Special episode alert! Joining me this week are my first male guests, Max and Jack Wink. Max and Jack are Web3 game developers who are building a special mechanism to root out toxicity in gaming by rewarding positive behavior and establishing role models. Max and Jack give me a primer of what Web3 means and how it should be a "boring transition" into Web3 experiences, we then discuss the game they're building, and we round out with how the game development process can change to better serve everyone.

Welcome to the meta woman podcast we address the

issues, opportunities and challenges facing women in the

development of the metaverse the biggest revolution since the

internet itself. Every week, we bring you conversations with top

female talent and business executives operating in the

gaming and crypto industries. Here's your host Lindsey, the

boss pass, the metal woman podcast starts now.

Hello, and welcome to the metal woman podcast part

of the holodeck media Podcast Network. I'm your host, Lindsay

The Boss Boss, from struggle to success recovering it all. To

our returning listeners. Thank you so much for supporting the

show. And for our new listeners. Welcome, I hope you enjoy

joining me this week, our max and Jack wait from lunchbox

entertainment. longtime listeners may recognize that

Jack and Max are our first mail. Yep. And also take a bet for how

fast I say Jackson Mac or combine your names. I just know

that's going to happen early on. And the goal of met a woman is

not only to highlight what so many of the awesome women that

I've had on are doing in this space, but also to highlight

work that's relevant or building a more inclusive space for

everyone. And we want the future of gaming to to be better and

look better than it might be today. And so I want to bring on

people who are committed to that as Mac than Jack are so excited

to share with you all what they do and get into some of the

issues that they're taking on Mac than Jack, Mac and Jack.

Thanks, Mr. Welcome to the show. It's

not your fault. Thank you. Glad to be here.

Yeah, it's great. Great to have you to start I

would love for you to introduce yourself and give the audience a

bit of background about you and your story and what you do.

Sure, I guess I can go first, my backgrounds actually

been in gaming pretty much my whole career. But mostly on the

content side. It was started at working at a discovery

subsidiary called rabbit three. At the time revision three, was

a video producer there for quite some time and worked with Adam

Sessler, who is came from g4, then made my way over to twitch,

where that's when I learned about, you know, Internet

communities and how communities form around content creators.

And then were to the management company that repped those, those

streamers, those gamers on on Twitch, and then decided that I

should join jack in in making a video game for the first time.

Yeah, and I come from more of a crypto background, early

investor in theory, I'm big in those guys. Especially some of

the stuff that's going on with like consensus spokes, that type

of thing. And then also big gamer Max grew up with games,

playing a lot of different competitive ones, a lot of the

different like, my communities that existed. So it kind of

always made a lot of sense, when crypto got introduced to more of

the mainstream that like, Okay, this is definitely gonna be

applicable to gaming. And it was until about this last year we're

like, or it's it's in a pretty good stage where it could really

create like a seamless experience for new players and

be really better for gamers generally.

Yeah, so I want to just start in digging with that,

because I know that you all are working a lot on web three,

aiming in forms for web three. So that's a term that's gotten

thrown around a lot in the past the past couple of years or so

there's a lot of interest in it. But there's also a lot of, you

know, it's early people don't know exactly what that means

what it is. And so can you all talk about what free gaming

means to you? What is it? How do you think about it? And how are

you incorporating it in?

So in your game, a really good way of understanding

what three is kind of understand web two first, right? So you

know, you can even look at web one, which is kind of a giant

Wikipedia 1991 2004 a situation where pretty much everyone just

looking at web browsers, you know, different web pages that

people were making themselves. And it was pretty much all just

consumer, right? Then you kind of had this phase of web two

where you had like flash and you know, JavaScript come out. And

that really created a lot of different interactivity for

different people in the internet generally, that's kind of like

what we think of it now. Right? We're still in that web two

phase. And really in like a gaming context, I think that's

really important where you then have situations where, you know,

Liga, legends, Flash games, all that kind of different stuff of

our now players interacting with games online. And basically

having a circumstance where, what kind of content they're

paying for. I'm really like with web three, in general, it's all

about giving more ownership over to everyone, ownership over all

uses of the internet. And when web three really comes around,

it's usually about how can we give players more ownership over

their digital goods over there. Different items that they're

purchasing as well as receiving from being really committed to a

community or a game

can you go on a little bit about why you chose

to develop a web application?

So pretty much for me, at least, I was a big gamer in

like, CS GO Dota, two, evenly a League of Legends. And I think,

you know, being Maxim to this crazy experience where we both

are playing Cisco once and you know, you get these boxes that

you can unlock to get skins, and Cisco. And one of the really,

really rare skins to unlock was a butterfly knife, right. And

butterfly knives are cool, because when you play, you can

spin them around and look at them. And everyone's always

like, Oh, wow, where'd you get that night, so awesome. And in

like the course of two hours, both me and Max got one of these

butterfly knives, which is just absurd rarity, like, you know,

the random chance of that is just nuts. We're all really

excited. It was super cool. And it was worth a lot of money.

Like, after the next couple of days, we've like looked it up on

Steam Marketplace, and it was like worth 200 or $300. But it

was kind of strange, because it was worth that much. But we

couldn't actually take any of that money out if even if we did

sell it to like, have it for ourselves. Or you know, even if

we were to trade it, we'd have to like pay a lot of fees to

steam. Which was like not necessarily a problem for us.

But it was kind of this weird, strange feeling where it's like

you have this community that was really like valuing something

that we had, that felt really cool. But it was very controlled

and was very, like, I guess quote, unquote, centralized. You

could think of it as where it's like this game studio really

kind of controlling something that we felt like, was something

that we had a lot of emotional attachment to that the community

felt like it valued a lot. So that was like a big inspiring

moment for like, looking back and being like, Oh, wow, like

what if we actually had players where they had ownership of the

different digital goods that they think are really important

for them as gamers?

Okay, so it sounds like for you that cutting out

kind of the middlemen in the game to play a relationship was

a really important aspect of blockchain technology of Weber

definitely of crypto.

But I think it goes even further, right. So I would

say like once a player able to not have such a centralized

authority, declaring what's valuable and what's not, right.

So once you're giving over a little more control over to the

player, a little more ownership to them, then you actually can

start creating systems that are incentivizing different

behaviors and valuing different parts of how players interact

with games on a larger scale. Right. So I think that's what's

really excited about what we're trying to do is once you kind of

allow players to take different, like maybe digital content that

a game is giving them, and they're able to transact it with

other people and find value it in different marketplaces, then

you can actually start valuing things like players skill and

even leaders community behavior and commitment to contributing

to that community. So that's really was like a huge reason

why we got inspired to make our game Sirocco, which is how can

we look at cryptocurrency in a way that we can value players

avamar their skill level, the quality of either playing or

game, as well as like how they're contributing to it.

I absolutely want to get into kind of the the very

unique mechanisms you all are putting into your game. But I

also just want to make sure that there's an understanding of how

this, this how the entire online marketplace kind of changes,

because what it sounding like to me is not only are you cutting

out the middleman as in players and people who play the game,

and then own the rewards or skills or behaviors or whatever

that reward might be, but also that that community is

determining what those rewards are. So you're kind of changing

the economies in a sense in these games from I don't know, I

a one sided interaction to a two is the best way I can I can

think about it is before it was one sided it was it was games,

determining what was valuable, and then going through game

mechanisms to sell that. And now not only are players allowed to

determine what's valuable, but they're also able to create

their own mechanisms to buy, sell and trade those those goods

or behaviors worth value.

Oh, absolutely. No, I think that's 100% what it's

about I'm like, really? You know, it's kind of sad because

there's a lot of negativity on web three. Right now,

particularly because, you know, there's going to talk about this

later. But there's a lot of issues with scams and NF T's and

all that kind of dynamic that's going on in the world right now.

But really, if you look at what web two gaming is right now,

which is kind of the free to play business model is it's it's

very exploitative. And it's actually, you can kind of think

of it, I almost personally think of it as it's, it's, it feels

even a little bit dirtier than what's going on in NF T's. Now,

not all games are like this. But if you look at a lot of like how

mobile games look at getting players to make purchasable

content, right purchase digital items, it's really trying to

exploit people's sociology to get them ultimately, just to

purchase as many different digital goods as possible. But

the player never has any of those introverts who have no

ownership of it. They have not a lot of agency over how they can

use those things. So yeah, it I think, for what three, really

what we're looking at is like, how can we empower players to

really have more agency over how they're relating to games as a

whole? You know, I think the dream ultimately is like,

players feel like they have more ownership over their time, their

attention, and every game that they're playing. So it's not

just one particular thing. But it's more of an equitable

relationship between the two.

That makes sense. And as someone who previously

worked in tech policy, I can tell you that the loot box less

slot machine style games are definitely some of the most of

interest to regulators at the moment. So there might be some

dis incentivization there to also move away from that from a

development perspective, or hopefully there will be I'm Max,

I want to ask you a little bit about this, because you are

someone who has worked on kind of the partnership side, the

community building side. So how do you and and Jack is over this

a lot. But how do you perceive this? Having changing kind of

the way we think about gaming? Like how does this fit into the

idea of the metaverse? How do you think companies and players

themselves will, will adapt and progress as we move more into

web freestyle gameplay?

Yeah, I think it's actually gonna have a pretty

profound impact that we really won't probably see, you know,

really come to fruition for quite a few years. I just kind

of like on a high level, we kind of talked about like the

transition between web two to web three. One of the things

that web three really brings to the internet isn't ability to

monetize things built on the internet without advertising.

You know, like, the big problem of web two is like, how do you

how do we monetize followers and people using these websites,

whatever you can put a paywall up. But most people don't like

that it doesn't work really well. So like How does anyone

make money? And advertising was kind of the not the ideal

solution that we've kind of just grown used to over time. Web

three makes it possible that you can actually monetize

experiences. And you know, what will eventually be the

metaverse. Without advertising, that will probably always be

advertising for sure. But it won't be the sole way or method

that a platform makes money. So I think that's a really big

deal. I think that actually, you know, to Jack's point really

empowers the community in a significant way. But I think it

also means that the the metaverse is a something that is

more complicated than just one company making this massive

platform where everyone exists and kind of like the 3d world. I

think that it's I think that's actually less likely to be the

future we see because of Technology Prize.

Gotcha. Can you expand a little bit of how you

see companies monetizing experiences, what's that look

like? Yeah, I

think it's, it's going to be really interesting. I

think it's not clear like what model will be the dominant one,

you know, I'd say that like axes infinity is a model for a

metaverse. You know, I think it is really strong argument that

it already has its own metaverse. I think the the

metadata of it is not just a the 3d world that I think a lot of

Facebook and data kind of, you know, you know, after I sold the

world and so they're, they're the monetization structures that

are, you know, similar like any name economy and the economy,

you know, takes fees, all transactions and the players get

to make money in some ways. But I could also see it being

something we may be way more traditional and you know, and

you know, more in your life. where, you know, you're just

buying products. And that's just a form. And then and, you know,

buy the things you're interested in. And that's about it. And you

don't have to worry about the description or or advertising.

So the trains or the fees on Oh, my gosh, I just

totally lost the word. But the Oh, transaction fees, there we

go. transaction fees are something though that, Jack,

you've already mentioned as kind of a downside to what web two is

doing. I'm just Yeah, I'm just trying to understand kind of

what the, what the difference will be in terms of protecting

people who are playing? Yeah, similar monetization structures

that leaked?

Yeah, so I guess that's a really good point, I think the

the, what the Yes, percent, it'll be a huge difference, then

from maybe their apple and seeing a lot of 30% each

transaction that is likely to I think bra dramatically closer to

like, single digit percentages, because I think what's gonna

happen, my personal story, completely wrong here, that

everyone has a very, very high volume of transactions, because

it will be just fine, you know, down just a little game, I think

the transaction will be at a very, very deep every, every

time you interact, or Asian products, I think there'll be a

lot of fraud at that point, 5011 range, and, and really all, you

know, you know, the network level.

And I think the larger issue is, studios right now that we're

running into is that they have these downloadable content that

they're selling to players, and then players are buying it. And

then if a player wants to maybe in a certain case, they have a

skin they want to trade it is taking another 30% off of off of

that. And then you even have situations like Roblox where

players are actually making games themselves, and then you

have the company taking 80% or more. And that's kind of I

think, the unacceptable relationship, it's not that you

shouldn't be able to support the company that's creating the

product. And, you know, games in the future should always be

valued, right. They should be bringing in resources from

players when they're building things on those platforms. But

at the same time, how can we have platforms feel mean players

feel like they have their data, their time, their commitment to

a game is being valued as well. And so it's really about

creating a more equitable relationship.

Okay, that makes more sense. There's almost I

mean, I hesitate to use this exact framing, but it's almost

like a tax rather than a percentage cut. Like, it's the

way I see robots and other platforms is almost like they're

taking ownership. Yeah, this is I guess, exactly what you're

saying they're taking somewhat ownership of your digital goods

and your digital property, whereas this is more so a, I

don't know, sort of, yes, it's a tax,

I think, exactly. I think that's the right way of

thinking about it. And then the thing that I think Jack just

brought up that's really important is that it's not all

going to be, you know, money last, because I think the future

is where you're actually rewarded and compensated for

your own contribution to the platform or to the content

that's being made, you know, platforms like Twitch, you know,

they, they have to pay streamers, you know, money for,

for running ads, they have to give them a cut of the

subscriptions, because if they, if they don't, the streamers

won't be there making content. But I think there's going to be

even a more equitable model where the content creators are

actually maybe getting the majority of the of that, of that

revenue of the sum of those fees. And the platform itself

actually takes the minority I could definitely see that being

the ones

that makes a lot of sense. But the other thing

about this is that definitely incentivizes the growth of

really large platforms then because if you're talking about

minor fees, then you you do have to accrue a lot of them in order

to be profitable and to continue. I don't know making

money. So one of the I mean, everything that's been happening

in January the massive amounts of mergers and we're seeing a

little bit more concentration in in studios, companies, we're

seeing companies get bigger, that's not necessarily a bad

thing at all. Um, but when you're thinking about this are

are you envisioning a future where there's a lot of larger

companies collecting? Smaller percentages? Are you thinking of

a lot of smaller companies? I think how would those smaller

companies survive? So

just to start, like, especially with games, I think

it's really important that you have content that players can

purchase that they think is valuable, that supports the game

studio. And that doesn't just have to be high volume, where

you want it to be high volume. And something like you have

these kind of fees associated with it, that are more

equitable, is when you have players transacting content that

they value themselves, whether that's like a skin that the

community creates, or even a skin that a game studio sells to

a player, that should be more of an equitable transaction for the

player to another player, I think that's the big

distinguishing factor is that you like there has to be ways

for small companies to make money and players want that,

right. That's how we that's we look at like crowdfunding. And

what was amazing about Kickstarter in the early teens,

right, is a lot of players want to fund the projects that they

think are really exciting, and the games that they really love.

So it's like that shouldn't go away. We just want to have a

better system in place, or when they're valuing each other's

content and the content that they're creating a community.

Okay, that makes a lot more sense. So yeah, that's

exactly how small businesses would survive is by selling

their goods to people for Yeah, and not having an enormous cut

taken out of it. Okay, yeah, that makes sense. Okay, well, we

have discussed the economies of web three at length, but what I

really, really wanted to bring you all on for was to talk about

the mechanism that we talked about when I first met you all.

So this is, this is the big thing that drew me and that that

made me want to bring you on this podcast was, you all talked

a lot about incentivizing good behavior as a way to kind of

root out toxicity from the jump. And so I just would love to hear

that the whole spiel again, because I think that's this is

really cool, it's a really great thing to share. So tell me about

that mechanism that you've built within your game, or that you're

working on.

So we're really excited about not only just what happens

with transacting, you know, different community graded

skins, and things like that, which we think web three will

empower really well. But there's also this other element where

once you have communities that are able to value each other's

goods, how can we as a game studio, then promote good

behavior in our community, with some of those different

currencies that we're creating, right. So in our game, we

essentially have these rewards that you get for both being a

really good player, but also for being a really well ranked and

just generally a positive contributor to the community. So

let's say after a match in our game, you're ranked for being

helpful for teaching new players, or just for not being

toxic, those players will actually increase their, quote

unquote, honor rating in our game, and get more rewards for

it. So you know, in our whole system, not only do you just

have to be a skilled player, to get the best rewards, you also

have to be a positive member of your community. And someone who

teaches young new players how to play, as well as maybe

contributes well to the forums or the discourse outside of it.

All these things contribute to how us as a game studio values

them in our community.

And to add to that, the, what we've really observed is that

just banning people, or, or removing ways for people to

communicate is not a great solution to having a better

richer community, you throw a lot of good out with that. When

you do those things. Obviously, there's some behavior that you

want to get rid of and removed. And banning will always be a

thing that exists but adding a positive incentive for person,

for anyone, any player to be a little bit kinder, or really

meaningfully helpful to other players. And there's a real

upside to treating people well around you. We think it'd be a

really great and powerful incentive, but it still won't

solve all the problems are still going to have some toxicity. And

one of the things that I observed when I was at Twitch,

because this has always been a huge problem. We've been really,

really making sure that our chat on their platform is as fun and

attractive as possible. And one of the things that I learned

watching communities on Twitch was that a role model is

critical to having a really healthy community, a positive

community. And so, if you have the positive incentive that

encourages more people to be Do a role model for the rest of the

community, and to show that this behavior is the one that's

rewarded. This is the behavior that we want to see here in this

community that does more than any type of banning or threats

against the community to actually do this be positive and

having a good time and enjoy the conversation. And so, though

we're talking about incentives, the problem is more complicated.

There's just I think the solution is really kind of evil.

And usually the incentives really worthwhile. But it's

really it will always come down to this evening working with

community members.

There's two things that I want to just point out

again, for everyone who's listening. The first is that I

think it's really good that you're offering reward for

helping new players, I am someone who is not into hardcore

gaming. But one of the biggest reasons why is because I'm

terrified to start that that barrier to entry can be really

high, especially if you don't grow up with it. And I did not

grow up with gaming in my household. And as an adult, and

even as a teenager, I was not, I never felt competent enough to

pick up a controller at a friend's house and give it a go.

So I think that that is a huge kind of barrier to entry that

you're directly addressing. The second thing is I like the

approach that you take the banning, because I also think

that the more you ban people, the further corners and the

further dark places you're forcing them into. So allowing

people the space to learn and grow and not just automatically

assuming that everyone who does something that's poor behavior

is a bad person. Is that good? I mean, I think that could be a

lesson way outside of the gaming community. But that's, that's

it? Yeah, I

mean, it's really good way. League of Legends or Dota,

or, which is the same genre for us, it's the biggest problem new

players have is just an incredible amount of knowledge

that they have to accumulate in a relatively short amount of

time just to play on the same level as the opponents are going

to be up against, right? That's kind of the bane of all

competitive games at its core. So really, what the whole system

we're trying to design is, how do we deal with this core

problem of new players, having an easier time of dealing with

that cognitive load that just so great, and leads to a lot of

negative behavior, because no one wants to have someone on

their team that doesn't know what they're doing? Right?

Everyone wants the player who's able to play the best and able

to help them win the game. But really, we really want to look

at it as like, how can we make those new players valuable to

all players? Right? So that there's an opportunity, or even

an experienced player to teach someone and to be rewarded for

that? Because that's something us as a company value.

Yeah. Yeah, I really do just think that that's

a revolutionary approach. I mean, I, I live with, I live

with a gamer, and I've seen him quit several times when he, he's

working with really young people, or really inexperienced

people just giving up on it super quick, and not thinking

that time. And part of it is understandable, right? Like you

want to log on and you want to play. It's like, you know, I

play real, I play a lot of basketball, and it's hard

playing with seven year olds. It's sort of similar in that

regard. But it's also in your right, it can be totally

rewarding and valuable to actually take time out of your

day to do that for someone else, and then your only may be

better. So I think that's a really mean, I'm basically

repeating everything you said. But I think that that's a

really, really revolutionary approach to the way that a lot

of things are done. Yeah. And that's

just really like that, is that you give players

options, right? So whether your partner is someone who, okay,

maybe he only wants to play as competitive players, and that's

fine, we can give them the option to do that. But maybe if

they're more open to playing with new players, or even in the

case of like women who deal with a disproportionate amount of

harassment and toxicity when they're gaming, like maybe we

could have a pool for players that are really prioritizing,

having a positive environment for them to learn and or for

them to play. And so I think that's a huge important part.

It's like how do we create spaces for people that are

looking for certain experiences?

Well, that is one benefit to the approach that

you're taking is that you're able to differentiate those

people within exactly experience and actually provide them with

what they want. Which I think the whole I mean, the whole here

on the whole, it seems like what you all are doing is trying

really hard to listen to audience feedback. Without

letting this is the problem with game development, right? There's

always a lot of audience feedback. Nobody ever knows

really what to do with it because audience, audience, the

audience is not always the game developer either. So it can be

hard to give everyone exactly what they want. But I feel like

what you're doing is breaking it down into smaller chunks, and

then allowing people to kind of choose their own experience and

saying, If this isn't what you want, try over here. And if if

someone can't find exactly what they want on your platform,

that's, that's, you know, you're going to have those people. But

on the whole, you're allowing everyone to have a more

differentiated experience than just one simple, straightforward

game.

Yeah, absolutely. And I'd say in addition to that,

it's really important that we make some meaningful progress in

this direction out of the gate, because older forms quickly and

bold, all norms around the game in the space are going to

perform relatively quickly. It'll be really more normal or

positive ones. With mobile games that come out, you know, if you

look at the community around, versus the media around there,

they're worlds apart. But you could argue either almost same

day, or rock competitors out there. Until like, why, how is

that possible? Why are those nice cultures? And I think it

really comes down to like the norms of communication. And then

how to sample? Or are eating, eating being with your team?

This is the law, female gamers playing. Counter Strike.

Yeah, getting into that. Getting into that deeper.

How do you think that the environment in CS GO? We'll

limit it eventually. I mean, CS GO has been around for a long

time, it does have an absolutely thriving scene. So I'm not

trying to suggest that one day CS GO is going to disappear,

because there's toxic communication on the platform.

But what are the downsides to it teams that have been around a

while that have this as a root problem? Versus

ultimately, yeah, I mean, ultimately, I think

they're limiting their own future growth. The number of

people that they can potentially attract to play their game is

hugely diminished. If you're, if the community folder on your

game is not appealing to an entire vendor. Like that's a

that's a huge problem. And I think it's something that, you

know, I've seen a lot of, you know, game developers say they

really care about, and I believe that I really give them the

benefit of the doubt. But they do want to limit pain, I think

it is very difficult. And when we have a culture, you know, the

former pain for very long time, maybe they didn't know what

mattered, and until recently, it's really hard to change it.

It's very becomes very entrenched.

Do you all feel as if this is a function of web two

versus web three gaming? Or do you think that web two can

adapt? And is it possible to incorporate some of the elements

that you're working on incorporating to build

communities in a different way? Or do you really see this more

as a web three is unique you're in in our ability to go this

far? It's obviously something because

we've seen it. It's a tree where I would say as a

great example, you've seen it Final Fantasy already, where

it's really positive, very worried example, like streaming

Final Fantasy team. Very well, no. But I think there's

different really well, that is because I think the difference

is that the value this is the game the game push the metrics

of the game, also, but three correction tools, I think

whatever you find that is from the ground up, maybe more

deliberately hoping that that's the way the ground up. And

I think one thing that you see, that's the way and the problem

with online gaming, to anything, any game deals with this to a

certain degree, but competitive games struggle with it the most.

And the problem, I think, for a lot of web two games is that a

lot of their monetization strategy, a lot of the systems

they have in place are kind of structured around this one, one

to one relationship with a player where the player is

unable to value you know, their own contributions and different

aspects of like, their skill and, and different currencies

that they're accumulating in game, right? There's just not

that structure in place. So I think web two games could do it.

It would just take a lot of rebuilding and rethinking our

spelling,

so yeah, go ahead. Okay, Okay, I just wanted to

make sure that I got that. So I just want to put a fine point on

this. But what what you're saying is that there's a better

opportunity to bake Inclusion, Diversity Equity in from day one

on web three, because there's more of a two way marketplace

than it is to adapt those tools into into current web to game,

I think there's there are some things definitely have

at their disposal. Like, you could look at different ways of

using skins in order to reward players, I think those things

could fit in web to the promises, what really gives you

this ability to, I think incentivize good behavior, is

having that gradient of positivity, or, you know, you

know, that ranking system where you can kind of show, like what

level players at and for that player to feel like they have a

direct way of seeing that value that they're contributing.

Right. So I just think that takes a lot of work. And, and

what's so exciting about cryptocurrency is that you can

really implement that pretty easily, it's much easier than

just trying to have a giant centralized server that you're,

you know, creating, creating this new kind of profile system

for players on.

Okay, okay, that makes more sense. Oh, my gosh,

this has been so interesting. Okay, so I want to broaden the

scope a little bit, um, with crypto who have three, all these

other things. And you brought it up earlier, Jack, that NF T's

have been a big part of this, and a lot of what we've been

talking about with trading digital assets, that obviously,

is essentially what it is, you know, singular tokens that are

of value in some way. So there's been a lot of backlash to a lot

of these concepts. And you all, as web developers are, have this

risk of imposing similar backlash on yourself, just

because there's been a lot of negativity in Internet

communities about this kind of development. And I some of it

maybe rightfully, put out there just there's been a lot of crazy

stories, there's been a lot of scam stories. I think that

there's a lot that also gets overlooked because it's not as

exciting and scandalous to cover in the news. But how are you all

thinking about your messaging around this what the current

environment looks like? or NF T's for web three? Just what are

you doing to try to build your own community that feels safe

and comfortable with what you're doing? I'll jump in. Not

everyone at once, please.

Yeah, I mean, I think we're, there's a lot of this

basic tools that we want to be building into our game that

protect people as much as possible so that they're not

victims to scams in the general like space and ecosystem. I

think, you know, in general, in games, there are a lot of scams,

I would say that I myself be been a victim of numerous scams

and video games more more, or maybe the older ones like Diablo

two where someone told me they could duplicate my item. And

then they took it from me they stole it. So I think there's a

bit of a This has always existed in video games. But now we're

all hearing about it, because it's now something that can

happen at a larger scale. And it's far more visible. But that

doesn't necessarily, I see no way excuses it, I just think

that's a bit of a factor at play. And in terms of like

convincing, like cameras that this is maybe actually good for

them and the games they play, it's going to be tough, because

there's been so many instances where game publishers and

developers have really taken advantage of gamers and their

passion for a game and either put up massive paywalls for

content, or microtransactions that are very predatory. So

they're, they're concerned, the fear, and the backlash is very

warranted. So I completely sympathize. Like I'm one of

those gamers who is also not a fan of those predatory, you

know, practices. And I think what I hope at least that web

three has to offer it because there's always going to be a

dark side to it. There's always going to be NF T's that are

scams, there are going to be people that are using NF t's

just to capitalize on the hype, and just trying to extract more

money from people. But there's also a version where, you know,

like we've talked about already, where the player gets to really

have ownership over the things that they're buying. It's

totally true. One of the critiques is like, Well, if the

game goes to down, then that item is still doesn't have

value. That's absolutely true. It doesn't it's not a perfect

solve. It's not like you can take your skin and stick it into

another game, the other developer has to allow that to

happen. But at least that when we make our game, we can create

skins, that people can go sell. Just like the story Jack told

about the the skin, the NF, the the knife we got from Cisco, we

were only able to sell that, which is really cool. But we're

only able to do that because there's an entire marketplace

that's already built. And we're you know, in a walled garden,

you could say, but it was basically a good thing that

there was a marketplace. But for us, we can't build that whole

marketplace on our own. But they do exist out there. And so I

think that's the it's more of the freedom of choice that NF

T's have to offer people it's not, you know, I think there is

too much hype around it, there is too much over emphasis of

like, this is the new cool thing, when it's actually just a

kind of boring addition of technology, that just gives you

more choice, which is actually a really incredible thing. But the

technology itself isn't really anything that don't you get

excited over, it's when they get the skin that they can then take

to another platform to trade to sell or to buy. That's that's

when it's exciting. It's because that's, you know, expanding your

experience of the game.

Yeah, I think that's a, it's such a great point that it's,

it's really a tool for games going forward. And it basically

is just making what already exists with downloadable

content. More useful for both the developers and the player,

right? What's really cool about us as developers too, is we can

make these skins if they're NF T's have data associated with

them. So they can track different stats, they can change

if they have, you know, certain stats associated with them

unlocked. You know, there's a lot of really cool options for

us developers, once we make them. So it's less so much about

just having the idea of NF T's and selling them somehow makes

your game good. That's not what it is at all. And I think part

of the issue so much is that a lot of the critiques you hear

about NF T's are good ones, right? But to me, they're less

about NF T's or crypto itself. And they're more about like

culture, or even like how capitalism wants to value

certain things, right? Like, art is such a weird circumstance to

value, right? Like, this is a classic issue that we've dealt

with as a society for hundreds of years, right? Like how can

Picasso is put a line on a piece of page and sell for millions of

dollars, right? It's kind of like Pokemon cards. Let's look

at like chars art selling for hundreds of 1000s of dollars.

Right? So I think those things are always going to exist and

and be a question that we're asking ourselves, but I don't

think NF T's are the issue. It's, it's how we relate to

them?

Yeah, I think that's a extremely fair

characterization. There has been a lot of hype and a lot of

negative stories that doesn't Yeah, I actually like the

qualifier that the underlying tech is fairly boring. I think

that that's a really actually good way of thinking about it.

Because you don't really have to understand the centralization

versus decentralization in in the web space and in

connectivity and networks to under to just log on to a game

and play it and realize that that's a different a completely

different experience than the one we've had. And I don't think

anyone, when when one turned into web two, I don't think a

lot of people jumped up and said, Oh, now we're in what do

um, or at least, they have not lasted the test of time. So I

don't think I mean, I certainly didn't know that when one or web

two existed before web three started becoming a term that

everyone threw around. So I like this idea of a more boring

transition. I think that that the almost, it's a good way of

looking at it because the average consumer doesn't need to

know, the underlying tech and all of the the technology that

it's built upon in order to just log on it, joy it the same way

that we have so far.

Yep, I wish it was more boring than it is. But here we

are. Yeah, exactly. It's all Twitter's fault.

I say that as someone who loves Twitter, by

the way, that's totally qualified to critique it. Um,

okay, so I do one last segment at the end of the show. But

before we get into that, I want to do a quick summary of what we

talked about. So we started with a long or not long, but we

started with a good history and a good understanding of what web

three actually means. So web one static pages to web two, more

flash and interactivity to web three, which is with its

decentralized platform allows ownership for you users all over

the internet, and gives people better ownership their digital

goods also means a two sided marketplace. So players are able

to own their own items and decide what is valuable when

trading those items. When it comes to companies moving on to

more web platforms, we talked about how there's going to be a

different monetization structure, transaction fees will

drop. So companies, there'll be more b2b, b2c, and C to C

transactions, what I really got out of that is that it's

actually a chance for all kinds of different transactions to

take place. Rather than logging on to a platform and having to

go through that platforms. transaction system, which can be

quite I don't know if predatory is the right word, but quite

quite harsh, I suppose is a better way of thinking on its

users. And so companies will be able to make money all kinds of

different ways, whether it's a small company directly taking

ownership and selling goods, or a large company collecting a

small digital tax or kind of sales tax on the sale of a great

net of goods, or transactions. And we talked a lot about thing

that I was most excited to talk about, which was the way that

you are developing your game to reward good behavior both. And

to kind of address some of the root problems that we see in

gaming, one being the entry of new players, and that huge

barrier to entry on creating a space for that, while also

maintaining a space for competitive players. So allowing

different audiences to have different experiences depending

on what they want, talked a lot about having role models. And as

an alternative to banning allowing people to actually see

what behaviors are, are rewarded to help grow the community and

build it in a positive way. We apply that a little bit to what

web two games are doing. But largely, it's, at these days,

just kind of easier to build something new, where it's not a

problem in the first place. That doesn't mean that there's not

things that web two games, and especially legacy games that

have been around for 10 or 20 years, good implement. And I

think you all have great ideas on what they could implement, or

at least a framework what they could implement, but it is

obviously harder to do that on legacy system. We also talked

about how it's harder because they can't create profiles in

several places. It's one centralized system where people

are constantly acting in transacting makes a little bit

harder to incorporate some of the elements. And when it comes

to the metaverse, crypto kind of as a whole, gamers have to be

shown what's good for them, and also shown that they don't need

to have an opinion on the underlying tech that it can be a

seamless and boring transition for them. And how Twitter has so

far ruined all that. But for the last little bit, I like to ask

all of my guests to do a moment of reflection. So this is a

chance just for you to think back on, on what you've done.

What you're happy with what you're maybe unhappy with. I'm

looking at you Maxim, the Diablo scam. And just to I would love

for you to answer this question. What is one thing you would like

to tell your younger self about getting into the gaming industry

and being successful?

I mean, I guess I'll I'll say related to the Diablo

scam? I really can't agree. Yeah, yeah. The I'm really

grateful for all those experiences in gaming. You know,

at the moment, in the moment, I was pretty bummed out. But

ultimately, all of gaming has taught me more about the future

of the internet than I ever could have imagined. It really

has, for me been a microcosm for communities, our culture forums,

and what I see as being kind of this next really big chapter on

the internet. So I think that's something I'm really grateful

for all the positive and negative experiences. Yeah,

that's such a good point. I think similarly to is trusting

that what you believe is good, particularly from like a

mechanic's point of view, going into the future is going to be

recognized by the communities of the internet. Like, if you have

a great game that you think is really fun, and your team and

your friends really believe it's great as well, the world's gonna

recognize it. And I think that's something that's really exciting

about nowadays, where it's not going to be so much of you

having to convince VCs or going to a publisher and being like,

Hey guys, make sure you like our game like this is this is gonna

be the next Call of Duty right like it's it's it's a different

place where you can actually be recognized for the design work

you're doing it doesn't need to be always pretty, but it can

still be a really excellent game and and that's something I just

think people should really know and, and understanding in the

industry.

This has been such a great episode. When I was

preparing for this I kept thinking about have you all seen

little rascals that movie from our childhood? He Oh, yeah. The

end portion the he man was and haters club now accepts women. I

kept thinking about that when I was writing that and having you

on as the the first male guest. One of the things that we talked

about in our little, our chat the other day was that there's

been a lot of women who have been in male dominated spaces.

And that's been a really difficult experience. And I just

appreciate that you have come into this space, which

presumably is female dominated, and shared what you're working

on. And I think that I really think that things that you're

doing are extremely unique, and hopefully have an impact on some

of the other issues that some of the other guests have brought

up. So thank you for doing that. Really appreciate it. And thank

you for your time. Where can people find or follow you if you

want to be found or followed?

I guess if since our game is still a little bit in

stealth mode and hasn't fully been announced. Maybe a decent

place is to you can follow myself on on Twitter. I'm at

Maxwell wink. And any relevant announcements to our game will

also be retweeted there.

Perfect. Yeah. And it's such an honor to be here. I mean, it's

really cool. Being your initial males on the podcast, I think

it's been a really blast talking about this stuff.

Perfect. Well, thank you guys so much for all

of our listeners. Leave five star ratings and reviews you

know the deal. Check out other holodeck media podcasts,

including men of business for all the metaverse finance

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interviews with industry leaders. I'm on Twitter,

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Wednesday depending how the week goes. We will see you all next

week.

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