In this episode, we discuss Neal Stephenson (author of Snow Crash and founder of the term "metaverse") building a new metaverse, Gala Games bringing Grit to the Epic Games Store, Tim Sweeney calling Fortnite's cryptocurrency token a scam, and so much more!

Episode 29 Keywords: Neal Stephenson, metaverse, Gala Games, Grit, Epic Games Store, Tim Sweeney, Fortnite, cryptocurrency token, scams

Welcome to the metaphysics podcast. The

Metaverse and web three are bringing about the biggest

revolution since the internet itself. With your hosts Paul the

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

you the latest Metaverse, business news and insight into

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

From the boardroom to the metaverse. This

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

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

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

official podcast of the metaverse. What we do is we

cover the most pressing, Metaverse, topics and news of

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

suite lens, we dissect, we analyze the business

implications of everything happening in this industry. For

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

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

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

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

episode that you love particularly or that maybe talks

about something that you really agreed or disagreed with. And

leave that five star rating and review it really helps other

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

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

recording from my in laws basement and it is freezing down

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

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

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

All all issues we don't have in the metaverse

no unless we get that what was the thing we

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

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

you in the face and the metaverse or something.

Yeah, it was it was vibrations through your

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

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

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

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

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

Like

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

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

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

of the curve. I think

what I'm thinking is we should be investing in

meat lockers to warehouse human beings who are gonna be plugged

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

investor.

No. Have you ever heard the expression sometimes

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

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

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

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

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

Neil Stevenson, the man who coined the term Metaverse in

1992. So the headline here is Neil Stevenson coined Metaverse

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

number of crypto veterans on a new Metaverse focus baselayer

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

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

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

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

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

pronunciation, his name, but to bring this Metaverse focused

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

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

was a big milestone for the metaverse although the idea had

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

like Microsoft became interested. What also happened

was lots of smaller players became interested to, there are

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

their dreams, build their ideas, realize their creative notions

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

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

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

relatively well known financial backers of the project. Curious

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

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

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

what we're all waiting for?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

initial thoughts. What do you what do you think?

I think I was gonna say so much of the same

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

variation or version of the same concept here is incredibly

difficult, right? Like incredibly difficult and, and

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

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

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

hardcore piece of technology that will underpin a metaverse.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Metaverse their own. You either need vast resources or really

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

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

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

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

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

far as to say that whoever ends up becoming the metaverse

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

that probably we're a little past that.

Inevitably, I mean, we've touched on this

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

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

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

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

these will be interconnected meta versus that sort of like I

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

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

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

differently and are plugging into it like a fortnight like a

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

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

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

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

sure I understand where this fits into the whole ecosystem or

why it's even needed.

I almost wonder and now I'm just completely going

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

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

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

with a contact lens that's really good at augmented

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

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

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

augmented reality or in this virtual world boom, like they

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

but like I I don't know. Yeah,

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

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

the metaverse fair, right?

People just start spent using it more spending

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

actually spending our whole lives like behind these contact

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

realize we were but turns out we are

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

breakthroughs that realize there are huge Metaverse implications.

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

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

that actually do exist today. And this article from coin

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

game grid, now accessible for epic game stores 194 million

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

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

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

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

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

gala music platform, they launched a first person shooter,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

old saying welcoming blockchain based games, web three games,

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

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

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

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

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

crystal ball tell you?

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

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

one of the first blockchain games kind of coming into the

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

epic game store sees that they can sort of maneuver around

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

reputable kind of blockchain gaming studios out there. And

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

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

black mark. That's my take at least.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

one of the worst scenarios because no one really wins.

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

Crypto games have to sort of cover themselves and make

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

not that good.

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

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

likely to bring in non blocked like blockchain enthusiast, it

is likely to reach more mainstream.

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

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

something you were

willing to acknowledge. This happens in

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

based games.

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

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

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

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

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

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

clicked for the mainstream gaming audience or you think

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

goes away?

I think everyone plays it safe is the worst kind

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

game store would put up for this to be success.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

thinking is like, that model becomes a lot harder because

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

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

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

curve of enjoyment or curve of like, players.

Yeah, if you admit that part of the enjoyment

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

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

value of your assets, and therefore on the enjoyment of

the game

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

to make it more eloquently.

But you have to admit, the first principle,

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

you end up owning something.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

worries me a whole space.

You can compare it to any life service game,

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

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

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

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

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

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

games, going from 5 million players to 2 million players

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

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

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

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

definitely relevant. And the headline here is Tim Sweeney

says, fortnight token cryptocurrency is a scam. So the

crypto company defended itself saying the new token is a fair

launch community driven fortnight game fans created

cryptocurrency project. So Tim Sweeney came out called this new

fortnight token a scam, warned that the company is preparing

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

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

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

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

interesting one, right? Because that in this world of

decentralized assets, making a fortnight token should

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

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

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

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

formatting token?

I feel like the nature of this this podcast

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

fortnight crypto currency is likely a pump and dump and will

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

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

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

parents credit card and then it went to zero because obviously

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

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

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

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

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

aggressively against it.

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

under the covers, and actually done some due diligence to

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

the little guy here, right, this fan created cryptocurrency

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

would bothers me is the hypocrisy of pretending like

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

anytime they want to do something with your game.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I'm just

I'm consistently disappointed by Tim Sweeney. And

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

wonder how great epic could be if there was different

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

that is underperforming relative to their potential. And I think

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

podcast met a woman and business of esports if you don't already,

but we really appreciate you guys tuning in every week. Don't

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

Thanks for joining us here on meta business. Make sure

to subscribe to this podcast everywhere you get your

podcasts, leave a five star review and tell your friends,

family and colleagues all about us. Also, make sure to follow

metta TV on all socials to get more of the best Metaverse

content anywhere. Tune in every week for another episode of meta