Game On! Summit - How Gaming will Drive the Mass Adoption of NFTs & Blockchain
Primer: The Game On! Summit 2021 is a 2-day virtual conference celebrating the essence of Gaming, Art, Music and Entertainment (GAME) industries. Join Allison Nam as she moderates a panel of blockchain gaming founders on their gaming career, the games they have founded, as well as thoughts on the NFT gaming industry.
Speakers
Moderator: Allison Nam
Ventures Partner with Vectr Ventures in Hong Kong
Panellist: Sarah Buxton
COO of Gala Games, an ecosystem of NFT games
Panellist: Bozena Rezab
CEO and Co-Founder of GAMEE, a play-to-earn gaming platform
Panellist: Jesse Johnson
Co-Founder and COO of Pixelcraft Studios, the creator of Aavegotchi, a crypto-infused Tamagotchi game
Panellist: Leslie Chan
Co-Founder of Dreams Quest, a decentralized play-to-earn RPG game powered by the blockchain and dynamic NFTs
Getting Started In Their Gaming Career
Sarah Buxton
Has been an entrepreneur throughout her life
When the opportunity for Gala Games came along, it caught her eye as they were doing something very revolutionary
Remote work environment and everyone worked on the time zones that suited them
Their first game, Town Star, has been live for over a year now
"As gaming goes, we are on a new frontier. I think it's a very very embryonic period that we're in." - Sarah Buxton
Bozena Rezab
Entrepreneur and gamer
Had the idea to build a mobile gaming platform that would connect friends across multiple games to build a community of people who enjoyed games
Left Google to work on gaming
Has launched over 80 games on their platform, with 32 million users globally
Experimented with giving a percentage of their revenue back to gamers and the gamers loved it
The next progression is to introduce the power of blockchain to the gamers
Launched their gaming token earlier this year
Jesse Johnson
Co-Founder and COO of Pixelcraft Studios, the team behind Aavegotchi, a crypto-infused Tamagotchi game
Building the infrastructure for Aavegotchi
Aavegotchi is a playable NFT Metaverse type of game that has multiple layers to it
Before that, he was in the crypto industry for the greater part of the last decade (e.g. started out at the academic side, worked in an exchange, etc.)
Discovered NFTs and went full-time on a NFT start-up
Saw NFTs as a different approach to crypto adoption, as non-financial assets residing on the blockchain that unlocks culture and different aspects of our life
Leslie Chan
Started out through a YouTube channel called DeFi Singapore
Co-founded Dreams Quest, a play-to-earn RPG game
Dreams Quest will have something called a dynamic NFT function using Chainlink VRF. After every battle, the attributes of the cards would be randomized
Token launch in a month's time
How Has NFT And Blockchain Changed The Gaming Landscape?
Sarah Buxton
NFTs are getting more popular and accepted
Blockchains enable genuine ownership of game assets
History moves with the NFT (e.g. a player defeats a monster with a sword. The next person being gifted with that sword retains the memory of defeating that monster)
Opens many doors for developers, engineers, designers, players, and collectors
Currently building Gala Chain, which will come online later this year. This will remove some of the friction related to transaction fees and the negative carbon impact that blockchains have
What Are The Opportunities For Investors To Ride The NFT Wave?
Leslie Chan
Runs a small community in Singapore. They look at NFTs for a lot of reasons
Thinks that gaming NFTs will be the trend for the next few months
People have been speculating and flipping digital art NFTs
The first time he heard of NFTs was from Jesse, way back when he was just starting his NFT projects
If investors want to come into the NFT space, they should understand the various categories of NFTs well
As an investor, he believes that people would probably want to look into asset-backed NFTs or gaming NFTs where there is real tangible value to them
Future Of NFT Consumption And Application
Jesse Johnson
Markets are cyclical in nature
There's also faster growing areas within the NFT space
Gaming and its communal aspect is a natural fit to our digital life in this current age
How do you measure a bear market? Is it using active players?
Thinks that blockchain gaming/NFT gaming is here to stay
Eventually, big brands will have to get onboarded or be left in the dust
"And it's like, oh, you want me to play, put all these hours into this game, and I don't get anything for it? Nothing that's immutable? Nothing that's on-chain? That will more and more be the basic expectation." - Jesse Johnson
Response From Tech Giants
Bozena Rezab
Really hard to know what's the plan of the tech giants
Can be certain that they are watching this space
When they eventually jump in, it will create a big wave
Would like to address 2 types of audience:
The tech-savvy audience
The underserved audience
Tech-Savvy Audience
This audience wants to jump in to something that she calls experiential reality
Facebook's founder has made a claim to employees that they will be playing an important role in bringing the Metaverse to life
XR Association: a consortium of companies that include Google, Microsoft, Samsung, and Sony, etc. that is defining this new experiential reality
Underserved Audience
Facebook made claims that moving money around the world should be as easy as sending photos
Previously, Facebook was looking into creating a cryptocurrency called Libra
Due to regulations, it has scaled back to something that is now called Diem
Facebook is working with regulators to figure out how this whole thing works. Will open a path for many other companies to navigate this space
What's Keeping You Up At Night?
Jesse Johnson
Excitement for all the things that they are building with Aavegotchi
Working on a metaverse that is kind of like a social network. On track to delivering it by the end of this year
Very close to having their first land sale. Land parcels are known as REALM, which is used to make a home for your Gotchi
REALM parcels come with different ERC-20 tokens locked within it. Need to install various NFTs on top of your land like harvesters to extract the resources
Keeping the game balanced and getting everything to work well is what's keeping him up at night
Bozena Rezab
Sleeps very well at night
Difficult part is to onboard millions of users in a way that does not require them to be technically savvy
Sarah Buxton
Not compromising on what they want to build
They are one of the few blockchain projects that doesn't have any external investment. Do not want to be compromised to build in a certain way
Want players to play and hang out with the community because it's fun to be there
Leslie Chan
To handle the 3 most important things that they value most
Community. Trying to find out how to bring that value to their play-to-earn model
Marketplace. Will be up in 4-6 weeks' time
Partners that they have onboarded. Sandbox Game has been asking them to create some form of monster in their Metaverse
Final Thoughts On The NFT Space
Sarah Buxton
The NFT gaming space will be absolutely outstanding if they keep being true to what they are trying to achieve
Making sure that NFTs will have utility not just in the secondary markets but when you own them
Think everyone is on the right track
Jesse Johnson
Very impressed by everything he's hearing today on this panel
Parting advice is not to get too entrenched on one chain
Open to learning about the games and the experiences that are being built elsewhere
Bozena Rezab
Excited about the new careers that are opening up to people
Encourage everyone to try and get their hands on some blockchain games. Very different experience playing it compared to just reading about it
Leslie Chan
Encourage industry players to continue learning and keeping true to their values
For the public who is just getting started with NFTs, get a cheap NFT. This will get their feet wet and they can experience some enjoyment and fun with it
Conclusion
Hootsuite Digital 2021 Report estimated 3.25 billion gamers globally, which is almost 50% of the world population of gamers and 4.8 billion active internet users
This paradigm shift in digital ownership and how people value assets provides a massive market opportunity to reach 1.55 billion people online who have not yet started playing games
Advise audience to explore further on topics of NFT and blockchain gaming
All information presented above is for educational purposes only and should not be taken as investment advice. Summaries are prepared by The Reading Ape. While reasonable efforts are made to provide accurate content, any errors in interpreting and summarizing the source material are ours alone. We disclaim any liability associated with the use of our content.