Ep. #839 - NFT Games and The Play to Earn Economy

00:00.00
Matt DeCoursey
And we’re back for another episode of startup Hustle Matt DeCourseey here with Matt Watson hi Matt um I’m playing video games. Dude, you know I’ve needed a side hustle. So.
00:07.10
Matt Watson
What’s going on man.
00:15.96
Matt DeCoursey
Um, hard at work man. I’m in the Metaverse; the Sandbox. the web 3. the Xbox. the Nintendo. the Switch, IBM PC Junior. Yeah, yeah, um, I’ve got them all running right now.
00:28.00
Matt Watson
I Got some poke balls I can tell you.
00:35.83
Matt DeCoursey
Because you know I heard that you could play to earn and there’s a whole economy forming around that is that true. Wow No no.
00:39.56
Matt Watson
There is, you want to buy some of my pokeballs. No, you.
00:49.24
Matt DeCoursey
Ah, my rule of thumb is anytime you offer to sell me anything with the word balls in it I should say no. So yeah, so on a better note Matt 1 thing that I will buy into is the fact that today’s episode of Startup Hustle is brought to you by Canva where you go to collaborate.
00:53.79
Matt Watson
Ah, okay, it’s true. True.
01:07.10
Matt DeCoursey
And create amazing graphic designs for free whether it’s a presentation to share an idea a video to launch your business or a social post to start a conversation with Canva you can design anything and discover the magic of visual communication. How Canva helps you create a lasting impact today. Visit http://canva.com to learn more look. There’s a link for that in the show notes. There are also links to the other episodes in our series about Nfts for which Canva was kind enough to sponsor the whole thing after I sent them a proposal for doing so. With a proposal and presentation, I created on Canva. Yeah, So anyway, you know and you know. ah, I’m not going to disagree and at the same time, I’m sorry to hear that Anyway. So.
01:48.41
Matt Watson
You’re still the best graphic designer I know because of gamba.
01:57.19
Matt Watson
So well I mean we all play video games right? and in certain games. You know you you got to level up your troops and do this do that and whatever and.
02:00.19
Matt DeCoursey
Matt tells me about play to earn. What is all this stuff?
02:11.77
Matt DeCoursey
And water coins and.
02:12.87
Matt Watson
And a lot of games these days they want you to buy gyms or buy whatever the things are right? and um, the key is and some of these games are people that can play and basically make the gyms or whatever the things are and then sell them to the other people that are willing to pay for the gyms right. Um, just like with Pokemon I know like your was it your son that really likes Pokemon and you occasionally buy poke balls right for him right? So if ah, if I could convince my kids to play it all the time and just make the pokeballs.
02:33.19
Matt DeCoursey
Still does great.
02:39.61
Matt DeCoursey
Yeah.
02:47.72
Matt Watson
And like, find Pokeballs, I know how the hell you do this in this game but you somehow know they find pokeballs and then if and then they could sell them to you then?? Ah, my kids could make some money because you want to buy the Poke Balllls. So um, you know that’s the way a lot of these games work is people can play them and they earn all sorts of different. Things widgets gyms. Whatever the things are and then sell them to other people who are willing to pay for Them. You you ever play any games like that.
03:12.75
Matt DeCoursey
Okay, you know what’s funny is I have a playstation 5 and have so you know since it basically came out I’ve probably played it for about 5 hours total I just don’t I’m not a gamer man. Just don’t do a whole lot of that I don’t I mean it’s not really my jam like you know now. Ah, now that I can get paid for it I probably still won’t do it because I just I mean how much can you actually make doing this.
03:43.41
Matt Watson
Well so the the biggest game out there in recent times has been axiy infinity and I want to say people could probably make like depending on how many hours a day you you you play probably like. 5 10 maybe $20 a day which does not sound so that doesn’t sound like a lot of money but you and I both know in certain countries around the world like a dollar an hour is like minimum wage. It’s like they could go get a job.
04:03.44
Matt DeCoursey
so a dollar so a dollar an hour.
04:11.14
Matt DeCoursey
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
04:19.50
Matt Watson
Making a dollar an hour or maybe they could play some kind of game and make ¢75 or a dollar 50 or whatever and the whole key to these games is um, you’re trying to you know, get some advantage right? people pay because they want a better character. Whatever and. With axxi infinity. They’re they’re like axes which which is very similar to pokemon by the way so you probably know way more about this than I do but they have you know different characteristics and different fighting capabilities and all this stuff right? and so in axi infinity you you are always trying to get. Better characters and the more you play the game. You can get better characters and so then people will sell their characters right? So then there’s old marketplace where you can go and buy them. So basically you you can play and basically level up the characters and then sell them. But in axiy infinity. There’s also something called Smooth Love Potions so if you don’t want to buy any of my balls. Do you want to buy any my love potions. No all right? Well I have some smooth love potions if you want to buy them those are required in axi the infinity to like I know level stuff up or whatever it is you do, but the um but actually.
05:16.86
Matt DeCoursey
No now now.
05:33.12
Matt Watson
You know most of this stuff is all on Nft related right? So um, the s slp which is those smooth love potions. You can basically buy and sell like crypto I mean they’re they’re like cryptocurrencies. Um, and. That’s how people make money they make these slps and then they’re able to sell them for dollars or whatever currency you want and then you got role money so it is crazy. You’ve you’ve got I think like in the Philippines there’s like hundreds of thousands of people a day that play axe infinity and sell.
06:03.79
Matt DeCoursey
Yeah, yeah.
06:07.86
Matt Watson
Ah, Slp and axes and all stuff. It’s like it’s own like little mini economy have you have you ever talked to anybody who does this stuff? no.
06:13.50
Matt DeCoursey
No I haven’t no well yes, actually because last week’s episode in the series was if you’ve been keeping up. It wasn’t Matt and Matt it was myself and I had a guest that was the founder of earn the earn ft ah network and so they have like.
06:27.59
Matt Watson
Yeah.
06:33.70
Matt DeCoursey
Yeah, they plug into like 16 different ways. They I mean it’s everything you can do everything. It’s listening in music. It’s all user engagement related you know like and so there were some gaming implications. So yeah I have talked to someone about that. They haven’t talked to anybody in the Philippines about it but he did mention because you would. Said that to me before and I brought it up with him and he said that? Yeah, so ah, ah one of the you talk about just like utilitarianism so all right? So ah, Spotify is $10 a month or $15 a month or whatever. That might not seem like a lot here that might be a lot in other countries. So some of this stuff enables it what it is is it really just kind of ends up washing out the cost. So it’s got this kind of like mutual benefit because it’s driving usership in.
07:06.73
Matt Watson
Yeah.
07:21.10
Matt DeCoursey
For some of these platforms where they might not have it and you know one of the the semi dirty little secrets about saas and software products so like okay, so if you buy in a well I won’t say who because I don’t want to call them out. Maybe they’ll be a sponsor on the show later you buy a. Subscription x every yeah for $60 a month in the us that might only be like $20 in the Philippines and now they’re going to want you to have you have to have like a card address. That’s there in the Philippines and then sometimes you don’t.
07:44.73
Matt Watson
Sure yeah.
07:53.99
Matt DeCoursey
So maybe check that out if you want to buy something but because they have to they have to operate out in the pricing structure which makes sense. So if you look at like some of these games the streaming services.
07:56.52
Matt Watson
Yep. Right.
08:05.31
Matt DeCoursey
I Mean they had a whole bunch. You go back to the up episode I We listed all of them and you you find a link in the show notes to that and learn more about it. So you mentioned Axe infinity they were in the news lately.
08:13.74
Matt Watson
Yeah, yeah, I was gonna mention that too. Um, when when we finished my previous style I just looked it up. It says there’s about two and a half million people a day play axio infinity can you believe that worldwide. But they estimate about probably 40% maybe as much as 50% of them are all in the Philippines. So um, and so those those like I said I don’t know how much money they all make they make like five ten fifteen dollars a day something like that which doesn’t seem like a lot of money but that could be equivalent to like almost a minimum wage job. Um, for for some of those people.
08:32.50
Matt DeCoursey
Wow.
08:44.78
Matt DeCoursey
Well or more because for if you if he separates like what we’ll call skilld labor and to not you know like the people that work at full scale. So Matt and I have 250 employees at full scale.
08:48.46
Matt Watson
Yeah.
08:52.90
Matt Watson
Um, yeah.
08:58.86
Matt Watson
Yeah.
08:59.46
Matt DeCoursey
Ah, full-scale io now they’re developers these are like senior people that have been doing what they do for like 10 years I don’t think they’d be real entertained with $5 a day but but on the flip side of that in the city where our headquarters is at.
09:06.64
Matt Watson
No, no, no no.
09:14.36
Matt DeCoursey
The average wage for just general people like talking like people that mow grass and are you know sweet floors and shit like that they make like $400 a month. so ah yeah so five to ten dollars a day can actually would is actually.
09:18.10
Matt Watson
Right.
09:24.15
Matt Watson
No like half of that.
09:32.16
Matt Watson
Yeah, so that’s that’s to me insane that there’s that many people that play it but the but like so with all of these games. They all sort of I mean let’s be honest, they’re all sort of a little bit of a ponzi scheme right? because it’s like.
09:32.49
Matt DeCoursey
Ah, well, it’s full-time job.
09:50.30
Matt Watson
I Have to like in this game like I have to buy Axes so that I can play the game to get more stuff that then I can sell like and so somebody like to play Axe Infinity. You first have to have enough money to buy these characters which are nfts to then play the game and. And then I guess in your hope right is in you make more of them and then sell them to the next person that wants to play the game but all of a sudden if nobody wants to play the game anymore. None of it’s worth anything right? So It’s a little bit of ah like a ponzi scheme where it’s like you’ve got to have a lot of people doing it and wanting to do it or otherwise like the whole economy of it kind of will just shut down. Um, or you could have some people.
10:28.83
Matt DeCoursey
Well so the biggest the biggest threat to those operating a ponzi scheme other than jail or death is people as as people making mass withdrawals so you look at like Bernie Nadoff
10:40.53
Matt Watson
Right.
10:44.28
Matt DeCoursey
Ah, the problem they had there is because those things were representing. The only thing they had that was profitable when the housing crisis hit in 2008 they had tons people wanted to take withdrawals so other other fund managers needed to take the gain that they had to make the losses not look so bad.
10:53.00
Matt Watson
Right.
11:02.00
Matt DeCoursey
And the money wasn’t there and that made it all collapse now I’m at the axxi infinity. Ah homepage right now and according to them three point six billion us s I’m assuming that’s us traded in their in-house marketplace and the most expensive axe is that the character I’m assuming.
11:17.00
Matt Watson
Yeah, yeah, yep, that’s insane man that’s crazy. So you you mentioned this earlier and I was going to break from bring this up. So the biggest problem with a lot of crypto related stuff is all the Hacks and.
11:20.50
Matt DeCoursey
820 grand us I mean dude.
11:36.60
Matt Watson
Gams that go on and so I do a lot in the defi side which is thecent decentralized finance. So I don’t do as much with like Nfts but I do a lot on the decentralized finance stuff which is more like lending and like financial related stuff. Um.
11:35.48
Matt DeCoursey
Yeah, so.
11:52.15
Matt Watson
Like you can take bitcoin and then borrow us dollars against the bitcoin is collateral. You can do all this stuff. It’s all out there. It’s kind of cool. Um, no, but I’ll give you some ape coin. But um.
11:56.30
Matt DeCoursey
can I can I borrow 820 grand to buy an axe I’ll take that.
12:08.19
Matt Watson
So there’s a lot of trading of different cryptocurrencies that exists out there and anyways like you mentioned axe has their own you know marketplace for people that want to buy and sell axes and all this stuff and anyways there was some kind of hack that happened within the last week or so and we’re recording this episode on the first of April so I was like. Three days ago four or five days ago there was a hack that happened where so where somebody managed to get basically like the key like the developer’s key. That’s required to like sign transactions and interact with the marketplace and then basically drain $600000000 worth of ethereum and and dollars out of the marketplace which is insane. Um I don’t know how that has really impacted the game over the last few days since then if you know if it just keeps on going and I don’t know.
12:55.21
Matt DeCoursey
I mean dude if you had a big account of whatever that was and suddenly it turned into vapor I would imagine you, you’d probably have a pretty detrimental effect to all of it if you if you were if you went to put your paycheck in the bank every two weeks and
13:04.50
Matt Watson
Yeah I mean it probably didn’t that didn’t In fact.
13:13.40
Matt DeCoursey
They’re like 90% of the time we’re going to have your money you wouldn’t go put it in the bank.
13:14.32
Matt Watson
Yeah, yeah, so I don’t I don’t know how that impacted the marketplace but it just goes to show the the problem with with some you know Blockchain related stuff is is these security exploits that can happen and that that was the big one.
13:29.40
Matt DeCoursey
That’s been with like crypto in general like even going all originally back to like Mount Gox which was originally a pokemon trading platform that turned into the verse kind of like exchange and almost like place and like dude it got cleaned out.
13:32.40
Matt Watson
Yes.
13:38.60
Matt Watson
Bitcoin Exchange Yeah so you know there hasn’t been as many of those types of like exchange Hacks You know you have things like binance and coinbase and all these that are you know at least in recent times.
13:49.73
Matt DeCoursey
Yeah, yeah.
13:54.66
Matt Watson
Those big exchanges have been pretty bulletproof and and pretty safe. But yeah, you go back like several years ago yeah there was like a lot of that shit going on with mount goks and all these things like huge hacks that happened so but.
14:05.28
Matt DeCoursey
Yeah, and I mean I that’s that’s been going on a lot in crypto now that said, um, it’s probably a drop in the bucket compared to white collar crime and other forms of fraud and theft like. You ah, we were just talking about Bernie Madoff he he stole way more money he stole significantly more money than that you know so I mean this isn’t just a crypto related thing but okay so all right? So I can I can make a dollar an hour.
14:23.34
Matt Watson
Yeah, yep.
14:32.89
Matt Watson
So we so we’ve been talking about axi infinity a lot because that’s the big, the biggest one out there at this point but do you know what? the first one was the first like ah Nft crypto play you earned a you know play to earn game was.
14:49.29
Matt DeCoursey
I Do not. Ah.
14:52.38
Matt Watson
It was cryptokitties and so cryptokitties was actually the very first game came out in 2017 and you know it was in many ways kind of way but way before its time because just like today everybody loves like these. Board apes and all this stuff and they’re different avatars and jpegs and whatever I mean the cryptokitties were just they were cute little pictures of cats right? So if you go to cryptokitty’s website. They’re just cute cats. It’s the same thing they’re just jpegs but.
15:13.37
Matt DeCoursey
I.
15:22.24
Matt Watson
Cryptokitties was the same thing you you know you get a couple cats and then you breed them together and then you get a new cat and it has you know unique capbilities you know features and capabilities and whatever. Um, just like other nfts right? like you have your grandpa apes and stuff and they have unique. You know styles and you like his. 3 d glasses or whatever it is right? So cryptokitties are the same way. They’ll have just unique attributes to them. But basically you know you can buy cryptokitties and breed them together and if you’re really lucky, you’ll get some super rare one or whatever and then you can sell that and and then you have people. With a lot of Nfts that are then trying to take these things and like create other games out of them right? So cryptokitties is more about like breeding them together I believe it’s not like axy infinity which is like a game where you like go and fight and do whatever you do Um, but I think you know cryptokitties wants to I think I get to that point is. Make more games and stuff baked based on the characters. But um, there’s a lot of this kind of stuff going on um people trying to create games.
16:24.62
Matt DeCoursey
so so I’m at to open sea right now and I I looked up cryptokitties and most of the time when for Nfts when you go to stuff like okay you look at but love we’ll use board a the most for that in cryptto punks those have like 10000 right they have 2000000
16:34.55
Matt Watson
The.
16:40.58
Matt Watson
Yeah, yes.
16:42.74
Matt DeCoursey
On cryptokitties which have a hundred and fourteen thousand hundred almost one hundred and fifteen thousand different users and right here at the top of the list I’m clicking one that is for sale for ten thousand eth. It’s $35000000
16:59.65
Matt Watson
That’s insanity.
17:00.64
Matt DeCoursey
Can I get your wallet address. So I can buy this. Ah so let’s let’s take a moment and reflect on the fucking insanity of that. Okay, so.
17:02.54
Matt Watson
Ah, Nope yeah and so yeah, it’s not as rare.
17:17.30
Matt DeCoursey
Let let me let let me break this down for you. Okay, so in the world of banking you ah will often hear high net worth individual super high net worth individual and then ultra like ultrahide that worth. Okay, so the first one starts at 1000000 the next one’s 10000000 and the next one’s 30000000 of which literally like point one like not even point 1%. There’s like ah a dude how many people have a net worth of $30000000 but whoever the let’s who who owns this because this is on the blockcha. So the cryptokitties auction. You can make an offer on it. You don’t have to go 35 I’m thinking 32000000? let’s let’s under let’s go a little lower I’m in a bid more than the should I bed more than the buy and now price and just really.
17:58.62
Matt Watson
Um, ah it he’s got Gold eyes though man that’s super rare.
18:06.51
Matt DeCoursey
Well well let’s talk about that for a second is that’s actually a really good point so that’s one of the things that people find attractive. So like Eminem bought a board Ape and 2021 that really resembled him it like looked had similar to him um, kind of all these board I bought all of the.
18:17.75
Matt Watson
Yeah I did.
18:25.46
Matt Watson
Could you look like a grandpa.
18:24.92
Matt DeCoursey
My grandpa apes because I thought they looked like you um now now here’s the thing though those are the board apes are like a million bucks or more and some of that. Um, yeah, yeah, by the way you know we we know someone that works at full scale whose buddy gave him ah a cryptopunk. When they were like $40 a piece. They kind of like I transferred u n nf t a while ago just so I could see how it worked so that was kind of like a joke kind of now now I was talking to my wife last night and reminded her that the very first bitcoin transaction was like 10000 bitcoins for a pizza.
18:47.20
Matt Watson
N.
18:57.44
Matt Watson
Yeah, yeah.
19:00.26
Matt DeCoursey
And that’s like at 1 point that would have been $69000000 worth of of bitcoin based on the highest price it saw based on the one today it’s still 50000000 which you could buy this cryptokitty and still have 15000000 left but I mean so look but look at the math on this. So this transaction if.
19:07.58
Matt Watson
Yeah.
19:18.79
Matt DeCoursey
Two and a half percent of this stays at open sea congratulations open c my god you know what I’m doing but you know what I’m doing right now I’m dragging this cryptok kitty over to my desktop.
19:21.30
Matt Watson
Um, yeah I don’t think anybody is gonna.
19:30.82
Matt Watson
Oh.
19:32.83
Matt DeCoursey
Yeah now I’ve got it yo. It’s a p and g. So oh great. It has a transparent background. So maybe I’ll put I’ll put him in with my apes on the ads that go with this now you know you know we’re talking about the creation of images and stuff like that. Which. Like a really good time to remind everyone that today’s episode startup puzzle is brought to you by canva with canva you can design your ideas with ease. You could use canva and within moments make an nftt and. Go and upload it somewhere like opensee and I think that’s pretty cool and by the way you could make really cool stuff with canvas. So it would look good. Probably better than this $35000000 pngg file that I saw there but. You know they have a half a million free templates. They have a rich content library and they can help your team achieve your goals you can sign up and start designing for free at http://canva.com. There’s a link in the show notes now Matt I think sometimes you think about canvas like me using that to be a designer and make images and stuff like that. But 1 of the hardest parts about making cool images is collaborating with your teams and they have some really cool stuff in there so you can have multiple people in there and look if you’ve never had to do ah be on a creative or marketing or something team and.
20:41.75
Matt Watson
Editing a file at once.
20:47.60
Matt DeCoursey
The amount of time effort and Energy. You will spend like just saying like hey dude this needs to be a little bigger font like having that end the built end of the tool that you use is super helpful. Yeah, so I’m going to do so many things do not steal copyrighted images. And turn them into other stuff I feel like I needed to disclaim that. Okay, so all right, Let’s have a discussion about this so you talk about Axy infinity and playing it when I think about that I Always think you know there’s always someone gaming the system pun intended there.
21:20.12
Matt Watson
Yes, oh yeah, oh yeah, that’s done.
21:23.93
Matt DeCoursey
Right? So like I mean I mean I’ll I’ll just it’s late enough I’ll myth this so like when I was a ticket broker we had like dozens of Ipods and phones and shit because we not. Yeah yeah, we would just you know could cause we could.
21:32.47
Matt Watson
And Bots. Yes.
21:40.11
Matt Watson
Yeah, yeah.
21:39.56
Matt DeCoursey
Make individual purchases on them over and over and over and not just have 1 browser you know, getting kicked out for having too many open or something like that. How do people game this stuff because they know people are they have to be.
21:48.45
Matt Watson
Yeah, so there are definitely I don’t know about axiy infinity but definitely some of these types of games people are automating playing the games and so honestly, that’s how I learned to do computer programming back when I was in like eighth grade because you know.
22:02.30
Matt DeCoursey
Yeah, that oh yeah, tell that story man tell that story you know.
22:08.35
Matt Watson
Back then it was dial up so I had a modem and I would dial up and play a text god so I this would have been like 1995 1994 like yes and back then.
22:09.57
Matt DeCoursey
So when was back then give us a year old man. Ah yeah, that’s why you’re getting a grandpa Ape and not a board one. Yeah and.
22:23.57
Matt Watson
When we had dial up I would dial up and play text-based games. They were like dungeons and dragons games right? So you know I would I would’t level up my player and I want the best sword and I you know want the best armor and all that and so all night all day while I’m at school and while I’m sleeping my character runs around in a circle like killing skeletons and zombies or whatever.
22:34.84
Matt DeCoursey
Java Habits and all.
22:43.26
Matt Watson
And picks up the gold that they drop and whatever. So then when I wake up in the morning I’ve got more experience points and I’ve got more gold and whatever. And yeah, you would basically there was scripts that would.
22:48.84
Matt DeCoursey
How how did you do that. But how do you do that? do bids script it or just like.
22:58.75
Matt Watson
Like read the text that comes on the screen right? So you can read the text that comes on the screen and then know like oh it found a monster and then I put in a for attack or whatever until I kill it and then I have to sit there and rest. Yeah and then my character has to rest until I get all my hip points back and then I can run around again until I find another monster and then kill that monster.
22:59.26
Matt DeCoursey
You.
23:06.93
Matt DeCoursey
And go back and do that 10000 times
23:18.43
Matt Watson
But um, you know, even back then to take um a little tangent for a second I bought like at 1 point in time I think it paid like 50 or $75 something like that to buy some super rare sword or something from somebody else like in the real world. Much like you would today with these nfts right? like just like people want to pay $75 for a super cool axy from axe infinity or whatever I paid $75 for a sword right? and that was long time ago. So I mean I can totally see today people doing this kind of stuff in games and it.
23:45.40
Matt DeCoursey
And that was love. So.
23:54.27
Matt Watson
It makes sense to me but we you talk about like automating it. Yeah as a computer programmer right? if like sandbox we talked earlier about sandbox like the metaverse that runs in the browser. You don’t even have to install anything in your computer you can actually run it in your web browser. So you.
23:55.18
Matt DeCoursey
We can.
24:12.20
Matt Watson
You know you’re familiar with things like selenium and all these browser toolkits and stuff like that that do Qa stuff like potentially maybe it’s as simple as wiring up one of those things it says click here click here press the up key you know up on the keyboard run around in a circle or do whatever in some game and you might be able to make money doing it and yeah, there are no doubt.
24:13.80
Matt DeCoursey
Yeah, yeah, no.
24:31.67
Matt Watson
People that make like little Bots or like automated things that are gaming the system on some of these things. Maybe that’s what I should be doing Maybe I’m missing out on all of it.
24:36.89
Matt DeCoursey
But well so so some ah well some of the first ai stuff that came out the easiest way for the designers and the developers to put it in motion was to let it play games because the game would just stay on and then they could do it at scale so they could let they could run.
24:48.50
Matt Watson
Yeah, absolutely.
24:55.17
Matt DeCoursey
5000 different versions of it and the Ai was doing stuff within it so and that’s true. You know because that was just an easy way to well if you alllthough remember the movie war games with Matthew Brodrick yeah so whopper that computer was just like you remember because he was playing games with it. It was all just.
25:00.39
Matt Watson
Um, yeah, yeah.
25:13.29
Matt Watson
Here.
25:13.66
Matt DeCoursey
About training that thing to understand game theory and what happens when you like okay so I’ve done this 5000 times and it always resulted in game over. Don’t do it next time.
25:22.90
Matt Watson
Um, yeah.
25:24.63
Matt DeCoursey
That’s all Ai and machine learning is so I guarantee so by the way did you start? What did you watch the the super pump series on showtime at all. Okay, so and by the way I highly recommend that it’s the story of Uber So Uber had a massive problem when they tried to go into China because.
25:31.22
Matt Watson
No, not yet, not yet.
25:44.16
Matt DeCoursey
Right? before they launched in China apple removed a specific device tag on the iphone that made it very difficult to track if like so meaning device specific so they were they they had these maps at uber. Where they had litter looked like centipedes and they would be like 50 cars in a row but it was really just one car with 50 different like they were simulating rides in order to get the bonus things and they were losing $25000000 a week to that.
26:04.78
Matt Watson
Um.
26:15.96
Matt DeCoursey
And and and they could and they was yeah so someone’s always out there gaming these things and trying to. There’s always a hustle that someone’s going to figure out. So yeah, you’re gaming. You’re driving for uber.
26:21.57
Matt Watson
Man I know what I’m doing this weekend I didn’t even think about that. Yeah, that’s it. Yeah yeah, while I sleep I should get back to that I guess.
26:32.70
Matt DeCoursey
Oh you’re gonna build Ai that plays video games. Yeah, but you know and by the way the way that that goes when you’re an entrepreneur is once you once you figure that out and you’re like huh I can make a dollar an hour doing that we probably better buy 15000 computers
26:47.49
Matt Watson
Yeah, let’s scale this thing up. Maybe.
26:50.35
Matt DeCoursey
We’re gonna end up. We’re goingnna end up like purchasing like the building next door to the full scale building and it will just and and it and and the the deafening sound of 10000 computer fans on at the same time. Yeah.
26:56.13
Matt Watson
I’m going to have a room full of raspberry pies.
27:04.13
Matt Watson
And yeah, and no doubt there are people doing that to these play to earn games absolutely or or ah paying people to play the game or like like all sorts of crazy stuff I guarantee that goes on. Yeah, heck yeah, put them to work.
27:09.10
Matt DeCoursey
Hey young.
27:16.43
Matt DeCoursey
So yeah, I’m gonna put my kids to work. Yeah, and I’m gonna buy you a grandpa ape with the with the proceeds. so okay so um I mean is this is this. Something that so you have the top Nft games actually infinity. You got the sandbox gods on chain defi kingdom spleterland I love how they all have their tokens. It’s Axe Sand Land Gods Jewel wax
27:42.84
Matt Watson
I messed around with defi kingdom one day I played that once.
27:50.53
Matt DeCoursey
So is this something that still like has like massive growth potential. Are we in the infancy are we you know like I mean where where do you think we’re out with this as as as a world and.
28:05.32
Matt Watson
Um, what’s interesting. Is you know today you can play like these super high tech like immersive graphics you know games like the latest call of duty or like you know that just like most realistic like. Super cool like graphics and all this stuff but people also love like retro games and stuff and a lot of times these games and they’re not cutting edge graphics they’re some of them are pretty lame. But um, they’re definitely kind of more retro feeling kind of games.
28:29.20
Matt DeCoursey
Me.
28:41.88
Matt Watson
And even some of the metaverses stuff like you go into like the sandbox or some of those like metaverse things and the graphics are not not super exciting. They’re not super impressive. But yes, exactly yeah exactly you saw those? Yeah, they’re not super impressive. But.
28:43.32
Matt DeCoursey
Yeah.
28:49.98
Matt DeCoursey
Kind of like the Snoop dog dogggies that don’t look like Snoop dog. Well I was going to buy you one and then I didn’t and I can’t afford it I can’t afford the gas fees.
29:01.83
Matt Watson
But that but that partly makes like but the good news is that makes like creating these games like a lot easier because the graphics are not like super crazy. Um, and so.
29:13.71
Matt DeCoursey
True well and then you know another thing too. You were mentioned in kind of countries like the philippines you can’t be bandwidth intensive with a lot of those countries because you know like so Philippines is is. We’ll call that more of second world infrastructure for the most part and it’s the second world because there’s spots of it where.
29:21.13
Matt Watson
Um, yeah.
29:33.58
Matt Watson
Yeah, yeah.
29:32.81
Matt DeCoursey
Are more modern than where I’m at right now and then some of it’s not even close but you know a lot of people still have over the-air internet you know like like literally like mobile Hotspots kind of stuff and if the.
29:40.97
Matt Watson
Um, yeah, well I own a house there and I think our internet’s three megabits like we’re not on super high fast broadband even at my house there. So.
29:52.43
Matt DeCoursey
Well and so that’s one of the things that like Elon’s trying to solve with starlink and yeah, so so we’ve launched 3000 satellites into space. So the world can make a living playing cryptokitties.
29:57.77
Matt Watson
Yeah, yep.
30:08.39
Matt Watson
Maybe man Maybe it’s crazy. It’s crazy.
30:10.50
Matt DeCoursey
Yeah, so so question and I think I’m positive I know the answer to this so with cryptokitties they’re obviously they’re they’re just their their monetization model is shaven off fees that are associated with these transactions then right.
30:26.14
Matt Watson
Yeah, yeah, selling a Kitty I’m sure.
30:29.15
Matt DeCoursey
So the game’s free to play for the most part. But if you’re going to buy a $75 this then they’re going to keep $7 and ¢50 or 15 or something like that. So yeah, that’s something that I have a lot of people don’t consider. Yeah I had a meeting once at the old fullscale office with someone that wanted to build an app and it was I got halfway through the meeting and I realized. This young entrepreneur who had a lot of spirit but didn’t realize that Apple keeps 30% of an app purchases and his margin was 15% so like I saw that and I had had stopped and I was like hey you realized that with this current model. You would lose 15 % on every sale and he’s like what do you mean.
30:53.18
Matt Watson
Yeah.
31:07.46
Matt DeCoursey
Right? So but the thing is is but that’s how so the app store and that was a big fight. They got into because finally Apple made the concession of of removing that or moving that down to 15% for like Sas type recurring subscriptions but think about think that’s why Apple’s
31:21.21
Matt Watson
Never.
31:26.61
Matt DeCoursey
Prints money like that’s axi and the Axiy infinity model times half of mobile devices. Yeah yep, right.
31:30.70
Matt Watson
Yeah, well and that’s why they’re fighting with like epic and fortnite and although like they suit them because of their taking the 30% which doesn’t make any sense right? because if I go buy something on instacart or Amazon on on an Apple device. They are not taken 30% but they do if you all of a sudden buy $10 worth a vbucks on fortnite like it’s weird.
31:51.86
Matt DeCoursey
Yeah, but I think that there’s a but I bet is your I don’t think your app for those things is actually tendered through the it’s it’s different. It’s a little different because you know do you have audible. Do you have the audible app like books on tape. Okay so you can’t purchase credits.
32:04.81
Matt Watson
You know.
32:11.49
Matt Watson
Yeah.
32:11.32
Matt DeCoursey
You have to go like the audible like so you go have the like http://amazon.com not the Amazon app but I hear what you’re saying with the actual Amazon app because I guess you do get that through the app store. What.
32:20.90
Matt Watson
Um, well, that’s what Apple fights right? Apple’s trying to prevent. Also they have rules. It says you can’t you have to pay through the Apple store you can’t pay outside of it and that’s what epic was fighting them on actually is you could pay outside of the Apple store.
32:32.77
Matt DeCoursey
How does Amazon get around that.
32:36.99
Matt Watson
Ah, because they’re not selling digital goods I think it’s all a digital goods thing I think that’s what it is but any anyways we we digress. But.
32:42.91
Matt DeCoursey
Ah I see well well no well gigabook has ah has a Apple app but the thing is is we don’t have a sign up, you can’t subscribe through the app which by the way is a shitty approach because it doesn’t it would let them have their 30%
32:54.79
Matt Watson
Right.
33:02.37
Matt DeCoursey
Right? Because if they’re the reason that you know whatever it is what it is raise your prices if it doesn’t fit your model because the easier easier you make it to subscribe so that was an issue I had with so many things like so I use I’m an Apple guy and I have Apple Tv and we use that to power our Tvs. But.
33:07.29
Matt Watson
So that.
33:20.11
Matt DeCoursey
You know, like when I so I’m a history Channel buff and I I never subscribed to it because I had like go somewhere else to subscribe and then come back and sign in and they’ve made they’ve fixed that a lot now and. You know it is what it is I don’t know if that was just stubbornness or lack of the app providers creating something I don’t know it’s kind of interesting.
33:41.77
Matt Watson
So on these all these new play to earn games I think are are really interesting and they’re kind of piggyback on another trend with games where games are free like fortnite is free right?? um. And it’s one of the most popular games there is so instead of paying $60 for video game like call of duty or whatever I’m paying so six. Yeah I’m paying nothing for fortnite but then they make an insane amount of money. People buying skins and dances. You know, vbucks and all that stuff right? like there’s an economy with it right? But what you’re seeing in these play to earn games is the Mary of that same strategy where you’ve got a lot of people that can basically play the game for free.
34:12.88
Matt DeCoursey
Yeah, love potions.
34:28.69
Matt Watson
And then you got people that are playing the game that earn some things that then they can sell and then you have another group that will buy that stuff and so that just creates more and more hype and demand of the game. You got the people that are that are getting paid to basically pay the game play the game and then they’re selling stuff to other people and. Um, it makes sense. It creates like its own weird little economy and all of it right? and then something like I Axi infinity is as you mentioned earlier I don’t know if they’re taking 1% or whatever they’re taking when people are are buying and selling these things to each other but they create like their own little economy. It’s really fascinating to me.
35:03.47
Matt DeCoursey
Yeah, well, that’s the so here’s the thing though is is 1 thing that we didn’t talk about is remember the the digital world is all in competition for your eyeballs. So there’s a huge amount of value and we talk we’re going to talk about that in the later series about the whole. Ah.
35:14.20
Matt Watson
Yeah, yep.
35:23.27
Matt DeCoursey
About Nft property right? and you know like what people are doing with that. Yeah know and and and what does that mean now you hear that oh so-and-s so spend a million dollars on a lot on main street on decentral land. Well why? Why can people justify that and because it’s you know Ah I mentioned the the super pumped the uber documentary. There’s a wework one on an Apple plus right now and they said something in it because. What a brilliant strategy Adam Newman had early because he won he knew he needed big investors. So the second we work was right across the street from j where who’s Jamie Diamond with whatever that is is it jp morgan
36:03.13
Matt Watson
I Don’t know not sure.
36:06.80
Matt DeCoursey
Someone huge but they opened it so and he was like it’s not and here’s the thing it was a shorter building so it didn’t have great views and they said it’s not what you can see. It’s who can see you so that’s where that justification comes in in the competition for eyeballs. So that’s where like. When you hear about. So do you know that Tiktok got more visits than Google last year like more usage. Yeah dude worldwide like what the book right? So but here’s the thing though. So that’s a threat to Google because then they’re not selling ads and clicking stuff like that. So.
36:25.99
Matt Watson
What Wow Wow Oh yeah.
36:39.66
Matt DeCoursey
You know Facebook’s and Instagram and reels are kind of are competing with that and it’s all about getting your eyeballs in so the same thing goes so when I would imagine when you look at the key performance indicators at something like Axiy Infinity they’re like how ah how many people sign in. How many how many daily users do we have and how long do they stay in how much do they buy and sell and whatever I don’t know man. So this some of this stuff. It does honestly kind of blow my mind.
36:59.21
Matt Watson
Um, yep, yep.
37:08.74
Matt Watson
Well the the future of this is and so the nft side of this you have like the Nft characters like axy infinity or cryptokitties or whatever you know you have the nftt of the character and then in some of them. They also have their tokens like you mentioned. Are more like crypto tokens or kind of like a currency. So when you play the game you can you can earn an Nft or you can earn the current the different currencies and sell them and whatever and trade them and the future of this in regards to Nfts. Essentially being able to take those nf t’s into like multiple different games and stuff right? It’s like oh I have my axy can I breed my axy with a cryptok kitty or maybe I play some game where the crypt the cryptokitties fight against the axes within the central land or sandbox like you know that’s the.
37:51.00
Matt DeCoursey
It is interesting.
38:01.60
Matt Watson
The ultimate goal was some of this just trying to figure out like this cross compatibility between different things. But.
38:06.47
Matt DeCoursey
Crop. Yeah yeah, Cro Yeah, and that’s smart I hadn’t even really considered that how they merge and they have to eventually. Ah.
38:12.97
Matt Watson
Well, they could right? They’d have to be on the same blockchain and a lot of these games are on different blockchains like defi kingdoms you mentioned earlier that’s on harmony and you know some of them are on different blockchains too. But um, if they’re all on the same blockchain. And they wanted to work together. The games have to you know you have to program like as a programmer I’d have to look you know for Nfts with a certain contract. There are axes or whatever right? like I have to write my code to look for those specifically and then enable them in my game to do something different but potentially I think you could. Anybody could just make a game like I’m going to make a game that uses axi characters even though axy infinity didn’t have anything to do with it like I’m just Goingnna make a game and you can bring your axes and come play over here. Um, that’d be interesting to do and we’ll see if stuff like that happens in the future. But that’s part of the value of them being enough t.
39:02.39
Matt DeCoursey
So so I have an I have an interest I have an interesting stat about how many nftt projects flop and it’s going to surprise you and maybe not but before I’d give you that number I add as we. Ah, begin to end this show and and thanks again for another great series about nftts I’ve learned so much and hopefully those of you listening have if you want to learn more about how to do better graphic design and work as a team I want to just once again, give a big thank you to today’s episode sponsor and the series sponsor canva. Canva you can work together. You can do it from wherever you want, you can get on the same page with your team seamless real time collaboration. Dude it’s so easy. So easy. It’s like I make really cool stuff with canva just go try it out. And by the way man like the thing I I love about it is. It’s really like a drag and drop kind of world. They they have taken all of the hard stuff out all the things like like dude I hate photoshop I’m not going to lie I hate it. It’s too complex I don’t need all that shit like it’s just too. It’s overcale for me.
40:03.34
Matt Watson
Yeah.
40:09.58
Matt Watson
Yeah, keep it simple.
40:09.60
Matt DeCoursey
It’s really expensive to buy subscribe to like canvas free on many levels and I actually went ahead and I used the paid account and yeah, it’s good stuff. So check this out I I 1 in 3 nft projects at the moment at the point of the article that I just read is literally like dead. Like it and doesn’t get any play. It doesn’t do anything it basically flops 1 and 3 now here’s the thing that number is going to skyrocket because right now there is an oversaturation I’m seeing it occur. There’s flooding of the market. Everyone’s launching an Nft and just don’t know that if you’re listening like I don’t like the whole buying.
40:30.75
Matt Watson
Surprises on more on that.
40:48.80
Matt DeCoursey
Buying Nfts on speculation I mean I think that’s risky as hell.
40:54.75
Matt Watson
That’s what it all is though right? I mean it’s like 100% speculation at least with the nft games. It’s like okay I can go buy and axi infinity and I can play it this weekend and I can sell them and maybe I’m got some smooth love potions and I can sell those to you because you want to buy my love potions.
40:55.60
Matt DeCoursey
Yeah, yeah.
41:12.48
Matt Watson
You know you you can make a few bucks at it and sell where you’re not buying like just ah in you know, inft art that’s truly just like Jpegs or whatever right? like these kind of Nfts in the games at least have some form of utility within the games themselves and the ecosystem. So as long as the games are popular kind of.
41:12.87
Matt DeCoursey
Totaling.
41:30.66
Matt Watson
Earlier why I said it’s kind of a little bit like a ponzi as long as the the games are popular and people want to play the games. They’ll have some value. But yeah, if like 100000 people that play axe and infinity all wanted to sell their axes tomorrow. Yeah, the price of them is gonna cave so but yeah.
41:45.73
Matt DeCoursey
Yeah, all right? Well I mean how and hey here’s the thing people like how does this have value value exists wherever we create it. You know I mean if if if there’s a market if there are multiple buyers interested in buying a fucking Jpeg of an ape.
41:48.30
Matt Watson
Long as people want to do it.
41:56.67
Matt Watson
People like to play games.
42:05.65
Matt DeCoursey
Cause it’s exclusive and and it and it’s you’re like how there’s no way that’s worth a million bucks if it just sold for me to you for a million dollars it is very much worth $1000000 somewhere somehow and whatever. So I mean some of this is gonna continue to I think the early stuff has a chance.
42:15.44
Matt Watson
Um, yeah.
42:24.49
Matt DeCoursey
Um I Love I Really think it’s clever what board Ape did they Acquired. So First off they went out and got traditional venture back funding. Um, they realized they had created a store of wealth they brought in a ton of money they went and acquired Cryptounks So They had the other kind of original like popular thing. And then they use that to basically stake and create their own cryptocurrency apecoin I mean can we can. We respect the hustle on that because at some at some point a couple. Ah yeah roll but they haven’t even done it yet.
42:46.56
Matt Watson
Um, yeah, well and and then they’re going to create a game. Yeah, not yet, but they will.
42:58.60
Matt DeCoursey
So let’s let’s go back and this was like dude a year and a half ago you could buy a board ape for like a couple hundred bucks man so first off congratulations to the people that actually got that and bought it and did well with it and then congratulations to the group of entrepreneurs that sat down and said dude.
43:03.65
Matt Watson
Yeah.
43:15.90
Matt DeCoursey
Let’s randomly generate a whole bunch of pictures of apes that look bored. Well, what are we going to do Matt I don’t know let’s put a cigarette in some of their mouths and make some of their eyes red. We’ll make 10000 of them. We’ll put them on the blockchain and see what happens and everyone they knew was like. You’re never gonna sell Jpegs for a lot of money wrong I know man you did you sold a company once for one hundred and fifty million bucks and how long did it take from when you started that company to when you sold it. It was like a 10 year turnaround right.
43:35.17
Matt Watson
Hold my beer watch this.
43:45.42
Matt Watson
But eight years eight years I should have just bought board apes.
43:50.79
Matt DeCoursey
Right? then then and then and then how long from when you founded stackify till that exited right? So yeah and the million dollar bedroom sequence was that was 8 year at that company full scale. It’s taken us 4 years to get to 250 employees
43:53.86
Matt Watson
I like another 10 years
44:09.59
Matt DeCoursey
Been doing it wrong the whole time man we could have just been literally using a generator to create pictures of monkeys and that whole thing is worth 5 to $10000000000 right now. Man dude no doubt.
44:22.00
Matt Watson
I think I’m going to focus this weekend on building a bot to play these games for me while I sleep.
44:28.44
Matt DeCoursey
I might be in on that I have another good idea for some entrepreneurship I think that we we blaze dried over that and so I’m going to go ahead and end this episode so I can talk to you about it. Matt I’ll see you next week
44:38.49
Matt Watson
See.