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Why is a blue party hat worth so much money!?

In Episode #468 of Mere Mortals 'Musings', Juan and I discuss: how virtual items can gain real-world value, why in-game economies mirror real-world behaviour of scarcity/market manipulation/speculative trading, the reason crypto gaming has largely fallen flat (but might have a future in games like Off The Grid), whether people will watch AI agents gaming in the future and why the crypto casino is already a game in itself.

Huge thanks to Violet Mouse for the support this week, what a legend!

Timeline:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:01:29) Runescape's Rare Items
(00:05:15) Human Behaviour in Virtual Economies
(00:09:01) The Psychology of In-Game Purchases
(00:17:00) Crypto Games: Hype vs Reality
(00:29:29) The Future of Gaming and Crypto Integration
(00:31:32) Boostagram Lounge
(00:34:14) Out-of-Game Economies and Real-World Impact
(00:44:02) Speculation and Game Dynamics
(00:52:38) AI and the Future of Gaming
(01:01:41) Crypto's Role in Gaming's Future

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[00:00:07] Kyrin Down:

Welcome everyone to another episode of the mere mortals musings. Not live today because of Windows update on my laptop. Sorry Windows.   We are recording at the same time, 9 AM Australian Eastern Standard Time on a Wednesday   almost. Correct.   You've got Kyrin here. You've got Juan on the other side as well. Brilliant. And we're gonna be talking about video game economies   today. So mere mortals musings, we pick a topic and we dive deeper into it. Philosophising a little bit philosophy in the park, but the park is actually 1 studio here. Exactly.   So   I've been on a mini splurge on the intersection of   and part of it was like crypto related games,   but also I was just getting thrown some random stuff by the YouTube algorithm recently. It's been quite nice   They were changing it up.  

And there was a couple of videos which really jumped out at me. And I was like, oh, it's actually kind of interesting. Like, what the what the hell? And so one of them was related to the what we hinted at last week, the blue party hat and why it's why is it worth a car? Yep. Is it still worth a car? I don't think so now. Okay. It was at one point   and yeah, I'm not sure maybe in the maybe in the future it will be. Right.  

[00:01:20] Juan Granados:

I was gonna make clear people, I think it was a it was that what there was multiple hats that you could get in the game. Correct. I don't know how you obtained them because I've never personally played Runescape. Yeah. So so what happened was so Runescape,  

[00:01:33] Kyrin Down:

like online   what kind of game is it? MMORPG?   Yeah.   Multi   multiplayer   online   something role playing game.  

[00:01:43] Juan Granados:

Massive multiplayer online role playing games. And  

[00:01:47] Kyrin Down:

so very popular in the 2000   period I think in particular, but probably even to this day.   And basically   what happened in that game was during select events of the year, so   around Christmas   or around   Halloween,   the   devs of this game and they were like very actively involved in the game, like continually updating it would just do like, okay, we're putting Santa hats out in the wild and so you could just find these Santa hats and they're really clunky, unuseful items because it's like   some of them you couldn't even wear   on your character,   Some of them would take up like a full inventory space, but you couldn't have additional of them. So it'd be like it wasn't it wasn't smart if you're playing the game to   actually have them in your inventory. So they were just like useless, completely useless and in fact would detract from you being able to play the game. Gameplay was bad. Yes. But as a kind of status symbol,   1 over the course of time, like people lost them or or there wasn't that many that were collected. People   discarded them. So they started to get scarce. It's like, oh, online digital scarcity. We know this story.  



[00:03:01] Juan Granados:

And then Bitcoin. Bitcoin. Yeah, exactly.  

[00:03:04] Kyrin Down:

And   then people will started realizing, oh, I can actually sell this for like a bit of gold. People are wanting these things. And so like an in game market economy   started   to form and to merge into the   Brunscape which always had an   in game marketplace. People were   smithing things, people would get ore and they'd sell that for ingots that get, you know, this weapon for that weapon.   You were leveling up and so you needed to know someone who could get do this thing for you. So it was very, like interactive between the user base very,   there was already a market economy there. And this was just like the   speculative   as asset in this rather than something like a commodity, which was   of the the gold which was more tightly controlled   by the game and had a bit more dispersion and things like this. So yeah, so people essentially   those different colors of it   that cabals would form of like these people who are manipulating the price to make it higher.  

There would be the purple party hat was like the most rare for a bit. And then people did the math and they're like, Oh, wait, I think the blue is actually more rare now. And it got up to the point where people were trading these things for so much in game currency   that could be converted for Yeah, that was like equivalent to a car cost. Yeah, that it was equivalent to a car. So like   $20 maybe. What are you thinking the peak cost of peak value   of blue hats? The $40   sits in my head, but that's that's,   yeah, I'm not slightly   uninformed.  

Let's quickly figure it out. It says here,  

[00:04:44] Juan Granados:

blue party hat in RuneScape at around in 2017,   indicated that blue party hat was traded for approximately 57,000,000,000   gold pieces equating to around   6,700   USD at the time. Okay.  

[00:05:00] Kyrin Down:

Maybe maybe it was more It was a really shitty cut. Maybe it was more prior, maybe it was,  

[00:05:04] Juan Granados:

less whatever maybe. But again, it's like significant money for what was not intended to be money, right? Like, well, it was not intended to be, anything more than just  

[00:05:13] Kyrin Down:

like a Easter egg basically in a game. Yeah. So I'm kind of like summarizing this video I saw which is it was along the lines of why is a blue party hat worth a car? And if you want more, go to that YouTube channel   or that YouTube video   and it has a really good explanation of basically everything I just said except it'll take you  

[00:05:33] Juan Granados:

half an hour. It's a long video. You just summarized it there. Okay. So, then why that topic? What are the things in it with interesting teams? So,  

[00:05:40] Kyrin Down:

the   I suppose this was just one of those ones where it was like, it was interesting because   this market emerged whether the creators wanted it or not, which I find rather interesting about video games. Like,   people are just playing these things and it's like, you know, you can just play Tetris if you want and but that's all you can do. But there's ones where it's there's massive multiplayer   games   where   they didn't it was really interesting. So the Runescape has a very active developer,   which is called   I hope I wrote that down. It was like PAX, PAXIS, PAX, something like that.   And anyway, they were they were very   like they'd always be pushing updates. They were the ones who were putting these little in game items in things like this.  

Jagex.   Jagex. That's the one.   And   so Jagex   had   a lot of like,   it's essentially almost think of them as a government. You know, they were controlling prices of things, they   tried to manipulate stuff. And it was really interesting where   the things got out of hand and they couldn't control it, which is like, what the hell? They are in the video game. You know, there's a perfect analogy for a government.   They they can control basically every every aspect. If they want to take things from people's inventories, they can. If they want to multiply a thing to make it valueless, they can. They want to get people to do certain things, they can.   And so they had this central marketplace where they were fixing the price for certain things like the party hats. And it was like, this is how much the party hat is now worth. And people just went around it. And it was so funny seeing all the   human behavior that goes around   and people trying to   I don't know if they're trying to control them. They'll certainly try to make it more fair because they were like, alright, this is getting ridiculous. People are spending   way too much money on this. People are harassing other people for these. Yeah.  



[00:07:41] Juan Granados:

So they'll be like, I remember there'd be parties to like go kill the people who've got the not in real life, but on in the game. You kill them to go obtain the hats that they'll have. Yeah. And, and, you know, they try to keep it all in the game, but as soon as  

[00:07:57] Kyrin Down:

not even as soon as there was people would always find ways for   the marketplace to not only be in the game and do things in the game to get around things. So for example,   when you're trying to trade items,   there was only a certain amount that you could carry at any given time. And   the numbers have were starting to get high enough where it's like, I can't have that much gold on me to go and trade this thing.   And so what they end up doing is like, there was this one person in particular, another good video was around blue rose 13x.   It was the she became like the Smithing Queen and she got the highest Smithing levels   and basically had   people working nonstop to bring her or so that she could just Smith stuff so she didn't have to go and find the thing. So she was just smithing all day and you know, she was getting to the higher levels so she could then   create the armor that everyone wanted. And she had an in game boyfriend who she favored and like some friends, but people would come up to her and be like, Hey, give me stuff, blah, blah, blah.  



[00:09:02] Juan Granados:

And it's amazing to like,   imagine, you know, sometimes they there's talks right now where we are to end of 2024   AI is going to come and people are going to be   favoring video games and wanting to almost like live in the video game world or the reality world versus the actual world and it's like man some of some people have been doing this for Yeah. Oh, wow. Right. For a full quarter of a century, man. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, this stuff is and and you can see why, like, she was popular. She was Mhmm. People were talking about her. Those values. Those values that she had for the people who were playing the game. Yeah. Yeah. And a lot of people started playing the game.  

[00:09:39] Kyrin Down:

It comes with its hate, of course. Like there was people on forums who were talking shit about her and, you know, she being a woman. I mean,   it's like   her female her character was female. No one ever actually knew if she was female, but, you know, just talking online, it seemed that she was. And yeah. So then she got all of this, you know, like, surprise, Karen. Who's that chick? Yeah.   The blue the blue rose shorts. Give it away. So,   yeah. So what they would do is like they'd have to do really stupid shit, like create   30 Smurf accounts. So which is basically just account with nothing in it. Yeah.  

Fill those accounts with gold or whatever items that she wanted.   Somehow do like a batch transfer of all those accounts to her   or her to then make   a sword or something and give it to the sub person. So like people are spending   hours, you know, dicking around doing this stupid shit just to be able to trade in this game. So once again, it's like the people putting the effort in to do that. It's so funny. You're just seeing human behavior and economies changing so much. And then it would go outside of this when you could start buying gold   in for Fiat. So like, you know, I've got actual money,   paying   some sort of website   to be able to get the gold   and then in game and then it's like, okay, now there's this link to the outside world, hence the ability to   pay a car for  

[00:11:08] Juan Granados:

fucking blue party party. So I think there's a differentiator in the human psychology aspect of of I guess in in game assets or in game purchases,   that   if I had to take a stab in the dark,   probably the, I don't know how you pronounce it, how do you pronounce it, m morgues,   m ports, whatever, m morgues or whatever. Yeah. That, you know,   massive multi multiplayer online role playing games, that aspect of it, I think, has the propensity for humans   to purchase things to either level up kind of like in real life, you know, if you see a neighbor and the neighbor has a new car, you know, generally people will be like, oh, they've got a new car, I should have a new car or if you're in a suburb where everyone drives Porsche and you're driving around in a little Honda,   on a month 6, you know, it might be the mentality like, damn, I'm out of place. I need to elevate and get that. So, I think the concept of having   not just people that are playing it, but people that you can see also play alongside you having certain things   makes you want   to be in the same group, be in the same likelihood of what they're doing, etc. So,   I can see that there being a stronger purpose to that. Also,   when it comes into some sort of ranking, so I'm thinking,   mobile games, other games who have really clear   purchases, in app purchases, they would make they make so much money. But, you will see this all the time when you know Age of Empires on your mobile or any other of those type of Facebooky type games, I guess, where you're competing or going on a leaderboard against people. Hey, but if you purchase   this, you get the ability to play an extra 20 minutes of tripled experience or something like that, right? So, that encourages that. But the reason I'm saying that is from a psychological perspective,   the in app purchases where it's not a   super comparison or connectedness with the rest of other people that you can see directly,   I think there's a tendency for those   availability of assets, such as say, either be 1 not as   scarce or as valuable or to not as use. And I can only say that because I've played I think there's 2 main games that I can recall it one being,   Gran Turismo,   the other one being,   Call of Duty, actually, the third one being I racing, which I like currently have right now. I haven't raised for a little while though, which is a shame. Now out of those 3,   I racing probably the most connected to me being able to see leaderboards and those other things. But the other 2 with Call of Duty and with   Gran Turismo,   you could buy packages in those games where you could get extra race courses or you could get extra maps that you could find people with. But it wasn't a requirement   to be able to play with the general   population or in Gran Turismo's case, just to race on your own and do your thing.  

And psychologically, in that aspect,   I never ever wanted to purchase anything. Like, I was like, why in the hell would I even spend $2 to get an extra map to 5 people in Call of Duty style, where I can already be using 95%   of the maps already that it's available to everyone and I just the enjoyment comes from the playing not from having a different color to my gun or something to that effect. Not always, I can definitely I have seen videos of people doing that and that happens in Fortnite now, right? Like in in app purchases before and I do pay 1,000 of dollars for different skins and the like. Yeah. That's more inclusive with other people so I could see that being done. I never got   like captured by that. I don't know if it was maybe I'm a little bit to the side or not. We're not the best user. We're not the best app, but also I also played games which weren't necessarily,   oh, I'm in a group that's doing this.  

They would be, although I still probably wouldn't   transfer all the way, but if I was playing   Fortnite and I was in a clan or a group and everyone had a $1,000   multi   emerald and ruby colored outfit,   I would feel a little bit left out if I didn't have it. There would be an internal turmoil between,   should I get it because everyone's gunning it or no, like what the hell, I'm not going to do that, but then risk the maybe ostracizing factor of okay, well now you're not part of the group because you don't have this. So I can see I can see why there would be a psychologically strong factor to  

[00:15:25] Kyrin Down:

everything. Every behavior you see in just normal   in   life, I guess.   I think you can see all of those in the in game months and it just depends on the person. You know, my brother is much more of a gamer, has always been than myself, for example,   and he's gotten into Pokemon GO over the last 6 months.   He spent an absurd amount of money. You can buy things in the game. Yeah. Pokemon GO. Yeah. It's on what what do you get?   So most of its items and passes to be able to do things. So for example,   if you run out of Pokeballs,   you can restock on Pokeballs.  

If you want to do a raid pass, which is to be able to like   essentially spoof where you are in the world to go to a different place in the world and do   a raid   there to be able to get a rare Pokemon or something, you know, you have to chill up for that. And so   you can do almost all of these things,   just by playing the game, but you have to play it a lot.   Right? You won't be able to get to higher levels as quickly, etcetera, etcetera.   So   and then there are certainly   ways to be able to like trade in the game Pokemon, therefore,   you could probably do be still be doing stuff where it's like I know someone in real life I'm going to trade them like this rare 2016 Pokemon that only people who are playing back then can get   or have   for,   I don't know, an oddish   and then in real life, I'll give them some money as well or something, you know? Yes.  

So there's all sorts of different behavior that's going on there. And so I think everything that you can see in the in real life is in the in the game.   That stuff I was talking about before was like community driven economies. Yeah.   But these are kind of like small islands   and can they link to a broader market, which is getting towards some of the crypto games. Okay. So it's just like the real future intersection   of the,   of these economies. So   I was watching some videos on this as well, and these were actually more hater type videos.  

[00:17:35] Juan Granados:

And I would say I'm more of a hater of crypto games than I am a lover. Okay. Yeah. So and, you know, if  

[00:17:41] Kyrin Down:

you've been a hater, times are booming, man. The the last,   you know, 5 years,   great time to be a hater on crypto games because, God, they've sucked.   So another video I watched was talking about this dude who basically   started a YouTube channel just on hating on and hating   on just being like I'm going to review them because the dude's a gamer so he's like I'm going to review these games that particularly on crypto   And   so Decentraland,  

[00:18:09] Juan Granados:

you remember that? That was very popular. It's got a 100 active players as of right at this moment. And I mean, he he played to this probably like I remember when they did the release of the images of what the central land was going to look like. If you have if you haven't seen this, go look at what the   example   like promo of what they were going to look like prior to and afterwards because it became a meme for a while about how shit Yeah. They were. Yeah. And so this dude went online recently and he's just like, it's a ghost town, man. All these places where  

[00:18:38] Kyrin Down:

the meant to have NFT are portraits and galleries   of empty and just showing like JPEG out of image like an error.   The only, you know, this  

[00:18:50] Juan Granados:

is just so funny, like the random shit that he was on these, like, the only people on here are bots. Like, I think Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's no, like, real human. I mean, another example of that was, a more of a clear example. Well, the woman   we've still are doing relatively well a couple of years ago, they had partnered up   with, I don't remember what the name of it is, something sand wasn't sandbox, but something equivalent to it where you could get your own house   set up, if you had like a wow or a wow gee. Now I had both, so I was able to have both. I remember logging in setting up my place, putting up my NFTs on the wall   and the whole place thing was like, you know, you can go and visit other people. It's going to be this great thing. Again, not not too dissimilar to probably 40% of every single entity out there and of course like I've never ever ever logged in ever again to that space. I'm sure I never will. I don't know if it's got any particular value.  

Again PlayStation   PlayStation back in the day, PlayStation 4   had, like the PS home space and so you could go and play bowling in this little joint space with lots of other people online and you could do bowling and you can get your house set up.   I liked that at the time there was some value to that but it was a limited value more than what I probably seen in some of the crypto space. It was like a gimmick. Yeah.  

[00:20:04] Kyrin Down:

What happened to you were a big fan of DapperDinos  

[00:20:08] Juan Granados:

for a fair while. Correct. Do you still have them? I still have them and like, so from an NFT perspective, I haven't gotten rid of any. Now they had a game that you were talking about? They have a they had a game. It I've I've never played the game. Now the game got released. I believe they still can do You said you played it. I remember   2 or something. I played the demo. I haven't played the full   app release of it, which they do now have. Yeah. So maybe kudos to those guys. They actually fully built out the game. I still see the X posts every now and again of like, oh, here comes the next level, here comes the next thing.   It looks okay.  

Right now, where I say in my life, there is no gaming in my life necessarily beyond maybe some iRacing and even then that's not happening.   I'm not sad about that,   but I would say that at least   executed on what they were gonna say. Yeah. I I can't vouch how good the currency is. NFT price going up of them? No. No. No. No. I haven't I haven't seen I haven't seen that done anything at all. So not not in a comparison to what they used to be for sure. Okay. Those ones, you know, it'll be unfair if we talk about it without having actually done it ourselves. So who knows?  

[00:21:16] Kyrin Down:

The other ones which were kind of notable Splinterlands,   if you ever heard of that. Yep.   It's, isn't even really a game basically. Like you just have cards and the cards battle themselves. So it's like imagine Yu Gi Oh, but you   but or Pokemon, you know, card games, but you don't even there's no skill component. You just buy cards and they fight against each other.   And they're they're going bankrupt.   Too many numerous scams, rugs and bombs to count.   I actually even knew a dude in real life,   when I was going to the Cardano meetups who was wanting to create a tower defense game and then link that   through with Cardano somehow.  

And, yeah, once again, it's like, I'm not a gamer, so I can't comment on how good or   bad his game was.   It looks a little bit iffy, but, you know Sure. It looked like he was having fun doing it, and I don't think anything ever really came of it, but, you know, most things   don't.   That's fine.   That being said, so with all all of the hate, there are still   300,000   monthly player base on Axie Infinity, which was the Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think for Axie. Yep.   The one particularly in the Philippines   got Unchained,   which is on IMX, I believe.  

They still have 5,000 daily active users. That's quite a bit. Right. Off the grid is the the hot one at the over this last year, which is,   think of Fortnite,   a steampunk   or   a not steampunk, sorry, a kind of dystopian   District 9   vibes because   the the guy who directed   district 9 actually had a   huge role in this game.   So Fortnite Battle Royale's type game, but with   cyberpunk,   you know, legs   come off, arms come off, and you put on   reattach them, you're shooting. Right. Right. Right. You're in a, like, a kind of, like, abandoned type city, but it's also got, you know, electronic stuff, etcetera, etcetera.   Apparently very good.  

The only people   think people are complaining about with it is actually just some like the graphics of it is   is not great with current computers. Like it's it's still a little bit laggy, like the frame frame rate per second is  

[00:23:35] Juan Granados:

only 60 frames per second instead of But do you know where where is that limitation?  

[00:23:40] Kyrin Down:

It's it's it's it's   more on like the   deep technical   part of the actual gaming thing. It's like I'm talking like fucking Polygon rendering   and Yeah,  

[00:23:51] Juan Granados:

but I have no clue. Is it a case that you just can't the Polygon's rendering and the compute that's  

[00:23:59] Kyrin Down:

coming out of I guess the blockchain that's serving? So it's nothing, it's nothing to do with the blockchain that's stuffing this up. It's purely,   they haven't got the code   up to scratch to be able to handle like huge user base plus   the game itself working   nicely across various types of, you know, laptops versus  

[00:24:21] Juan Granados:

this this this is a dying note when when people talk about and I don't know this,   we will talk about crypto gaming or gaming like on the blockchain.   Do they mean   that the entirety of the game code and all and the way that it runs is all based on blockchain or? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, just some sort of because there are some there are some games that are QR, all code is on blockchain,   like everything exists in the blockchain. Yeah. But I don't know if that has inherent limitations and problems. Yeah. So  

[00:24:51] Kyrin Down:

this one off the grid is   the guns, every gun that you can accumulate is an NFT or every piece of every item in the game. Yeah. NFT. Okay.   You earn guns tokens   by playing the game.   I'm sure you can find them in loot boxes and stuff like that.   So basically it's like everything that you interact with that you would find in   I'm trying to think of an equivalent game. Let's just say Fortnite.   Every gun that you pick up, every skin that you find, everything that you earn   is an NFT that you can transfer onto an exchange. Gotcha, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. Sell that if you wanted to or etcetera. Because the other because the other example that I was gonna give and why  

[00:25:33] Juan Granados:

I'm not a hater but I'm just I'm still   indeterminately   or like in the middle around some of these things. Roger Kaizen from Tom Bilyeu.   So for those who don't know Tom Bilyeu,   you know, early well known work in the podcast space.   He's the one who built Quest from   $10 to over $1,000,000,000 of sales, like $1,000,000,000   sale in like 6 odd years, obviously became really quite wealthy. Protein bars. Protein bars. He then went on to, he always wanted to do some sort of like a Disney competitor, but in the process he did a podcast that got fairly large on to Impact Theory, which has, you know, like courses,   different things and he got into crypto and went down the path of creating Project Kaiten. Now, I met Tom Bilyeu,   I was there when they were presenting   the like the what's coming out with Project Kaizen and it's similar to what you're saying in that it was this awesome world,   great visuals, kind of looks like that Fortnite equivalent   in a big world   where again you can replace NFTs in terms of the guns and stuff like that. And I know recently, very recently, like it continues to pump out and it works on it. I think he himself has said that they spent   like 1,000,000 of dollars   and tens of 1,000 of hours, main hours to do it. And he's coming to the realization, he's like, nobody wants us.  

He's basically like, no, now,   I don't know fully where he still sits in the project. I haven't kept on following it.   If you go to the communities where that exists, because I was part of it given that I had some of the NFTs I connected in, it's just like slowly dwindling down and dying like daily anyone sort of interacting.   There was   so much money, so much hours put into it and he had arguably one of like the largest communities   of that   space or at least one of the largest communities to play around with it and it not maybe hasn't failed, but it just hasn't lived up to the expectation that in mind of being one and it was great graphics. It was really good graphics.   I tried to now one of the concerns I have around that is I tried to download it to play it. Yeah. And in the process to do this   was as it was   imagining trying to buy probably crypto, you know, no sorry not it would be like the equivalent of trying to send us a boostagram   when it very first came out. It was difficult as fuck. In fact, to the point   that like I was experienced in   buying,   NFTs and crypto assets at the time, I couldn't get the game to load with the thing that I'd been given. I could not get. I was trying my hardest. It got to a point I was like,   I'm just gonna stop. I'm just gonna stop. Maybe they're too early with this, like maybe there's some issues with it and then after that point, I just never tried again. So, I don't know what it's obviously like now. I know that he still kind of pushes it in some regards, but I don't believe he's publicly talked about it for like a year plus. Yeah. So the thing with that is like,  

[00:28:22] Kyrin Down:

just even just the numbers you listed, like 1,000,000 of dollars in tens of 1000 hours.   This   the potential is that he's just not put enough in and it needs to be tens of 1,000,000,000 and 100 of 1000 of hours, which is what off the grid certainly has.   And so   the problem has always been it's crypto people trying to create a game and it's like, that's not going to work. Creating a game is fucking hard.   And it actually needs to be the opposite way around. So   I listened to an interview with   the Vlad from Godzilla, who is the   lead creator   of   of off the grid. And so he was   when he was being asked, like, what's what's the reason for the crypto stuff? Like, why is why is this even in here? And he was basically saying you need to start from the scratch and that the crypto integration is actually just part of retention for the game. So he's viewing it almost like the social media platforms   view attention. It's like,   we got to do everything we can just to keep our users on here. So   now this is like the social media stuff, what do they do? They do like the clickbait stuff, they'll have   make things longer   abilities for people to   like pop ups and things like that. Basically, they're just trying to keep people on the flat platform.  

And so he was saying   why they put the crypto aspect in this is that they want people playing longer, having more fun, getting more value from the game.   You know, the gun token weapon stuff   he wants the now this is where it's like   I get the feeling it's going to have this kind of divorce from reality where he was saying like, okay, so you've   you've got the the crypto aspect to it, NFTs   and things like this.   You can have speculation and a lot of people have said, okay, but you know, as soon as you start doing this, people just speculate it on it, much like the party hats and things like this. And it all just goes out of control and fucks up your game because you've got people trying to play it for fun and then you've got people trying to make money from it. Yeah. Different game dynamics.   How does that work?  

We'll talk more about that in the second part of this podcast.   He was saying he was emphasizing that like they want the speculation to be driven by in game users.   So   this weapon is getting phased out. That skin is rather cool. I'm going to speculate on that Rather than the macro speculation of kind of crypto markets where it's pure bots and traders   are seeing these   NFTs and things on exchanges and then going, holy shit, like I can do some arbitrage by buying this thing, putting this up here.   Time will tell. Time will tell if he's able to to make that happen. You know, that's this is where, like, you know, he'll need to have his finger   or they'll need to have their fingers on the on the buttons in the game   phasing in and out skins, making some guns more powerful, therefore more popular, therefore,   you know, more speculative.  

We'll see. Yeah. It'll be interesting.   But yeah, we'll talk more about the   the integration of different player types   after the Boostagram Lounge. So the Boostagram Lounge, for those who do not know, is where 1 and I like to thank people who have helped to support the show monetarily,   financially   over this last week. I don't think we actually had any did we this week or We had one. Did we? We have one which came,  

[00:31:50] Juan Granados:

on 15th.   Now we did make we have to make a note as well. It's a huge shout out to my mom and my dad. Yeah. Saved the podcast last week, otherwise it would have been unsalvageable with the mic. Yeah. I read that note in the thing like that would have been That would not have been. I don't think I could have fixed that. That would have been So no go. Huge huge value being provided there. Huge. Thank you very much. Again, you can support us in many ways. Yeah. But, Violet Mouse.  

[00:32:16] Kyrin Down:

Oh, yeah. That's right. Don't remember. Satoshis.stream.  

[00:32:18] Juan Granados:

Yep. 1000 sat percent using Breeze. Yeah. Thank you very much. Awesome. Appreciate it. Love it. I love that thing very much. But no, no other boost to grams. Again, Kyren, you've got the fingers in the pulse. What's going on in that space, man? Oh, it's just Yeah. People things are changing. It's probably a little bit less,  

[00:32:34] Kyrin Down:

it's just it's a period where it's like   the   the   the technology   has has   not kept up with the ideas, probably similar to the games, actually. Technology hasn't kept up with the ideas. Yeah. So the   the   it's it's really interesting now that like, everything's being looked at with a fresh look. It's like, okay, well, we will have to use the stripe stripe API.   Which is just   sorry, Stripe.   Stripe is a huge, huge company.   Much like much easier integration if you think you're gonna have to deal with like, I'll be   going on to here setting up a password doing this stuff in the future. It's like, it shouldn't be that hard. So it's one of those ones where it's like, you know, you got we got stuck at a local peak. Yep. Got Alby going, everything's integrated. Like it's all good. But   honestly, it's hard for people to get into Alby to   jump onto a podcasting app.  

It's now we're going down into a valley for a bit as we're dealing with the bullshit of, like, trying to fix all this up. It's gonna be a bit like that. Okay.   So, yeah, not to worry. Not to worry, 1.   But   yeah, sending in financial support in the meantime.   You can also use a PayPal. We do have a PayPal link down below.   The Boostergrams are not going away. Mimir Models podcast.com/support.   But   yeah, it's it's gonna change a little bit. So just, we'll keep you updated. Yeah.  

[00:34:05] Juan Granados:

Yeah. Hopefully, it doesn't change too much on the user side. It's just more how we're Like if you join the fountain app, you're gonna be fine. Same time. Yeah. Nothing's nothing's gonna change. Alright.  

[00:34:14] Kyrin Down:

So jumping on to like the out out of game sort of thing. So this is where   it's more   it's gone just from the in game economy and it's and it's breaching out into the real world, which is kind of what crypto is trying to do.   Well,   what the crypto integration   would do with this. And so   the   one of the things that   I don't know how true this is because I haven't actually heard Vitalik say this to the creator of Ethereum.   But apparently he was really pissed off when his really awesome sword that he had in Wow World of Warcraft.   I've heard this taken away from him and that was one of the things that made him like I want digital ownership of my things.  

I don't actually haven't heard him say that. I've just heard that story repeated a bunch. Same.   Same. Take that as as you will. So the whole Ethereum ecosystem   based solely on on this. But   there's some things like the   so play to earn. You've probably heard this before. Yep. So play to earn for those who don't know is basically you get incentivized   for playing the game. So   the rather than   the whole point of that is   you're not playing for fun, you're playing to actually earn. So it's more of a   job. And this is what Axie Infinity became to a lot of people in the Philippines.   There was 100 of 1000, I believe, of,   you know, Filipino men.  

I'm guessing men, but maybe women, who knows,   who are   realizing like I can make more money playing this game than working,   you know, at the sweatshop factory or whatever,   tilling the fields,   playing this game,   then I so why the hell would I go do that really hard thing when I could just be tapping on my phone?   Was it fun for them? I'm not sure. I never seen any   Philippine interviews with people who are playing this. Maybe I should have done more research,   but I've come to the conclusion that the kind of play to earn is stupid,   but so are most monetization   strategies   anyway. So another reason   games would want to have the crypto aspect into it is   you can have recurring revenue and things like this. It's much the same like people are pumping fiat like my brother is into Pokemon Go.  

Crypto is just another way of of them being able to get some revenue   to actually finance the game   and to make all of the   tenshundreds   of millions of investment into   it, make it worth it. So I've come to the conclusion, play to earn is doomed   to attract mercenary behavior. So this is people are playing it not for fun. They're just playing it for money   and become Ponzi like, which is what Axie Infinity   ended up turning into become speculative.   And then   people who want to play the game are like, I can't buy an   Axie Infinity,   you know, NFT   starter pack   for less than like $3 or something like what the hell, how, how moments play this game.  

But with that being said,   normal markets   are full of professional traders.   So, you know, this is like if you wanted to go buy a stonk   just because you you   there's professional traders there who are arbitraging, who are   doing trades, you know, once every   multiple times a minute doesn't mean that it   it doesn't become a worthwhile thing for me as more of a long term hold up, perhaps, to buy something   and not I'm not playing in there.   We're playing the same game, which is buying a thing and then hoping it'll go up in value or hoping to make some money,   But we're playing we're playing it differently.  

And I think this can actually work with with these types of games as well.   You can have the people playing for fun and the full time crowd. So if you look at like any esport, for example, Counter Strike,   you still   have players who just join on play for random fun with their friends, but there's also a full competitive Counter Strike League.   So   like how do those things mix that that's actually professional people playing for money?   They probably still enjoy it to some extent. But yeah, when you've got a coach, there's another thing I've been getting into recently like giving a coach.   No. No.  

Counter Strike people like   playing the trading of back and forth same with overwatch.   The like the competitive leagues are fucking   full of like backbiting   like backstabbing assholes who switch allegiances for one team for the other. Like it's it's a it's full on sportsman. There's like this rosters people getting paid 6 figures.   It's absurd. I didn't realize just how big this stuff was. I probably shouldn't know. This was pretty huge.   Yet you can still have them playing with the average judge. My, you know, I play Overwatch with my brother every now and then   and we have fun. Yep. We're still playing the same game that   these people are earning 6 figures   up. Dying over here, bit of bit sick.  

So   with all that being said,   do you think it's possible that   that crypto will ruin games like this? Is it possible to have   the speculation   aspect into it? Can you have a game which will be have crypto?  

[00:39:43] Juan Granados:

I'll go I'll go the reverse. It won't it up. I don't see that a successful   venture will come a long term   venture will succeed if it if it is   being underlined   or its selling point is   nft   or some other form of   buying asset financial incentive like the   more successful games are the ones that have that as an add on   but they've really nailed the part around  

[00:40:13] Kyrin Down:

the game is enjoyable. The biggest user base is the fun one and then the crypto stuff for like the  

[00:40:19] Juan Granados:

I don't know whether Professionals. Yeah, I don't know whether FIFA have, done this,   or not in their like games for soccer.   I don't know, but if, FIFA 28 came out in a couple of years and it's the game as you'd expect the game to be, but you also have the availability to buy   colored balls, different boots or unlock whatever. I'm not sure that you can you can buy  

[00:40:41] Kyrin Down:

card   decks to unlock players. Okay.  

[00:40:45] Juan Granados:

That's what they have. So, to that effect.   For me, I could pick up and play a game of soccer,   on a video game or something like that and I would find it really quite enjoyable as long as it's nailed really nicely.   Then if it has all the rest of the add ons,   I personally might not be amongst it, but others would and that can go from the people who are just want to get 1 or 2 things all the way up to potentially, yep, you know, professional people who are like, okay, well maybe you can purchase   boots in the game that are actually give you 2% boost or whatever. And so people do get that and,   or it's a league where you have to wear   x amount of things, I get them. Same for iRacing for myself,   you in that game, you get a basic pack of   circuits and a basic pack of cars. But for every   single other car and every single other circuit, you have to pay that money. It's little $3 $4 and then you have it forever.  

I don't personally go and buy any of them because I'm like, I get enough enjoyment just with the base pack. You also pay   a continuous fee as well for just playing the game. But, you know, again, if in that aspect they change that over to,   usage of blockchain   or anything else from a monetary perspective,   Look, maybe it adds a little bit to the game, but it's not the core principle to it. So, I think ones that are   doomed to potentially fail are those who rely exclusively on that as being the base of the game.   That will have   potentially some short term lucrative   potential for people,   but on a long enough term I could see that being like oh well   meh why are you going to play that potentially 12 years time when   maybe it needs a certain level of mass adoption and mass usage? Otherwise, it doesn't become fun.  

Other games though do have that problem,   give an idea of Call of Duty. Call of Duty, has both a single player and a multiplayer   and an online question. Oh, actually, do they have multiplayer for like if you're offline? I don't think so. But single player   offline online.   And I really enjoyed the online, I did play the offline, but I really enjoyed the online.   But in enough time length   that went away. Why? Because either 1, they'd kill the servers   or 2, there just wasn't enough people playing in the game for you to have an enjoyable time because you need people playing it. So,   there are things that are going to have, you know, time domain but some of the pay domain are going to be even shorter with the attention span of people. So, if   the fun of the game comes from   trading or sharing things or buying assets   and price fluctuations and that's what the joy comes from it As soon as the next shiny thing comes, you know, last part of the market goes away and goes and does that and all of a sudden you don't have a game. It was just loaded on the back of attention as opposed to the game being anything more than just the shiny color that allowed the transactions and the stream of people to be on there. Yeah, I think it's got to be the,  

[00:43:35] Kyrin Down:

yeah, base case, like the bare minimum thing that you need is the   link to something that humans already have in us.   I want to have fun, I want to show status,   I want to connect with friends. I want to make new friends.   I want to feel a connection of something   that's going to be the base case of the game. You can't just have a game which is a pure monetary   like view it as a job sort of thing. I don't think humans will will gravitate towards those.   If it's just that, that's base case.   And then I think the thing   that'll make sense for a   crypto game to actually be successful   is where it's like, it's kind of like a light touch and then but also they're manipulating things. So if we think of something like the the diamond market at the moment,   it has been under the control of the De Beers company for fucking forever.  

They are in I think still 90% of the world's diamonds.   But the thing that I don't   I think they do really well is both the   supply and the demand aspects but not the   exchange of of actual diamonds. So for example, they they control a lot of supply, 90% of they have huge   warehouses where they've just got tons of diamonds in there and they will intentionally not sell them   to be able to drive up prices to constrict supply   demand.   They had like a huge marketing campaign, you know, diamonds are a girl's best friend, all that sort of shit. They did really well at that, but I don't think they try and meddle with the actual like   market   actual price of like, is this diamond worth this much? I don't think that they play in that game. And I kind of see that that's how probably crypto games would do successfully.  

They meddle with the   supply of things. We're going to put this many tokens out. We're going to put this type of NFT. It'll have this rarity. It'll have this power up. It can enter into sect or interact with this one. If you pair these up, it'll be even worth more things like this.   And then, you know, the marketing side   showing like, oh, yeah, man, having this game so fun, look at all these people doing this. It's got this crypto act aspect. You could even make some money from it maybe,   But not fucking around with the exchange like Jagex tried to do with Runescape, where they actually got in the middle and they're like, alright, you know,   these things are too much. We're going to try and, you know, cap it at this supply so other people can have   a, when I say cap it at this point, we're going to try and fix it at this exchange rate. So other people have a chance of, of getting in on this or being able to buy this and people know it's worth this much,   which just ended up terribly people going around it, people doing all sorts of, you know, illegal slash dangerous behavior to get around this artificial thing. One problem with all this though, right, is  

[00:46:29] Juan Granados:

we are talking   largely from an opinion,   based protective of what we think a good game is, what would make a good game. And also what would be good for a developer of a game. Now,   ultimately, what does what the success might look like for say a developer of a game because   let's just say the success is oh, yeah, we sell   this much amount so we make a triple of our profit of whatever money we come in   well maybe because again   what makes a what would you   say   makes a good game in a just fundamental level I would say well it's either like the amount   of users or the amount of, you know, eyeballs that you get on this product. Let's just say, the amount of eyeballs you get on the product, which can then convert into users actually paying for something or that's the way you want to get monetary benefit from it. If you're the creator of something, you probably want a return on your investment   and you want to essentially eyeballs users.  

What that might look like is actually optimizing it for some sort of in app purchase,   financially gamified way   that   doesn't   make   you know, a great game doesn't make a long lasting game, but it's a, okay, this will last for a season or a year or 2, and it'll make max amount of buck until we create the next one that goes and does that as well. Yeah, I'll take Flappy Bird for example, you know, very popular game,  

[00:47:50] Kyrin Down:

really successful.   Yet the dude   felt who the developer created felt that it was harming humanity in some sort of sense or harming people. And so he intentionally took it off the app store and made it, you know, inaccessible.   So,   you know, widely   financially successful,   widely played, but the guy still felt like it failed as a game because of   the behaviors that incentivize all the things that occurred from people playing it. So  

[00:48:23] Juan Granados:

yeah, I mean, it depends on the developer, I guess what what they consider success. Yeah, I was gonna say that that would have to be the rare rare circumstance where a developer or a group of people would be like, Oh, no, it's making a lot of money. Well,  

[00:48:37] Kyrin Down:

Justin Fox, who I had on the podcast a couple of times, he had that story where   him and some people created a, you know, just a kind of like tapping type game mobile game. How many years ago? I'm not sure mid   mid   teens of this century.   And   they said it was successful   financially   until they realized like their user base   was actually   one kid using his parents credit card and just   bulk spam in like 5 to $10 a month.   And they're like, Oh, yeah, okay, well, this is probably not so good. But what happens if that kid's parents are absolutely loaded? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Fine. This is one of those ones where it's like, you know, you'd need a lot more context details of   how,   like, what's been happening. Was this kid actually just getting some was he getting that much enjoyment out of the game that much value potentially? Yeah.  



[00:49:33] Juan Granados:

He doesn't know the value of that money. How different is that? How different is that though to you know, if someone sent us a 100000 SATs every week or a 1000000 SATs every week   because that's the value that they get from it. Yeah, exactly. Is it unethical for us to accept that much from if it was like a 14 year old kid that was like, God damn it! I'm just gonna send them because there's so much value. I don't necessarily think it's unethical if there's a value that's being obtained. But yeah, I guess. Yeah. You need unsure what the value is. Yeah. From the sound of it, when Justin was saying that it sounded like he dug a little bit deeper into that and was like, actually knew it was a kid actually knew it was his parents credit card that was being used. But then the additional details on top of that.   Yeah, I don't know, I guess, you know, from like games.  

I personally   can't say that it will ever impact me now moving forward. I'm just not into   games anymore. If I was to see,   you know, years ago, 10 years ago, I would have been excited about the latest Uncharted or all these new games coming out or GTA 6 and let's argue the new Gran Turismo.   Not anymore. That's not something that I prioritize nor really   keep up with care about none. I don't get there's no more joy in that than other things I do in my life. So, yeah, for me, I go   no matter what   happens in the game in that space gaming industry to NFT usage. None of that will ever apply to me ever, even even to the point that like the   the most I could tell you would be v friends came out with a game   and it was some part of pay to earn that you know, if you have this v friend you get this thing I would use it to trial it, but it wouldn't keep me hooked in comparison to maybe other things that I'm doing in life. So in short, I go   it would whatever,   whatever is being used for a   crypto gained in app purchases   to be successful,   it's always going to be well, what's the audience and the viewership that you're likely going to be interacting with, and it's going to be more younger than it is going to be the older, I hazard a guess that most companies who are creating let's say Kaizen with impact theory or Tom Billy, I doubt that he's creating the product to be like this is going to be for the 70 to 90 year old to really enjoy. Now it's the fortnight players, it's your teens through to your early 20s or late 20s   who are generally a large amount of audience and   for a large part I'm starting to eject out of that audience   and   it might be   thrilling it might be engaging it might be the most addictive game   but I'm just suddenly going to play it nor care what they actually end up doing with it at least in that sphere so   it'll be interesting to see though   what ends up winning if it's   very   connected in with crypto and advice that it's using blockchain and he does this or   is the winning solution going to be now we're just going to build a good game and we're going to have those solutions technically   but as a user you just don't You won't that will not to a younger audience   who has been now growing up with a lot of blockchain. It will not seem as like, oh, wow, it's the blockchain or they're using it's just going to be, oh, yeah, that's just the other means that they utilize it and that's just part of the norm. Yeah, I've  

[00:52:49] Kyrin Down:

the only games I've ever really played have been ones where   there's a fixed definable,   you know, like, you've completed it a a k a like a God of War type of thing. So I'm I'm just playing it for myself.   And, you know, I'm certainly not trying to optimize. I'm not gonna get into speed running. I actually find it rather fascinating. I really enjoy watching speed running videos. I hate I hate speed running as a concept. I like I'm always like the inverse of that. I prefer   Why is that? The, I think it was because I thought I would have thought you'd love speedrunning. Hate hate hate. The quickest get it done. That's one mentality  

[00:53:27] Juan Granados:

I know. Minds and optimization   or maximum stats and and maximum games. I'll give you, the clearest example. Just two examples of the one game that I used to play Kingdom Hearts.   Kingdom Hearts for all of those games are the video ones, not like the Game Boy ones and stuff. At the very beginning, you normally start in this this like darkness path where you kind of just learn to use your sword, you get to fight a little bit, you get it's basically like the intro so that you can get into the game.   I would and I did, I did I spent you know it's supposed to be 5 minutes that you're in this introductory area and then you get into the game.   I spent   50, 60 hours   in the training area, so that I would level up to a ridiculous level that the game wasn't supposed to be at. So, you know, you're supposed to be at like level 3 as you start the game. I was like level   20 something, 30 something, which means the game's like in ridiculous easy mode because you're just overpowered   and I like to optimize for that and I wouldn't I would not finish the game until it was like completed to the 100%.  



[00:54:31] Kyrin Down:

I think the only one that was still live in. Yeah, speed running of that speed running all levels speed running,  

[00:54:37] Juan Granados:

all items that are very specific. Sure but speed but I don't like the concept of as fast as possible. Mine was   as complete as possible. So maybe I don't I didn't like But they have even speed running of as complete as possible. Yeah. But I guess the speed bit is that I hated. Like the speed bit I'm like Which is weird. Why why is that?   Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. But yeah, like, but I did that with Kingdom Hearts in like various  

[00:54:59] Kyrin Down:

ways. There's various like methods. So I did that for that. Yeah. The only other probably interesting thing with this would be okay.   How did like hackers AI  

[00:55:08] Juan Granados:

Awesome. Bots. I said this is why actually this is why. I didn't want speed up.  

[00:55:14] Kyrin Down:

I wanted to delay as long as possible the joy I was getting on the tank, which that's probably why. I can understand that as well. And that's yeah. Yeah. I was saying before, like, the only games I played are the God of War type ones. I'll play FIFA with friends,   but I've never gotten into,   you know, my brother, for example, like, I'm playing Overwatch with him every now and then and it's kind of fun, but that's because we're in the same room and then he was saying, like, oh, yeah. I might go to the other room,   so I could have the big TV as well because I'm just playing on it. He's playing on, like, we're in the same room, he's on his desktop, I'm on the big TV   and he's like, oh, I might go to the other one. And as he said that, I'm like, I won't play.  

If you do that, I'm not gonna play. I'm not gonna play here.   I'm doing it because we're in the same room. You can kind of have some fun. We can joke about things. But as soon as you go over there, lose the fun. Yeah. Not interested. So,   yeah, obviously, crypto games, we're not the the ideal audience for for all of this.   Hackers, the bots   AI, is that going to change anything?   The only thing I could think was like, if there's more free time,   so people don't have to work as much, you know, all day work weeks, perhaps even getting less than that. Probably less jobs,   needing to be physical outdoor labor perhaps or   even less jobs.  

You know, menial   tax accountants. Yeah, I'm looking at you, Mitchell.   Then if people have more time, I think   they would gravitate towards games. So I could see game rights game news rising in the future. I could see it too. I could see it too. I could see the  

[00:56:47] Juan Granados:

the more   virtual reality becoming more lifelike with AI in that. You know, I remember doing this in games like Skyrim or Oblivion.   I would   spend more time with just going up to random NPCs and asking them what's going on and finding out like, oh, this little random person is railing town is telling me this.   Well, you know, a good few AI agents played out all of a sudden every single   character in this, you know, of 50,000 characters in this whole game, each one of them has a supremely deep   rich story that you can ask and it all connects up to the one larger thing.   But, just as I say that, that makes me excited that would make me excited to play something like an oblivion   or Skyrim or whatever the uniqueness of is that because it has a more immersive feel. It gets me closer to what I would envision   a really good fiction story is in its immersiveness.  

So maybe, maybe like a really well applied   application of AI  

[00:57:47] Kyrin Down:

in that manner would have me coming back. You know, what's the difference between an AI and a bot, for example, when it comes to gaming?   I don't think there is I think that's the same thing in a way. So it's like,   you know,   the AIs are going to start playing games and we're talking about like large language model or shit like that when you're like, well,   you know, they're already that's what bots are and they're already way better than humans will ever be. You know, there's the   tool assisted speed runs, for example, where people have found out, okay,   this is how you optimize the speed run like   the micro second press left. So it'll be like there's literally this one on track mania where it's the speed runner is just a curve like this. It just goes off to the right takes about 4 seconds.  

And they've found that   the tool assisted speed run says you'd think like okay, what what buttons do you need to press well, forward and right. And that'll be the quickest way to get there. Wrong. The quickest is actually going forward, right. And then every now and then you have a little like little left,   because it gets you slightly like your wheels slightly polygons or some shit closer to the edge.   So   they've already got like AI will people ever watch   AI  

[00:59:01] Juan Granados:

like streamers? I think I think we're mixing up I think   mixing up technology like,   and if fair enough that we're mixing up the naming of it, but basically, I guess in that concept where I break it down is,   algorithmically   programmed technology   has existed for a very long time. Don't call it, don't call it AI. That's like, that's not what it means. But from like programmatically   created bots or   dictated by code that has already been implied by something else. Yeah, that's existed for a while. I'm talking about the   unconstrained   unrealized   generation   of content   or things that are not so to that example, it would be the equivalent of on not just tracking a lot of that it would be,   a completely   auto generated track and then auto generated bots that would auto   beat everyone else, I guess something to that effect. Yeah. That's more  

[00:59:55] Kyrin Down:

like the things I guess I would be thinking about. So I think there will probably be a point where   I'll call it an AI agent. So it's an agent that specifically   not specifically   was designed to build this get play this game, but,   you know, could you ever imagine a future where,   people will watch Twitch streamers just playing video games. Right? That's that's a huge thing. That's what Twitch is all about. Mhmm.   Would you do you think there'll be a version of that where it's   a,   an AI agent? So take something like a truth terminal, which at the moment is just existing through Twitter, but it can interact slightly outside of that or there's all sorts of new ones coming up. I forget the names of them.   Luma, I think is one of them.  

And   do you think there will be a point in the future where people are watching a   everything   is just digital? It's a digital persona of an agent. They've perhaps got a digital voice attached to it,   playing a video game   against other AI agents or perhaps against humans, and people will voluntarily watch that and even, you know, give it attention slash money like they would a Yeah. For sure. I think so. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think for sure. Yeah. I think it will happen, but it'll be interesting how it is because if   like, are they just gonna would they artificially   constrain themselves just to be able to get more attention so that they are like playing against real human players?  



[01:01:26] Juan Granados:

Or or is it now like we're just in such a dystopian future where I think I think it'll just be honestly be as hyped in the eyes against it. Yeah.  

[01:01:34] Kyrin Down:

Yeah. Which which yeah, I think I could I could imagine that happening. I could imagine that happening.   Last point here, there's a minor theory theory going around that crypto has already found its major use case in gaming, the GameFi   as it was called,   something that was always promised   for a fair while.   It's not a battle royale. It's not a tower defense game. It's stock market simulation,   AKA   meme coins.   And so this is what this some people is actually saying. I'm like, yeah. That kinda makes sense to me.   If you think of something like roller coaster tycoon,   that game was   about making money.  

Really, you know, the or or   the the whole point of, you know, you're not having fun. You're just watching Sims doing random shit in in that context. But the fun is, like, you're creating a little marketplace. You're getting being able to dictate it, things like that.   And meme coins are kinda like that. It's like stock market,   but way more fun. And I'm like, yeah, that's kind of a game. I can I can get that? So maybe it's already here.  

[01:02:41] Juan Granados:

Yeah. I mean, on the I mean, I'd say not not at all. I think that that is a   as a faulty view of an immediacy   that will not prevail in the long term. Similarly as   many other things, it's just a pure it's attention. It's where the attention is now. It's very true. There's a lot of attention in the current market whereas   memes and there's a lot of attention because it's how it's distributed,   but I think I've said to Kain as well this one private I just think ultimately when the attention gets moved on to something else, which you will, then it leaves a gap in the existing market which then   goes like, well it's the same market. Same thing as the stock market,   if hard to try to put a scenario on how this happened, but if there was no attention in the general stock market or in general companies,   that is part of what gives the value   to a product, a market as well. Now,   it's a bit different there because they're producing value that's being consumed by people, so that in itself brings inherent value to why people are looking to get it or purchase stock,   I guess per se or drive the price up. Nothing with memes, it's meme coins.  

It's yes, there's attention and there's attention in the I guess social aspect of it, but until it gets   moved on to I'm talking   usability for blockchain   until it gets moved to something where there's other value that's being obtained,   it's going to falter at the line of yes, but it's just attention. It's like whenever attention is around it then it's going to do well and when attention is not around that and goes to the next thing then it's not going to do as well.   I can talk about Space Wars. I think I've presented to you and Mention over the last couple of days. I saw that. Yeah. What is that? I saw that again, it's just a random coin that I saw being pumped up by a particular group. You could tell that it was going to go up, but you can tell it's going to go down. And again, it's a it's a meme coin that has   influence and that's going to bring in views or eyeballs to the product. The product's going to go up but it's going to go down. Why? It can't be a sustaining thing. There's nothing else that's holding it until the attention goes elsewhere. Because, for   again, I think we this is going to be one of the I reckon it's going to become an interesting conversation in a few years time when there's more position like when people say like oh but the value of crypto it's like what are you actually talking about? Are you talking about   the social following of a crypto like meme or the idea and the social construct of it? Because that's very different to the blockchain as a technology.  

Again,   we're definitely in a world now and we've said this in the past,   I reckon the 16 year old, 17 year olds are making bank, making money off memes. I reckon they probably know   like   one eighth of what we knew at that time of like when blockchain when we were younger about the blockchain. I'm still like this is not a case like why would we need to know about how this operates or what the value of it is. I get it, don't really need to to make that money that's happening from a viewership perspective.   Similarly,   I kind of see it in gaming with apps. I think it the successful   or a developer or for a game will be the yes, you're leveraging the technology,   but you don't really see it as a separate technology. Just it's all   really nicely in sync and it makes sense in the marketplace or whatever else you're using for it.  

But as long as there's   a key thing that keeps the individual or user or the viewer or the eyeballs on the product,   then everything else is just the add on bonus as opposed to selling   something because it has like oh which I think that's why Kai and a few others might have gotten wrong where it's like okay,   they didn't have well intended means of a game that they want to create   but in the end they were trying to optimize a little bit too much on the marketplace and selling   aspects of it where   if it's a good game that would come naturally, but if you go the other way a good game is gonna naturally come. Yeah, they sounded like they're on the crypto side trying to make a game rather than Yeah. Which comes like if you hear that you're gonna go like, oh, you're a gamer? You're like, I probably don't wanna do that. But if it's just a fucking good game that if   GTA 6 and it comes out, like, I'm sure people Yeah. What is it like? Who knows? That's cool. What the meme is. It's like, we got, you know, we got Doge being a real thing before GTA 6. It's like been a decade since the last Yeah. I don't know. It's been so I can't remember how long but it's been a goddamn long time. I remember someone saying it was it was like, you know, yeah, someone died. They released a trailer. They actually released a trailer for GTA 6 and it was like coming   soon in like 2 years and people were just like, what the hell is this? You're gonna play it?  

I won't because I haven't played many of the other GTA's but Yeah. Usually would. If that came out with some crypto   NFT whatever integration,   people would still be playing the game for the game. They wouldn't be getting it because of that. So yeah, that's gonna be the horse before the cart. Can't be the other way around. Yeah. Alright. Nimoy, I was gonna leave it there. Thank you very much for tuning and listening to this. It wasn't live, that's okay. You can,   feel the issues. Laptop issues. Can you see if it's actually loaded back up? I saw it, at 9:17  

[01:07:37] Kyrin Down:

it was and I'm like, oh, fuck. Man. Could have only 16 wouldn't say it or something like that.  

[01:07:43] Juan Granados:

Thank you for tuning in. Again, you can support us through all the good ways. The PayPal as we mentioned, boost your grams, go to your favorite podcast and platform.  

[01:07:50] Kyrin Down:

Someone if, if you got any subject   recommendations that you'd like to hear about on the show,   we'd love to hear that as well. And then, yeah, liking, subscribing, commenting on any of the social All the stuff to put out as well. Correct. Appreciate it. Leave it at me more than last. Thank you very much. 1 out. Go on out.   Good.