractals and elixirs and hyper plays and GameSwift. And one net and it's just like, like exchanges and marketplaces. Do we need any more game launchers? And then the defining competitive differentiator between game launchers sometimes is it even like UI or like whatever, it's just like, well, you got a couple of games that this other one doesn't. Right. And so like if I ask people right now on Web3, like who are the two biggest, who are the two biggest game launcher? Like what would your answers be?

NoAutopilot: 36:47

Personally, I've had, if we're talking web, just Web3, right. I would say, uh, elixir. Elixir has been exceptional and I'm rooting for hyper play. I don't know if they're there yet, but I really like what they're building with their, uh. I forget what it's called, but some tool that takes your game and if you haven't built like a Apple version, it does some sort of a virtual machine thing. So you can, yeah, they're using a wine

Guest: 37:10

emulator or whatever, basically in a sense to, yeah, Jacob and Yuthinia over, um, over hyperplay are excellent. Right. I love the team. But, but, but when it comes to these launchers, right, not all of them are as easy or, you know, I think, you know, golden, he was talking about like, um, I think we're talking about, maybe it wasn't, we're talking about onboarding and the user experience for regular gamers. Right. Let's say even for like myself, like in shout out hyperplay, I know this is reported. I love you, but like, I have a wallet that I was using with mighty action heroes. And I went to go launch the game inside of there. Then I had to connect my wallet, but for some reason, like the engager would connect my fourth account from my MetaMask. So I can't use it. Cause my fourth account is the one that I originally looked at the play mighty action heroes, and I met, you know, it's a fucking pain in the ass. Right. I think this is the reality of it. Like the first time user experience for a lot of web three things that I actually used to do, um, like a smaller show back in the day where I would go from like, uh, when I was streaming on kick, take regular gamers, right. And I would walk them through these Web3 gaming processes. And most of the time, they're just like, Fuck this, and why do I wanna, and why do I wanna play this? Right? Like, it doesn't make sense. Like, my friend always said it best, he's like, I'll play your shitty little game if you pay me. But that's the only reason I'm gonna play that game, right? And so there is, there's that, there's a couple of different here, right? And I think it's true. A lot of Web3, whatever, air quotes, gamers are looking for something that's a reward, a compensation, an airdrop, or whatever, you know, if we're saying that it's not, that's just absolute, you know, bullshit, right? Which is why it's so hard to be able to push this, I am in agreeance with everybody, if somebody made something so fucking crazy, like if somebody got 200 million dollar round of funding to build out a game for whatever, backed by whatever, real studio shit, I just pushed the Web3 narrative so hard and people started playing it, and then, you know, optionally introduced things, right, like we always try to do, and it's not forced. Hold on, I'm trying to find a way to word this, my bad, it's 6, I woke up, it's like 659 over here. Dude's insane. I'm like you, I'm staring at the ceilings to wipe an eyegrassies out of my eyes. There's gotta be, there's, there's gotta be something that's so magnificent that people are like, You know what? I'll go through the trouble of this bullshit of, you know, setting up a mask or doing whatever, because this shit is so fucking awesome. But there's really nothing there yet, right? I mean, let's, let's all agree, there's nothing there yet where like, I'm gonna play this over Fortnite and COD. Fuck those other ones. Like, yo, this is it. That's my take on a lot of these gaming things. There are some good ones, like, indie games can still go out there and crush, right? If you find the right crowd, the right niche. But it's just like, we have, we haven't found that yet. Um, in terms of blockchain compatibility, you know, Amazon and all the other stuff, I know it sounds like I'm going on a rant. Here's what I think is gonna fucking happen at one, at one point. Visa or Mastercard or some asshole with a lot of money that's already established in there. Like, why don't we just make. A Visa chain. We'll just attach this shit to your card. You guys are already used to doing it. You can go on the play store and use all this. We'll store all your assets. We'll just make it so it's connected to your fucking credit card. If, if one of those companies do that, it's a fucking wrap for everybody because it's already there. It's already in use. People know how to use that. There'll be the few that bitch about, Oh, it's, you know, whatever security, you know, whatever bullshit. But they're going to win because it's money. And they're just like, why don't we just capitalize on this shit too? Like we had a long conversation about that and think about how easy it is for them to transition Google play, all that stuff. They're like, fuck it. Visa chain, store your shit here. We store your seed phrase, call in customer support. They shouldn't have it, but they'll give it to you anyway. Because it's easy and people are used

NoAutopilot: 40:24

to it. Alright, so, so this is the wrap of the space. I like how Ramen you came in at the last second and just dropped like, five minutes of knowledge.

Guest: 40:33

So sorry for ranting, I feel terrible now, my bad.

NoAutopilot: 40:35

Not at all, no, I, I genuinely enjoyed it. Thank you for sharing your thoughts with us, bro. So shutting this thing down, I do have a gift. Something of interest, potentially. So at the Gaming Starter Collective, I don't know anything, and I recognized that a long time ago. But what I can do is I can bring people to talk to, uh, Web3 Gaming founders who, who have done things that I have not done. So later this morning, we're having a conversation in our Discord. It's a community question answer. You can ask any question that you want with Harrison Whitaker. He's the ex Growth at Star Atlas. And former director at Pudgy Penguins. And we're going to be talking about how to generate revenue in your Web3 game. Which I don't think there's enough conversations happening around that topic before you launch. Which is almost as important as after you launch. If that's of interest, uh, link is pinned in the space. Link in the Discord, click that you're interested, you get a little reminder. And I appreciate y'all, uh, y'all showing up. I'll, I'll let JRP know that I did not fuck this up, and he'll be happy about that. We'll hopefully see you later at the Harrison event, and if not, then I'll catch you on our next face. Thanks everyone. Peace!