29. Metaverse Father, Epic Games Store Grit, Tim Sweeney Fortnite Tokens

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Welcome to the metaphysics podcast. The

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Metaverse and web three are bringing about the biggest

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revolution since the internet itself. With your hosts Paul the

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prophet Dawalibi And Jeff the juice Cohen. We will be bringing

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you the latest Metaverse, business news and insight into

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what it all means. The meta business podcast starts now.

Paul Dawalibi: 00:00:21

From the boardroom to the metaverse. This

Paul Dawalibi: 00:00:23

is the meta business podcast. I am Paul the Prophet Dawalibi.

Paul Dawalibi: 00:00:26

I'm joined today by my friend and co host, Jeff, the juice

Paul Dawalibi: 00:00:29

Cohen. For those of you who are new here, welcome to the

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official podcast of the metaverse. What we do is we

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cover the most pressing, Metaverse, topics and news of

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the week. But we look at all of it through a business and C

Paul Dawalibi: 00:00:39

suite lens, we dissect, we analyze the business

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implications of everything happening in this industry. For

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

Paul Dawalibi: 00:00:47

Thank you for all the five star ratings and reviews all the love

Paul Dawalibi: 00:00:50

you give the podcast. If you haven't already do two things,

Paul Dawalibi: 00:00:53

share the podcast with a friend or a colleague send them an

Paul Dawalibi: 00:00:56

episode that you love particularly or that maybe talks

Paul Dawalibi: 00:00:59

about something that you really agreed or disagreed with. And

Paul Dawalibi: 00:01:02

leave that five star rating and review it really helps other

Paul Dawalibi: 00:01:05

people to find the podcast. Jeff, how you doing this week?

Jeff Cohen: 00:01:09

I'm doing good. This is a second week in a row I'm

Jeff Cohen: 00:01:12

recording from my in laws basement and it is freezing down

Jeff Cohen: 00:01:15

here. It's like you can hang meat in this basement. It's

Jeff Cohen: 00:01:18

really like he can barely move but it's it's quite cold. And

Jeff Cohen: 00:01:27

yeah, I don't know. Just not good.

Paul Dawalibi: 00:01:29

All all issues we don't have in the metaverse

Jeff Cohen: 00:01:33

no unless we get that what was the thing we

Jeff Cohen: 00:01:37

talked about where it was like gave you sensory you know like

Jeff Cohen: 00:01:40

you could feel something in your you know, your your son slapping

Jeff Cohen: 00:01:43

you in the face and the metaverse or something.

Paul Dawalibi: 00:01:46

Yeah, it was it was vibrations through your

Paul Dawalibi: 00:01:48

teeth or something like that, right? I mean, I feel like we

Paul Dawalibi: 00:01:52

will end up with mostly meat lockers, though. If the if the

Paul Dawalibi: 00:01:56

like capital M Metaverse comes to fruition, it's just gonna be

Paul Dawalibi: 00:02:00

a bunch of humans strapped in and shooting them. Right? Like

Paul Dawalibi: 00:02:05

you need to cool them the same way you cool servers, right?

Paul Dawalibi: 00:02:07

Like

Jeff Cohen: 00:02:10

I'm just enjoying the game. I mean, I'm basically

Jeff Cohen: 00:02:13

in the metaverse right now we're virtually having a conversation

Jeff Cohen: 00:02:16

and I'm sitting here in this meat locker. So we're just ahead

Jeff Cohen: 00:02:20

of the curve. I think

Paul Dawalibi: 00:02:21

what I'm thinking is we should be investing in

Paul Dawalibi: 00:02:23

meat lockers to warehouse human beings who are gonna be plugged

Paul Dawalibi: 00:02:27

into the metaverse is what I'm thinking maybe Thanks, great

Paul Dawalibi: 00:02:30

investor.

Jeff Cohen: 00:02:31

No. Have you ever heard the expression sometimes

Jeff Cohen: 00:02:33

being too early is the same thing as being wrong? I fear we

Jeff Cohen: 00:02:37

might be a little too early, a little too early on.

Paul Dawalibi: 00:02:42

Well, let's jump into this because there's a guy

Paul Dawalibi: 00:02:45

here in our first story, who definitely was not too early. Or

Paul Dawalibi: 00:02:50

maybe he was too early, but he's making up for it now. And that's

Paul Dawalibi: 00:02:54

Neil Stevenson, the man who coined the term Metaverse in

Paul Dawalibi: 00:02:59

1992. So the headline here is Neil Stevenson coined Metaverse

Paul Dawalibi: 00:03:03

in 1992. Now he's building one. The author is working with a

Paul Dawalibi: 00:03:07

number of crypto veterans on a new Metaverse focus baselayer

Paul Dawalibi: 00:03:12

lamina. One. So in his in his hit novel Snow Crash. He's the

Paul Dawalibi: 00:03:17

he's the guy Neil Stevenson, who coined the term Metaverse or at

Paul Dawalibi: 00:03:20

least used it for the first time in a way that people recognize,

Paul Dawalibi: 00:03:24

you know, publicly here. And 30 years later, he's teaming up

Paul Dawalibi: 00:03:28

with Peter vessels. I'm not sure if that's the correct

Paul Dawalibi: 00:03:31

pronunciation, his name, but to bring this Metaverse focused

Paul Dawalibi: 00:03:34

blockchain called lamina, one to life now. Let me just read the

Paul Dawalibi: 00:03:41

the quote here from Stevenson. He says the Facebook name change

Paul Dawalibi: 00:03:45

was a big milestone for the metaverse although the idea had

Paul Dawalibi: 00:03:48

been building for some time before that, well, big companies

Paul Dawalibi: 00:03:51

like Microsoft became interested. What also happened

Paul Dawalibi: 00:03:54

was lots of smaller players became interested to, there are

Paul Dawalibi: 00:03:57

a lot of people who want to get in on the metaverse and build

Paul Dawalibi: 00:04:00

their dreams, build their ideas, realize their creative notions

Paul Dawalibi: 00:04:04

or their commercial ambitions. Now. It's supposedly the first

Paul Dawalibi: 00:04:10

iteration of this blockchain is going to be a friendly fork or

Paul Dawalibi: 00:04:12

partnership of avalanche. And there are some, you know,

Paul Dawalibi: 00:04:16

relatively well known financial backers of the project. Curious

Paul Dawalibi: 00:04:20

to get Jeff, your thoughts on this? You know, the guy who

Paul Dawalibi: 00:04:23

coined the term metaverse? Is he the perfect one? And the one

Paul Dawalibi: 00:04:26

most likely to build it? I mean, it should we, I mean, is this

Paul Dawalibi: 00:04:31

what we're all waiting for?

Jeff Cohen: 00:04:33

It's pretty cool. It makes for an interesting, you

Jeff Cohen: 00:04:35

know, story, or maybe like, we'll see a movie of this one

Jeff Cohen: 00:04:38

day where it's like the OG the guy who invented the term kind

Jeff Cohen: 00:04:41

of coming back to now, you know, build his vision properly. So I

Jeff Cohen: 00:04:47

think that would be pretty cool. What just is weird to me, it's

Jeff Cohen: 00:04:51

like this guy's an author. Right? You know, like, he's

Jeff Cohen: 00:04:53

partnered with a lot of technical people, but, you know,

Jeff Cohen: 00:04:56

to what extent does he really have you know, the technical Why

Jeff Cohen: 00:05:00

is he necessarily best suited to build this? You know, besides

Jeff Cohen: 00:05:05

the fact that he invented the term, I get that I'll put some

Jeff Cohen: 00:05:08

respect on him for that. But like, at the end of the day,

Jeff Cohen: 00:05:11

he's an author. Unless I'm unless I'm mistaken, and maybe

Jeff Cohen: 00:05:14

he does other things. And he's a technologist as well. But like,

Jeff Cohen: 00:05:18

he's an author. So I don't know how much credence we should give

Jeff Cohen: 00:05:20

him to build a virtual world. Yeah, I mean, it's an

Jeff Cohen: 00:05:26

interesting thing. And then part of this makes me think maybe

Jeff Cohen: 00:05:29

this symbolizes a little bit of like, the near term peak, where

Jeff Cohen: 00:05:32

it's like, okay, we've we've truly maybe jumped the shark a

Jeff Cohen: 00:05:35

little bit where we finally come full circle where the guy who

Jeff Cohen: 00:05:37

started it all, is now like getting into the hype, you know,

Jeff Cohen: 00:05:42

to build his vision of it. But yeah, I don't know. That's my

Jeff Cohen: 00:05:47

initial thoughts. What do you what do you think?

Paul Dawalibi: 00:05:49

I think I was gonna say so much of the same

Paul Dawalibi: 00:05:51

thing. It's super insightful. I think, maybe this is the signal

Paul Dawalibi: 00:05:54

that, you know, like, because he could have jumped in at any

Paul Dawalibi: 00:05:58

time. Realistically, he invented the word. I mean, he could have

Paul Dawalibi: 00:06:01

done this in 1994. If you really like, if he had the technology

Paul Dawalibi: 00:06:05

vision, this feels a little bit like, you know, it's a branding

Paul Dawalibi: 00:06:10

play. It's let's put this guy's name on this project, because

Paul Dawalibi: 00:06:14

it'll help us raise money, and it'll get some articles written.

Paul Dawalibi: 00:06:17

I'll take a little bit of a stronger stance than yours. And

Paul Dawalibi: 00:06:20

I'll say, I don't think he brings that much to the table.

Paul Dawalibi: 00:06:24

And if anything, I find it a little bit offensive, even

Paul Dawalibi: 00:06:28

right, like, we continue to downplay how hard it is to make

Paul Dawalibi: 00:06:35

a game of virtual world a Metaverse, right? Any any

Paul Dawalibi: 00:06:39

variation or version of the same concept here is incredibly

Paul Dawalibi: 00:06:44

difficult, right? Like incredibly difficult and, and

Paul Dawalibi: 00:06:48

maybe he has the creative chops to make this work. But this is

Paul Dawalibi: 00:06:51

not they're not even building a virtual world here. They're

Paul Dawalibi: 00:06:53

building a blockchain layer, right? Like a, like a really

Paul Dawalibi: 00:06:59

hardcore piece of technology that will underpin a metaverse.

Jeff Cohen: 00:07:05

And then they said something about it's based, it's

Jeff Cohen: 00:07:07

going to be concepts that will be based on the book, which is

Jeff Cohen: 00:07:10

like, you know, not sure how I feel about that. You know, it

Jeff Cohen: 00:07:15

sounds like they're building the game. If nothing else, like you

Jeff Cohen: 00:07:17

have the that the layer and then maybe, you know if they're

Jeff Cohen: 00:07:20

building a what is a Metaverse based on a book like that's

Jeff Cohen: 00:07:24

essentially just a story based game. So like, why not just come

Jeff Cohen: 00:07:27

out and say that's what you're doing? I don't know.

Paul Dawalibi: 00:07:31

Again, it's a little bit weird. And I just

Paul Dawalibi: 00:07:33

think it's a little flippant, that everyone thinks they can

Paul Dawalibi: 00:07:36

build, like their own worlds, their own game their own

Paul Dawalibi: 00:07:40

Metaverse their own. You either need vast resources or really

Paul Dawalibi: 00:07:46

deep gaming talents in my mind, like you need one of the two.

Paul Dawalibi: 00:07:50

Ideally, both but you need definitely need one of the two.

Jeff Cohen: 00:07:53

Would you would you go as far as to say, and maybe

Jeff Cohen: 00:07:56

this isn't? Maybe I don't know, as I'm saying this, if I

Jeff Cohen: 00:07:59

necessarily believe it. Would you be saying would you go as

Jeff Cohen: 00:08:02

far as to say that whoever ends up becoming the metaverse

Jeff Cohen: 00:08:05

probably won't be someone that started out with the explicit

Jeff Cohen: 00:08:08

goal of saying, Hey, we're gonna build the metaverse. Right like

Jeff Cohen: 00:08:12

maybe it'll be someone that builds some layer or just has a

Jeff Cohen: 00:08:16

game right like it could be you know, fortnight which clearly

Jeff Cohen: 00:08:19

never started out by saying we're gonna build the metaverse,

Jeff Cohen: 00:08:21

even Roblox like they didn't use that term until fairly recently.

Jeff Cohen: 00:08:26

Like, do you think that's a fair statement? Or we jumped the

Jeff Cohen: 00:08:28

shark? We're now everyone's trying to create a Metaverse so

Jeff Cohen: 00:08:30

that probably we're a little past that.

Paul Dawalibi: 00:08:34

Inevitably, I mean, we've touched on this

Paul Dawalibi: 00:08:37

before, inevitably, I think it's going to be both right you're

Paul Dawalibi: 00:08:39

going to have the meadows plus Facebook's of the world. And

Paul Dawalibi: 00:08:43

then you know, they're not going to spend $10 billion a year and

Paul Dawalibi: 00:08:48

have nothing to show for it, they're gonna have something but

Paul Dawalibi: 00:08:50

these will be interconnected meta versus that sort of like I

Paul Dawalibi: 00:08:54

said, like the internet of today, you know, all operates

Paul Dawalibi: 00:08:58

together. And there will be ones that were purpose built for this

Paul Dawalibi: 00:09:01

and there were ones they'll be ones that started very

Paul Dawalibi: 00:09:03

differently and are plugging into it like a fortnight like a

Paul Dawalibi: 00:09:06

Roblox like you know any of these others. So it's going to

Paul Dawalibi: 00:09:09

be a mix in my mind. Yeah, if I had my crystal ball here, but

Paul Dawalibi: 00:09:15

this Neil Stevenson, Metaverse or layer or whatever, I'm, I'm

Paul Dawalibi: 00:09:20

pretty bearish on this. Let's put it that way. I'm not I'm not

Paul Dawalibi: 00:09:23

sure I understand where this fits into the whole ecosystem or

Paul Dawalibi: 00:09:26

why it's even needed.

Jeff Cohen: 00:09:28

I almost wonder and now I'm just completely going

Jeff Cohen: 00:09:31

like way off the rails or if it's going to be something like

Jeff Cohen: 00:09:34

so out of like, I'm thinking of a scenario. You know, some

Jeff Cohen: 00:09:37

company is trying to solve a cure blindness. So they come up

Jeff Cohen: 00:09:41

with a contact lens that's really good at augmented

Jeff Cohen: 00:09:44

reality, and then they make it it's so good that all of a

Jeff Cohen: 00:09:47

sudden, it's like wait, this is better than than regular

Jeff Cohen: 00:09:50

eyesight and like, let's live in these, you know, with this

Jeff Cohen: 00:09:52

augmented reality or in this virtual world boom, like they

Jeff Cohen: 00:09:55

become the metaverse. Obviously that's just one crazy example

Jeff Cohen: 00:09:58

but like I I don't know. Yeah,

Paul Dawalibi: 00:10:01

I'm with you up until the point where it's boom

Paul Dawalibi: 00:10:03

they become the metaverse. It's more like, boom, they plug into

Paul Dawalibi: 00:10:06

the metaverse fair, right?

Jeff Cohen: 00:10:09

People just start spent using it more spending

Jeff Cohen: 00:10:11

more time in it. And then it's like, wait a second, we're

Jeff Cohen: 00:10:13

actually spending our whole lives like behind these contact

Jeff Cohen: 00:10:16

lenses. We were actually just in this Metaverse, we didn't

Jeff Cohen: 00:10:20

realize we were but turns out we are

Paul Dawalibi: 00:10:23

gonna get a lot of like, I mean, companies like

Paul Dawalibi: 00:10:26

ours, for example, media content companies that are going to plug

Paul Dawalibi: 00:10:29

into meta versus not, you know, not having started as Metaverse

Paul Dawalibi: 00:10:34

plays, but where you have IP and you have like a little bit of

Paul Dawalibi: 00:10:37

technology, but you have a business that creates content. I

Paul Dawalibi: 00:10:41

mean, all of that will end up plugging in. I think so like I

Paul Dawalibi: 00:10:45

said, there'll be a mishmash it. And then there may be some

Paul Dawalibi: 00:10:47

breakthroughs that realize there are huge Metaverse implications.

Paul Dawalibi: 00:10:52

But I don't think they become the metaverse I think they ended

Paul Dawalibi: 00:10:55

up plugging into it. Let's talk about you know, web three games

Paul Dawalibi: 00:11:04

that actually do exist today. And this article from coin

Paul Dawalibi: 00:11:08

telegraph talking about gala games. So gala games, web three

Paul Dawalibi: 00:11:12

game grid, now accessible for epic game stores 194 million

Paul Dawalibi: 00:11:17

plus players. So gala games, they produce web three games

Paul Dawalibi: 00:11:23

blockchain based games, they're bringing some of their games to

Paul Dawalibi: 00:11:27

the masses on the epic game store. So they you know, they

Paul Dawalibi: 00:11:31

190 4 million plus user number that's the epic game store

Paul Dawalibi: 00:11:36

download number. And so they're They recently launched their

Paul Dawalibi: 00:11:40

gala music platform, they launched a first person shooter,

Paul Dawalibi: 00:11:43

and they their upcoming launch of spider tanks, which they're

Paul Dawalibi: 00:11:46

calling the world's first NFT esport. All of these things are

Paul Dawalibi: 00:11:50

going to be accessible from the epic game store. They also have

Paul Dawalibi: 00:11:54

grit, a ride or die battle rail set in the wild west. And that's

Paul Dawalibi: 00:11:58

going to be the first one that comes to the epic game store. So

Paul Dawalibi: 00:12:02

a a rider die battle rail set in the wild west. It's launching

Paul Dawalibi: 00:12:08

later in 20 to 22 and fans today can wishlist the game which will

Paul Dawalibi: 00:12:13

obviously be free. So you know we talked a little bit I think

Paul Dawalibi: 00:12:17

on a past episode, Jeff of the epic game store, purposely the

Paul Dawalibi: 00:12:22

old saying welcoming blockchain based games, web three games,

Paul Dawalibi: 00:12:26

versus valve steam, which is very openly said we don't want

Paul Dawalibi: 00:12:31

web three games. We don't want blockchain blockchain based

Paul Dawalibi: 00:12:34

games on our platform. Now, it feels like it's becoming more

Paul Dawalibi: 00:12:38

real. What do you think of Gala games putting grit on the epic

Paul Dawalibi: 00:12:41

game store? And you know, will this be a success? What is the

Paul Dawalibi: 00:12:45

crystal ball tell you?

Jeff Cohen: 00:12:47

I think it almost has to be for the space. It's a

Jeff Cohen: 00:12:50

big moment for the space and and for epic, right? Because it's

Jeff Cohen: 00:12:55

one of the first blockchain games kind of coming into the

Jeff Cohen: 00:12:58

mainstream being on a launch or like epic game store like this

Jeff Cohen: 00:13:02

is a big moment. It's very accessible, easily downloadable,

Jeff Cohen: 00:13:06

easy, first time user experience. And also, I don't

Jeff Cohen: 00:13:09

think we can underrate epic has a huge incentive to push this

Jeff Cohen: 00:13:12

right. Like they've made this big narrative around, hey, we're

Jeff Cohen: 00:13:16

gonna be we're welcoming for blockchain games, steam is not

Jeff Cohen: 00:13:19

like this is one of the few flanks that I think maybe the

Jeff Cohen: 00:13:22

epic game store sees that they can sort of maneuver around

Jeff Cohen: 00:13:27

around steam. So I think they're going to be spending a decent

Jeff Cohen: 00:13:29

amount of marketing on it, they're probably going to give

Jeff Cohen: 00:13:31

it a bunch of featuring. So it's a big moment, I think, for the

Jeff Cohen: 00:13:36

web three gaming space. Because if epic does that, and like we

Jeff Cohen: 00:13:39

said, like we saw, there's 200, almost 200 million people who

Jeff Cohen: 00:13:43

have the epic game store, I doubt that's probably not diu or

Jeff Cohen: 00:13:46

MCU. But there, it's a large distribution platform. If epic

Jeff Cohen: 00:13:51

puts all that resources and all that might behind it, and this

Jeff Cohen: 00:13:54

game, these games kind of flop and have 100,000 Ma, you are

Jeff Cohen: 00:13:59

like diu, like we've seen with some of these other platforms

Jeff Cohen: 00:14:02

like sandbox and decentraland. It just kind of falls flat. Like

Jeff Cohen: 00:14:05

what does that say for the space if you have projects that are

Jeff Cohen: 00:14:09

backed by gala games, which is, you know, one of the more

Jeff Cohen: 00:14:12

reputable kind of blockchain gaming studios out there. And

Jeff Cohen: 00:14:16

then with the marketing heft and kind of distribution of epic, if

Jeff Cohen: 00:14:19

that doesn't work, like that's, I think that's a pretty big

Jeff Cohen: 00:14:23

black mark. That's my take at least.

Paul Dawalibi: 00:14:26

It's an interesting take. I see it as a

Paul Dawalibi: 00:14:28

grid in my head, like, there's on the on the x axis you have

Paul Dawalibi: 00:14:35

epic pushes this on their platform in a big way. And Epic

Paul Dawalibi: 00:14:39

doesn't push this on their platform in a big way. Right. So

Paul Dawalibi: 00:14:42

they just put it up there for people to find. And then on the

Paul Dawalibi: 00:14:45

y axis, you have the Gallup grit, this Gallup games, web

Paul Dawalibi: 00:14:50

three game grit is a massive runaway success. And you have

Paul Dawalibi: 00:14:55

it's a you know, middling success slash failure, right,

Paul Dawalibi: 00:14:58

like a few 100,000 players. Your point or 100,000, players,

Paul Dawalibi: 00:15:01

whatever it is. And so like if we go through every step of the

Paul Dawalibi: 00:15:05

four squares, the four quadrants of this grid, if epic doesn't

Paul Dawalibi: 00:15:09

push it, and it's not a success, it's sort of easy for the crypto

Paul Dawalibi: 00:15:15

community to say, well, it's epics fault. They didn't push

Paul Dawalibi: 00:15:19

this, right, the games are good. You know, we didn't get the

Paul Dawalibi: 00:15:23

might of the platform. So I you know, that to me, that's maybe

Paul Dawalibi: 00:15:27

one of the worst scenarios because no one really wins.

Paul Dawalibi: 00:15:30

Like, there's no winner there. Yeah, epic maybe looks bad. The

Paul Dawalibi: 00:15:34

Crypto games have to sort of cover themselves and make

Paul Dawalibi: 00:15:37

excuses. In the scenario where epic doesn't push it, and the

Paul Dawalibi: 00:15:43

game's a runaway hit. I mean, we learn a lot, right? If you're in

Paul Dawalibi: 00:15:48

the game, it's kind of good for everyone. And it proves that

Paul Dawalibi: 00:15:52

there's a market for these games. And that basically, epic

Paul Dawalibi: 00:15:56

was right to put them on their platform, right players. If it's

Paul Dawalibi: 00:15:59

a runaway hit, it means players love it. So that, to me, that's

Paul Dawalibi: 00:16:04

like a win win scenario. If you look at Epic pushing the game

Paul Dawalibi: 00:16:08

big time, and it's a flop. That square is also like a very, it's

Paul Dawalibi: 00:16:15

a very bad square. But it's not telling enough, right? Because

Paul Dawalibi: 00:16:18

if epic pushes it, and the game still flops, it, it's, we know

Paul Dawalibi: 00:16:24

too much to know that that's not that telling. In other words,

Paul Dawalibi: 00:16:27

you can't really conclude that. It's just the game. That sucks.

Paul Dawalibi: 00:16:31

Because epic game store is not that great of a game store,

Paul Dawalibi: 00:16:35

right? Like, if it's not steam, it's just the reality. And most

Paul Dawalibi: 00:16:39

people go there for fortnight. And so we don't know if it's the

Paul Dawalibi: 00:16:43

pushing it that was the problem. Or if it was the game, that was

Paul Dawalibi: 00:16:45

the problem. Yeah. And then the last quadrant is, you know, they

Paul Dawalibi: 00:16:49

pushed it big time. And it's a runaway success. Also not very

Paul Dawalibi: 00:16:53

telling, because, again, we don't know who to attribute the

Paul Dawalibi: 00:16:55

success to is it temporary? Because epic has a ton of

Paul Dawalibi: 00:16:58

distribution? Or is it because the games are inherently good.

Paul Dawalibi: 00:17:02

And so I come back to like, in three of the four scenarios, we

Paul Dawalibi: 00:17:06

basically learn nothing of any value here. We can't draw any

Paul Dawalibi: 00:17:10

real conclusions. And so it's frustrating, right, as people

Paul Dawalibi: 00:17:16

who comment on this, but I, I think deep down, it's too soon.

Paul Dawalibi: 00:17:21

I don't think the games are good enough. And my concern is epic

Paul Dawalibi: 00:17:26

rushing this out, may alienate players from this entire genre,

Paul Dawalibi: 00:17:32

not because the genre is bad, but because the games today are

Paul Dawalibi: 00:17:35

not that good.

Jeff Cohen: 00:17:35

So I guess with with that point, your premise is you

Jeff Cohen: 00:17:41

are saying that had because it's on the epic game store, it is

Jeff Cohen: 00:17:45

likely to bring in non blocked like blockchain enthusiast, it

Jeff Cohen: 00:17:49

is likely to reach more mainstream.

Paul Dawalibi: 00:17:51

Is that a fair? Fair? Absolutely fair. Right.

Jeff Cohen: 00:17:55

I think I just wasn't sure if you if that's

Jeff Cohen: 00:17:57

something you were

Paul Dawalibi: 00:17:59

willing to acknowledge. This happens in

Paul Dawalibi: 00:18:01

traditional sports, too, I think, right? Like I know what

Paul Dawalibi: 00:18:03

happens in hockey, but I'm sure it happens in others where you

Paul Dawalibi: 00:18:05

get a really promising rookie, right? But he's played college,

Paul Dawalibi: 00:18:11

whatever sport is, you know, the last five years with guys who

Paul Dawalibi: 00:18:15

are maybe smaller or not as fast or whatever. And then he gets to

Paul Dawalibi: 00:18:18

the big leagues. And it's clear, they're not ready. They're

Paul Dawalibi: 00:18:22

talented, but they're not ready. Right? And if you put them in

Paul Dawalibi: 00:18:25

too soon, you risk ruining their career, right? Like they end up

Paul Dawalibi: 00:18:28

looking horrible. The they don't perform well. Like you. You

Paul Dawalibi: 00:18:33

there's a I feel this is maybe a too soon moments for blockchain

Paul Dawalibi: 00:18:38

based games.

Jeff Cohen: 00:18:40

That's fair, I guess. Well, if you put your

Jeff Cohen: 00:18:42

crystal ball or your your sort of prognosticator hat on, which

Jeff Cohen: 00:18:47

quadrant Do you think this falls in? Like? Are we talking three

Jeff Cohen: 00:18:50

months net from now? Or I forget when we set the game launches?

Jeff Cohen: 00:18:53

But are we talking in the future like, wow, that was a big moment

Jeff Cohen: 00:18:56

for the industry. Like that was the first game that really maybe

Jeff Cohen: 00:18:59

clicked for the mainstream gaming audience or you think

Jeff Cohen: 00:19:01

this is just a nothing burger of a story, it kind of flops and

Jeff Cohen: 00:19:05

goes away?

Paul Dawalibi: 00:19:07

I think everyone plays it safe is the worst kind

Paul Dawalibi: 00:19:10

of the, you know, the maybe the quadrant that we didn't talk

Paul Dawalibi: 00:19:13

about, but like, I think Epic is going to push it but not it's

Paul Dawalibi: 00:19:16

not going to be front page for the next six weeks. They'll put

Paul Dawalibi: 00:19:19

it up week, maybe they'll let fans you know, wishlisted like

Paul Dawalibi: 00:19:23

they mentioned in the article, and then it'll go away. And I

Paul Dawalibi: 00:19:26

think the game will get, you know, maybe 100,000 players and

Paul Dawalibi: 00:19:31

decline over the next six months and then six months from now, we

Paul Dawalibi: 00:19:35

will never talk about this game. And so I think the end result is

Paul Dawalibi: 00:19:39

sort of bad for both parties, unfortunately. But I think it's

Paul Dawalibi: 00:19:43

because they're doing this too soon. They're like, it has to be

Paul Dawalibi: 00:19:47

I won't say fortnight quality game, but it has to be a game

Paul Dawalibi: 00:19:50

that rivals any of the big the big, you know, titles that epic

Paul Dawalibi: 00:19:56

game store would put up for this to be success.

Jeff Cohen: 00:20:00

Yeah. What's interesting is, you know, when

Jeff Cohen: 00:20:02

you quantify success, you know, you kind of said like, hey,

Jeff Cohen: 00:20:05

it'll be a game, but maybe it'll be popular at first and then six

Jeff Cohen: 00:20:07

months from now, no one will talk about it or play it. Like,

Jeff Cohen: 00:20:10

it's funny how, in regular gaming, like that could be

Jeff Cohen: 00:20:14

viewed as a success, right? Like a game that comes out. Like, I'm

Jeff Cohen: 00:20:18

trying to think of an example like a val Haim, or like,

Jeff Cohen: 00:20:20

there's been. Yeah, like, there's a lot of games that come

Jeff Cohen: 00:20:24

out, have a big shark fin and then sort of like, you know,

Jeff Cohen: 00:20:27

they fizzle out with Blockchain gaming, the thing that I'm

Jeff Cohen: 00:20:30

thinking is like, that model becomes a lot harder because

Jeff Cohen: 00:20:33

people are owning the assets in the game. So like, it's really

Jeff Cohen: 00:20:37

hard to make that that model successful. Like you're always

Jeff Cohen: 00:20:41

going to have players that are angry, if that's the sort of

Jeff Cohen: 00:20:45

curve of enjoyment or curve of like, players.

Paul Dawalibi: 00:20:51

Yeah, if you admit that part of the enjoyment

Paul Dawalibi: 00:20:54

of the game, is the value of the assets you pull from the game,

Paul Dawalibi: 00:20:59

then a declining player base only has a direct impact on the

Paul Dawalibi: 00:21:05

value of your assets, and therefore on the enjoyment of

Paul Dawalibi: 00:21:08

the game

Jeff Cohen: 00:21:09

exists. That's exactly the point. I was trying

Jeff Cohen: 00:21:11

to make it more eloquently.

Paul Dawalibi: 00:21:14

But you have to admit, the first principle,

Paul Dawalibi: 00:21:16

which is part of the enjoyment of these games has to be that

Paul Dawalibi: 00:21:19

you end up owning something.

Jeff Cohen: 00:21:22

Yeah. I think right now, that is the case, right?

Jeff Cohen: 00:21:25

That is the core, you know, owning and earning. We always

Jeff Cohen: 00:21:28

talk about this like that is the core motivation, I think,

Jeff Cohen: 00:21:31

currently in these games. And it almost makes makes it impossible

Jeff Cohen: 00:21:36

for any game to be a long term success, except for like a, you

Jeff Cohen: 00:21:39

know, a fortnight style like, many, many year live SERPs, and

Jeff Cohen: 00:21:43

there's only a few of those that ever have existed. That's what

Jeff Cohen: 00:21:47

worries me a whole space.

Paul Dawalibi: 00:21:49

You can compare it to any life service game,

Paul Dawalibi: 00:21:51

whether it's Wow or apex, right when player bases in those games

Paul Dawalibi: 00:21:55

decline. It doesn't really affect my enjoyment. Unless like

Paul Dawalibi: 00:22:01

the player base absolutely craters right, and there's been

Paul Dawalibi: 00:22:03

no me interact with in the game. But going from 5 million to 2

Paul Dawalibi: 00:22:08

million players in wild, for example, would have basically no

Paul Dawalibi: 00:22:12

impact on anyone's enjoyment of the game. In these in these

Paul Dawalibi: 00:22:16

games, going from 5 million players to 2 million players

Paul Dawalibi: 00:22:19

will have a major impact on the value of the assets, and

Paul Dawalibi: 00:22:23

therefore may affect the enjoyment of everybody. I don't

Paul Dawalibi: 00:22:25

know. Jeff, let's talk I want to do one more epic story here. In

Paul Dawalibi: 00:22:29

fact, I want to end on this last epic story because I think it's

Paul Dawalibi: 00:22:32

definitely relevant. And the headline here is Tim Sweeney

Paul Dawalibi: 00:22:35

says, fortnight token cryptocurrency is a scam. So the

Paul Dawalibi: 00:22:40

crypto company defended itself saying the new token is a fair

Paul Dawalibi: 00:22:43

launch community driven fortnight game fans created

Paul Dawalibi: 00:22:47

cryptocurrency project. So Tim Sweeney came out called this new

Paul Dawalibi: 00:22:53

fortnight token a scam, warned that the company is preparing

Paul Dawalibi: 00:22:57

legal action to shut it down. And the creators of fortnight

Paul Dawalibi: 00:23:01

token are pushback. They say it's fan created. There's no

Paul Dawalibi: 00:23:05

owner or company structure behind it. And so there's this

Paul Dawalibi: 00:23:10

back and forth here. I mean, where do you fall on? This is an

Paul Dawalibi: 00:23:17

interesting one, right? Because that in this world of

Paul Dawalibi: 00:23:19

decentralized assets, making a fortnight token should

Paul Dawalibi: 00:23:25

definitely be allowed, I guess, right? No one should. Ideally,

Paul Dawalibi: 00:23:30

no one should control it. Clearly, Tim Sweeney wants to

Paul Dawalibi: 00:23:33

make sure he controls it, or shuts it down. You know who's in

Paul Dawalibi: 00:23:38

the right, who's in the wrong here? What do you think of this

Paul Dawalibi: 00:23:40

formatting token?

Jeff Cohen: 00:23:41

I feel like the nature of this this podcast

Jeff Cohen: 00:23:43

we're starting to talk about a lot of legal issues you may need

Jeff Cohen: 00:23:46

we may bring Jimmy it's like every episode. It's like, hey,

Jeff Cohen: 00:23:51

is this should this be regulated? Is this legal? But ya

Jeff Cohen: 00:23:55

know, I think it's interesting because Tim Sweeney usually

Jeff Cohen: 00:23:58

seems to saw at least outwardly side on the side of like

Jeff Cohen: 00:24:02

decentralization open you know, famously has, you know, went on

Jeff Cohen: 00:24:07

the offensive against Apple for being a monopolist. So like, he

Jeff Cohen: 00:24:10

seems to always kind of lean that way. However, in this case,

Jeff Cohen: 00:24:16

I think what he's probably trying to do is he knows this

Jeff Cohen: 00:24:19

fortnight crypto currency is likely a pump and dump and will

Jeff Cohen: 00:24:23

almost certainly end at zero and probably wants to make sure that

Jeff Cohen: 00:24:28

he there's not a bunch of stories two months from now

Jeff Cohen: 00:24:31

about kids who bought you know, $1,000 worth of this on their

Jeff Cohen: 00:24:34

parents credit card and then it went to zero because obviously

Jeff Cohen: 00:24:37

that's what's gonna happen here. So I think I think that's why

Jeff Cohen: 00:24:40

he's probably being so you know, out upfront about this and

Jeff Cohen: 00:24:44

getting in front of that because it's probably likely to end in

Jeff Cohen: 00:24:47

tears for many people who buy into this, you know, scam

Jeff Cohen: 00:24:52

currency. So I think that's probably why he's why he's so

Jeff Cohen: 00:24:56

aggressively against it.

Paul Dawalibi: 00:24:59

I mean, I wonder, I really wonder if he's gone

Paul Dawalibi: 00:25:03

under the covers, and actually done some due diligence to

Paul Dawalibi: 00:25:07

figure out if it's a scam or not. Because just calling it a

Paul Dawalibi: 00:25:11

scam because it uses the name of his game is not that to me,

Paul Dawalibi: 00:25:15

that's, this is his ego, right? Because his ego is hurt.

Paul Dawalibi: 00:25:18

Someone's using the name of his game. I mean, he's, he's proven

Paul Dawalibi: 00:25:22

to be maybe the most distracted CEO of all time, maybe the most

Paul Dawalibi: 00:25:25

litigious, or one of the most litigious, or the best at losing

Paul Dawalibi: 00:25:29

legal cases. And, and, you know, I find his attack here to your

Paul Dawalibi: 00:25:35

point. really ironic, right? The man of the people going after

Paul Dawalibi: 00:25:40

the little guy here, right, this fan created cryptocurrency

Paul Dawalibi: 00:25:44

project, instead of embracing it, acquiring it, I don't know,

Paul Dawalibi: 00:25:48

like, it feels like, and maybe he did do his due diligence, and

Paul Dawalibi: 00:25:52

it's absolutely a scam. And then, you know, write on him to

Paul Dawalibi: 00:25:57

try and shut it down. So no one gets hurt. But if it's not, and

Paul Dawalibi: 00:26:01

it's real, and these are real, Fortnite fans behind it. I'm a

Paul Dawalibi: 00:26:06

bit surprised that he hasn't taken the time to say, Okay,

Paul Dawalibi: 00:26:09

what's going on here? And how can we integrate it in what

Paul Dawalibi: 00:26:12

we're doing? And I think it tips the hat of where his head really

Paul Dawalibi: 00:26:18

is that with fortnight, he does not care about fans, user

Paul Dawalibi: 00:26:23

generated content, right? People building stuff on his platform,

Paul Dawalibi: 00:26:27

he has a vision for fortnight, he's gonna build that vision the

Paul Dawalibi: 00:26:31

way he wants it, the way he wants to do it. And everyone

Paul Dawalibi: 00:26:35

else get out of the way sort of thing is the bulldozer model of

Paul Dawalibi: 00:26:38

product development. And rightly or wrongly, I think I would I

Paul Dawalibi: 00:26:44

would bothers me is the hypocrisy of pretending like

Paul Dawalibi: 00:26:46

you're a man of the people and then going attacking the people

Paul Dawalibi: 00:26:50

anytime they want to do something with your game.

Jeff Cohen: 00:26:53

Yeah, I think that's a really good distinction. I

Jeff Cohen: 00:26:55

mean, because I we don't know under the covers whether this

Jeff Cohen: 00:26:58

coin is a scam we're really is just like a grassroots community

Jeff Cohen: 00:27:02

engagement tool. My initial like snap judgment is that in this

Jeff Cohen: 00:27:06

case, he's he's probably right. Probably is someone just looking

Jeff Cohen: 00:27:09

to make a quick buck on a pump and dump off the fortnight name.

Jeff Cohen: 00:27:14

But to your point, it could be a really well thought out project

Jeff Cohen: 00:27:18

that, you know, is a community driven, like grassroots effort

Jeff Cohen: 00:27:21

from from his most passionate fans, which in that case, I

Jeff Cohen: 00:27:25

would, I would say that that's foolish to shut it down. Yeah,

Jeff Cohen: 00:27:30

I'm just

Paul Dawalibi: 00:27:31

I'm consistently disappointed by Tim Sweeney. And

Paul Dawalibi: 00:27:34

then there's a you know, in the back of my mind, I'm going I

Paul Dawalibi: 00:27:39

wonder how great epic could be if there was different

Paul Dawalibi: 00:27:42

leadership they're like, I really think that's a company

Paul Dawalibi: 00:27:45

that is underperforming relative to their potential. And I think

Paul Dawalibi: 00:27:50

it's a bit it's a major leadership problem. And this is

Paul Dawalibi: 00:27:53

just one in another line of sorts of things we can point to

Paul Dawalibi: 00:27:56

where they're just not focused on the right things it seems at

Paul Dawalibi: 00:28:00

all at all right? And then there's all kinds of hypocrisy,

Paul Dawalibi: 00:28:03

right? We were crypto people come to epic game store. But

Paul Dawalibi: 00:28:07

crypto project we're gonna crush you. Right? Like, like none of

Paul Dawalibi: 00:28:15

it feels authentic. None of it feels like sincere. And I wish

Paul Dawalibi: 00:28:22

there was different leadership there. That's that's my take on

Paul Dawalibi: 00:28:24

Epic. That brings us though to the end of this episode, Jeff,

Paul Dawalibi: 00:28:28

as usual, it flies by I just want to tell people not don't

Paul Dawalibi: 00:28:32

just follow the podcast, make sure to go follow Jeff, the

Paul Dawalibi: 00:28:34

juice at Jeff Cohen 23 on Twitter. He always puts good

Paul Dawalibi: 00:28:38

stuff up there. And so I highly recommend doing that. Make sure

Paul Dawalibi: 00:28:41

to share the podcast with a friend. Subscribe to our sister

Paul Dawalibi: 00:28:44

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Paul Dawalibi: 00:28:48

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Paul Dawalibi: 00:28:51

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

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