Building Interoperable Permissionless Games with HyperPlay (Workshop) with Jacobc.eth and Leon Do

Hello everyone. Uh, I'm Jacob C. I'm the founder of HyperPlay and, in fact, I built HyperPlay. We are a new Web3 game launcher and game store aggregator. I was previously head of operations at MetaMask and was very inspired by how gaming became MetaMask's dominant growth model.

We created HyperPlay as a new Web3 way to bring your Web3 wallet to native games. I'm going to tell you a little bit about HyperPlay and the different problems we solve, and we'll see how you can create games and better Web3 gaming experiences using HyperPlay. So, to reiterate: HyperPlay is a native Web3 game launcher and we are also a game store aggregator. The first problem we solve is the problem of interaction between the wallet and the game. This problem affects all current Web3 games affects all current Web3 games ; Everyone universally accepts one of these three commitments.

Perhaps they are being created as a low-performance browser game. They're great because you can attract a lot of liquidity. You can easily integrate them with MetaMask, but the browser-based gaming experience is inherently poor. You will get lower performance. Players won't see them as real games.

You can try to solve this with the second compromise: make a native game and have a separate web marketplace where people perform transactional activities. But in this model, the player has to close and exit your game every time they want to make any kind of transaction. And this also hurts the developer, because their revenue comes from in-game transactions. They come from the protocol's revenue They come from the protocol's revenue . And yet, you have buried the protocol transactions.

And then there's this third type of engagement, where you can integrate your own wallet into your game. But that wallet can't be taken out of the game. So, basically, you ended up creating a Web2 game with a secondary market. But Diablo already had that in 2012. You don't really need a blockchain to do this.

The true value propositions of blockchains are interoperability and the creation of excellent Web3 experiences. We deeply believe in the ability to take your wallet out of the game. So we built HyperPlay to solve this. It is a native desktop application . We want interoperability, permissionless extensibility, and a great user experience to be the standard for every Web3 game.

We added these wallet solutions. That's why we allow the player to connect their wallet to our native desktop application and then pass the player's wallet to the games they enjoy. You can connect a MetaMask mobile wallet by scanning a QR code, and every in-game transaction will appear on your phone. It's very similar to the Fortnite process. When you buy a skin in Fortnite, a notification appears on your phone for you to approve it.

We do the same with MetaMask mobile, but we can also use the MetaMask browser extension within native games. The way we achieve this is by creating an overlay layer on top of the games, much like Steam's. Steam displays a chat window over every game you launch from its platform. With Hyperplay, we place the player's wallet on top of the game and allow them to make transactions within it. In fact, we can import the player's MetaMask wallet from their current browser with a single click.

I'll show you a little bit about how this works. But something else I want to highlight is that, for developers, we have a simple REST API that they can use to integrate all these wallets. So you can also integrate with over 40 additional wallets via WalletConnect. Any transaction or signature request, any type of request you make today in MetaMask, you can send to our REST API. Hyperplay will convert it to the wallet solution the player has chosen and we will display the approvals on the game.

The second problem we solve is that of distribution for game developers. Currently, if you typically release a game through the Apple App Store, Valve's Steam, or the Google Play Store, you must accept a 30% commission. And even if you share 30% of your revenue, those Web 2 monopolies will kick you off their platform for including Web 3 features. That's why we created Hyperplay, not just as our own store, but as an aggregator of many others. And these are stores that do allow Web 3 games.

We allow developers to launch their games through any of these channels and have them appear within our desktop application. And not only that, we are creating a competitive market among stores so that they feel pressured to stop expelling developers and not to impose that 30% commission on them. The Hyperplay store does not charge any part of your in-game transactions. We are compatible with multiple platforms, so we have versions for Windows, Mac OS, Steam Deck and Linux. In addition, we have Wine Crossover and Proton integrated into our application.

This allows the player, even if your game is only for Windows, to play Windows games on Steam Deck, on Mac OS or on Linux. We want games to flow seamlessly across all platforms using open-source technology . As I mentioned before, we don't take a share of your transactions or your in-game economy. Our business model is the same as we previously used at MetaMask, where MetaMask monetizes convenience features and agreed-upon optional features in the interface. So, instead of extracting value from developers, we offer optional features like NFT or token swaps within our app and plan to add several NFT marketplaces.

If we add a developer's native marketplace, the commissions from that marketplace remain intact and we don't take anything from the developer. We support both browser games and native games. Browser games open in full screen and end up looking a bit more like a native game. We're improving the user experience for browser games, helping players discover both browser and native games. We are free and open source software, and you can release software through our store without sharing a portion of your internal finances.

Our store stores games on IPFS and we also have augmented nodes on IPFS that offer faster downloads. If you want to use them as a developer, you only pay for bandwidth. We 're not trying to monetize that. The Hyperplay application looks like this. In this example, The Sandbox is one of our launch games.

In fact, we're launching tomorrow. So they're getting an early preview. In this example, you see the Hyperplay logo above The Sandbox because The Sandbox is hosted on the Hyperplay store. But if The Sandbox were on the Epic Store, you would see the Epic logo or the store that The Sandbox has chosen to distribute itself in. You can also see the wallet connection in the bottom left corner.

This is what the user experience looks like if you connect a MetaMask mobile wallet. You only scan that QR code once, and then this connection persists in every game you launch from Hyperplay. There's no need to scan a QR code for every game you start. If you want to use the MetaMask browser extension , you can import your current MetaMask installation from any browser into Hyperplay. And you can also create a new wallet there in the bottom right corner.

This is an example of an in-game transaction in Undead Blocks. So we're overlaying the MetaMask browser extension on top of Undead Blocks so that the player can perform a native transaction with it within a native game. And in this example, the player is using MetaMask Mobile instead of the browser extension. Therefore, they receive these notifications in the bottom right corner that tell them to go and approve that transaction on their phone. We are building an achievement system based on NFTs.

We are creating transaction permissions so that the player does not need to approve dozens of MetaMask transactions every time there is a transaction on the chain. And we're also creating a phased onboarding feature where the player can skip setting up a wallet until they have an in-game transaction. And Hyperplay will actually overlay the MetaMask onboarding flow on top of the game. This way, the player can access a wallet without ever leaving the context of their game. We are a product created by a DAO.

We were initiated by DAO Game 7 and the product is being co-developed with MetaMask and some people from the BitDAO ecosystem. We have 21 launch titles arriving tomorrow, and those are some of the ones you see there on the right. I am Jacob C., the founder right. I am Jacob C.

, the founder . Flavio is my co-founder. He was the founder of Heroic, which is the largest open-source web 2 game launcher . Brett was the founder of Kosium . Brett was the founder of Kosium , which is a web3 first-person shooter game.

Leon, who is here on stage with me, was the founder of web3. Which later became Chainsafe's game SDK . Max worked on the NFT product for the XDI wallet. Billyanne used to lead product design for Heroic and Pimeintel leads or used to lead product design for BitDAO. We're, um...

launching tomorrow. Our alpha developer program launched in late November and we're very excited. We have some pretty cool rewards. We are offering a reward of $10,000 for the best gaming experience created with Hyperplay. And we also have a $5,000 reward for anyone who can adapt our overlay features to Mac OS.

If you want to deal with Metal and its strange proprietary APIs, we'd be very interested in talking to you. Um...and with that said, I'm going to pass the microphone to Leon, who will guide you a little bit on how to build games with Hyperplay. Hello, my name is Leon. I'm going to delve a little deeper into the technical aspects.

Uh, but before we get into that, if you're just a web2 gamer and you want an application that has Steam, Unreal, and all the different platforms, this works. So you can just download one thing and it works. Um, we also follow the same mindset in terms of keeping things simple. We try to get along with everyone, with all the chains, with all the wallets, um, web2 and web3. So, let's get a little technical.

So, to get here, uh, just go to hyperplay.xyz. The documents are in the upper right corner. That's the page. Uh, and we'll go over some, some settings.

So, the first way is to install Hyperplay. It's quite simple. All you have to do is... there's a download button. You press download, install download button.

You press download, install , and that's it. And the first step is to connect your wallet. Then step is to connect your wallet. Then , a pop-up window will appear. You can connect either with your MetaMask wallet or with WalletConnect if you have another wallet.

Uh, you scan the QR code. Pretty simple. Um, and then, that's it . You are connected. Therefore, this single wallet will connect to any web3 game on that platform.

You don't need a separate wallet for each game. Uh, also for the overall picture, similar to what I said before, we try to get along with everyone. So all the features here, uh, are native with GOG, MetaMask, WalletConnect, basically we get along well with everyone. So if you guys have new wallets, new ideas, uh, we're very open to that. We're also multiplatform, so Linux, you know, um, and so on.

Okay, so regarding the technical aspects. So before we get into this, as Jacob mentioned, uh, it's a very simple design. They are just REST APIs. So if you know how, if you come from the web2 side, a regular game developer, you can implement this today. You don't need to learn anything fancy.

So, uh, we have some examples here of simple POST requests. So you can do things, um, such as, uh, get the, get the, uh, account of that wallet, right? Uh, get the balance. So these are readings. You can also create deeds, obtaining a personal signature to perhaps log into a certain function or, um, enable some tokens.

Uh, you can sign type 3. You can send transactions. Basically, this is a REST API that handles both, uh, abstracts the fancy stuff, right? Those, those complicated crypto things. So you can only make posts and handle both reading and writing.

In addition to post requests, we also handle native game engines. Try to find this. So, for example, with your personal signature, you can sign the word "hello," right? And you get a signature. You can verify it in the chain; It's too technical.

But the point is, you can do this with a normal curl request, right with a normal curl request, right ? Or we already have code written in Unity for you to do it. So you can literally copy and paste this into your Unity, your game engine, press a button and a pop-up window will appear for signing, and it just works. It's mostly copy and paste, it's pretty straightforward. If you want more examples, we have one below for sending ERC20.

And we also have more examples for Unreal. So if you're an Unreal Engine or Unity developer, we already have tools for this. Contact us and we'll get started . And that's pretty much it. Thank you.

I will do a demonstration in Unreal Engine. I'll also mention that we created a new library called web3.real Unreal, which allows the player to do many things related to Unreal and web3 in general, and includes native Hyperplay integration to make it easier to create games in Unreal Engine. I think we have time for some questions if anyone would like to ask any. For people who have an identity, because I would think, "Oh, you're really struggling."

Yes. That sounds intense. So the question was, is there any form of KYC or identity verification in Hyperplay? We are a customer-side, permissionless, wallet-wrapping product. It's very similar to when you use MetaMask in a DAP or something like that.

Some DAPs choose to implement KYC protocols and things like that implement KYC protocols and things like that , and you can certainly add KYC protocols to your game if you're interested. We are truly agnostic and unlicensed. Our goal is to allow developers to build whatever they want, and those transactions are processed by non-custodial wallets. You can require the user to verify their wallet or something similar. But we do n't do that at the level of our application.

Essentially, we are client-side software without permissions, just like MetaMask. Any other questions or comments? Well, I'm glad to finish super early. Ah, oh glad to finish super early. Ah, oh , we have a question.

Um, yes, this question is probably quite prosaic. Uh, the 20 games tomorrow, uh, do you have any idea which networks they're going to be on? For example, will it be Polygon, uh, Arbitrum? I assume none of them are on the Ethereum mainnet, right? So, yes.

Um, good question. So, Hyperplay has the same list of networks that MetaMask has today. So we can support almost any EVM chain. Um, in terms of our launch lineup, we have a pretty good representation of, uh, a pretty good representation of Polygon mainnet, uh, Arbitrum, Optimism Polygon mainnet, uh, Arbitrum, Optimism . Uh, I don't think we have anything on Avalanche.

Avalanche developers Avalanche. Avalanche developers , you should uh, come join us. Uh, but uh, we have a pretty wide distribution. Um, uh, I would say that, um, you know, also in our future something related to this is that MetaMask is building something called Snaps, which is a plugin system that can potentially support non-EVM strings. And we're very interested in integrating some of these plugins into Hyperplay by default.

So, uh, we could potentially even support non-EVM chains like Starkware, um, Immutable, uh, Solana, Cosmos, and we want to support every chain and be fundamentally chain-agnostic. Um, we're also building some interesting features into Mantle's L2, which is specifically geared towards gaming. Um, so we're working with a wide variety of chains. Okay, uh, we can take one more question. Yes.

Uh, yes. My question is, more question. Yes. Uh, yes. My question is, how big is the group of developers you have to launch on Hyperplay?

Yes, that's a good question. We have 21 games launching on launch day, but we actually have more than 50 studios that have joined our alpha developer program. Many of those games are games that haven't been released yet. And you know, some might be a year or two away, but we're building a pretty diverse ecosystem of developers from many different genres. Um, we have, you know, we have some really cool games.

Uh, whether they're like shooters, like we have Undead Blocks, um, The Bornless, those are really cool, kind of like horror first-person shooter games. Uh, we have The Beacon, which is an action RPG. Um, we have, you know, some battle royale-type games like Trouble Punks, Smash Verse. Um, who else am I forgetting? Some developers are going to be angry with me for forgetting to mention them.

We have Dark Throne, which is another action role-playing game. We have Grid Iron, which is a sports game. Grid Iron is great because it's the first NFL-style game that's truly different from Madden and stuff like that. Each player controls only one player on the team controls only one player on the team . So it's much more like real American football.

That game is amazing. In fact, we're playtesting that. I think I forgot to mention in my presentation that Game 7 and Hyperplay sponsor the gaming section at ETH Denver. We will have a very large testing area starting on day 2 at the main event. We will have eight computers with these games pre-loaded.

You can sit down and try any of these games. We will have competitions for Undead Blocks. We'll have competition for Grid Iron. And we'll have a competition for, well, we're going to have a competition for... What was the other one?

Dark Throne for... What was the other one? Dark Throne . Thank you. We also have...

let me make some other acknowledgments. We have DeFi Kingdoms. We have a crazy first-person shooter called Bunny Count, where you are demented-looking rabbits. We have Flight Force 4, which is a Battle Royale. Yes, we have so many amazing developers so many amazing developers .

Dear developers, if you are seeing this and I forgot to mention your game, please forgive me. I did this from memory. Also, think of this like the App Store, right? Good. We built the platform.

So we tried to find game studios we tried to find game studios , web 2 or web 3 studios, interested in collaborating with us. We have a whole workflow where you can submit your game. It's practically infinite, game. It's practically infinite, right? Think of it that way.

A special shout-out to Phantom Galaxies, The Sandbox, and The Wake. Those are three more that I remembered. I'm sorry. Perhaps time for one more question. Alright .

Okay, let's wrap this up here. We'll be here all week. If you want to create a game or gaming experience, or expand HyperPlay's capabilities, we'd love to talk to you, so please get in touch.