Gaming NFTs and Collectibles: Unlocking In-Game Assets | European Blockchain Convention 9

[Music] all right welcome everybody to uh our panel about gaming web 3 and uh Collectibles I have two uh in my opinion gaming Legends gaming Pros here on stage with me um Alvaro who uh is one of the Pioneers in Esports and actually uh want to uh start with U you enter the world of competitions and uh Idan who uh in 2019 you just told me founded one of the first uh Virtual Worlds uh based on blockchain technology now um I'm going to yeah and myself I'm I'm Alex ens as you can see here so um Alvaro you started in 2017 as I just said um in in the web 2 world you did a lot of successful tournaments and then in 2020 you um your company acquired meta worlds and um which is actually a blockchain gaming company and from from the acquisition of meta worlds there was the uh you know you gave birth to uh Chili Cheese games and by the way I always love the reference to cheese T soap and cheese so um tell us a little bit about why you did that transition and what was your motivator to to go from Web Two to to web 3 uh sure so thank you everybody um just a little bit of context so that you you understand the the transition I started uh about 10 years ago uh uploading videos to YouTube right now my my channel has uh over 5 million subscribers in in in Spanish and it's one of the biggest uh YouTube channels for Spanish speaking markets specialized on mobile gaming and six years ago I decided to start my esport team it's called team keso H the ches reference is just because I'm a a fanatic pool fiction yeah I'm cheese lover but I'm also I I like pool fiction so it's just because of that scene so I mean fun story um Esports it's h just competing in video games and it's a really difficult and challenging industry uh so from the very beginning we had in mind that we needed to diversify and to find different ways to monetize our audience or to engage with our fans and our audience and we decide that one of the best ways to do so is to develop for them the best mobile gaming experience so that the best way to develop the best experience is to do it by yourself so uh it was not exactly an acquisition it was more like a partnership or a joint venture where a studio just came in and say hey you know what you know a lot about content creation you know you know a lot about mobile gaming and you know a lot about competition so we we do know about programming and about developing so let's Build Together the best mobile game and the best mobile gaming experience so that's how Chile games was born it's the new studio we are completely open since they want to blockchain and to the new world if we can find a way to add value to our players via web three so that's the story super cool very interesting now IID don't um to you you just told me in front of the stage that should be more challenging with my questions so um yeah Upland is um actually a virtual world which replicates the real world meaning that in Upland I can basically find every street that you have in the real world I would say it maps to the real world doesn't necessarily replicate it we like to joke and say it's a fork of the real world okay but um since you started this um first of all maybe very quickly about what inspired you to do that with your co-founder and then as you want me to be challenging what was like the biggest ups and downs especially since the beginning of the journey yeah absolutely so I think what inspired us was actually the game of Monopoly uh and you know who has played Monopoly as a person everybody has and we but taking a step back we kind of like started this journey around late 2017 2018 and this was just when nft became a technology it came out and when we looked at that technology you know it's not intuitive to understand how it works but once you get it you pretty much understand that uh the future of digital economies is forever changed because the hypothesis and we still maintain that hypothesis is that every digital asset that anybody body cares about in this world on a long enough trajectory will become either an an nft or some kind of evolution or permutation of that technology why because the value proposition of true ownership is better than fake ownership or non- ownership absolutely and and and and that's that's basically the inspiration and for us kind of like we envision that world that maps to the real world with an open Economy based on true ownership and our main focus was to try to deliver that value proposition to as many Mas consumer uh consumers as possible in the world um but what were your biggest challenges yeah so I mean I I think the first in the early days and and and we've been at it for 5 years now so it's it's pretty it's pretty long why the first challenges was actually coming up with a technology to make uh web 3 accessible and not just kind of like easy to onboard but we also wanted to be on the app stores and we are on the App Stores since 2020 uh how to create regulatory comp I mean we are a US company where in the US we sell to us uh C customers and not just worldwide and we wanted to provide an easy way for people to enjoy true ownership but also be able to let's say go in with Fiat but also go out with Fiat and and that's not trivial so the first challenges were about putting the technology in place creating that ecosystem uh that could on board Mass consumer audiences and I would say then the good times were you know at the beginning nobody knew what nfts were so we hid the word nfts from consumers but then came the nft hype and and again I can't say we didn't ride that hype that helped us a lot uh so these were like the good old days uh but now kind of like I think the industry is maturing it's kind of like getting out of its speculative phases and that creates challenges especially around growth how to grow the ecosystem and not just stagnate so this is where we're at right now uh but we're up for the challenge for sure uh did you see that in in a terms of numbers the the bare Market has impacted you a lot absolutely and I think like the biggest thing and I don't know how many Builders are in the crowd who kind of like builds web 3 ecosystems okay that's cool so for those of you who've already launched H H how many of you find it challenging to grow right now to acquire new users exactly so this is the main the main sticking point it used to be the case whatever a year and a half ago we could put a dollar into marketing into user acquisition and it would pay back after 2 months and start making profits no brainer you have a magic box you plow as much money as you can into it now traditional user acquisition channels don't don't work anymore and by the way this is not just for the web 3 Industry this is like for the entire consumer consumer gaming and mobile and and what have you uh so you have to find new avenues you have to find new ways to grow uh and this is the real challenge right now it will shift back but we as you know as Builders we need to you know figure out the boxes that can maintain the maintain themselves but then when the markets turn again that would just be additional lift uh you know so you can depend on the Market's turning right you have to create your own reality yes definitely um Alo uh you on your website you have the slogan I have to read it we're developing fun games for the players oh the party is on bear with me us for other 10 minutes um what is your stands on play to earn versus play and earn or play and own yeah I'm I'm pretty much um I agree with Ian I mean that that's play to earn it's a way of the of the bad old days like right now user acquisition is H super difficult and I think that one of the challenging Parts particular for the web 3 is that the games has to be fun so that the people play plays the game the mentality that you get into a game to to become rich it's over and uh it won't come back again so we are focused since day one to to build a good experience the best possible experience for the player so that we will get the enough amount of users to have uh the critical mass to then Implement some uh technology some blockchain technology that adds value to the to the player so that's why we completely reject the the term play to earn because you play to have fun in away and then eventually you will earn something but you won't ever play to earn anything besides have fun having fun so that's the the whole idea of the of the standing yeah and I truly believe that this is the longer lasting one and uh the true gamer heart that is beating in your chest it it's it's the only way to to get the the user to get the the player otherwise uh I mean you are you are not getting players you are not getting users you are getting investors yes and this is very perverse yeah um Ian so you told me you're about to launch sparklet which is a new utility token within your ecosystem and that allows creators to build in the metaverse can you walk us through the specifics like what what what are the utilities and also a little bit of comparison to upx you're in game current yeah absolutely so first of all the spark token has already been active inside of Upland for two years uh so this is in Upland you have we have two fungible currencies one is called Apex it's the value carrier this is the way to exchange value in between in between players in the Upland ecosystem and the other is spark this is a resource token that you use to build things so either buildings on your properties you can Manu manufacture cars and carts you can create outdoor decor anything that you want to build and create in Upland would does require that token So currently what we're doing right now uh and again this is based on the slightly changing regulatory environment in the US which up until now has not allowed us to make our to tokens tradeable outside of Upland then we are basically taking spark and making it through a bridge to ethereum we're making it tradable on centralized exchanges and this is our current PL and by the way this ties back to uh to to what I mentioned about growth how difficult it is to growth one of the growth engines that we kind of like want to add on top of that is now having that type of visibility to the web3 native ecosystem through a tradable token so this is something we haven't been able to enjoy up until now because we are us-based uh but now the things things are changing so this is very uh exciting for us and in general again we see we've always envisioned Upland to be uh um you know a platform for creators so we the way we do things is we introduce new features so let's take for example cars and racing right cars have is an entire ecosystem in Upland you can take your car and travel in between cities you can race it against your friends in multiplayer racing games inside of Upland neighborhoods and the way we do it we first Envision the the technology the utility we demonstrate it to our community but then we delegate that to our community and allow anybody to build their own ugc Creations so being their own car brands racing carts you know we uh encourage them to create Speedways building their own businesses exactly and we call them metav Ventures met ventures in Upland yes and we want players we want to lower the barrier for players to become entrepreneurs in the metaverse and this is how in Upland you actually create value we mentioned play to earn or play to like play and earn for us the earn element is BAS basically taking a player that's having fun but then they are going to connect with their communities and they are going to you know Envision new ways they can create and bring value into Upland and this is how they earn not just by speculating or by trading it's by creating value creating that flywheel that the more players we have the more meta entrepreneurs we have in the ecosystem the more valuable it becomes to the entire ecosystem and then finally when we added on top of it our third party developer platform which allows anybody to connect any of their offerings to Upland expand it recreate it without having any constraints in an open economy this is kind of like the mega Creator platform that we're shooting for and to tie it back sparklet is going to be the resource that basically powers that entire creation process super cool this is basically coming to the essence of what an nft is bringing into that system 100% at the end of the day nft is the technology like don't don't get thrown away with all the bad press with all the you know things we had in the past exactly the technology is good it's valuable to humanity it will be valuable yes yes um alv so we have a couple of minutes left you have launched your first web three game or it's about to launch if I uh Wonder War it's already it's already lunch uh but uh still no we three features we we are in the process to to just create the game and with the team with with all my esport team and all the network of influencers we have around I mean with over 35 million followers we we have a a really good positioning in Spanish speaking markets for mobile gaming so we are we are acting as as the esport org as the publisher of the game so giving the the first shot to the game getting metrics from real users with couple thousands of them and uh everybody can download the the game the web three part will come after we validate the game is fun after the game is working working of of w two then we won't invent anything I mean people who spends time playing games they do care about their accounts they do care about the Skins they they bought they they care about the ownership of all the progress they made in the game so yeah I mean the world nft had a super bad reputation right now but it's just digital property and uh in the future our our strategy long-term idea is to to to release more games with the same IP interconnected in between all the ecosystem of the games so that if you unlock certain characters certain heroes in the in our first game and then we release a second game with different gender for example a fighting game and then a shooter or or whatever it is then if you want to convert your progress into some kind of digital assets then we will be able to give you some progress on the new games and for us it will be a marketing a marketing tool and for the users it will it will be a value because they they will have something in return for being active an active player of our games for so long so yeah I prefer the the naming of digital property I mean it's it's also the same the the technology is in place and it's validated it's it's just a matter of wording right now I like the approach very much really cool um Ian just quickly I read that you are have recently partnered with FIFA and uh NFL Players Association what is the experience from a user perspective when I go to Upland how can I experience that in in the Upland ecosystem yeah so uh so with these Partnerships and you know the these are two out of many that we've that we've had uh it's it's based at the end of the day of on nfts that are that are Collectibles but it always comes with utility and gamification so for example with FIFA World Cup you know you could own uh Messi's uh last goal of his World Cup career as an nft in appland and by the way currently it's the only place in the world where you have these types of nfts but you couldn't just buy it you couldn't just mint it you had to play so it was like a panini uh do you guys know Panini obviously with the football so it's like imagine like a panini on steroids right so instead of cards you have 3D items that are official FIFA licensed and you have to collect them first of all you have to trade with your peers you have to complete collections you have to build up your fan score and then you have exchange mechanic and at the end of the day at the top of the pyramid you you get a shot to basically get uh those top of the uh you know um top of the value collectibl such as the the actual goals from the World Cup I'll give you another example we have a um another ecosystem which we just recently launched it's called stock car Pro Series it's the Brazilian version of NASCAR racing if you know it's kind of like stock cars cool so this is an ecosystem where again you have these Collectibles which are driver suits and helmets right but you also have the cars you also have the actual RAC tracks in the real world and you have to race in order to compete for the grand prizes so it's not just about getting the nft and trading it it's Way Beyond it's creating utility and fun and engagement and suddenly you know what there are you know these cafes spawn when people go together to have watch parties as the as the race is is going and everybody's coming in their driver suits and the wearables so these are the the ecosystems we are shooting for it's an evolving world uh and we're happy kind of like to know to be part of the companies that are spearheading it but at the end of the day when I look at my kids today they when they meet their friends not in person they meet them in in gaming platforms so my young ones will meet them in in Roblox my older one would meet them in either GTA or fortnite or whatever of you but they to them it's native and when they grow up then it's they are going to be relying on platforms such as appan to basically experience the immersive web the web is not going to stay 2D as it is today the web will evolve into an immersive version and our kids it's enough to watch them how they interact today to be convinced that this is how things will happen in the future um we have time for one last question I hope um because I think this is um super cool for the audience as well to know what you as you know the experts and being in that space for such a long time what is it's a question to both of you what is your advice for entrepreneurs or developers that want to you know um get a foot in in that industry uh of of gaming and even web 3 gaming very briefly I mean for me super quick and obvious uh advice which is that I mean web3 gaming it's gaming after all so just build games or build gaming platforms that are good I mean easy to say difficult to implement but it is what it is I I think that uh all the all the the confusion that we have had with web 3 is just some uh some confusion and and reminders of the bad times and it's all about making good stuff that's pretty much it yeah and and I think it probably is different of whether or not you have uh access to funding or you don't and I would assume for a second that most companies that start up they don't have access to significant funds in which case my advice would be F the first thing you do build your community if it's even if it's just an idea even if it's just like videos get out there establish a community even if it's like dozens of people but if you start from there and if you take guide like first of all recruit the first people who are passionate about what you're going to do and then follow their lead actually be integrated them I think one of the best thing that we did in appan five years ago our very first hire was a community manager and and and this is so such a stark difference my previous experience was with casual games with Social Casino and back then we were so disconnected from from our community and this experience is so much different and you don't underestimate the value of what your community can offer you to guide you in this journey that you're about to embark on Al that that would be my advice that was very very valuable thank you so much we're at the end of our 20 minutes that went very fast uh thank you Idan thank you Alvaro for a great panel great conversation and to the audience for listening in thanks a lot thank you ad thank [Applause] you 3 2 1