Join AdLunam Co-Founder Nadja Bester as she hosts a dynamic discussion with Yasmina Boubnider Kazitani (CMO of VRJam), M Das (Founder of COBOX Metaverse), and Peter Tomala (CEO of World Play League). They delve into the transformative power of NFTs, the integration of AI in gaming, and the future of Web3. Gain valuable insights from these industry leaders on how NFTs are reshaping digital experiences and the gaming landscape. Don't miss this engaging and informative episode!

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Redefining Play: GameFi Bridging Physical and Digital Realms

SPEAKERS

Nadja Bester

Yasmina Boubnider Kazitani, Partner & CMO at VRJam

M Das, Founder & CEO at COBOX Metaverse

Peter Tomala, CEO of World Play League

Extra: Sam, CEO of VR Jam

Just doing a quick sound check while we wait for the other speakers to join us. If you can hear me, please give me your favorite emoji so I know I'm not speaking into the void. All right, awesome. So I see, we've got two of our speakers in the house, so while we wait for Peter to join us, I'm just going to get started and do the introduction, and then we can get right into it. So 3,2,1 hey, web3 will this is Nadja Bester, co-founder at AdLunam, Web3's first Engage to Earn investment ecosystem. And you, of course, are listening to the Future of NFTs, where we deep dive into the future of well actually, a lot of things live here on X each week and live anytime on the podcast. So a very brief and quick announcement before we get started. Altcoin observer, AdLunam's media arm is proud to be an official media partner for the Nordic blockchain conference, Istanbul Blockchain week, Blockchain futurist conference, ETHToronto and ETHWomen. So if you'll be attending any of these events around the world, do give us a shout. All right. So I see, we've got all of our speakers in the house. So guys, welcome to today's episode redefining play GameFi, bridging physical and digital realms. Now we've done a lot of discussions on this podcast about all of these topics. GameFi, of course, especially and also this idea of bridging what is physical and what is digital to really just lead in the future of society, business, social interaction, and, I guess, just identity. But today we are going to dive a little bit deeper. We are going to be covering blockchain, artificial intelligence, and, of course, interconnected gaming worlds. So joining me are three visionary leaders in the GameFi space, Yasmina from VRJam, Manish from I'm not sure if it's Cobox Metaverse, apologies if I'm mispronouncing it. And then Peter from world play League. So let's do a quick just hello so I know that you guys can all hear me, and that we can all hear you. So let's start off just by telling me who you are. I mean, we already I'm not going to read out your bios, because I realized it takes me far too long, because I have amazing guests on the show each week. So what I'm going to ask you to do is introduce yourself, give me some highlights in terms of your own personal experience, as well as the company that you're currently with, either co-founded or involved with professionally. And then, yeah, let's take it from there. Yasmina, let's start with you. Welcome.

Hi Nadja, thank you so much, and welcome everyone to all the listeners. Really happy to be among this bright and very smart panelists today, and starting with a bit of a background on myself, have been spending a, you know, 18 years in edtech, AIS, and in the last couple of years, Blockchain decentralization so and with VRJam, we are building the next level in terms of education and retail market. So that's kind of something that, you know, a lot of us will see happening in the next couple of years in terms of adoption. So I'm really glad to be talking about that, about the experience, but also how the the industries are changing, you know, drastically, but also in the right, in, in the good way. Let's put it this, this way, it's going to be kind of great.

We are definitely all looking forward to these big changes, although some of it's probably going to come not that easily and not pain free. But Yasmina, I'm very, very excited to be talking to, I think retail and education. Are two of the areas that massive potential for adoption, but I don't feel in the web3 space we talk enough about these industries. So very happy to have you on to talk about exactly this Manish. What about you? Please tell us more about yourself, your background, before Cobox Metaverse, and then, of course, also what you guys are building.

Thank you, Nadja, thank you for having me. Hi, guys. This is Manish. You are the one who is knowing the name. Usually I’m used to M Das the founder of Cobox Metaverse. And I started my journey in earlier 2000 I used to be selling a computer education that time. And later I started a corporate insurance agencies. And after that real estate business, and later, 2015 I bought my first Bitcoin, and that was time only a $400 and I was too happy when the price reached $1,000 in 2017 and later 2020 I feel this opportunities in battery Because the already Ethereum ecosystem started over there, and 2021 I start my battery journey in 2022 I founded Cobox, and since 2022 we have been building Cobox Metaverse, a Metaverse for everyone.

Awesome. Thank you so much. I really had to have a chuckle at those numbers from the early Bitcoin figures back in the day, when you celebrate that, it reached 1000 and now it's like, oh my god, if only we could time travel and go back there and go buy all the Bitcoin. Peter, lovely to have you on as well. Please do tell us more about yourself. I know that you've had quite a background before World Play League, and then, of course, also, what World Play League aims to achieve?

Yeah, for sure. Thanks for having me glad to be here. Try to keep it short and sweet. So I got involved in the blockchain space. Probably back in 2017, I led one of the first digital agencies in the US that started working on the technology back when it was probably pretty illegal to do what we were doing, which a lot of money transferring and things across state lines. So that was a fun time. Been involved in the gaming industry since then, and then that led to the founding of World Play League back in 2022 so we're a player owned game platform, right? And we really focus on combining digital and physical gaming, so people can think of us as like FIFA or the Olympics, but for the average gamer. So the whole governance, the rules, all of that is really dictated by the players within our ecosystem. And again, based on this call, right, we're very focused on combining digital and physical gaming experiences, whether it's board games, video games, or just, you know, things you do in the park. So yeah, it's been, it's been a fun transition and evolution of the blockchain space, but also gaming. And excited to be here.

Awesome. I see an hour's not going to be enough. Thank you so much to all three of you. I'm gonna dive right in through whatever comes to mind. I made so many notes. I'm not sure if we're gonna get through all of them. So I think my first question is, when we talk about gaming and GameFi, the word gaming means different things to different people. If you're going to ask a 60 year old, they're going to have a different definition from a 40 year old, from a 20 year old, and, let's say, from a 10 year old. So when we talk about gaming, and then, of course, in a more niche context, GameFi, within the web3 context, what are we exactly talking about? What I think, Peter you, you kind of alluded to this in your, you know, physical and the blend of physical and digital worlds that, yes, gaming involves board games, gaming still involve, involves your video games, but it also involves the metaverse, and it also involves AR and VR and all these huge kind of different technologies that all are culminating in what you know today and The future is going to be known as gaming. But what exactly is gaming? Let's get back to the core of what it is, Yasmina. Let's start with you.

Oh, wow, you picking me? Okay, so basically, if I have to kind of, you know, segment this part, I would probably say that there is a difference between game, which is playing having fun. And it's always been the case since the game started, you know, and since the humanity started. As a matter of fact, gamification means that, you know, I'm rewarding you to take you from A to B to C journey. And that kind of, you know, is not only in the games, but also in any social platforms or any thing that we are doing. So the gamification. Part we are all, you know, kind of gamified at some point with the mindset the financial aspect of the games in the web3 is something that is totally different from what we know in the, you know, in the games. Why? Because, mainly when we play the web2 games, all the rewards stuck within the ecosystem of the game. So if you kind of playing, Fortnite, Roblox, all your skins, all the reward will stay there. The point here is that you're having fun there, but if it stays there, you're not going to be able to move it away. The you know, I would probably see that the blockchain, you know, superstars featured on, that is the internal probability and the ownership, which means that you're playing any games within the web3 at some point during the next two, three years, you can take your skins, you can take the reward, you can take everything and kind of, you know, swap them for something else, buy, sell them in different marketplace so you're not stuck to one place. That's the beauty of being able, you know, to kind of navigate things through. And for anyone who is from, you know, five year olds to 70 or 90 years old, I think that's something that appeal to them, because we don't want to spend money, waste this money, and then move on which, which kind of happens at some point. So imagine that, you know, your grandma is using one of the games, you know, the Candy Crush, whatever she's winning on her phone, because she's paying on it quite a long time. You know, during the day, she can take it and they can, she can kind of get some vouchers when she does her grocery shopping. This is what the blockchain will help us. And if we build this ecosystem this way, I think that's many brands, many people will be onboarding in a more, easier way, and it could be like, you know, meaningful to them. I hope that makes sense and answer your question.

It's only given me 1000 more questions, but yes, it absolutely did. Peter, building on what Yasmina said about game, obviously, ultimately, playing and having fun and the gamification aspect, that's very much part of pretty much any journey that we have, even with other people, not to mention online. And then, of course, the financial incentives in web three makes GameFi and web3 a different experience. But I would love to know from you, how do you see this fundamentally, what is games? What is gaming what is GameFi?

Yeah, I mean, I think those are all really solid points. I mean, when we talk about games in its simplest terms, right? It's a, we're it's a form of we're just playing, right? we're just playing with what's what we're doing, right? And the financial aspect of it is that, you know, the motivation that under that underlines it right, there's we do what we want to do in terms of games and playing, basically, for a form of entertainment and to have fun, which has always been the real reason to do it, which I think not to go on too but too much of a tangent, but is why we got lost a little bit in the early parts of web3, because we lost focus of that a game is to have fun. But then we introduced this financial side of it, which is, you know, rewarding players to ultimately earn money right by participating. It's saying, Hey, you're going to be playing this game. But why would wouldn't it be nice if, if you made money? Wouldn't it be nice if you were able to the rewards you had, whether, yeah, they were skins or a sword, or the money that you had, or the stats or the attributes, whatever? Wouldn't it be nice if that followed you along right and followed you along the journey and not stayed siloed in the game that you were when, or that the company that owned the game that you were playing, if they were able to get all the rewards off of it. So it's decentralizing it. It's the very core of blockchain. And you know why things were created, which is on, you know, for the purists out there to decentralize it, to make it more accessible to everybody else. So I think that's still a big driving factor within the movement, is to allow people to have more of that flexibility and that ownership when they play games. Because at the end of the day, right, like more than half the world games, right? There's over 3 billion gamers out there, so to speak. And they come in many different forms, as we've talked about. So that's why I think everyone is in the blockchain space has been really interested and bullish on the outlook for gaming, because it is a big catalyst for wider adoption. There's lots of things that we can talk about, you know, why we're not there yet and what we will do moving forward, but at its core, it's just taking fun and rewarding you to do that, because people have been making money off of it, right? Billions and billions and billions of dollars. So why? Why wouldn't the average person? Why would the average gamer? Why can't we have a part of it? And that's where it really came from.

love that also a lot of questions. But yes, let's park that for the minute. Definitely would love to delve deeper into the obstacles and the barriers, since you are very painfully and acutely aware of them, but are also building solutions. So that's great. Manish, yeah, so I think building on Peter and Yasmina's answers, what do you what does gaming mean to you? And. What does GameFi mean to you? And how are those things maybe distinct, and how do they merge together?

So the web3 gaming is, these days, transforming gaming industry, entire gaming industry, by leveraging blockchain technology to create decentralized gaming applications, player driven ecosystem. In coming future, we can say that true ownership for the player will have genuinely ownership in game assets and in form of anarchies, allowing to buy or selling these assets, because in Web2, almost 100 billion dollars of worth of assets are trading outside in and the gaming platform and no one is making money or the Creator not making money and the player are not making money. The Web, three gaming applications or gaming platform are allowing users to create uncredible game and experiences a new ownership. Experiences, this is going to be first time for the game gamer or creator, because we, right now, we have a play to earn model where gamers can earn real world income through a gameplay, turning gaming into the valuable economic activities A Decentralized Governance, DAO and lot more ecosystem, Blockchain, immutable nature, will be ensure the secure and transparent transaction reduce Fraud and enhancing the trust within the gaming ecosystem.

Fantastic. Thank you so much. Manish, Peter and Yasmina, I think now we have a very fundamental sort of touch point that we can go back to. And now, from here on out, I want to delve a little bit deeper into opportunities and challenges. So Peter, I'm going to start with you, because I think the obstacles to web3 adoption in the gaming space has been something that everyone has struggled with. Of course, I think, as Manish just said, there's massive amounts of money in the gaming industry, but we're not really seeing that flowing into the web3 space in the sense that there seems to be a disconnect between web2 gamers and the web3 ecosystem, or gaming within the web3 ecosystem. Of course, we can break down these issues through any number of different levels. But from your perspective, what are the main key issues that are a barrier to this adoption in web3?

Yeah, there's been a few for sure. I think I'll try to summarize it into probably two main parts, right? There's been technical challenges, and I think there's also been marketing challenges, branding, optics, however you want to say it, right? So, mean, we've come a long way. Let me put some context to this in terms of, you know, over the last few years, in terms of what's happening on, you know, network speed, tooling, infrastructure, all of different types of things. But at the end of the day, especially, you know, you have one chance at a first impression when the things got, you know, really get going a few, a few years ago, it was just technically cumbersome, right? You know, connecting wallet addresses, doing swaps of tokens, like putting things on the marketplace, cashing in, cashing out, on ramp, off ramp, like there's, there's 1000s of touch points, or there has been in terms of just doing a single transaction on a game. And really what people are used to with technology and E commerce and making decisions is getting something done to one to two clicks, right? And every click that you have increases drop off rate. And that's just an E commerce marketing thing, right? So that's first and foremost as a technical challenges, right? Just user flow, people getting into the application, into the game, and doing the things that they're trying to accomplish right now that has, that is improving, but it's still core into some of the games that are out there, infrastructure, speed, that type of thing. The other side of it is, I think, is optics and is the marketing right is trying, and we're getting better at it. We're not fully there yet. I think the time frame I've mentioned previously, you know, a couple years from now, I think that that seems fair, but it takes some effort in terms of just getting all the technical language away from the conversation, just focusing on the game right. And now we're getting back to, is the GameFi, right? It does, doesn't matter if you really, I mean, I'm maybe a little different than other people, but shouldn't matter if it's web3 or web2. Just have fun, whatever it is, whether it's a board game, whether you're playing battleship, whether you're going outside and playing soccer or football, or if you're playing a Dungeons and Dragons or a digital card game at the end of the day, people are going to go because it's fun, because entertaining has a good brand, it has good characters, it has good power ups, levels, whatever it is. Oh, and by the way, did you know that you own this? Oh, by the way, did you know that you got. A share of the revenue, all by the way X, Y and Z, right, all those different types of things. And yes, there's lots of money involved. And everyone believes in the future of it, that you see all the billions of dollars in the industry, but it for the average person, right? And there's lots of gamers out there, right? 3 billion plus people out there. It just hasn't been accessible to them, whether it be through language or through technology, so that that's a large ship to move in there, in their in their want in the right direction. And I think lots of lots of great companies and people are working towards this. It's just taking a little bit more time than maybe the all the individual communities want to see it go. But we are ultimately rolling in the right direction. It's just it's been a little bit slower than I think maybe some people have wanted to see it. I'd love to

just dive in and add a comment there. Hi, I'm Sam. I'm a CEO of VRJam, collaborating with the very talented Yasmina. Hey, Yasmina, I think that there's been a bit of a disconnect between the user experience, and again, the gameplay itself, which is based on fun, and how that creates value for users. You know, I think that there's a problem when you solving the industry in terms of how those two things come together, and we create user experience that is really sort of deeply connected in that value creation space. And for those two things to be one, my two cents.

Hey, Sam, awesome. Yeah. Thank you so much for adding that perspective. I was actually just going to get to VRJam, and either you or Yasmina can take this question, I think Peter very, very carefully and in a detailed way, in as much little time as was available to him, did a fantastic job of sketching out some of the challenges that we are facing. But of course, these are, let's say, not the kind of challenges that are currently being experienced in the education sector, for example, because they are not aware of this financial incentive aspect of web three gaming. So I'm curious then, how do you see in your focus in education that these two worlds between the adoption of gaming and these new technologies, technologies, especially driving web gaming adoption. How is this connecting with the world of web three? That is, you know, the DJ in culture and a very, very hyper focus on financial revenue, as opposed to, of course, education which does not have those primary focus areas.

I'll probably say one thing is that, you know, it's important to understand, and I don't remember which one of the panelists mentioned that we need to leave the technology on the side and in the education, with The project that we are leading and the retails, there are two things that we are putting on the side. Is the technology, you know, wording, because people don't need to know about how the technology work. They only need to click one two times, and then they get whatever they are looking for. So I think that's the most important part. When we're talking about mass adoption. 20 years ago, people didn't even know what e learning was. The only thing that they knew is that the link to the, you know, the company we're sending them, the HR, will be sending them to go and do their learning. Development pathway there, it took 20 years for the adoption to happen. And everyone knows what digital learning. Same things with the decentralizations. You know, this is the most important part in the gaming, but the gamification of any journey we want them to take with us. The point about, you know, the second point is also the money. Today, we all know that the content creators on, you know, on social media, are the one who are making the most money, and basically they are the one working hard to get these people, you know, entertained spending a lot of time. It's not the social media platform themselves. Well, at least they do, but with the AI models in the back, so we are kind of like, you know, looking at the same things and putting all these games at the disposals of content creators, game creators. Because today, it's in the hand of few cooperation, and it should not be, because, you know, you want to have something that is totally different from others. Look at how many influencer contents created. We do have worldwide. That's the thing that we are pushing with that with some to make sure that people have a voice there, and everybody can earn their money through that. And obviously, when this happens, all the brands will come along and they will be like, Okay, I like this. I can sponsor you. How can we kind of connect the dot with other brands? How can we connect the dot with all the loyalty programs or any other pathway? So then you creating an ecosystem that is, you know, sustainable for everyone around I hope that answer your question

Absolutely. You know, it actually made me think of the fact that when we talk about technology at the moment, of course, in the B2B context, we are talking about a lot of the technical aspects. We're talking about a lot of the change management aspects and all of these sort of deep, lofty topics. But if you look at the average young person today, there are more care. Wanting to be influencers on social media and content creators and YouTubers than there are, you know, doctors and accountants anymore. So I think that clearly this line that for us perhaps are more stark because we don't see ourselves as the next generation. We see ourselves as those you know. We've been around for a while. We know how things work. We know how it goes. But I think there's a clear thread that even though the younger generation is not necessarily as interested in the technical aspects of these technologies as you rightly said, that should be hidden. I think we can detect a very clear thread in terms of what young people today look to in terms of future, in terms of jobs, for example. And I mean these kind of technologies absolutely speaks to content creators, speaks to influencers, and really just speaks to the future of self expression in a lot of ways. So Manish, you're curious in terms of the metaverse then, because, of course, we've heard a lot of talk over the years in terms of what the metaverse is, what it could be. But from your experiences working with brands at the moment, who are you seeing brands are targeting in the metaverse? Is it mostly young people, or is there a attempt to, you know, kind of address as many target audiences as possible? Or what is the strategies being used?

Another nice question. First of all, if you can see your around kids, so they are playing some game, maybe they are playing Minecraft, maybe they are playing Roblox. And they don't matter about economy, what's going happening in the gaming economy and how they want to make money, because they are kids and they are growing digitally. They are growing digitally the master of adoption of the brands. They want to know. They don't know what is happening inside the gaming, inside the infrastructure or inside the ecosystem they want to know is traffic over there? How many, how much users over there is user engaging time over there? Because Roblox and you can see the 78 hours monthly screen in screening time, and it's more than Netflix or YouTube. So if, if Metaverse has a potential to engage their audience inside the metaverse. So brand will be attract band, brand trying to present that product and project. And they are one to engage their customer, because Metaverse is the only opportunity for them that for only for brands, the metaverse can convert, transform their customer to the community, because every brands have customer, not community. There are very few numbers of community, so Metaverse going to transform the customer to a journey of customer to transform community and community. It's called both more trusted, more valuable for data, for the for the brand, for scale their businesses and present their product on selling their goods inside the metaverse.

Manish, awesome, yeah. Thank you so much. I want to build on that. Peter. So of course, as Manish has just said, brands have customers. They don't have a community. Now, in web3, of course, this is the whole thing. Is about community, not customers. But I'm curious you have built with world play League, a very interesting concept in the sense that it's a player owned ecosystem. So please do tell us more what your thoughts are in terms of, how does web3, and especially in the gaming space, how, how can brands leverage the fact that there are communities in web3 and in GameFi, as opposed to customers?

Yeah, I mean, the brands are, I think, probably a little bit different of an animal, right? Because, you know, I mean, not that everyone isn't financially motivated. But usually there's a give and take from that right, terms of that relationship and it being monetary, but in terms of how brands and companies can be involved in game, and look at that. I mean, you've got to go back to why the community, why the players are there to start out with, right? Which is, is for the fun, which is the social connections, it is the, you know, the banter, the community, that type of thing. So as long as brands are facilitating that and they're being genuine in their approach, then, of course, there's, there's ways to capitalize on it. If I'm a gamer and I have, you know, two options and the same company and one that's actually giving out rewards or allowing me to utilize their assets or build things, you know, user generated content, those types of things, I'll be more inclined to make that purchase decision, or if I get some sort of rewards from them, that type of thing. But it's got to come from a pretty genuine space. Think we've seen companies try to bulldoze different trends and just capitalize on a name. Narrative, and then get in and get out, and I think people are kind of sick of that, right? So I think it's more to allow the brands, to allow those companies that want to enter the space, allow them to do it in meaningful ways through the game, right? And that could be through, like I said, the content, it could be through giveaways, could be through rewards, but doing it in a way that the community itself has input, or they're making the decisions with them in terms of where they're at in the game, or the type of game they're in, or how they're involved in the ecosystem, not just a paid promo or, you know, a banner ad or something that's a in game. You know, asset that you can see is something around that, right? And people gravitate towards that. There's, there's no, I would say, generally in this space, there's no shyness on people making money, right? We're in this for lots of different reasons, but this is economy. We're talking about GameFi, right? The financial side of it, so that there is a pro to that side, right? Which is that people want the sponsors in there. The people do want the companies that are in there, because it is bringing money. It's bringing money. It's bringing money into their favorite game. It's bringing money into their community. It's bringing awareness. And if there's a token on the open market, that's even better, because obviously that's going to build some sort of hype and help everybody that's involved. So I think it's a give and take to that, but as long as both sides, both the community itself and the company that's involved, come at it from a pretty genuine, as genuine as possible space, in terms of why they're interacting there, and actually wanting to build this up and take it to the next level, whatever that means for that community, then I think that that's, that's the main thing. And just like I said in the past, it's been a little, I think, disingenuous, and it's been very fly by night. Get in, get out, just very transactional, rather than, Oh, I would say meaningful.

Sam

Can I add a comment there, once again, on the back end of well, play's amazing comment there. And I guess we reiterate what I said earlier, which is about the notion of the experience of playing games to be fundamental to the way the values created inside these game worlds or platforms, apps that we're all busy building here, you know, and I think that's the big challenge that you know, the industry at large, particularly in the GameFi space, has is making the GameFi part of the game. There is this disconnect there with a lot of products, platforms and games the market where, you know, you've got these very simple game mechanics that produce value creation, but they're largely divorced from the actual experience of having fun. And a great man once said to me, having fun is halfway to success, and we try and live and die by that with the products that that we create. And, you know, I mean, we're obviously very focused on, you know, the educational and product space in terms of what we're building right now. But once you add the power of gameplay into that environment, it transforms it. You know, we're, we're just launching a new AI avatar solution that allows creative brands to very quickly and easily render their own fully interactive through the character that's a totally autonomous AI agent can be trained on any manner of data, and those agents themselves can become like players inside a game space. And once you add that gamification to, for instance, the experience of education for young people, it just totally takes off. It's just like, you know, rocket fuel and understanding how that gamification experience creates value for the end user. I think that should come first, and then, you know, that can play into one would expect a value creation solution that's tied to the gameplay. My two cents, once again.

awesome. Sam, thank you so much. I love what you said about having fun is halfway to success, because I feel like that. I think, Peter, you said that earlier. You know, we've kind of lost our way in the early web3 gaming, and you really just web3 in general. In the beginning, there was a sort of split between, okay, some of us are going to get serious right now, and we're going to stay extremely serious forever, and then the others are going to be the opposite, opposite end of the spectrum. So yeah. Also looking forward to a future where we can have a more balanced approach to these things. But this brought me to a question. You know, we've been talking about the gaming experience, we've been talking about the mechanics, we've been talking about the game fire aspect. I want to bring two examples to the table, both of which are very current in terms of what's happening in the space. So first we have, of course, the meme coin. I don't know if, whether to call it explosion or abomination, depends on proliferation, depends on, on what your perspective is, but so obviously the meme coin, you know, just really, really explosion, is what it feels like. If you look at the amount of meme coins that are currently on the market, that have been on the market, is clear that there's a lot of interest from the average retail investor, from, you know, whoever the people are that are that are following these, these meme coins, whether there are investors, whether they're just genuinely curious or genuinely interested in memes. But so, of course, the narrative that has flown through or not. And I don't know what I'm talking about right now, the narrative that has been carried through this entire, let's say, meme saga, has been the fact that, yeah, we're just having fun. We're playing we're having fun. There's nothing serious about this, you know, let's enjoy ourselves. So that being the one aspect, and then the other one, Hamster combat. For some of you, you might have played this before. If you haven't, it's a game that is, or has been taking the web3 world by storm. It's basically the new Axie infinity in Saudi Arabia. So there's massive sort of uptake on these things. But of course, the game mechanics are very simple. Whether or not you're having fun playing that game is questionable. I tried it. It really was just tapping. Didn't enjoy it much. So I'm curious. Then, if we talk about fun, if we talk about play, if we talk about, you know, the social aspect of these things, where do you guys think meme coins and the meme coin space right now fits into this? And then, of course, specific to GameFi, Hamster combat. Peter, let's start with you.

That's a good one. Well, let me first start with, you know, there's lots of different opinions on meme coin. I mean, I remember getting my start with all the altcoin craze many, many years ago. I think it's fine. I think it's good, right? I mean, there's people that hate it. There's lots of rug pulls, there's lots of scams. I mean, there's some days, there's 10,000 ,15,000 tokens launched in a single day, right? That's, that's impressive. And I would say 99 point whatever, percent of them are not good. But I don't think that's the point, right? I think the point is that you're providing financial opportunities and growth opportunities for the average individual, you know, investor, consumer, however you want to say it, and you're giving people what they desire. There wouldn't be that many, there wouldn't be this crazy unless the volume was there to support it, and the volumes there from average, you know, I would say consumers, yes, there's, there's bots, and there's, you know, retail investors and things like that. But money flows where the money goes right, and then I think that the people come to see that, and I think that that's, that's fine. I think that that's healthy, and it's distracting, for sure, for projects, I'm sure, like everybody on this call, and for companies that have been building and actually providing utility and value and have revenue and have teams and are doing, I think, things the way it should be done. But at the end of the day, you know, it is, you know, creating exposure and in volume, like I said, in the industry overall. Now, how that plays into gaming? Yeah, I mean, you know, the games we work with, and we're up to close to 30. We're not doing a lot of single tap actions here, a lot of the hamster I think that there's, there's always space for that, any types of games, right? I mean, there's lots of, you know, little Solitaire, bubble blaster games, little hyper casual games, and, and that there's you know, there's a mood, there's a flavor for everyone, right? And if that's what people like, then let them be entertained. Let them, let them have that fun. I've tried it. It's not for me, but for everyone else that maybe likes to play in person, like a pickleball or a soccer or they like to play a board game and chess and checkers. They're somebody that wants to tap on the phone or that wants to play solitaire or shoot bubbles in the air and that's entertainment, and that's fun. I don't think there's a value that gets put on that. I think it's just a difference, right? Different Strokes, different folks mean it. And I think that's as long as we have an ecosystem or places for people to go that participate in it, then they're awesome. They're great. The market's going to decide that, which is the big thing. We can all have our different perspectives on it. But the market will decide if it's viable or not. And you know, this may be some one of those trends that dies out here in the next couple weeks or months. I don't know, but if it doesn't, then that's fair. But we're involved in Selfridge GameFi is, again, where we've evolved, is allowing there to be technology, or the ability for something like this to happen, for it to be very quick, oh, spin up a game and get it done and have it be somewhat interactive or fun, or allow for there to be a financial incentive on the backs. And if I tap my phone, or if I do this, this action enough times that I'm going to get some sort of financial award to it right, kind of like when we had, you know, Axie infinities and step ins, and different types of models come through in terms of actions and reward. So I I'm not a I'm not a personal fan of it, but that doesn't mean that professionally, I don't see the value, and I don't think it's a bad thing. I just think as long as we have the marketing, we have the infrastructure, we and we have the companies that are pursuing things it is, it's healthy, and I think it's healthy growth. So yeah,

awesome. Thank you, Peter. Yasmina, I saw you had some thoughts. Please do share.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean two things, Thanks, Peter. And I love the way that you describe it. I will add on what you saying two major things. We are in an industry that it is at an infant stage, so we started with NFT fewer years ago, right? We had all this hype. So that's kind of what also put the light into the web three and how we can use them as a first NFT didn't have any utility. They were like, you know, hyping volatile, same things as the meme coin. The only thing that is NFT start being like, you know, used and have a utility. And Meme coins also start having utility right now, because you can use them at tips for charities or donations. You know, that's kind of like the example I've seen at the Lisbon NFC conferences where, you know, the team has also hosted the end, you know, in the NFC, they hosted the meme coin conference. And you can see this utility. So we're building all this. You know, Rome was not built up in one day. It was built up over centuries. And the same things goes with Blockchain. So obviously, we need to streamline, we need to fail, we need to build, we need to kind of hype. And it's a cyclic so if you have been in a startup, you know, industry for the last 10-15, years, or even for the last five years. This is something that is natural. It goes down, up and down. This is how a product, and you know, a cycle goes the only thing important is you, as a builder and entrepreneur, you have a clear vision on how you can use this opportunity. So, for example, for free art jam, we didn't do many coins, because that's something that we were like already. Kind of out of this. We were like, focusing on the utility of our NFTs in terms of the education and retails for the brands and the content creator, which is the most important part from our perspective. And we didn't take the wave of the many because we didn't think at and to be honest, it wasn't like the focus, because we're launching the token into two weeks. So for us, it was like, if we want to go there, we need to kind of be prepared. It can be a very good opportunity again, to make it happen, to kind of shed light onto what we're doing. But do we have the resources and the capability now? No, so we have taken a decision not to go there, but sure, the project did, and I'm really glad that they took this opportunity. So again, we're going to see next year, something happening again, and it's good. It's volatile, yes. So do your homework as the end users before getting anywhere else, which is very important. But otherwise, make sure that, you know, in an industry like ours, we're always going to have new things, fun things, that things are going to be dumped, something will have a utility. Just keep an eye on that.

lovely thank you so much to both of you. Manish, would love for you to add on top of this, or on top of the amazing insights that we've had already, and I think the very, very comprehensive summary and analysis of what's happening,

as the earlier speaker mentioned. So everyone have different opinions on meme coin, but if I look as an investor, I am an earlier andreto. So I love meme coin because I got an opportunity to become a millionaire, because I have lot of numbers of meme coin. So it's not about becoming a millionaire on web3. We are looking to become a millionaire. Just buy a crypto or meme coin, get it. It's kind of user acquisition. But yes, it's true, you can acquire mass adoption in meme coin, maybe coins, and at this time, lots of ecosystem growing through main coin, like Solana, like polygon and others also. So meme coin is trying to we have to find being a fan of you. We have to find the way, how can get the advantage through the existing mean coin users or community. So we are trying to find the solution because, but in the three right we can, we can say, right now, we have a proven track to grow. That's not true, because everyone is trying to do something new, and new innovations come after failures as Yasmina mentioned, so I completely agree with you. So this time at the bull market, we are going to see lots of meme coin and other opportunities to the market, but being a developer, being a creator, or being a being a publisher. So we have to think, what is, what can we help for us, for growing our ecosystem, because the meme coin is a have wonderful experience over there, over the time, because they are making a good market cap or good valuation. So everyone is in the market for making a good valuation, so I'm completely agree with you. So it's good time to grab opportunities.

Yeah, guys, thank you so much. I think there's been so much that we can go into so much more deeply, but I see that the time is running out, so I very briefly, just want to dip Into one or two more topics before we go on to questions. So we have been talking about GameFi, the financial aspect, especially, and of course, there's still a lot of challenges on the way to gamers comfortably playing fun games that they really genuinely want to play, while at the same time receiving financial whether it's Fiat, whether it's tokens, whether it's any sort of reward that they are able to take away from them, NFTs, you know, in game assets that are interoperable. So I want to know what is the roadmap going forward. Of course, we know there's a very long term view. Yasmina, as you said, Rome wasn't built in a day. It was built over many, many different generations. And like they say, it takes a village to raise a child. Well, it certainly takes an entire history of humanity to grow a technology to a point before we go on to the next thing. So it really is a team effort. It is going to take a lot of time, but in the immediate future, what are the steps that a we are currently working on, and what are the things that perhaps we are not really focusing on right now, that in fact, we should be, because the time is now. Yeah, please. Anyone, any one of you want to go first?

Yeah, I would probably jump in, because that's something I have been lobbying for the likes last, last two years, around the industry, one of the things that the web three industry is facing is this bad reputation, scamming, rigging. We need more regulation, not to kind of frame people, but to protect us and protect, you know, the industry as a whole, because otherwise people will not trust you. If you lose trust, it takes, you know, not a village, not a universe. It takes more than a lifetime. You know, when your brand is damaged, you have to rebuild it bit by bit, and it's going to take time. So that's why I've been working extensively with UK parliaments, the European Parliament, to make sure that, you know, they differentiate cryptocurrency from the digital asset like NFTs, mainly coins, skins for games, to ensure that they're not putting everything in the same pot. If they do that, that means that they have no understanding, which means that people will not invest, they will not understand it. And it's going to create a lot of you know, shenanigans, so that's one, maybe one of the most important aspects for the industry. The second part is also to kind of, you know, work together, because we talk about decentralization, and I'm a big fan of this in technology, because I do believe that we all have to decentralize instead of having all this big corporation keeping it for themselves for generation to come, because then we're going to go into bigger trouble in terms of manipulation with, you know, all these AI things from an economic point of view, from a political point of view. But to reach this full decentralization, we need two things. We need to educate people on their right. What does it mean to give my data the data governance so our industry does not need to talk about the technology, but the challenge faced by end users. Me using Google every day means that I am the product in a decentralized environment, you get paid to you, to be used in terms of your data or a person. So that's a total different, you know, game. People need to be educated and aware of it, and the next generation, they need to kind of understand it, because it's for their benefit. So regulation and education will be like maybe the first few parts that we need to play a big role. And the third part, obviously, is for all the blockchains and the protocols to work together. We need to have it instead of having the 3w now we have it already, because all these people, the providers, work together to make it in the last 20 years. Now we need a 4w so the blockchain will kind of work together to make it viable, because if we can't do it, then we're not doing the interoperability. And the interoperability is based on one blockchain plug into another. So I can move from one space to another with no problem. I can play, you know, with world of you know, anyone else to kind of go to somewhere else and exchange it in another brand, as I gave the example earlier, your grandpa, your grandmother, is playing Candy Crush yeah on her phone. So every award she brings, she can use them for grocery shopping. She can use them for grandkids, gift for Christmas or a Diwali, which everything she wants to spend it on. And the point is, this is what we need to work on as like a community. So I hope that's kind of like, you know, answer your question.

Peter, Manish, if you want to go ahead.

yeah, I can jump in. I think that's well heard, in terms of like, coming around, in terms of rebuilding the trust, right? I mean, they say that what a lie can destroy something in a second, but it takes a lifetime to rebuild that right. Same is true. And imagine being lied to or a rug pulled every, you know, every day. It's very, very hard to come back from that. I think the one thing that I'll add in terms of, you know, next steps and the education regulation of very, you know. Again, good comments on that would be, I think meeting people where they are, and what I mean by that is, I think a lot of people here on the call are web3, or maybe consider ourselves Degens, or we're in the blockchain space. But for us to get to that next level, we need new inflows, whether it's new capital, but I think just more different eyeballs, right? So meeting people where they're at, so again, why not? Not to plug completely what we're doing on the on the World Play League side, but is meeting people in the games or the environments that they're already doing instead of asking them to cross over? So providing opportunities wherever they play, to have that infrastructure, to have that technology there, and, you know, have them be exposed to that. There's, like I mentioned. I mean, there's especially on the meme coin sign, but just even utility tokens. I mean, there's 1000s of tokens launched every day. We don't have that many people as well, adding into the ecosystem of web3 and buying crypto every day, right? That's just the facts. So what we need to have is, again, projects, whether it's AI related digital twinning, the metaverse, gaming and these, I think, are the really strong catalyst adoption. So everybody here that's on the call, and all the speakers think we're really working in the great space, all of us meeting people, meeting in their moments, or where they're playing, or where they're interacting, where they're socializing, those types of things. So we can have more eyeballs, so we can have more inflows, so we can have a larger audiences that'll bring us to that adoption, that'll bring us to that growth. For us to say that, oh, we're going to be happy where we're at with the current audiences of web three and players, I just don't think is sustainable, and I don't think it's fair. I don't think anybody is advocating for that, but I'm just saying we have to be more of an outreach organizations. We have to go out and, again, meet people where they're playing, where they're interacting, where they're socializing, because that's how this thing is going to move forward. You know, as for the future of GameFi.

Manish, if you have anything to add before we'll move on to whatever time, whatever questions we have time for.

where the money, where the money, lots of money in the web3 space and cryptocurrency, and Always with the money, the vectors are always there. So we what we can do as a builder. So builders are too much focus to the building a good product as right? Builders busy in the building aircraft, and they don't worried about what will be a traffic signals, what will be a traffic control, or airports, and what are the rules for aviation industry, the same condition right now for the web three industry, the builders are busy to build a good product for humanity or for good user engagement or user experiences. And government are doing very, very good job in Dubai. The policies are very clear, and we know the frame framework, how we are going to register, and how the rules, what, what we should do and what we should not to do. So the policies are very clear, and these days are, it's still we are so early for policies. So it's work of its job of government. So we are trying to just aware the community, as you are doing you are aware and educating the community. So these times, the work is same for us. So we can, when we get our time to aware, to that technology, or what is web3, or how the ecosystem work, and what are the opportunities for them? What are the opportunities because lack of knowledge or lack of education bring you in the danger or you can face it's not a financial advice, but you have to aware what you are going to do, what you are going to buy or what you are going to invest before that, before that, because there are no TV ads, like a mutual fund, like a mutual fund, or like buying a stock. So there are no TV ads. Don't know no ads and like a wearing so we, as you are taking a responsibility, so we are also taking the responsibility same at the same platform. It's at the same time. So we are trying to aware of your time to educate each and everyone. Thank you awesome.

Manish. Thank you so much. You made me realize that we just need to take this moment and thank the audience, guys. I know some of you join the space every week. Some of you don't maybe you're new here, but I'm 100% sure that you are listening to some form of education, whether in web3, whether in AI or whatever, the technology that you're currently interested in elsewhere. So just want to give you a shout out the fact that you are investing time, energy, and really just part of your life, into. Listening to educational resources from experts. More power to you. So guys, we've come to the end of the show. I'm going to highlight one question. So this is from snowy What challenges do you foresee in the adoption of web three technologies by mainstream gamers? So I just want to add a little bit to that all of the let's say web2 gamers that I know that are very passionate about web two gaming. They've tried web3 games. It's simply not for them. So from my own personal experience, I've seen that that adoption, you know, just experientially, is going to be very difficult. But yeah, thank you, snowy for the question. So to the panelists, which challenges perhaps are the main challenges that you think is going to stand in the way of web3 gaming adoption.

I'll probably go first on this one and say that they again, we are against the biggest studios around the world. So obviously, you know, when you come We the people who are building games. Have, you know, maybe even worked for one of these big studios, or have like, you know, had enough of this kind of things, and they moved to the decentralization for, you know, for getting the benefit that they're not getting into this. So the first challenge is the skills and the expertise, 20-30, years in gaming. And then you bring something that the gamers, or how I am, hardcore gamers, and for me to move to one, I was like, oh, god yes, no, that's not working, because we can't afford in the web3 games. So that's like, you know, joke. And people are just kind of like trying to do to kind of come with a quick win. And games is not about quick win. It's really about understanding what is missing, working toward making sure that you know, either I am filling the gap of the narrative, because that's what maybe some of people are would like to do the reward the ethnicity. One of the things, for example, I would probably mention here is that when you look at Fortnite, when they start putting all the skins, many of us, or at least I am not, you know, a US based person. I kind of my first, my first comments, and my kids and people around me were like, well, we don't see ourselves in it. So this is one of the biggest challenge is we need to build for niches. We need to build for people who have, you know, want to play, want to pay for this, and want to have fun, but they don't see themselves in this game. So I think the understanding of the market is the one things that we need to make sure, and it will take time. It's not going to happen in the next 3,4,5, years. It takes time. The first thing we need to educate people in and their ownership. You own your stuff, if tomorrow, you know, we get hacked. I was at the conference last week at Google headquarters in Zurich, and I told them, guys, if people need to understand the blockchain and the gaming in it is when you tomorrow, you know, get hacked from, you know, from Fortnite. So 400 million players on Fortnite do not have access to their account anymore. What do they do? This is where they understand, Oh, God, I need a blockchain, or I need something that gives me this ownership. I'm not going to call it blockchain, but this ownership, this is the problem that we need to kind of position ourselves into.

beloved Manish ,Peter, if you have anything to also add before we close.

I mean, I'll just quickly add, I think Yasmin has really good thoughts on that. In terms of the games, you know, there's, I think it's like 75-80% of all web3 games have failed, right? There no longer exists over the last few years, right? So I'll just piggyback on that, which is, it's the gameplay, right? There's lots of inflows of cash, there's lots of people that are interested. A lot of the main big publishers, you know, the big studios, have some interest, or have expressed interest in the field. It's not that the core model is broken. It's not that the future of it is broken. It's just goes into the games, right? We've got to give ourselves the time, the quality, the teams to create meaningful experiences entertainment and just have things that are fun to play, regardless of the genre or regardless of how you play it. That's the big thing, right? Because, again, market decides if a majority of games are failing in web three, it's because people aren't playing, because they're not fun, right? Or they're not entertaining. We work on that, we solve that. We have those types of experiences, honestly, the players, the money, all of that will follow.

Manish, do you have a final thought to add before we close? I see the time has crept up on us like it does every week, and I never know how that happens, because the discussions that we are having is amazing, but yeah, we are at the end. So do you give us your final thoughts?

So in battery gaming, we are much talking about finance, less talking about the fun. The fun factor is all already missing in the gaming Vetri ecosystem and how we can. Uh, build a funny gaming ecosystem where, because the gamer doesn't want to interest initially in the finance of they don't want to what is the economics behind the game? What is the mechanism they want only fun and already a core gamer investing a lot of money in game for buying games, or either you are using PS5 devices or Xboxes and any other, any other platforms. So they are expanding a lot of money inside the game for enjoying the gameplay. So what we are missing, we are missing the gameplay, our fun factor in the web3. So what we are trying to solve in Cobox, we are trying to solve we are not trying to build a AAA game. We are totally sharing the platform where anyone can build their own virtual experiences, 3D experiences, or 3D games without using code. So the more applications and more experiences available in the market, the more it will be helpful for attract new entries in the industries in the ecosystem, and new advanced the new entries or new traffic generate by the ecosystem, we can see the later, then good qualities of game, because the game building takes lots of time, under two to three years you have to invest in for building a good game. So we think about more about fun, and we believe the fun will balance the financial ecosystem. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Manish, Peter, Yasmina, it's been an absolute pleasure spending this hour with you to the audience, whether you're listening live or after the fact, please do follow our panelists for tonight, both the individuals, Yasmina, Manish and Peter, as well as their company's VRjam, Cobox Metaverse and World Play League on your favorite social media platform. And with that, I bid you good night or good morning, depending on where you are, and I will catch you again next week for another episode of the Future of NFTs. Cheers guys. Talk to you then and to the panelists. Have an absolutely fantastic week. You've done your good deed, I think, for this week, by sharing all these alpha insights with the community, and we will be following along. Wish you all the best for your endeavors in the web3 space and in all the other spaces, because I think ultimately, it's not going to be web3, it's just going to be the future of business and society. Wonderful.

Thanks so much for having us. Nadja, it's been great. See you next time.