Episode 23

full
Published on:

2nd May 2022

23. Crypto Bahamas, TikTok Metaverse, Epic Games Funding Failure

In this episode, we discuss all the interesting sights and sounds from Crypto Bahamas, TikTok's parent company trying to enter the metaverse, Tim Sweeney's thoughts on the metaverse space, Epic Games allegedly getting a lukewarm reception to their latest funding round, and so much more!

Episode 23 Keywords: Crypto Bahamas, TikTok's parent company, metaverse, Tim Sweeney, Epic Games, funding rounds

Transcript
Unknown:

Welcome to the metaphysics podcast. The Metaverse and web three are bringing about the

Unknown:

biggest revolution since the internet itself. With your hosts Paul the prophet Dawalibi And Jeff the

Unknown:

juice Cohen. We will be bringing you the latest Metaverse, business news and insight into what it

Unknown:

all means. The meta business podcast starts now.

Paul Dawalibi:

From the boardroom to the metaverse. This is the meta business podcast. I am

Paul Dawalibi:

Paul Dawalibi. I'm joined today by my friend and co host, Jeff the juice Cohen. For those of you

Paul Dawalibi:

who are new here, welcome to the official podcast of the metaverse. What we do is we cover the most

Paul Dawalibi:

pressing, Metaverse, topics and news of the week. But we look at all of it through a business and C

Paul Dawalibi:

suite lens dissect. We analyze the business implications of everything happening in this

Paul Dawalibi:

exciting industry. For our regular listeners. Thank you guys for tuning in every week. Thank you

Paul Dawalibi:

for all the love the five star ratings and reviews. If you haven't yet, hit subscribe on the

Paul Dawalibi:

podcast, share it with your friends, send it to your colleagues, and leave us a rating and review.

Paul Dawalibi:

Tell us how much you love the podcast. It helps others to find the podcast we really appreciate

Paul Dawalibi:

it. Jeff, how you doing this week? I know this has been crazy. We've both been all over the place.

Jeff Cohen:

Crazy, crazy, busy. Busy week we're recording at a little bit of a later date than we

Jeff Cohen:

normally do. We wrote traveling last week. I was I was in France actually meeting my new company. So

Jeff Cohen:

I spent a week in France. Awesome. I was kind of the only the second time I've been been to France

Jeff Cohen:

and first time in the hit decade. So I was pretty impressed actually. And I know you were in the

Jeff Cohen:

Bahamas, which was this

Paul Dawalibi:

people can tell if you're watching this I am wearing some very, very obnoxious

Paul Dawalibi:

glasses handed out by Solana. I was at Krypto Bahamas. So huge. I mean, ridiculous. Crypto and

Paul Dawalibi:

Metaverse and web three conference. They were very gracious. They invited me to speak on a panel

Paul Dawalibi:

about gaming and web three. And the collision of those two things was a lot of fun. I will say

Paul Dawalibi:

Jeff, that there's like there's this world. It feels like a different world. The whole crypto

Paul Dawalibi:

world, right, like gaming metaverse. These are things that are familiar to us. You know,

Paul Dawalibi:

especially coming from gaming, but the whole crypto world. I mean, there is the amount of

Paul Dawalibi:

money, the amount of people the amount of interest, the amount of excitement. I mean, it was

Paul Dawalibi:

it was unbelievable. I mean, it was only 1500 people there I think but it felt like 150,000

Jeff Cohen:

That's, that's wild. I definitely want to ask you some questions and get some of your

Jeff Cohen:

takeaways maybe but before that, did you get any other cool swag besides the glasses? You would

Paul Dawalibi:

think right? Well, it was like all like keychains and knickknacks. Unfortunately. I

Paul Dawalibi:

just felt Metaverse see. So I wore them. There you go. But no, no, no better swag than that.

Paul Dawalibi:

Unfortunately, we should have that we should have done something around meta business and handing

Paul Dawalibi:

out swag, I think but the missed opportunity. And now they were just incredible people like Bill

Paul Dawalibi:

Clinton was there. And obviously you had Sam bank been freed the CEO of FTX were the big sponsors of

Paul Dawalibi:

the mooch because it was the salt conference. Right. So he was ready. I mean, you really

Jeff Cohen:

you really lead with you lead with Bill Clinton, there was other ones you know, you

Jeff Cohen:

can there's other ones you can

Paul Dawalibi:

I will say Tom Brady, probably one of the better, if not the best speaker I saw

Paul Dawalibi:

there, actually. And not because it's crypto, the depth of his crypto knowledge or anything like

Paul Dawalibi:

that. But I think conferences make this mistake all the time where they invite the most

Paul Dawalibi:

knowledgeable people and not necessarily the best speakers, right. And Brady had a way that it was

Paul Dawalibi:

rehearsed clearly right. Like he's obviously done this multiple times in practice that but like a

Paul Dawalibi:

way of drawing you into the story inspiring you, you know, it's a little bit of rah rah, I guess

Paul Dawalibi:

that's the quarterbacks job, but amazing sort of how he tells stories and, and ties into the

Paul Dawalibi:

business and tied it to crypto. And I thought a tremendously good job.

Jeff Cohen:

So I guess not to put you on the spot because we didn't rehearse this before but any big

Jeff Cohen:

take any big takeaways or anything related to gaming? And I know you had a panel. Tell us about

Jeff Cohen:

that.

Paul Dawalibi:

So first of all, let me just start with maybe an anecdote that is going to lead into

Paul Dawalibi:

my takeaway. But when I first got there, my business partner, Greg said, Well, you better

Paul Dawalibi:

download telegram or you gotta get telegram because everyone's on telegram. And I'm like,

Paul Dawalibi:

telegram. Like, why would I use that? Like we're already on Discord? Like, we use discord for

Paul Dawalibi:

everything for word for games for everything. And I download telegram and then everyone's trading,

Paul Dawalibi:

you know, their telegram IDs, whatever. And it made me realize the crypto people don't realize

Paul Dawalibi:

how superior Discord is to telegram. It's not even close telegrams, total crap, like actual total

Paul Dawalibi:

crap, compared to discord so much better. But I say I tell the story because it's also like, fun.

Paul Dawalibi:

What I confirm that this conference is the crypto People don't understand gaming, even the ones

Paul Dawalibi:

building play to earn companies, even the ones claiming to be building games. Many of them

Paul Dawalibi:

weren't the I was shocked weren't even gamers, right? Like I would talk about my experience with

Paul Dawalibi:

World of Warcraft. And I would sort of get glossed over looks like maybe that's just because it's an

Paul Dawalibi:

old game, but

Jeff Cohen:

may say more about Activision Blizzard in the state of Warcraft.

Paul Dawalibi:

But, and I said this on the panel, which is there is no more target rich environment

Paul Dawalibi:

for crypto companies than gamers. But there is no industry failing more spectacularly at reaching

Paul Dawalibi:

gamers than crypto companies like you, they have the greatest opportunity but are failing them in

Paul Dawalibi:

the most spectacular way. And and it's interesting to see if we can bridge this gap, right? Like,

Paul Dawalibi:

make, make making crypto fun, because there's nothing much about crypto that's very fun,

Paul Dawalibi:

actually, like when you break it down. So it was interesting, that

Jeff Cohen:

was like our takeaway. It's like a payments encryption technology and apart so like

Jeff Cohen:

there really is generally no reason why it should be fun. But just to drill down on that, because

Jeff Cohen:

I'm curious, and maybe this gets to a lot of what we talked about generally, but who who's to blame

Jeff Cohen:

for what you just said? Because I think you're spot on in terms of like it has the most upside,

Jeff Cohen:

but yet it's failing most spectacularly? In your opinion, is that the gamers to blame? Or is that

Jeff Cohen:

the crypto people,

Paul Dawalibi:

the crypto people, right? Because it's not it's not hard, like reaching gamers is

Paul Dawalibi:

not hard. If if you know how to get to them, and you know how to talk to them. And you know, right

Paul Dawalibi:

like that, as long as you're, you're getting to them in the right way. They will be responsive. I

Paul Dawalibi:

think it's just crypto people that, like any other industry that's growing at the pace, like there's

Paul Dawalibi:

nothing growing at the pace of this of the crypto industry. And so it's very insular, right, like,

Paul Dawalibi:

all this amazing this is happening in their world. Why really look outside of it. Today, when you're

Paul Dawalibi:

so focused on the boom happening sort of right under your feet. I think the point I made was, you

Paul Dawalibi:

know, there's 180 million people with crypto wallets today. But 3 billion gamers so like,

Paul Dawalibi:

you're we're still an order of magnitude away from, you know, reaching the real the motherlode

Paul Dawalibi:

the mass adoption. And so, you know, it's cryptos fault, but I think we're closer in that I didn't

Paul Dawalibi:

get resistance this time, because I've said this before publicly. And this is the first time where

Paul Dawalibi:

I got a lot of hey, you know, you're right. As opposed to like, No, you don't know what you're

Paul Dawalibi:

talking about. Right. Like I have been booed before for the saying these kinds of things. I did

Paul Dawalibi:

not get booed this time. And in fact, one of the most interesting people I met at the whole

Paul Dawalibi:

conference was the chairman of delpech. Deltec was one of the big sponsors there bank based in the

Paul Dawalibi:

Bahamas, more b2b but very much focused on crypto. They were the other big sponsor other than FTX.

Paul Dawalibi:

And the chairman 72 year old guy looks 50x 50 like 20 incredibly young at heart. And, you know, one

Paul Dawalibi:

of the things he said on stage was like, and he was the inventor of Inspector Gadget. That's the

Paul Dawalibi:

other really cool part. He actually invented Inspector Gadget. And he was his whole thing was

Paul Dawalibi:

like, Why isn't banking fun? Like, just because something has to be serious, doesn't mean it can't

Paul Dawalibi:

be fun. So he really resonated with my whole idea that the future should be fun, right? That

Paul Dawalibi:

everything should be gamified that gaming should be the dominant form of entertainment and leisure

Paul Dawalibi:

and all these kinds of good things. And I loved his take that right. Even something as boring as

Paul Dawalibi:

banking. We should be able to make it fun. We have the technologies we have the capabilities to do

Paul Dawalibi:

all of this. I thought that was eye opening.

Jeff Cohen:

I just have one more question before we get to the episode. So we talked a lot about on

Jeff Cohen:

the show. You know the metaverse the events in the metaverse. What do you prefer? Would that

Jeff Cohen:

conference in the metaverse that comes in the Bahamas?

Paul Dawalibi:

To be honest, for this one, I actually would have preferred the metaverse

Jeff Cohen:

three is very honest than the Bahamas. Wow. It

Paul Dawalibi:

was horrible. It was horrible. Don't even get me started on that. It was

Paul Dawalibi:

horrific. It was really bad. Boston was so much better in terms of food, Astros but you know that

Paul Dawalibi:

you asked a good question, Jeff. Because I actually think had they done it in the metaverse.

Paul Dawalibi:

I'm I'm this is spitballing. Right. This is me making guests. I would guess 50% of the people at

Paul Dawalibi:

that conference would not have known how to attend. Really, you have like a ton of people

Paul Dawalibi:

there who are deep technical crypto knowledge right, but sort of disconnected from the business

Paul Dawalibi:

In the marketing, and then you had a lot of business who realize the opportunity, but don't

Paul Dawalibi:

understand anything about the sort of the technical side of it like nothing right. But this

Paul Dawalibi:

is about, you know, marketing the next token or like, what NF T's they have in their wallet, but

Paul Dawalibi:

beyond that probably know nothing or about the technical side but or don't even own a PC probably

Paul Dawalibi:

powerful enough to get them into the metaverse. So I think I think they would lose half their

Paul Dawalibi:

attendance. It was nice being in person and obviously nice, nice weather makes a big

Paul Dawalibi:

difference. But it could have been in Florida, asked me or Dubai. So we'll see. Good question.

Paul Dawalibi:

You want to talk about news this week? Because there was there was a good amount of news that I

Paul Dawalibi:

think we should dive into. So we do right here. That's what we do. That's why people tune in.

Paul Dawalibi:

Let's talk about tick tock and byte dance. Because there was this article and headline, you know,

Paul Dawalibi:

super catchy here. Tick tock parent byte dance follows Metis footsteps down risky path toward the

Paul Dawalibi:

metaverse and, and so what they're saying is bytedance 58 billion in revenue in 2021. They're

Paul Dawalibi:

assembling a Metaverse, hardware content software and platform lineup, similar to meta so you know,

Paul Dawalibi:

Mehta said they were going to spend what $10 billion a year and they did report a $10 billion

Paul Dawalibi:

loss for 2021. For Metaverse investment. It seems bytedance going down this path, and betting big

Paul Dawalibi:

billions and billions of dollars on the metaverse and that's going to include all these things,

Paul Dawalibi:

hardware, software, platform, content, etc. I guess I'm curious what you think of a company like

Paul Dawalibi:

bytedance following Metis footsteps, right? Are they is being a fast follower here the right

Paul Dawalibi:

strategy in your mind? First question. And second question. is interesting to you that it's

Paul Dawalibi:

bytedance. And not for example, like a 10 cent if we're talking about Chinese companies.

Jeff Cohen:

So on the second one, I'm not sure I definitely want to hear your opinion. On the first

Jeff Cohen:

one. I think it does make sense because China is going to probably operate as its own animal as it

Jeff Cohen:

does with gaming with internet in general. So like, I do think you're going to have a China

Jeff Cohen:

specific metaverse. So normally, you know, you don't necessarily want to follow against a massive

Jeff Cohen:

company like Facebook, not that bytedance actually is probably fairly equivalent in market cap or

Jeff Cohen:

size. So they have the muscle on the half to go up against the Facebook. But usually you don't want

Jeff Cohen:

to follow Facebook and someone who's a founder owned company and basically said they're willing

Jeff Cohen:

to spend whatever it takes to, you know, to build this vision. But given the China angle, I actually

Jeff Cohen:

think it makes sense. In terms of bytedance versus Tencent. I would imagine Tencent is doing

Jeff Cohen:

something similar. You know, I know that they're, obviously have a massive, massive cloud

Jeff Cohen:

infrastructure play. They're huge in gaming, we clearly know that they don't necessarily have the

Jeff Cohen:

hardware piece. So maybe that's where we want to drill into like, is the hardware piece necessary?

Jeff Cohen:

I guess I'll kind of posit that to you and then maybe give you the hit you the ball in terms of

Jeff Cohen:

Tencent versus bytedance If you have any thoughts.

Paul Dawalibi:

I mean that is interesting, right? And you see here bytedance bought this VR headset

Paul Dawalibi:

maker pico So bytedance has a hardware play Tencent does not. So that is an interesting

Paul Dawalibi:

difference. Well, one other common thread is the two companies we're talking about our social media

Paul Dawalibi:

platforms. First and foremost, right bite dance with tick tock Mehta with Facebook. And it's

Paul Dawalibi:

interesting that the two who have who are essentially committing billions to building a

Paul Dawalibi:

Metaverse publicly, our social media platforms, not gaming companies, right? Like I I've said many

Paul Dawalibi:

times that I believe ultimately the metaverse or meta vs will evolve out of gaming. Now, that could

Paul Dawalibi:

be gaming companies, or it could not be but do you think it's interesting that we're seeing two big

Paul Dawalibi:

social media platforms first call it before billions of investments from gaming companies,

Paul Dawalibi:

because the gaming company about it right, but they've not said we're spending billions of

Paul Dawalibi:

dollars.

Jeff Cohen:

I mean, that could be because almost no other gaming company is big enough to throw

Jeff Cohen:

that kind of muscle around besides Tencent. But, you know, I don't want to move stories too

Jeff Cohen:

quickly. But the other one of the other stories we're gonna talk about today is epic. And they

Jeff Cohen:

definitely are a gaming company and they are pretty open about kind of they were early talking

Jeff Cohen:

about the metaverse, so I don't know that's perfectly accurate to say, hey, no gaming

Jeff Cohen:

companies are leading the way, you know, in sort of investing in the metaverse, but I do think it's

Jeff Cohen:

an interesting distinction that two of the ones that have stuck their neck out maybe the most are

Jeff Cohen:

social media companies. Maybe it says something about where social media somewhere that they think

Jeff Cohen:

that the growth is coming, right like there's not going to be another 4 billion people joining

Jeff Cohen:

social media. But the next internet or you know, the metaverse, you will see that growth like it's

Jeff Cohen:

obviously, you know, inning one versus social media, which was spurned by the growth of mobile,

Jeff Cohen:

mobile internet is probably an inning, six or seven, maybe to us baseball parlance.

Paul Dawalibi:

It's sort of confirmed that this ultimate convergence between gaming and social

Paul Dawalibi:

media is going to happen. And we may call it a Metaverse, but like, that, this convergence has to

Paul Dawalibi:

happen for these billions of dollars of investment to pay off basically, that social media needs to

Paul Dawalibi:

become gaming. gaming needs to become social media essential,

Jeff Cohen:

just so I understand when you say, What do you mean by social You mean like

Jeff Cohen:

advertising support in place where people user generated content, like a plot, basically, I guess

Jeff Cohen:

is out now I'm thinking about finding it, where people

Paul Dawalibi:

hang out and socialize fundamentally, whether that's a one to many

Paul Dawalibi:

broadcast platform or a many like, doesn't matter if it's Facebook or Twitter or Tik Tok, like,

Paul Dawalibi:

people place where people aggregate and connect with other people, over whatever. Like we're

Paul Dawalibi:

finally seeing the metaverse may bring about that convergence that Wii gaming people have been

Paul Dawalibi:

talking about for years now. Right. World of Warcraft, the greatest social media platform ever,

Paul Dawalibi:

you know, all my friends in, in in a war in the war zone or pub G or whatever, right? Like the it

Paul Dawalibi:

feels like this convergence is being accelerated by at least the word metaverse. You mentioned the

Paul Dawalibi:

epic game story. I'll bring it up now. Might as well and not this one. This one and this is the

Paul Dawalibi:

headline here is fortnight maker Epic Games made failed funding bid ahead of $2 billion cash raise.

Paul Dawalibi:

So this the first sentence I like it says Wall Street may finally be getting over its fortnight

Paul Dawalibi:

addiction. They raised $2 billion from Sony and Kirkby Kirkby owns Lego. So it's Sony and Lego

Paul Dawalibi:

values the business at 31 Point 5 billion, which was slightly higher than the round. They closed in

Paul Dawalibi:

April of 2021. At 28 point 7 billion, so a tiny uptick in valuation, and they raised $2 billion.

Paul Dawalibi:

Now, supposedly they failed. They had gone out with the idea of doing an offer tender offer

Paul Dawalibi:

through NASDAQ, like a private exchange for to sell shares at a $42 billion valuation, which

Paul Dawalibi:

basically fell through there were crickets no one no one wanted to buy at 42 billion. I'm curious

Paul Dawalibi:

what you make of this and how this ties into potentially epic slash fortnight's Metaverse,

Paul Dawalibi:

ambitions, Jeff, like, how do you read into this story?

Jeff Cohen:

Yeah, I mean, we I guess we had covered a little bit the raise and kind of a

Jeff Cohen:

couple of weeks ago what we thought about the valuation, I think flat, if you look at relative

Jeff Cohen:

to what the public market, comps have done over the last year is actually kind of a win. It

Jeff Cohen:

probably doesn't feel that way when you're raising private money. But given the backdrop of how

Jeff Cohen:

fortnight is done, which is math, not that great. And then the apple, the apple sort of battle,

Jeff Cohen:

which actually is referenced here in the article as being a key problem according to insiders,

Jeff Cohen:

which I'll have to give you credit the fall the Prophet was right, because this was something that

Jeff Cohen:

Paul said, you know, for really the last year basically that there i Epic's I was off the ball

Jeff Cohen:

and you know, the Apple fight was was going to hurt them in terms of valuation and just investor

Jeff Cohen:

perspective. So kudos, kudos to you for calling that. But but to be honest, I think the flat is

Jeff Cohen:

actually pretty good. I think this is a little bit of a quick click Beatty article from the post

Jeff Cohen:

because I don't think that it's a super bad outcome to raise money at a flat valuation when

Jeff Cohen:

you look at just what's going on more in the broader market in general.

Paul Dawalibi:

Jeff, can you put this in context for our listeners in your mind like we medicine

Paul Dawalibi:

burning 10 billion a year on Metaverse, right bytedance potentially could end up burning same

Paul Dawalibi:

amount if they're following a similar strategy. There wasn't a number on that. When epics raising

Paul Dawalibi:

2 billion, you know this this, and arguably they probably won't raise for at least another year,

Paul Dawalibi:

right? Like do you see it as as? I can't think of a better term, but like is Metaverse now a rich

Paul Dawalibi:

man's game right? Is it like only for people companies that can blow 10s of billions you know

Paul Dawalibi:

over 10 years and everyone else may get left behind or, or is epic still a real player in your

Paul Dawalibi:

mind?

Jeff Cohen:

I think epics definitely still real player but you do bring up a great point. And I

Jeff Cohen:

actually recall when Activision sold to Microsoft like in the in the ensuing interviews after that.

Jeff Cohen:

Bobby codec talked a lot about how just it pretty much exactly what you just paraphrase that it's

Jeff Cohen:

really expensive to be in kind of this Metaverse race. Talent is really expensive as well. So they

Jeff Cohen:

didn't really feel like they could compete as a standalone company. That is Activision Blizzard.

Jeff Cohen:

So, you know if it applies for Activision Blizzard with a market cap of, you know, I think they're

Jeff Cohen:

like 60 billion. It probably applies also to Epic with with kind of this $32 billion valuation. So

Jeff Cohen:

it'll be interesting to see because clearly, we know Tim Sweeney has ambitions to the metaverse, I

Jeff Cohen:

personally think they're probably as far along as anyone currently, if not really the furthest

Jeff Cohen:

along. So, you know, it feels a little bit like maybe they're playing tuners and games where

Jeff Cohen:

Facebook is trying to build or own the physical hardware of the metaverse, whereas maybe Epic is

Jeff Cohen:

trying to own the software. Facebook is clearly trying to own both. But epic does not have a

Jeff Cohen:

hardware play. So maybe you could argue that epic doesn't believe that the hardware is going to be

Jeff Cohen:

the essential part of it. So if you look at just the software platform and the developing the

Jeff Cohen:

tools, they may be actually investing dollar for dollar the same amount. Mehta may just be focusing

Jeff Cohen:

more on like servers and infrastructure that may be epic fields is going to be a little bit more

Jeff Cohen:

commoditized.

Paul Dawalibi:

Just one last question on this. What is this do well, like? How do you think about

Paul Dawalibi:

epic IPO? Now, with news like this, like her tell? Do you think they're gonna go public anytime in

Paul Dawalibi:

the next?

Jeff Cohen:

I think almost it means I'm gonna say it means they're more likely to go public, but

Jeff Cohen:

probably not the case. I would say it doesn't hurt it much at all. Honestly, again, because I get you

Jeff Cohen:

I think you really just have to look at in the context of what you know, the other gaming

Jeff Cohen:

companies have done like take two is probably down, you know, 30 30% plus this year, EA similar

Jeff Cohen:

Ubisoft prior to the takeover, rumors have been down massively. Activision, if they hadn't gotten

Jeff Cohen:

the Activision or the Microsoft bid. I imagine their stock went down 60% kind of year over year.

Jeff Cohen:

So I don't think if we if if the sort of market it kind of like dynamics and economy turn around in

Jeff Cohen:

the next six months, and fortnight sort of gets its footing, the Unreal Engine five comes out, and

Jeff Cohen:

looks pretty good. Like I think they're gonna be a super hot IPO come, you know, early next fall or

Jeff Cohen:

or next year.

Paul Dawalibi:

Interesting. And any thoughts on valuation at that point? Crystal Ball the juice?

Jeff Cohen:

Higher? Think I think people Yeah, again, although I totally depends on

Paul Dawalibi:

what we've been talking about it. Like, Will Will it go public at a valuation higher

Paul Dawalibi:

than whatever Roblox is trading at that point?

Jeff Cohen:

I think it will. I think the question will be whether it's higher than EA, I think

Jeff Cohen:

that's that's like where the bonus thing, which is not far I think EA is in the 40s? Maybe. So I

Jeff Cohen:

think that'll be the question. EA will be at a different market cap, obviously, at that point.

Jeff Cohen:

Could be higher, could be lower. But if that's that's sort of the bogey that they're playing.

Paul Dawalibi:

Interesting. Yeah. I don't know where, you know, it feels a little bit like the

Paul Dawalibi:

private round here was done instead of an IPO. Right. Like clearly the IPO markets have not been

Paul Dawalibi:

that great. It's not the best time you no one's gonna go public right now unless you absolutely

Paul Dawalibi:

have to. So this feels like a bit of a rush round. We kind of glossed over the Sony and Lego

Paul Dawalibi:

involvement. Right. If that. I've heard a lot of arguments and I heard this a lot of crypto Bahamas

Paul Dawalibi:

like people thinking the Lego thing makes this the most obvious greatest Metaverse play ever. I mean,

Paul Dawalibi:

I'm not not convinced.

Jeff Cohen:

Like we touched on this last episode, but I am pretty bullish on it. I remember maybe it

Jeff Cohen:

was the livestream week that we talked about this, cuz that raised was a few weeks ago. But I do

Jeff Cohen:

think I'm pretty bullish on that just in terms of attracting a younger audience. If you could build

Jeff Cohen:

a Lego Metaverse, these LEGO games have done incredibly well. And they attract a younger

Jeff Cohen:

audience. So I'm, I'd be fairly well I am

Paul Dawalibi:

yeah, I mean, time will tell we'll see. The fortnight still has to get a bit better

Paul Dawalibi:

in terms of attracting like real developers to the platform. You know, there was an article and we're

Paul Dawalibi:

not going to cover it but there was an article this week a conversation with if you're watching

Paul Dawalibi:

I'll bring it up on the screen here conversation with Tim Sweeney. And you know, he actually says

Paul Dawalibi:

very nice things about Roblox because I think he has to right I think they know they may be losing

Paul Dawalibi:

the developer game. Right like just a random kid building something in a creative fortnight

Paul Dawalibi:

creative modes, not the same as someone building an experience on your platform because they know

Paul Dawalibi:

they're going to make money from it. So,

Jeff Cohen:

the sorry, one thing that I thought was interesting that I wasn't aware of from that

Jeff Cohen:

article that he said 50% of play time on fortnight is currently third party content. Which was like

Jeff Cohen:

shockingly high meaning I guess, like people in the creative mode or, you know, experiences built

Jeff Cohen:

by third parties was 50%, of of the playtime, I thought was really high.

Paul Dawalibi:

I wonder. I mean, I believe I actually believe that I'm not that shocked by it.

Paul Dawalibi:

Because if you watch anyone playing fortnight on Twitch, it's always like, and then the creative

Paul Dawalibi:

modes aren't, aren't that good, right? Like, it's stupid things like, you know, doing build battles

Paul Dawalibi:

or little obstacle courses or like, the equivalent of I don't know, if you remember Counter Strike

Paul Dawalibi:

surfing. You know, they do similar things like that. I feel like once the main game gets boring,

Paul Dawalibi:

this is what you turn to. It's the mods, the, you know, the creative modes. So 50% doesn't shock me.

Paul Dawalibi:

I suspect that went down once they took out building, right, like, because a lot of people

Paul Dawalibi:

went back to the game and played it the normal call it normal way. But, again, if it's not, if

Paul Dawalibi:

it's not professional developers, I'm, I'm not as impressed.

Jeff Cohen:

But what why do you say that? Because I feel like usually for the to be a true

Jeff Cohen:

metaverse. I think actually user generated content may be more important than professional

Jeff Cohen:

developers. And I wonder what Roblox is percentages are in terms of I it's, it's

Jeff Cohen:

definitely more, I think, but I don't know how much more.

Paul Dawalibi:

It's good question. And it's a good point, right as UGC, more important in a

Paul Dawalibi:

Metaverse, then, you know, professional developers who can use your platform to build sort of more

Paul Dawalibi:

polished experiences. The answer is probably not like it's not black and white. Right? And it's not

Paul Dawalibi:

like you need you need probably need both. You do need both for call it successful. Capital and

Paul Dawalibi:

metaverse. Which one's more important in the early stages. I suspect the professional developers only

Paul Dawalibi:

because I don't think, again, it comes back to this, like Metaverse may be a rich man's game, for

Paul Dawalibi:

the platforms. But even for the experiences you build on top of the platforms, you need something

Paul Dawalibi:

that's going to draw people's attention that's going to draw them in and it's going to keep them

Paul Dawalibi:

there for a long period of time, not necessarily something that someone plays for three minutes and

Paul Dawalibi:

then goes on to the next thing. And I'm not saying I think Roblox just because of the split the

Paul Dawalibi:

economic split, that gives them gives them the advantage, they're not necessarily because the

Paul Dawalibi:

platform is better if anything with Unreal Engine, you know, Epic is in a much better position to

Paul Dawalibi:

attract more professional developers directly to fortnight as a platform, but chooses not to, or,

Paul Dawalibi:

or, you know, I was thinking about

Jeff Cohen:

actually mentioned that in the article where with Unreal Engine five, they're going to

Jeff Cohen:

open the fortnight creative mode, or they'll have some tie in with Unreal Editor or something like

Jeff Cohen:

that.

Paul Dawalibi:

Yeah, they said they're going to release Unreal Editor for fortnight. So you can

Paul Dawalibi:

anyone can build game content and deployed into fortnight, which I think which could be game

Paul Dawalibi:

changing. I think we've talked in fact about, you know, bringing the Rocket League into fortnight,

Paul Dawalibi:

how potentially that's that could be game changing. So time will tell we'll see. I think Tim

Paul Dawalibi:

has a great understanding of the technology and the building the platform. I was worried about

Paul Dawalibi:

their distraction, as you said, but they are they are ahead from a technology standpoint. Jeff, that

Paul Dawalibi:

wraps up this week's podcast it was a super quick episode flew by. You know, we appreciate everyone

Paul Dawalibi:

tuning in, leaving that five star rating and review hitting the subscribe button, make sure you

Paul Dawalibi:

go follow Jeff on Twitter at Jeff Cohen 23 That was got hot takes always juicing. So you don't

Paul Dawalibi:

want to miss those. And also I want to mention we have a bunch that's going to be under the meta

Paul Dawalibi:

business brand. So I know so many of you are fans now of the podcast. We're gonna put out a ton of

Paul Dawalibi:

the content from Krypto, Bahamas, on our socials under the metal business banner. So definitely

Paul Dawalibi:

stay tuned for that look forward to all the stuff we did there, including, you know, my, my panel

Paul Dawalibi:

and some of the meetings and interesting conversations we had there. So, definitely a lot

Paul Dawalibi:

to look forward to this week. And thank you, Jeff. As always, thank you guys for tuning in. Don't

Paul Dawalibi:

forget the future is fun. We'll see you next week.

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About the Podcast

META Business
From the metaverse to the boardroom...
Meta Business tackles the most important Metaverse industry news. Business experts dissect and discuss all of the hottest topics and happenings, from a unique C-suite perspective.

About your host

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Paul Dawalibi