The Delphi Podcast
The Delphi Podcast
Cambria: The Degen MMO With $1M+ Seasonal Prize Pools
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Join Piers Kicks as he hosts BEN.ZZZ, founder of Cambria, for an insightful conversation about building high-stakes, risk-to-earn MMOs inspired by Runescape. Cambria is pioneering unique game worlds like Duel Arena and Gold Rush, recently concluding a season with a $1.5 million prize pool.
Cambria: https://cambria.gg
🎯 Key Highlights
▸ Ben's origins in the Runescape private server scene and the journey to founding Cambria.
▸ Cambria's "risk-to-earn" MMO model with massive on-chain stakes.
▸ Deep dive into Duel Arena (high-stakes 1v1) and Gold Rush (risk-to-earn MMO).
▸ How Season 2 generated a $1.5M+ prize pool and saw massive player engagement.
▸ The emergent player behavior, guild strategies, and exploits seen in high-stakes environments.
▸ Challenges of managing on-chain game economies: botting, exploits, and security.
▸ Cambria's approach to balancing casual vs. hardcore players and "pay-to-win" mechanics.
▸ Roadmap insights: Season 3 plans, Duel Arena V2, and the strategy for a potential token launch.
▸ Cambria's multi-chain strategy and experiences deploying on different ecosystems.
▸ The long-term vision for significant, high-stakes on-chain game economies and guild wars.
💡 Want to stay updated with the latest in crypto & gaming? Hit subscribe and the notification bell! 🔔
🧠 Follow the Alpha
▸ Piers' Twitter: @pierskicks
▸ Ben's Twitter: @cyberpunk
▸ Cambria's Twitter: @playcambria
🔗 Connect with Delphi
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💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/delphi-digital
🎧 Listen on
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/62PR1RigLG2YN5Pelq6UY9?si=18ac7ccf36ab4753
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-delphi-podcast/id1438148082
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9Yy99ZlQIX9-PdG_xHj43Q
Timestamps
00:00 - Introduction to Ben & Cambria
01:00 - Origins in Runescape Private Servers
03:00 - Discovering Crypto & Early Web3 Gaming
05:00 - Cambria Overview: Duel Arena & Gold Rush
06:30 - Thesis Formation: Player Archetypes & Appeal
09:30 - Duel Arena Launch & Success ($100M+ Volume)
12:00 - Season 2 Deep Dive: Mechanics & $1.5M Prize Pool
16:00 - Season 2 Player Stats & Engagement
17:30 - Emergent Behavior & Exploits in Season 2
22:30 - Challenges: Botting, Dupes & Managing On-Chain Economies
29:00 - Balancing Risk/Reward, Casual vs. Hardcore, and Pay-to-Win
32:00 - Roadmap: Season 3, Dungeons, Scaling
34:30 - Duel Arena V2 & Excalibur
36:30 - Token Launch Strategy & Considerations
39:30 - Multi-Chain Approach (Ronin & Blast/Abstract)
42:30 - Vision for the Future of On-Chain Game Economies
47:45 - Evolving Thesis & Learnings
51:00 - Most Impactful Digital Experience (Runescape)
53:00 - Favorite Games & Recommended Reads/Media
Disclaimer
This podcast is strictly informational and educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any tokens or securities or to make any financial decisions. Do not trade or invest in any project, tokens, or securities based upon this podcast episode. The host and members at Delphi Ventures may personally own tokens or art that are mentioned on the podcast. Our current show features paid sponsorships which may be featured at the start, middle, and/or the end of the episode. These sponsorships are for informational purposes only and are not a solicitation to use any product, service or token.
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SPEAKER_00Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of the Delphi Podcast. Today I am delighted to introduce you all to Ben, the uh founder of Cambria, which is a project I'm extraordinarily excited about. Um, many of us have been big uh long-term RuneScape enthusiasts in crypto. Many of us graduated from RuneScape to crypto. Um, and Ben is the man at the tip of the spear at leading that sort of intersection now and building game worlds around it. So, Ben, thank you for coming. Thank you for joining us.
SPEAKER_02Thanks for having me on. Excited.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. Maybe we could kick off with a bit of background on on kind of where you started, right? Um, tell us a bit about your origins in the sort of Runescape private server scene and and kind of uh yeah, the the journey towards founding Cambria, which has just posted a $1.5 million prize pool in only their second season. Uh so things are really heating up in this because it's crazy.
SPEAKER_02Um yeah, where to start? So yeah, I feel like Cambria sometimes is like kind of always the, you know, when I was a kid, like always the game I wanted to build. Like, you know, at that time, you know, wasn't super familiar with crypto, but you know, was kind of so you know, grew up playing RuneScape, like was obsessed with it as a kid. Um, I think very quickly kind of got into, you know, like the botting, like the private servers, right? Kind of this game on top of the game, right? Where you know, it was like, you know, real money trading of of the gold, um, you know, various, you know, forums that, you know, just you know, scripting or um creating private servers. So yeah, I think it was you know kind of this this macro sort of level of of play. Um also did a lot of trading, you know, it was called merching in the game, you know, buy um buy low, sell high sort of thing. Um so yeah, that was another part of the the trading that I I sort of enjoyed. Um, but yeah, I think with with private servers, it was like, you know, we were kind of building our our own RuneScape, right? You know, it was you know this community of you know, uh most mostly kids, you know, just kind of like hacking away at the RuneScape client, like you know, creating their own versions of RuneScape, like on the back end. Um so yeah, it was you know, some of these servers got pretty crazy. Like, you know, people would like you know go like for uh yeah, it was just like all different like twists on the the RuneScape sort of uh core core sort of game loop. Um but yeah, you know, ran ran one of the bigger private servers, um, you know, was like 14, 15 years old, like you know, had a couple devs, right? That were hacking the game, right? Um, had a a support team, right? We would have like forums. So yeah, very, very, I guess, reminiscent of of what we're doing now. But um, but yeah, it was it was kind of funny. It was it was actually my first uh intro to programming as well, you know, kind of writing some of these scripts, writing some of the the private server code. Um, so yeah, it was it was very cool to kind of have that gray sort of market sort of yeah, forum back in the day to to kind of hack hack on things.
SPEAKER_00I love it. Um yeah, maybe you could touch on then when did you sort of see the opportunity in crypto? What was that sort of transition period? Uh and yeah, curious when you realized that sort of on-chain economies might be an interesting area to dabble in.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Yeah, so this was actually later. Um, so you know, kind of like 2022, I think. Um, so yeah, you know, kind of got into crypto with with NFTs, right? Uh came from kind of uh meme stocks, right? GME, the the classics. Um, but yeah, like the you know, I was I think Wolf Game, yeah, was was my first, you know, in terms of crypto gaming, first experience there. And I that hit really hard, right? You know, this was like, you know, back in like Beanie's Discord, right? Like, you know, it was was just hanging out with other DJs and you know, like you would drop the link to to the initial white paper for for Wolfgame. And yeah, I think the the risk meets, you know, kind of on-chain assets, on-chain, you know, contracts, like just the way it was set up, like, you know, in terms of yeah, just balancing risk and reward, like the fact that you could like steal like these NFTs. And yeah, I think that really hit. I was like, wow, that's that's pretty. And you know, it didn't help, uh, it didn't hurt that, you know, the the the floor price to the supply shock went up like you know 100x, like you know, a couple couple hours after that. But um, I think yeah, I mean the on the crypto side, it was like I I don't know, like the the hot and fast liquidity, like you know, seeing how fast like things pump and like how fast like just a tremendous amount of money um can go through some of the stuff in this space. Um, I was like, yeah, that that's pretty cool. Like, you know, just the the volume itself sort of makes it make makes it interesting.
SPEAKER_00Totally. So yeah, 2022 era, some of the yeah, the first gen games, I suppose, caught your intrigue. Um, I think we met in late like December 22 or or maybe Jan 23 around that kind of period. Um, remember DMing you on Twitter. You still got one of the most brilliant Twitter handles ever, just cyberpunk, super clean. I like it. Um but yeah, like a lot's evolved since then. Obviously, I became enormously excited about what you're working on, right? Uh, as I say, we've kind of been discussing this intersection of RuneScape meets crypto and what that might look like for years, and it really felt like you were uniquely positioned to execute on this. And so at the time, I think that was actually my largest angel investment yet. Uh and yeah, proud proud investor from the early days. But maybe you can yeah, give us the like succinct elevator pitch on like what is Cambria, what is the the core product?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so at Cambria we're we're building uh let's call call it like D gen experiences where you know it's it's high stakes, right? High stakes and chaos. Um so Cambria itself, you know, has a risk-to-earn sort of MMO with um massive on-chain stakes. Um we currently have two game modes, dual arena as well as gold rush. Um so dual arena is kind of high stakes like one versus one duels, um duels to the death. We have this like public arena um in the middle of the game. Um but yeah, you're your wagering ETH um outcome of these tools. Um it's kind of very D-gen. Um Gold Rush is sort of this risk tourn, I guess, yeah, MMO. Um, again, you know, inspired by RuneScape, uh, games like Albian Online. Um basically you buy in what by minting a uh a battle pass, right? NFT battle pass, and you basically compete to um exploit, you know, limited resources inside the game. So there's there's skilling, right? You have the PB, PVE loop, right, where you're you're hunting um um monsters. Uh but yeah, it it kind of revolves around this game loop where you're going on expeditions, right? You know, this risk of reward, like the longer you stay out, the the more in danger you are from other NPCs as well as players. Um, so yeah, it's kind of this continuous decision of, you know, do you kind of go forward or do you kind of like uh take the the coward's x, if you will, um back?
SPEAKER_00There we go. Uh and yeah, then I'd love to understand a bit more a bit more as well around this sort of like early thesis formation. Like, what was the intuition that you had for this audience having grown up in RuneScape private servers, having found crypto? Yeah, like who is the player archetype that this appeals to? Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, like when we initially started, like a lot of the game was like, hey, like let's just build a game that we would find cool, right? Because you know, like, you know, obviously growing up in RuneScape, like, you know, we're we're kind of in the 25 to 40 year old sort of audience that you know either grew up playing Rootscape and WoW. Um I think for me, like um a lot of the the appeal was the both the on-chain element as well as the the risk, right? Um, it's kind of like that twist that you know kind of adds enough meaning or like you know, has has enough stake or like pulls, you know, has enough, you know, sort of investment that you know creates that you know kind of uh real involvement or like you know, thinking about like I don't know, it's it's kind of like uh playing poker, right? Like if you're playing poker with, you know, like uh you know, just play chips, right? Your your behavior is like very much different from you know when you actually play with with real chips, right? It just like it creates um so so on the MMO side, like you know, a couple things that you know I think we we uh noticed was like number one, like real specialization, right? You know, if you're you know kind of buying buying in with this battle pass, like you can't create like unlimited alts, right? So every you know account you create, like, you know, whatever you specialize in, that's you know kind of kind of what you have, right? And then you know, if you're let's say like level 99 in Smithing, right? And you're the only person on the server that can you know craft like some rare armor, like people go to you, like you know, you're there's actual like market demand for that inside of the game. Um and you know, it kind of creates ways for for people to to specialize, almost like you know, in a in an actual economy, right? Um, where you know they have you know room to to create, yeah, some some more emergent sort of gameplay around um you know specialization there. Um but yeah, I think I think in terms of like who it it who it appeals to, um yeah, definitely, definitely Dijons. I think that's currently our our focus market here. Um, you know, I think the the nearest intersection of you know people that are in crypto now and like doing really well in trading that you know used to dominate the the grand exchange back in the day, right? Or various auction houses uh across different games. Um yeah, there's just tremendous overlap there. So I think we we also kind of bought uh or got a lot of sort of goodwill just with the Runescape angle, um, goodwill as well as like you know being able to onboard very quickly, right? Um, you know, Runescape players just kind of you know, because a lot of the game is inspired by RuneScape, like you know, they're able to just hop in and play. Um, so I think you know that kind of intersection of it's it's actually been interesting, like season two, like in terms of the number like different types of players, um, we actually got more kind of more casual players, like more players interested in PvE. Um, and then you know, we had we also had our mainstay of you know the the D-gens, right? You know, either Solana, like who would otherwise you know be trading, you know, meme coins or um you know, trading whatever it is on Solana or otherwise.
SPEAKER_00I love that. Yeah, I mean the sort of D gen on-chain DGen thesis was something that I had total conviction in early on, right? Um, but I think you know, you mentioned these two different products, like jewel arena to begin with, the sort of 1v1 50-50 head-to-head, if you like, which for those that don't know, the RuneScape uh Jewel Arena, the sand casino we used to call it, literally had tens of millions of dollars gambled through it in in-game currency over the years, um, which was yeah, brilliant fun. I spent many years of my life there. Um, but Ben, I'm curious, like, how did uh the outcome versus your expectation uh sort of manifest? Because you guys shipped jewel arena and it did like a hundred million dollars in volume in the first three months across two different, you know, across base and and blast. So yeah, I'm curious. Like, whilst you and I both knew that sort of D gen uh thread was there, I mean that's a pretty insane outcome in such a short period when you first launched that. So curious, any thoughts on that before we jump into some more details on season two?
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I think I think at the start, like when we first had a couple of the first early builds, like yeah, I think it was obvious that you know it kind of works. Um and at that point it was just like you know, kind of handling the the volume. Um the cool thing about dual arena is the the contract is actually kind of um permissionless sort of uh escrow. So you know, basically we never take custody of the assets, like you're kind of depositing the contract, and then we're issuing signature, and then you're kind of withdrawing from the contract. Um, so yeah, it wasn't as high risk, right? Like you know, in terms of managing the ops there, but yeah, definitely on the game side, like you know, handling the yeah, it was a trial by fire, if you will, um handling, you know, some of the issues, like yeah, because like you know, with lag, like people are trying to exploit, like you know, people are trying to hack the contracts, like um it was yeah, quite uh quite experience. Um but yeah, I think I think really the that first, you know, kind of core set of users um kind of formed the the core of the the community, right? Like basically our our current current Canberra community, if you will, is yeah, mostly mostly pulled from from players um from that sense. So yeah, I think the the the on-chain DGens that were you know kind of early to to dual arena um yeah were were early to Canberra and kind of have formed that that four core base of uh fans um for us.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, maybe you could give us some kind of then on season two, like what was it, how was it structured? Uh maybe you can give us some of the yeah, the headlines of how things have evolved since season one as well. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so for for season two, we um we did a couple things I think that that definitely made it um interesting, and I think like contributed to the the size of the price ball as well. So the the first thing we did was um we had kind of this almost like idle sort of speculation loop. Um so we had uh what was called the the paymasters. Um so basically you're you're buying charters, um, which you know you you have to have at least one charter, right, to play the game. It's kind of the the battle pass. But you can buy multiple charters and basically deposit it into the syndicate vault. Um so the syndicate vault is kind of this this shady sort of you know, like in the background or the Illuminati, right, of of Cambria, uh, where they're basically taking a cut of the cash-ins. So you're basically getting a percentage of in-game economic activity, right? So, you know, based on how much you're depositing, like that's kind of your share of of the split. Um, but you know, it it's it's also not like guaranteed, right? Like, you know, you have to kind of see like who else is uh depositing, like how much are they depositing? Because you know, there's also some, you know, winners take all sort of you know, like weighted distribution sort of mechanics inside of that. Um so yeah, you know, kind of made for this, you know, interesting sort of strategic um choosing how much to to deploy into the the vault. Um so yeah, you had that, you know, so at in the first, I think, five minutes, like 200k or whatever of charters were minted and kind of deposited. So that really like like started the flywheel going, right? You know, you had the immediate like 200k number, you know, that we had uh a number on the the main site that uh updated based on the the size of the price pool. So like that just kept going up, right? And then you know, in we can basically use that right to to kind of be like, hey, there's 200k the price pool, right? All of this is gonna be split based on the silver in the game. So that that was the other aspect was you know, basically all the silver in game was backed by this prize pool. So 90% of the price pool was split um you know, after the paymaster cut, after a a different couple of other cuts um to silver and game. So basically the more silver you have, like the more USDC or whatever it is at the end. Um so yeah, I I think that made for a very interesting economy because like basically any action in game, right? If you're you know good at trading, if you're you know, whatever you did in game, like you know, you could you could also it was also liquid, right? You know, people are kind of OTC inside of Discord, right? Kind of trading as well. Uh but yeah, that that kind of role versus like the guilds. So the guilds, like you know, they're you know sponsoring scholars, like they have these massive guilds of you know players that are coordinating inside the game where they either have a split of the rewards as well. So they kind of like counter the paymasters um in a way. So you know it's kind of like a a sort of uh yeah fight between them, like you know, actively deploying and actively managing players versus paymasters that are you know taking a cut of of the the cash ins.
SPEAKER_00For sure. Yeah, it's super exciting to see you know the vision of a lot of these like uh Web3 guilds, if you like, from many moons ago. Exactly this, right? We were craving environments like these for people to actually go head and head to head and coordinate big uh pools of resources and collectives of people. Um so it's really cool to finally see an arena for that. And then yeah, so just to set the stage and give some more context for people, like season two was run for two weeks, right? It was a limited time thing where everyone had to pay basically an entry fee. Uh, I think it was like 30 bucks, right? Like uh your sort of uh um and yeah, that's what was like the primary source of these um this prize pool. And then yeah, Ben, maybe you could just run us through like some of the key highlight figures from this season, right? Because there's some pretty impressive numbers that are being kicked out already.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, I think um total prize pool 1.4, um, and total players, I think uh in terms of players that cashed in, like at least one one plus artifact, you know, had had 10k, um, you know, maybe 20k that that created account and logged in. Um, so yeah, quite quite uh a big group of people like thinking, like especially like because everybody uh playing and cashing in artifacts, like they would have minted a charter, right? You know, 0.02 ETH. Um, you know, a lot of them kind of went on to also uh mint orbs. So that was kind of like the continuous sort of mint, right? That kept like building up the the price pool as it went along. Um so yeah, it was it was pretty crazy. Um I I think retention and just like the the total session time was just insane. Like uh like I think uh you know 60 retention, I think by day seven, um, you know, for our kind of golden core there, you know, it was like like 83 um for you know caching one one plus artifact. Um so yeah, it was it was crazy to see. Like, you know, some of these guys like the the other thing is like there there was so so like the people were playing for so long, like they're playing for like 16 hours a day that we kind of ran out of content, right? I think if you play something for for 16 hours a day, like you I don't know, you could play anything, you kind of get sick of it, but um, yeah, that was that was kind of cool to see.
SPEAKER_00Um yeah, I it was amazing. I mean, the entire Twitter feed for the whole two weeks has just been double by gameplay stuff, and uh yeah, some of the people grinding this stuff was crazy. Also, some of the clips you saw in terms of the you know, out in the wilderness kind of PvP of people packing a ton of artifacts was crazy.
SPEAKER_02Uh uh PK vids, like you know, like a throwback to it felt very nostalgic.
SPEAKER_00It felt very cool. Um, but yeah, I mean those numbers are pretty crazy, right? In terms of all of those uh registrations, as you say, like 10k daily actives, like 4.5k peak concurrence is what you'd shared before. Yeah, like um, yeah, man, seeing that world map, you know, before you log in and all the different uh icons of where we're talking about pretty amazing to see. Um so that's uh yeah, super exciting. I'm curious, like um what what is some of the weird, like strange or interesting emergent behavior that you observed in this season? As you say, like so much of the objective here is for people to read the white paper, prepare before the season, and figure out ways to exploit suck certain mechanics. So yeah, maybe you can speak to that because I think that's one of the wonderful peculiarities of doing things with real money stakes, doing them on chain is you know, the incentives to do this shit is so much higher.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. Yeah, basically, like you you get like it's almost like a Darwinian environment where like you know the smartest players like you know, find out like the the best of uh exploits and you're they're they're kind of like trying to max exploit it. Yeah, it's it's tricky because like you know, with with games, especially like there's always like bugs and like you know, kind of weird exploits. Like we we we did a bunch of testing, kind of like you know, fix some of them, but there's always ones that we didn't catch. So, you know, part of it was just like you know, following the best players around and basically just saying say what they're they're trying to do there. But yeah, I'm trying to think uh so we we had a lot of uh guilds that were you know basically um trying to yeah squeeze out an edge by you know like um lowering the the pro the efficiency of like the top farmers. So a lot of the you know in the early in the early I think few days, the caves, the dungeons, or you know, the highest you know sort of EV in terms of like the monster rewards. Um so they they they just had a bunch of like guild members that would like just stand there and like throughout the dungeon, like blocking the spawns, because you know, with the spawns, like they they don't spawn if like a player is around, right? So they would form this like little honeycomb formation, and you just like see them just like sitting there, like and then yeah, essentially you just shut out the income, right? For you know, everybody had to farm something else because you know you could try to kill the the guilds, but like you know, they would just like rag, they would have like nothing on them. Um, I think that was cool. Um, there was a lot of like guild drama, of course, like you know, with the guild system. Again, some of this is like we we'd have enough tooling um to make it perfect, but you know, like players like joining guilds, like you know, taking uh you know stuff from the guild chest, right? And just leaving. Like there's like restrictions of like the energy orbs that they would like sell it. We also had guilds that had like problems like managing their players, like almost like you know, these guys like almost like corporations in real life, right? Like they had like you know, players that would like use the energy to like fish and then use the fish and then like sell it OTC and like cash out that way, right? You know, like so they had to like track like you know the the guild history of like you know which items they were withdrawing and like the some of these guilds, like yeah, some of the analytics they did, they were like tracking exact like you know, um you know, productivity of of how many things you cashed in, like versus how much you took. Like it's pretty crazy. Some of the the metrics that uh people were doing. Um but yeah, besides that, it was just like every possible edge, like you can think of, like you know, they they they would exploit. So, you know, we kind of every few hours we had to like push something. Um, whether it was like you know, using the ballista right inside the game, you know, similar autoc uh the dwarf canon in in Root Scape, like they would like kill the boss, they would like create a fireplace, sit at it because it used no energy, or they would just like wait for this, you know, ballista to kill the NPC. A lot of ragging, right? You know, groups of naked dagger, you know, sort of people dropping on top of you. We we had some issues with like switching worlds as well as because you know, people would just kind of like you know, scout out an area, like get a big group and just drop uh a bunch of people, you know, with with daggers on top of you. Yeah, yeah, it was pretty, pretty chaotic.
SPEAKER_00That's fun. Um, and what about any like actual sort of uh game-breaking exploits? Did you have any of those that stood out that uh yeah, that you wish you'd you wish you'd found first? Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02I mean definitely had I think one one dupe, um, yeah, a couple couple kind of unlimited sort of farm scenarios, um, people like logging in and kind of trying to replay back like some of the the status effects. Um yeah, I think we so so we had a a bug bounty. Basically, it was five percent of the total price pool. So basically scaled with the the size of the price pool, right? So I think that was a good incentive, um, besides us, you know, catching people and banning them. um to kind of yeah incentivize people reporting. So I think, yeah, players this time, they're yeah, they're gonna be splitting like 60, 70k um in terms of the the people that reported them. So yeah, it was very cool to see, you know, some of the the reports actually come in. But yeah, some of the other ones we had a catch by just you know monitoring the economy. Like you're just looking at gold. Like there's a lot of tooling that you know kind of goes into yeah like you know basically trying to test for for a dupe um and and see it happening instead of absolutely yeah that that's something I want to double click on you know like the sort of challenges with uh heavily on-chain economies like this right so obviously bot busting in traditional game economies perhaps most notoriously RuneScape right um rune scape like old school runescape banned seven million accounts for boting in 2023 in 2024 one of the mods said they were doing almost 70k bans a week um obviously it's a huge part of the economy and a ton of gold flows through there but you know the stakes obviously only grow with these on-chain economies like you guys had a 1.4 1.5 million dollar prize pool this time round like the biggest ever League of Legends esports prize pool was $6.7 million right like this is big money in the world of gaming um yeah and so I'm curious like clearly you think this is a fundamentally manageable problem right but like as the prize pools grow so do the incentives to attack it and like it can't all just be like bounty programs like or can it I'm curious how do you manage this how do you think about this as Camber of Olds yeah well the first thing is that the the current like in-game items and economy is is not on-chain it's it's actually currently on-chained our database which allows us like after the season right to kind of like you know uh do some more data analysis and make sure the final distribution is correct uh we are yeah planning to eventually move some of this on chain but again like you said like the once it's on-chain and you know like any exploit or dupe right and we instantly kind of rock all the liquidity right like I think there's a lot of you know sort of issues that but you know there's there's so much that you know we could do though if if the the items are on chain is like you know compossibility like DeFi I don't know it's it's definitely a a trade-off but um yeah I I think number one that's that's the first thing um you know we're able to basically freeze the economy we have a bunch of like controls over like you know freezing specific accounts like to track the money flows like especially at this point we're like a bank like and trying to figure out like if this is like legitimate income that's coming in like you know from because the the sources the sources of gold in in game are are pretty predictable right you know monster yield like you know skilling yield so um yeah some of the yeah it is is actually pretty easy to catch like kind of flows that that don't quite make sense um but yeah I think with botting the it's it's funny because like when when we initially started out I was like very kind of uh I don't know naive about you know sort of botting and kind of like was was thinking almost like you know like botting like maybe maybe it's fine really you know like eventually like we want botting to you know because technically like let's say like you know so so somebody created a bot to basically arbitrage the the general store we had in game versus the the auction house um they're kind of just like buying selling based on you know the the different price um which you know was great like you know technically that does you know provide you know a a function in the the market right but you know it's essentially it's just like free value that they're taking out so I think what we're gonna do for next season is just basically tax it right you know tax the the the get request of like you know find figuring out the the current price of items and then also tax the the the trade transactions themselves. So I think yeah as long as some gold is synced like as some as as as long as some value is retained from that um I think that makes sense. I think with bots um the with the way the current economy works it's this is actually not that bad. Because the basically the free the tier one and tier two resources are it might as well be free, right? You know it's it's kind of like a a safe zone right you don't really risk anything but um once you go further out the higher tier resources basically you have the chance of dying right to NPCs to players like a lot of the players like at the higher level caverns right the the best fish inside the game there were just you know huge amount of PKs that were just waiting for for people to come by and fish. So you know on the fisher side they they had to kind of adapt right you know they were you know they trained up defense right to be able to survive they you know trained up agility to be able to take shortcuts to to exit and kind of exit with their fish. So yeah it was a lot of you know kind of back and forth that you know kind of so so ideally right like the players are you know it just it should be negative EV to run a bot because your bot's never going to be smart enough right if there's enough depth in gameplay like you know players should be just better than than bots. But again you know that that design goal is is sometimes hard to hard to actually implement in games so we'll see how it works.
SPEAKER_00For sure. So you heard it here folks the way to manage it is not go fully on chain with MM too difficult too difficult to solve for I'm hoping long term that there'll be you know once the systems analytics are robust enough that you'll have more confidence and starting to shift other stuff. Yeah. Dude I just want my party hats on chain when's that happened when yeah that was my main submission in my mortgage application was my party hat set in game rear so yeah there we go. But no that's yeah exactly but that's interesting um yeah all those tools to manage it um I mean obviously like there are certain things that are very elegant being on chain already right like you mentioned obviously the sort of um escrow contracts for jewel arena like that stuff works pretty flawlessly um but yeah no I'm I'm encouraged to hear that then that you think the the bot busting uh is is a sort of manageable problem as this stuff scales. I think um obviously this has a very sort of there's like reflexivity in terms of the audience growth here of like every time a new record prize pool is posted it's just gonna cast a wider and wider net.
SPEAKER_02And realistically you haven't even started the uh you know broader go-to-market activations yet which we'll get on to that might draw other people in but um it's really funny um there's this like sorry five industry of of exploiters that will hop between these these games and try to exploit as much as possible so anytime like yeah you you gain any sort of attention like it's it's it's interesting because like most of these these teams are like more savvy than the actual development teams right you know they they they have the experience so you know usually it's a a one-sided battle there but yeah I think even even over the the number of seasons and dual arena that we've had like we've had like DDoS attacks like very very sophisticated attacks and like you know just like yeah just on the OPSE side like you know security wise yeah it's still still not perfect and like yeah it's just gonna get get worse.
SPEAKER_00So I think like and that's the other thing with on-chain is like you know eventually like when you get to those you know five billion dollar ten billion dollar war games um you know eventually like yeah you you can't admin it anymore right like if if we're the only ones like controlling keys right it doesn't quite work so having that fully on chain and you know being having anybody participating like being able to read the code and be like oh like this is what I'm putting you know a billion dollars into right I think that's that's another yeah very very big uh pro of of haunchain um totally totally agree um yeah we'll get onto that onto the ultimate flourishing of uh you know trustless on-chain economies um but no I'm excited for all of that um yeah I'm curious as well just if you could give us a bit more colour on how you're thinking through calibrating like the sort of you know risk reward loops found in these seasons in a way that isn't like pay to win maybe some of the ways that you're thinking about balancing the like casual versus you know hardcore players in the PvP environments like um yeah I'm I'm I'm curious uh if you could give some color on those pieces.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Yeah I think I think right now we don't do casual versus hardcore very well. I think right now it's just it's just hardcore um which I think you know just given how early it is I think makes sense as well. But yeah I think in next season um definitely more some more more casual loops there. I think yeah in terms of the risk reward yeah it's it's very kind of tight you know sort of balancing right you know you have to uh you know in in uh in either extreme like it doesn't quite work right you know it's so it's kind of more of an art than than science there. Um I think with yeah the the aspect of pay to win it's actually pretty cool like the the the players that are kind of um reading the docs like that kind of understand the game model that understand how it works like they're actually not too phased by the you know so we so we had we we were experimenting with a couple things um one thing we shipped like close to the end of the season was uh arcane research so basically you could um basically sink gold into um research that you know had a chance to upgrade your your level right so you could like you know spend like 300 million gold right and and get like you know 150 at like a percent uh attack speed like you know huge amounts of damage it was just yeah at some point you're like machine gunning right just like people IPCs everything right it was completely sort of pay to win but you know it was actually net like we we set it up where the prices you know were just exponential right so it was it was just like completely net you know negative V V to do like you know especially towards the end of the season where you know even the yield if you were able to blow up monsters you you you still have to walk to them right you know have to walk between them like there's not too much you could get um but we still had you know quite a few people uh just sink like a ton of silver into that right um because they were just having fun right and I think like people got that like you know they were basically adding the price bowl right sinking silver like you know increasing decreasing the supply then you know they would get like a relatively larger supply. I think like as we kind of go like towards like broader audiences like it might take some more you know like uh messaging like to you know make sure people understand that you know how that kind of works um because like yeah I think like with that you know kind of zero sum sort of price pool model like there's there's really no pay to win if it's like you know kind of balanced because like ultimately yeah it's just like you know if you're you're you're plus EV like you know you're you're farming and you know you're kind of at um advantaged versus other players like it's just a different kind of yeah it's almost like you're optimizing efficiency instead of like trying to be the the top you know sort of player that's doing you know the most damage um for example makes sense I wanted to talk a bit about um yeah the sort of roadmap what can people expect from here um what does season three hold uh maybe yeah let's start with that yeah yeah I think with season three uh definitely yeah improving some of the the skilling loops some of the more casual loops that we want to definitely expand the the region tier so that you're not hitting like full on hunger games like you know uh hardcore mode like you know within five minutes of playing the game um so yeah definitely a lot of that um I think the expanding the sort of the economic sort of depth of the game as well so you know in terms of the the main sort of monster hunting loop like having more of a you know supply and demand um for the resources like you know the more people are killing some um XYZ monster like just so we don't have to do you know sort of act actual balancing there you know in terms of uh it's it's always tricky to to kind of figure that out um but yeah I think uh definitely uh expanding the the content as well so you know we're we're working on dungeons right now which you know similar to almost like a dark and darker sort of loop uh where it's PvP VE trying to create some yeah tier six sort of very kind of high high risk sort of experiences there. So we have we have something cooking there um should be quite fun. But yeah I think otherwise it's just you know improving existing systems like fixing fixing some current issues of the game like between the the guilds erging and like the solo players and like you know better onboarding for guilds like it's just yeah basically every everything um seemed to work in season two so you know we're just looking to to scale it up and you kind of make it more robust. I think you know on the go to market side like we're also thinking of you know starting some more experiments with you know web two players. I think uh actually this season we had uh a few uh yeah run skate players that I was talking to that you know they their friends kind of like recommended them the the game like they you know bought a charter like they figured out somehow to how to onboard and you know they started playing obviously with a huge edge right if you if you're good at run you're you're good at camera um but yeah they they really had fun and it was was yeah it's just sort of asking them some questions about like you know what they felt about experience but I really think like it it is like very compelling like you know it's like if you're good at the game you can earn money right it's like that like what what better uh value prop do you have than that so I think yeah pushing that with you know like streamers like uh content creators on TikTok yeah there's a lot that we're we're sort of cooking there um but it's funny like we we actually had a few like kind of test suites that you know sort of went viral like you know just sharing screenshots of the game like on let's go RuneScape Twitter um people are calling like Chinese RuneScape that's that's the the name uh these days uh very very funny but I love that I love that um and so hang on so yeah obviously season three upcoming um the dual arena product where's that at right like I love that this thing can be the 247 like in the interim you know that I was spending a hell of a lot of time and ETH there when it was live. Yeah curious maybe you could give us a bit more color on what to expect on that side of the game as well yeah so we've been working on V2 of Dual Arena um bring some of the you know we had the Excalibur on chain right you know fully on chain um some you know improvements to to basically have the the deposits work so yeah that should be coming live soon here um I think we're we're gonna have it live on running at abstract like with abstract like you know there's session keys basically um so to to avoid the the pop-ups because that was actually one one of the more annoying parts right you had to click a pop-up like the claim and like initially to to put in the wager so um yeah lots of exciting things um coming up there um we'll probably have it live in the the next couple weeks um and yeah sorry just just for people listening uh that aren't familiar with Excalibur maybe you could give them some context on that yeah yeah so basically a percentage of like there's a fee that's taken like for for each tool and that kind of builds up a pool.
SPEAKER_00So the Excalibur um pool it yeah you know it kind of just keeps building if if no one wins it um you know the chance to win is based on the scaling based on the um the stake um so yeah it's it's usually pretty pretty huge um once you have Excalibur you also earn um additional rewards while you have it um so it's like a multiplier on top so on top of your rewards um so until until somebody else wins it like you're the one with the sword you're you're you're earning a uh a higher multiplier love it um so yeah very excited leading up to season three obviously jewelry in a v2 launching um as you mentioned activating a bit more of the broader you know go to market with the existing like old school runescape audience and bringing over some content creators so yeah very excited to see how those people continue to convert as you actually um you know sort of turn on the turn on the cannons so to speak um and then yeah I'm also curious like uh what um your plans are around the token piece right it's the thing everyone's asking after every time you every time you tweet is there anything you can share publicly at this stage or uh or not yeah yeah I think I think the the token's definitely soon so um with a token like I think it's two things right like number one it's the token's a mainstream product right like you know it's it's kind of like the the rocket fuel right in terms of like growing out to you know million users um more than that um so I think with with us like we we want the game to be in a state where we're able to scale up to that um so I think we're close I think season two like you know we're with you know 4.5k concurrence I think you know we're we're pretty close to that um but you know the other aspect is like you know making sure that you know in terms of the web two kind of push that you know we have a go-to-market play that you know and you know ways to to grow that you know can't scale right if we put a bunch of you know spend behind it.
SPEAKER_02So I think yeah that's number one you know making sure the the game's ready for for um big time. But number two is yeah like on the the token piece like um with that like we want the token to basically like I I feel like the token only makes sense if there's kind of significant on-chain volume right that's going through the game whether it's dual arena whether it's gold rush um there has to be you know kind of flows of you know capital that you know just make it the token like you know make sense right um so yeah we're we're expanding experimenting with the token I think I think what we'll probably do is like kind of do a pseudo token if you will kind of you know set up the game economy set up the the contracts in a way that you know we can base basically just experiment right like how would this token work like how is it true value like um and once like you know some of those experiments right start working and then you know we we can see you know kind of how this would all play and then you know there's ideally a flywheel between the token uh growth as well as um the game economy like we'll probably just go for a a bigger push there um but yeah yeah I think at this point it's you know we with with the token itself like probably not going to be integrating the game um directly it's it's like not gonna be like you're not gonna like try to sync like you know the the token inside the game right but it's it's more a factor of like you know with the the kind of value crawl like with some of the volume that's going around the game like how do we you know sort of use that as like the medium exchange or yeah there's there's a variety of things that yeah we're we're working on there.
SPEAKER_00Totally no and I agree with not anchoring it into actual gameplay right it's far too restrictive at this stage. But I think you guys have been nailing the like you know small bursts of iterative stuff go and tweak them again. I uh yeah expect uh expect it'll work just just you know just as well um on the token front as well one one of the other things I wanted to ask you about your perspective on I think I feel like you're probably the single best game example so far of like really pursuing a multi-chain strategy. One of the things that I always loved about that right that we've discussed a lot was this idea of like trying to leverage the sort of inherent tribalism in different ecosystems right so allow anyone to log in to log in via Ronin or Abstract or ETH mainnet or whatever it might be right and allow people to actually signal that as well right so and like above the the character logo or something like that. Maybe you could tell us a bit about your experience of deploying on multiple different ecosystems um where you stand now ecosystem wise and like yeah just any insights you might be able to share with other builders because I think it's uh yeah pretty unique how you're approaching that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah yeah yeah yeah I think I think that would be cool like kind of uh especially in dual arena right having the the tags like you said of of you know like per chain and kind of like um you know having some some of that tribalism in there. Yeah it's it's been tricky. Like I I think for us like we usually it's it's from a very pragmatic like follow DJ liquidity standpoint. It's like you know where where DJ is like you know currently having because I feel like L2 like UX is so bad right now like you know that it like just trying to have somebody like you know bridge to a different chain or like whatever it is like it's just like too much. Especially like you know with with some of the more less crypto savvy sort of users. But yeah I I think with with with chains like you know right now you know currently I'm Ronin as well as abstract like both teams are you know incredible like you know both um you know Ronan on the Ronin side like a ton of like gaming experience on the abstract side and there's killing on like product and you know the the engineering and you know some of the the growth as well like with with distribution. It's definitely been a little tricky. I think you know we there's there's things that you get like kind of um just on a single chain that you know you just don't get with multi-chain. So I I I don't even know if is it really the the best strategy for for the at least the majority of builders. But you know I think we we have the advantage of having a very you know strong community that basically yeah are going to follow us to to wherever it is. So you know we're kind of able to to tap into you know various uh sort of pools of of capital. So yeah I I think I think um yeah on the Ronin side like you know we have a ton of player liquidity like a lot of the the stronger guilds like a lot of these players have you know grown up with Axiom they've played pixels right they're they're really deep in you know sort of the these games um so you know some of the existing kind of community and connections that they have is amazing. And yeah on the abstract side it's it's very kind of DJ in sort of liquidity that these guys are are just risking crypto right you know which is perfect. Usually on on chains like yeah the on-chain activity is like dead right like nobody's doing actually anything of value like they're just shuffling around tokens like you know on DeFi or whatever it is.
SPEAKER_00So yeah I think having having experiments um and yeah I think the other thing you consider is just like network effects of like who else is on the chain right you know on-chain heroes like is doing really cool things like there's a lot a lot of other you know sort of games on Rhode that are you know um you know the the audience like overlap is is pretty huge right so I think you know that was the other big factor of like hey how can we capture some of these audiences how can we make it you know in terms of the the onboarding um pretty smooth um so yeah yeah very cool I love it yeah excited to see how that evolves um and uh yeah I mean there are still many large pockets of on-chain DGen liquidity out there for you to tap right um so excited to see uh excited to see how that evolves in the future um I wanted to talk a little bit around like yeah your vision for the future of on-chain economies right like um you've thrown out these numbers of like five or ten bill uh like guild wars or trade wars in economies like where do you see this stuff going right as someone that's been very deep in the weeds uh for many moons now going back to the private server days like yeah how would you like this to evolve how do you think it might evolve yeah yeah yeah I think with with these on-chain economies especially ones that are tied to games like it's really about the significance right so like you you want to be playing significant games that are on-chain you have your actions reflected on-chain and there's kind of this this sense of like oh like you know I'm I'm writing into this this blockchain right that's gonna live forever right and like my exploits right it's almost like the the game achievements sort of thing like where you're looking at your achievements and like you know seeing all the things like you you you did.
SPEAKER_02Um so I think yeah there's definitely the the sense of that where you know I think like as these games mature I think there's a lot of you know shots on goal um currently With with various uh MMOs and like various games as well. Um, where yeah, I I I do I do think it's a very kind of real possibility that we'll have these like massive billion dollar sort of um yeah, basically games play out on-chain. Um I think with that, like what on-chain provides, like not only the you know, the hot liquidity that I was talking about before, but also, you know, the being able to have like guilds, right, that are on-chain that are, you know, basically, you know, composability, like, you know, be be able to to tie into various DeFi protocols or like they have a treasury that's because because with with these games, like, you know, essentially they're they're indistinguishable from from in or like real life like corporations, right? There's there's some goal, there's some value to be extracted, right? There's some you know group of people to coordinate sort of on-chain. Um, so you know, there's some goal, right? So, you know, these treasuries that are like capturing these digital sort of uh you know treasure chests, right? Hordes of wealth, um, are yeah, I mean, they're they're gonna get more and more complex as we go. And that that's really why, you know, I'm excited to see, you know, all the guilds that are currently in Cambria, like some of the sophistication of you know, some of the processing involved. Because yeah, I mean, that's really what you need to scale out to these, you know, billion dollars, multi-billion, because you can imagine like these guilds having like, you know, multi-million dollar treasuries and like they have like assets in inside the game, like you know, huge cannons or like whatever it is, right, that are worth like 100k each, right? And they're kind of like deploying these across, you know, various like game modes or you know, deploying them, you know, in this yeah, Eve Online type, you know, sovereignty battles. Um, yeah, I think I think it's gonna get crazier from here. Um, and I think with the stakes, like there's just a lot more creativity, like with you know, people like playing diplomacy or like you know, doing unique things on chain to kind of you know source liquidity for for their guild, like main um on-chain actions. Yeah, I I have a tweet uh about like kind of like yeah, like the the future vision, like you know, of of and I think prediction markets as well, like you know, heavily favor um factor into this where you know maybe you have like speculators that are trying to like actually influence the outcome of their their prediction market, right? You know, they're they're betting on one player versus the other, like you know, intervening with uh in terms of one guild versus the other. It's almost like a yeah, space sort of drama, like you know, in terms of yeah, some of the the parties involved. So yeah, I think very early days still like you we have yet to see like some of these these MMOs kind of um come into to full form, like you know, in a in a form that you know can support some of this uh gameplay. But I think, yeah, I think it's soon. I think it's soon.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I'm super excited to see how all of that stuff evolves. Um, in particular, I think this idea of yeah, the super high stakes, like you know, Guild Wars vision of where there's like some kind of resource stronghold where you know there's a big bounty and people are competing, uh, you know, groups of people are competing over control of these resource strongholds that actually have like big real money payouts, like that is gonna be so much fun, right? Like, um, you've got to realize that like the Eve battle in 2021 or whatever it was set the new record um of like most you know real-world dollar destruction in a video game ever. It was like 378k, right? That's peanuts for crypto. That's peanuts for crypto. I mean, come on, you guys just didn't ever get yeah, exactly, exactly. Get rugged with that much for breakfast in crypto. So um yeah, I think it's gonna drive some insanely high stakes and and and very exciting and engaging gameplay. Um, because I agree, as you said at the start of the pod, like you know, there's way more meaning to this stuff when there's something on the line, right? Um, and uh yeah, I really I really believe that. So no, very excited to see how all of that uh comes to fruition. Um yeah, I also wanted to ask, you know, from when we first spoke, uh whatever it is, like almost three years ago. Um, yeah, what I I guess what's like the most unexpected component of how your thesis around this stuff has evolved as as the products come into view more.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I think not much has changed, I think, from the the early days. Um I think we we yeah, a lot of the assumptions we had were were pretty accurate. Um I think some of the the things that have been unexpected, I guess, yeah, I I guess people caring less about like you know the on-chain part. Like, you know, some of the the you know, uh I own this asset forever, or like, you know, the mute immutability of certain things, like yeah, I think there's there's generally, you know, some yeah, skepticism now in in just like, you know, like does this actually matter to players, right? And I think like a lot of it hasn't, right? Um, so I think, yeah, just trying to figure out like, you know, with the current set of people that do care, right? Like what do they care about, right? How much do they care about, and like what are ways that you know we can have gameplay that you know kind of feeds into the the the couple things right with with on-chain economies or with just crypto in general that you know are unique, right, to to crypto. I think yeah, it's it's kind of like a very yeah, realistic, I guess, approach to to crypto gaming. And and the thing is like the the other thing is like a lot of the you know, just the things that we used to talk about, right, with on-chain economies or um crypto gaming, like they they kind of like need some time to mature. You need the the actual games or you need the actual communities, you need you need a lot of this kind of in place for it to to really, you know, kind of uh yeah, for the value to to be apparent. So, you know, let's say composability, right? Um, so yeah, I I think you know, like focusing on basically, hey, like what are the one or two things right that make you know crypto gaming interesting? Like how can we uniquely like position ourselves, right? Like versus other games. Because really, like you're you're you're all we're everybody here is is competing with web two games, right? Like there's there's definitely some some advantages, right, with you know, like the the the crypto aspect that you know kind of uh make it easier, like um, or or stand out. Um, but it it's really like uh you know, you're you're trying to find like you know, we're we're not trying to like rebuild RuneScape, right? Like we're not trying to compete on the quest, we're not trying to keep compete on the content, like it's more the sandbox aspect, it's more the economy aspect, it's more the you know, emergent sort of gameplay, emergent social with the risk, breeding social connections, like you know, there's a lot of things that, yeah, in terms of like, you know, what are the one or two things to focus on? I think, yeah, focus is definitely yeah, the the the trickiest thing in crypto. So um, I'd say that that was probably the biggest, biggest learning for us.
SPEAKER_00I love that. And yeah, I totally agree. Um, I think there's obviously been a ton of learnings for the for the sex abroadly. Um I don't know. I probably subscribe to the camp though that I I I don't know. I do think um, well, firstly, I do think that thesis of like, you know, uh immutability, ownership, provenance, all that kind of stuff that comes on chain, like I think it remains to be seen that thesis being validated, right? Um uh ostensibly it's it's been invalidated, but I don't think that's the case, right? Because I do think we're only just getting there with the products and and all of that kind of stuff. And when you had the scale of hype that came from that initial wave, like it's only you know, everything's an action and a reaction, right? Um so yeah, but I but I'm excited, right? Because I think what what you're building is a huge uh step in that direction. As I say, once you put the potty hats on chain, everything will change. Yeah. No, I'm excited. That's lots of good stuff going on out there. Um yeah. I I also wanted to ask, um, yeah, just some sort of closing questions, curious for your perspective on what like what would you describe, what would you say is the most impactful digital experience you've ever had?
SPEAKER_02Digital experience. Ooh. It's funny because like, yeah, I think I think for a lot of us, like we're in kind of like terminally online, right? So I think digital experiences are our you know, just our experiences, right? Uh, but I'd say yeah, yeah. Um multiplayer games, like you know, RuneScape, like yeah, that first sort of moment. And I don't know, like as a kid, right? You know, the first video game I played was RuneScape, like you know, I was at like some some library computer or whatever, but like that first moment of like you know in the tutorial island, like going down to the dun dungeon, and then you know, like uh biting some ores, like smelting it, and then you know, it was it's it felt like you know a little bit scary, right? It was like a little, you know, like wow, like this is like you know, dangerous, right? Um, but yeah, like you know, kind of the full immersion into the world was was kind of that that huge point. So kind of got hooked ever since. I was like, hey, like I ought to be this these worlds uh yeah as much as I can.
SPEAKER_00I love that. I uh I really love that. And no, I agree. I remember the first time going down to Troy and you know, sitting in the freaking killing a freaking rat, getting an arrow and shooting him through the fence. And then it was it was getting me down there. It felt extremely high definition, but of course there was about eight screens. Um but uh yeah. I tell you, that's one of the funniest things that's occurred to me in recent years is that like there is this huge percentage of the global gamer population that genuinely loves playing like old school graphics, nostalgic, like you know, 2D. Um you know, people are pushing all of this, you know, RCX, ray tracing, whatever. Like most people, most people just give give me the pixels, you know. Um that's been quite a fun thing to realize, but uh, but yeah, I like that answer. Um well my next question was gonna be favorite game ever, but it feels like it's gotta be RuneScape, right? Yeah, yeah, for sure. For sure.
SPEAKER_02I also do enjoy Age of Empires, AoE2. Um yeah, that game's a classic, like never gets old, never gets old.
SPEAKER_00Um there we go. Um and then yeah, I also wanted to ask, what would you say is a book, article, or sort of like yeah, game design read um that you'd recommend to aspiring on-chain game devs that that was yeah, instrumental in your evolution?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I haven't I haven't read too much. Um, I think there's there's this uh series on on YouTube called um I think like Critical Path or something. They have like these little short, you know, five-minute segments on they just interview a variety of you know like top top game designers across the industry. Um that that's been really fun. Like, you know, I I kind of go in the rabbit hole sometimes, just like watch like a hundred different like short videos there. Um because yeah, like you know, you kind of get the breath of and really like you know, a lot of a lot of what you know people are saying with game design in web to like games, like it it there's really no difference. Like it's fundamentally like you're you're just creating emotions, right? Um, so I think yeah, a lot of the lessons kind of uh yeah are are very useful for design.
SPEAKER_00Very cool. I like that. You're just creating emotions. Yeah, uh and then yeah, lastly, I wanted to ask what's the most important book you've ever read.
SPEAKER_02Most important book I've ever read. Yeah, the the funny thing is like at this point, like I like I I read a ton, like you know, as a kid, like you know, pretty much read pretty much every every book I could get my hands on. But I think yeah, I mean, I like haven't read read a book in like years at this point. Um so yeah, I I can't actually remember a a book that you know I've I've read that yeah has has made a a big impact. Um kind of is a blur at this point. But I think like you know, as a kid, like you know, as as you're reading some of these books, like it kind of like gets uh you kind of just like absorb it, right? It kind of becomes like some of your personality, like how you think, like um, yeah, I think you you kind of like biosmosis like capture capture a lot of it. So yeah.
SPEAKER_00It's it's the way of the world, my friend. My attention spans nuked these days as well. I'm uh it's struggling through a couple of books, but uh that's that's been the case for a while. But um, but there we go. Ben, I really appreciate you coming on. Um, yeah, very excited by what you're building. Think uh yeah, season two was a massive success and a big testament to every everything you've shipped so far. Um look forward to more of that later this year. Uh look forward to the jewel arena being back. And uh yeah, feel like you guys are very much leading the charge of these like on-chain DGen games, and um that is one aspect of the crypto gaming thesis that I feel like is being irrefutably validated, thanks to you. So um, yeah, all very exciting and uh thank you for coming on.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, thanks for having me.
