Battlebound: Ex-Riot Dev Dives into Web3 - The Metacast by Naavik

[Music] GM friends welcome to another session of the metacast crypto Corner brought to you by navic I'm your host Alex Decay but you can call me TK for short and today I'm joined by Adam Hensel CEO and founder of battlebound a web 3 gaming studio welcome to the metacast Adam thank you very much Alex it's a pleasure to be here yeah super excited to have you on and so um before I inevitably ask you to introduce yourself and tell us a bit about your background and battlebound as a studio I've been told by the novic devs that I need to introduce myself um at least a couple episodes in a row since I'm a new voice for the audience um to reiterate uh I am one of the uh podcast hosts that's taking over for Nico who used to host the podcast prior he'll be continuing on his podcasting Journey at fog Dao uh I went right into

games out of undergrad at blizzard and I spent some time working on the franchises there Hearthstone job before OverWatch Starcraft spent some time on the Activision build lizard Partnerships team I joined an indie Studio name System error softworks and then I also worked with some of the big craft guys on web3 and web 2 game Studio investing this past summer right now I'm at Stanford I'm in my second year of business school the president of the gaming Club um my Dominion stands at like 30 people so it's got a Vibrant Community and um I'm also a Stanford blockchain Club accelerator advisor and Mentor so that's about a little bit about me um but enough of that uh you know who are you Adam uh what what is you know why web3 what's battlebound up to all right yeah excited to dig into all those things uh my quick background uh I've been building games for about 12 years I founded battle bound about a year and a half ago uh after leaving Riot games so my background's in technical art and game art I spent four years at Riot

working on League of Legends and building out team fight tactics uh before getting really excited about uh I guess the web three space and and nfts and ownership uh in games and what that means for players and how we build games and so uh yeah I got the itch to dive back into building uh games with a small team and having high levels of ownership and creativity over the process and looking to I mean really revolutionize how we as game developers honor and treat our players uh and build more meaningful meaningful relationships with them in the process and so that was how battleland got started and yeah so yeah I mean I think it makes a lot of sense I think uh the riot ethos I think is probably one of the best you know AAA Studios that that really values their community and they do that management really well I'd actually love to ask you later on the podcast about what you think about doing that through the way that Riot's doing it right now versus doing it through web3 and tokens

uh maybe an interesting discussion but um before we kind of pivot to maybe the economy and and governance of of your game uh Eva verse um would love to kind of just you know ask a little bit about the game right um even our seems like it's a pay to own experience um but you know what is the what is the moment to moment gameplay look like what's the player doing um just you know give a high level you know pitch of the pitch of the game sure yeah so the Ava verse is a social multiplayer Competitive Gaming experience so that's a comprised of a series of game modes and each mode is designed to offer players sort of the Best in Class experience that is that are popular uh or arising within like the web 3 space and give them ownership and utility over the ex those experiences uh underpinned by a collection of nfts but the game's also free to play and so we are building for the largest audience possible and we believe accessibility is an issue with

uh sort of the web free landscape of games and getting players on board and the best way to solve that is to open up that foundation for players to join and so you don't need any nfts uh the game's currently on Steam you can download and play play for free and right now we have hoverboarding is like our main game mode and so every player is able to participate in those races and if you have a nft Hummer board they level up and get experience and they gain all kinds of different stats and we have three different moon bases throughout the Ava verse which you can players can can race against and so we're building more modes uh coming down the pipe we have one called Cosmic code which is a pet racing uh battle type game that similar to I guess to like fall guys mixed with twitch based uh kind of reactive League of Legend style combat uh alongside and during the race and each of these modes are meant to be very fun and social but also competitive uh and and give players the opportunity to

to Really compete and and strategize and play against each other and fun in creative ways and so where as the game expands we're going to be building out new modes uh we've already begun pre-production on our third mode which is more of a Arena type shooter mode that players will play while riding around their hoverboards and so the idea is that as the game expands these different game modes will also uh sort of coalesce together and ultimately we'll be handing over the tools to our players in our community to mix and match and create different role sets and and types of game modes within the game uh as they as they as those tools and building features come online got it so essentially if averse is basically a world where you can play a lot of different types of competitive multiplayer games um I took a look at a reverse and it kind of looks to me like an SSX tricky but in web3 so you know I'm thinking maybe I'll do some tricks out there um get style points Etc

um so I think that's sort of the idea um so makes a lot of sense very exciting I know there's a lot of Battlers and racing games that web3 have been um that web free has kind of been pursuing in terms of the web free component though so where does the blockchain really like link into your game right there's all these types of games that have multiple like multiple levels of blockchain uh integration right you know to the furthest to the right we've got our Dark Forest Logic on a chain and then we've got like our web like 2.2s which are like this is the same game but with nfts where would you say um Ava verse is currently on this spectrum yeah so we're currently on I'd say more of the the latter spectrum that you described because everything that we do is optimized from the experience of the players and we want them to have a really smooth and easy onboarding experience and get into the game and decide like hey is this game fun do I love playing this uh without having to jump through a lot of the friction that you would have to jump through when the entire game launcher gets on chain and

so what that means is we have nfts players are able to trade them most of them have been airdropped to them for free for just being part of our community and that's you know we did over a year ago we did our initial Avatar mint of our characters and and we sold that out and everything else has been about engaging and building alongside of our of our players and so the majority of the game right now is off chain and that's how we've been able to actually stay and grow on Steam and use that platform but as the game matures and the our team is now much larger you know we're 20 developers now we started this year as a as a team of two that built most of the original wave rivers and the nft collection and so we've been and scaling and building a lot and as we continue we're going to build more meaningful on-chain interactions when the game does come off steam and we're able to to focus on those but until then our primary focus is building a product and building a great game that players are going to love to play regardless of the rest of

the on-chain or not Unchained features and so um yeah we use a combination of techniques from storing assets on chain to a lot of the metadata off chain so that you know you don't need to pay gas every race for your to game experience or to level up or um yeah and so and we leveraged the polygon Network and are able to airdrop rewards and and provide meaningful interactions to players within the game uh and we'll continue to expand that out in the future gotcha um and so yeah I've got I've got a bunch of spouting questions from from that the first is it sounds like I don't have to buy an nft to play right I can get it airdropped to me for free how does that work um if I'm you know if I'm a player I don't know anything about web3 right you know I had to get started in this game where do I go right yeah I mean you can just uh go to the website create an account you'll use that account to log in when you download the game from Steam and you can begin to play there's a free Avatar uh there's a free hoverboard and

the pet racing mode that we're building called cosmicup there's going to be a free turtle so literally everything you can do in the game uh that you could do with NT you can do as a free player and so the free player progression uh is uh essential and a hugely important part of the vision and how we aim to onboard more players into the world of of nft ownership and and gaming on chain over time got it got it and then my next question is just I'm surprised that you're on Steam uh you know back in November 2021 you know steam Band blockchain games from their platform so you know what happened there for you guys um you know when did you launch did you launch on Steam after that and could you just sort of share maybe a little bit about your experience of trying to launch a web 3 game in a web to platform-gated World um where would you go after Steam for example yeah yeah it was tricky um but no we actually launched and we're live and playable before that big

announcement came out um and we actually when we uh went to Green Line and published the game Steam came to us and said hey we actually don't allow uh blockchain games or nfts like this and we said okay like that's great uh where I just so you know like we don't like uh write to the blockchain players aren't earning Bitcoin or either tokens within the game uh you know we just have like basically we use it for gaming inventory and they were cool with that so and we're like okay great cool like we we uh we released and then you know as we've been on Steam we've had had a couple of conversations and uh we did move the wallet connecting feature to the website and out of out of the game because of that uh but we've been in talks with Steam support and you know they are not entirely like against nfts they're against nfts doing certain things within game and they are totally cool with having a comparable like uh blockchain light version of the game that's cross-platform uh as long as uh

uh the steam version has feature parity with the with the on-chain version and so and that's how we've structured the game from the get-go uh because we do want it to be accessible to as many players as possible and so we hit in that without really needing to make much pivots or or uh changes on that side interesting so your game will continue to stay on Steam basically at infinite or any plans to we do have plans to take it off steam we are building our own battlebound games launcher uh we have some other plans that we're having the works that we're not quite able to speak to quite yet that we're really excited about but the battlebound games launcher is essentially like the backstop no matter what or what like what platform rules we know we can self-publish through our own games launcher and we're going to be building games in the future and so we have this technology in which we can support and build the products and the features that are our best for our ecosystem and our players got it what uh and you're just just

imagine like a dream world right like what would be the best solution do you guys think right now because I know that a lot of web3 studios are struggling with distribution I think that there is this is being tackled from a myriad of angles um you know I actually have a classmate that's not doing this for games but she's doing it for nft projects right it's like impossible to keep track of like the random nfts that you own and know like when nouns is updating blah blah blah blah right so they need like a Consolidated news feed um and so I think that's a very interesting strategy of right trying of aggregation right what would be like the dream tool if you were a developer right now would it be the steam of web3 would it be like a Marketplace of integration right would it be that you have your own client I guess well it sounds like which is what you're building but um just kind of maybe speak to that I mean you say I think touchdowns are very interesting points um especially like the steam of web 3 uh and you know what

we believe here at battlebound uh and what we're building towards the future where web free sort of Fades into the background a bit and so games our games uh and so we'd be able to release on Steam we'd be able to release on the Epic store would be able to release on uh congregate or whatever whatever that looks like uh wherever people where the players are and they have a desire to play games uh and so the web free element is really a type of technology that empowers us to build really engaging and meaningful features in game uh and then they can live alongside in any other place or console where players love to play games and so I guess to me that's the dream situation got it so you just ideally just love to release full blast shotgun everywhere right um mobile PC yeah we are planning um we'll pour everything that we build he was in unity uh for its cross play and and cross-platform functionality and we're building with Mobile in mind and as we scale the team yeah we plan to have a cross-play launch of the Ava

versus all of our future titles as well gotcha gotcha um okay and so it sounds like basically the underlying Crux of aviverse is basically the ownership of your nft and digital assets that are used in gameplay the hoverboards the character units right yeah um and what the Grand Vision is that players are going to be building their own rule sets right they're perhaps their own Maps um and instructing these new modes naturally and so I'm wondering how you're thinking about those people who are doing that work um and any kind of like token economy alignment with a ugc component like with the ugc token a component um in the future right um are you thinking about integrating and like launching a token like that uh to kind of incentivize creators to create or more web 2 perspective right creators Love Love of the Game situation

you know it's a combination of both uh I think the token we are we are aiming and planning to launch tokening we're actually going through the process of a token raise uh right now and having those conversations but the token is a great opportunity to align in incentives across a number of parties but also the lends itself really well to incentivizing the community uh to participate and contribute and create uh especially as it comes to the Competitive Gaming landscape because you know players are able to vote with their time and effort and play the maps or the modes that you know they they love and like that's what makes these modern communities so successful and so tokenizing that is a great incentive for Builders uh and ties everything together neatly Under the Umbrella of just the general game economy that we are also leveraging to you know reward competitive play and and great um plays within the game and people that excel at the the at the modes in the in

the game mechanics that we build got it so so far right now something to consider but not actually being not actively deployed in terms of yeah yeah it's it's much uh couldn't be much further down the road like our approach is essentially like we as game developers uh you know I've been building games for a long time and so we want to focus on finding that fun and building compelling game experiences that players are gonna love playing and then hand that over to them to experience uh within the Guides of like here are the tools and and here is how you can build on top of this strong Foundation that we as a game Studio have built in our products got it and then in that in that regard right like how do you think about um and maybe this is speaking to the to the riot discussion I think one of the things that I think about a lot in games right is and I remember I remember I was just chatting with someone at Riot and they were like look if we just ask the

community like what they want they'd be like yeah I know yaso's win wall should be like a cooldown of like two seconds right yeah and yeah that actually doesn't make the game more fun because people obviously even in a non-web three environment with a not open economy really want to do what's best for them right and so fundamentally like league is honestly like one of the most incredible Feats of balance right the fact that like this game has been out for like eight years and like it's like still working and new Heroes and new Champions are released all the time jungle changes are made it's honestly fantastic right and so I think that um you know when you ask the player community like oh would I want this sword to have five percent crit or 20 crit MO most people are always going to vote what's in favor for them so how you know like you obviously grew up in Riot right um they do a fantastic job of managing their community and they do it in a web two way they simply go into a forum and they say hey Community what's

up what do you think right and you know without building it to the protocol there's no quorums there's no like actual Dow voting structure at all and that seems to be working pretty well I would say maybe you would disagree but um you know how are you guys planning on doing that for for inverse right will there be this sort of like token voting structure what do you think about well you know re-initial reactions essentially to the dichotomy that I just presented yeah I mean ultimately we do want to get to the place where we have a you know more ins or formalized token voting structure for the holders in place but like when our token's not out yet and it's like you said you can do this successfully without the blockchain and so you know we're very active in the Discord the whole team is there uh we have a chat with our community and then as like another chat with our with our holders and they're very passionate and they have goes back to aligning incentives but they they have the studios for the most

part the Studio's best interest in mind because it's also their best interest as holders now um and so there is some balancing act that needs to be done between you know like sort of uh I guess the general perspective of any one given player and you know coming from a place of their self-interest and also bouncing that against our game design and game development experience and trying to find uh The Sweet Spot there but I think I mean this applies to I think feedback in general kind of regardless of how it's delivered or the content as long as someone is being genuine there's something there it which is worth considering and so they might not have said it or come from the right place when they delivered it but if they're being genuine like there's something there to talk about and and and maybe the solution isn't what they're proposing but it could be something else and I think a lot of that is the art of building games and you're right right uh does that very very well um or or well I guess it would probably depend on the player but I worked really

closely for about a year or so on the on the game balance team uh and I've been in a lot of those conversations about patches and jungle nerves and balancing between dude I want to go back to that hello so yeah I gotta go back to the uh seated Devourer that's what I would like that's my favorite era of league is Satan Devourer with shyvana so whoever got rid of that they should be cut immediately but that's exactly my point right is that like I might just want something because that's the way that I want it right and so I think for web free I think it's a big a big challenge right is because even when you look at some of the nft projects that are happening right now like only like 10 percent of the communities actually doing the voting right yeah and democracy is in vote all the time democracy is a vote when politicians ask you to vote right so it's not really when it's not really oh this like you beautiful utopian Universe in which case like is it really

that is it really that different right and unless like the voting immediately automatically goes into the game changers which respect it would never do but I could be wrong about that um yeah I mean I think that comes to the approach and you know I across web 3 there's different uh at least approaches on paper of how this structure works and I've read things about you know uh Studios saying that the players can vote out the developer from the game if they wanted to um like I don't know how that would work but we're not that we're not going that far we like Leverage uh boating and Google Sheets and feedback forms like you know your traditional methods to pull our community but there's also this Challenge and I guess another Balancing Act of building for the players of today versus building for the players of tomorrow um and I think I mean we've had very candid conversations with our community about you know how we expand the ecosystem and and the mechanics and features that we build especially like on the free player side to get more

players in uh and that might be at odds with uh anyone individual's incentive but I the way I like to approach is that you know we need to also account for tomorrow's players to to build for a much better bigger piece of the pie which will then create more success for all of the community members holders uh players that are currently there and so that's another kind of Vector in which we're always thinking about how we build and scale or operations and product and so you've mentioned these players of Tomorrow how would you say the players of Tomorrow are very different from the players of today or even just like the riot players right I assume that you've spent a lot of time like looking at the type and psychology and cohorts of people who play League of Legends yeah forever sort of ignoring you're also a competitive game right so I assume that maybe some of that psychology overlaps but I mean you've been heads down in the web 3 space you know what is the web

free consumer looking for that's really different than the web 2 consumer I mean that's a really good question and like right now you know if you were to compare the number of players that identify as like you know a web 3 gamer compared to you know your traditional gamer right it's like not it's not much of a comparison you know 99 to one or or whatever that looks like right and so building of for the players of tomorrow you know our goal is to onboard more players into this tight type of gaming experience and you could call it web3 gaming but it's you know what we often say and I think this is on our website it's like uh we build games players love and own and it starts with love first because like those motivations are are the same and and the players that have come into our ego system from other web free games uh what they've really responded well to is like hey this is a game I enjoy playing um and I want more of these games in web

3 and I think those are the same uh motivations that you know your web to and your League of Legends players play they want the social they want the fun experience they want a late night game with friends uh and they want to have incredible memories and stories uh to be told from the experiences they have playing together and you know our vision is to build that for them and then also Empower them with agency owner ownership and sharing the value that they spend playing games that they love because at the end of the day it's players that make games successful and it's the players that have made riots successful and so they're they're they're they're worth it uh they're incredibly important right they're the huge piece of this this equation for why we build games gotcha um and so I think it's really interesting you think there's such a variety of people that are pursuing web 3 but in different uh levels of strength right and so I see it maybe correct me if I'm wrong but eververse sounds like it's a very

incrementalist approach right um you know we're not trying to build the um the dollar you know pin to you know the Ruan right and build this like vastly open economy which I have very strong thoughts on um and hopefully we'll be doing uh some materials on on how difficult that that actually is in the end to replicate the the American monetary system but it sounds like you know yours is mostly anchored in saying like hey there's a generation of players who want to be competitive but they want to do it in a place where they where they own their assets and this is what what's what we're going to provide right we're going to be that incremental stepping stone on the way to like full web 3.0 like you will hit us on your on your Journeys there at the web 2.2.2 or whatever yeah right yeah and and as we scale up as a studio we are going to be leaning and moving closer to waiting on on that Spectrum to web3 with the token launch tokenized game economy they're able to earn uh nfts in game but

it's like in order to do that successfully like it comes back to the product and having a game players are excited to play kind of regardless of all that stuff and so that's where our focus is and I think the one thing that we're doing uh or or one of the things that we're doing which is unique I suppose compared to maybe the your traditional web 2 space is like we're building very openly uh in front of our players uh and in like a work in progress scheme and like we launched it very very early right at the same time uh alongside of our nfts and that's because I think coming from web 2 uh it's important that the products and the features we launch are more about the products and features and less about the speculation and the promise of what it will be and so we launched the game at the same time the nfts uh minted uh when we airdropped hoverboards to everyone for free like they were able to race with them right away I mean we haven't done a land sale

or sold anything that didn't do something in the game already and so we're doing hand in hand with our community with our players feature by feature and I think if we were more of a traditional web 2 Studio we probably would be in stealth mode still sure just waiting for that big reveal and so sure it's a it's a more of a it's a longer process perhaps and there's a lot to to build because we're also like managing this live service game but like we haven't focused too much on user acquisition because we're still like we're building the fun uh and the product like level right now with our players with our community and getting feedback so yeah that's really I think that's a really interesting thing that I think web3 has definitely done a lot more than web2 and I think there's variations right you know there are a couple different types of studios in this world there's data oriented Studios like a Zynga there's product ordinances like Riot and there's creative Studios like blizzard which is like behind locked doors until it's ready boys like you're not seeing a wink of Diablo 4 unless it's ready for the BlizzCon show

floor um and so I think that's a very interesting balance because when you look at it actually from you know of course we're now like this just pull pull pivot we're at Stanford right entrepreneurs everywhere you're taking Advanced product launch right and when you think about like delivering your minimum vile product you know one of the worst things you can do is be instead Health mode right it's about iteration it's about shipping your products out immediately getting feedback and you have to be as an entrepreneur willing to Pivot right and so I think that's probably one of the cooler things about the web3 development process has been just like the consistent contact with the community on the development Cycles right and you know there's obviously a wide range of how much the audience is participating in making decisions but at least they're giving their reactions and and their feedback right um which I think is just very um if it actually fits more I guess with the um product the classic like fine product Market fit um entrepreneurial Journey maybe in like

Tech and SAS and consumer and whatever else there is um so it's fascinating um and so I read somewhere in your in your in your white paper and this is I think um something that I would be interested in talking about um you know right now you've been talking nfts but web 2.2 lighter touch with the blockchain yeah um I read somewhere about uh this lending mechanic that you guys are trying to thinking about and install installing right and I was wondering if you could just share share more about it sure yeah so we have a lending mechanic currently live uh and it's been a pretty great feature for our players and for our community essentially you know we have a lot of holders uh and some people have more nfts than you know they uh can play with or would choose to play with like you know maybe they have 30 characters and so they form Guild and they self-organize and they can lend the nfts to uh their Guild and then they can

share uh in some of the rewards that are earned in game with the play with the people that are have borrowed the nfts but we built the entire thing off chain so with one click of a button you can lend to anyone they don't even need to say yes or no uh you can just know that you should know their account number um and you just ask them or or if you're Dev you know we can see everyone's account number and so it's like if you ask for like hey I want to check out the Ava verse I'm like yeah let me send you some nfts real quick um I can give them to you in two seconds there's no gas you can take them back it's instant and so I mean this mirrors you know what we've seen in axi and and sort of this Guild scholarship type system uh but like everything we do is from the perspective of the user and the player and wanting to create a really smooth uh experience for them and so yeah we've built this off-chain system that you know you don't put your nfts in Jeopardy um or or custody risk uh bike but by trading them and storing them different places and uh yeah it's been it's been

really well perceived by our players got it got it yeah the lending thing is is very interesting because they even think like you know when I was working on Hearthstone and re revamping helping revamp the economy you know we're thinking about well how can we get new players to play When the costs of um you know entering the Hearthstone Universe are like fairly High um you know like decks are not cheap right and so we thought about this sort of like lending mechanic of being able to loan out decks right but one of the biggest things that came up was just the aspect of cannibalization right like our what's going on with your with your economy right have you you know I assume that potentially people who just are just rotating maybe through hoverboards um can you share a little bit more about the the business uh decision obviously it seems best for the players wouldn't argue with that but you know how do you balance right um you know being best for the players but also being profitable as a studio yeah I mean that's a really uh good distinction uh and you know lending and

and sharing a hoverboard system or or nfts like hoverboards or avatars whatever it is yeah it's really great for the players and flexibility uh but you know we want to take that even a step further and give players an opportunity to um even monetize that uh through like a rental system and Marketplace uh that is set up um so that players and anyone can very easily you know say hey this rental of the nft cost this amount of tokens and then we as a developer can capture a percentage of that uh transaction trade uh and so it's more about aligning incentives across the board and creating systems that work for everyone so that they are able to you know get value out of their the game experience and but it all comes back to having a game that's really fun to establish demand to bring in players into the ecosystem uh and also the fact

that we have a free hoverboard so it's like we're not creating this uh this um sort of forced demand to get players into the door and so that also changes motivations and how we build the incentives into the game as well so got it and now I've got a I've got a difficult question for you on this side lending and secondary trading right I'm sure you saw the news about magic Eden changing the royalty structure yeah we also saw the news about magic eating declaren that uh you can't actually enforce royalties at the protocol level right and I think technically I'm not a not an expert on that I actually there is some discussion as to whether or not you can or cannot but I think it seems like the majority of chains um yeah or the at least the primary ones I've been operating on the large scale right now are not enforcing royalties the protocol level and in fact it's actually the marketplaces that enforce the world right right and so now there's

been like a ton of blowback and it's like a huge deal right oh and the ethos of web3 destroyed right because the idea is that you're going to recoup um you're on the secondary market sales right and so for for you guys if you enable The Lending and you enable that kind of that trading right yeah um you were hoping to see that kind of secondary royalty income stream how do you react now to something like a magic eat and change right where they just move all the royalties down to zero um yeah I mean that's a that's a great question um I think it comes down to as game developers Building A system that empowers players to do the things they want to do easily and efficiently and especially when it comes to the ux side uh in ease of onboarding we want players to not have to leave the game to do any of this uh and so it's like we can build the systems that are more convenient for players to interact in the ways that are designed and they're

encouraged to do through the gameplay the game design the economy and the mechanics and then offer it to them where we have a little more say and I think how it's structured but yeah if uh players wanted to take their hoverboard and trade in on Magic Eden and not pay any royalties I mean that is sort of still the ethos of web 3 is they have the agency and the ownership over that asset and the ability to go and do that uh and so yeah it's like a double-edged sword almost because like that's what this whole system's all about right empowering players to to uh to have that sense of choice uh with how they spend their time in games and what they do uh outside of the game with those assets yeah but I guess it also I think it probably makes it tough right for on the studio side right I think the perspective you know let's just put the players aside right there's two sides of this table there's the people who make the games the developer and then there's the people that play them right and so I

think you know developer perspective that I've had is basically like well I could go and work on apex or League or you know Final Fantasy 14 yeah and I can get paid a ton because they can afford to pay me that because the value is not getting skirted by me going to secret Marketplace but doesn't enforce secondary royalty fees so you know as you're building as you're building the studio right um You said that you grew from from two people um to around you said 20 or so right now know um you know sort of maybe uh you know how are you attracting that kind of that kind of talent um to the studio if you know maybe there's those like you know those those fears about um profitability safety um on the level three side for the developer because you're basically kind of giving up the pie at least and maybe I could be wrong on that but I mean in the I guess current uh uh slice of what's happening right

now in Wind 3D but web3 moves very fast uh and you know the conversations we're having now and what's happening now I'm sure it'll be a different conversation in two months uh and and I really do it as an opportunity as well to build and solve and serve our players and engage them in a way that aligns with the probability of the studio but also the value generated by players and that kind of goes into the token launch uh and you know how we structure the game economy uh and but you asked a good question about how we attract Talent uh and I believe that uh to a certain extent like we're all figuring this out together and a lot of there's a lot of new ideas uh and there's a lot of very passionate and very smart people that are excited about the game application and what it means for the future of games and uh you know we uh talked uh earlier about on the last podcast and there's a lot of uh weighted strong opinions right and so

very strong but the onus is on us as developers to prove it out and make it work and and yeah it's a challenge but we're attracting people that see the potential uh and are excited about the challenge and you know we've been successful in hiring from Riot and blizzard and uh Ubisoft and EA and and putting together a really strong games team and I think it's largely due to our approach of being a game's first studio um and and really focusing on the core gaming experience and creating a game player's love and then sort of working with that Demand right for that that players have in that ecosystem and in a game that they love in that economy uh and leveraging it in a meaningful way uh where now our incentives are aligned between players uh and developers and also to a certain extent investors too and people that are

holding the tokens and so then we can all win together and I think that's the best outcome here in terms of you just mentioned the three groups you know you got your players you've got your developers you've got your you got devs right um you know I think like that that relationship exists in in AAA it exists on any public company yeah right um but I think the investors and web3 are a little bit closer to the game than they are in a I'm an LP and I invested and um this is the situation and again I want to make a distinction between two types of investors there's your speculators the people that might hold your token or hold your nfts for asset appreciation but don't play your game and then there's like your back backers right you're that's yeah for you guys I believe that's Andreessen and play Ventures and I think Dapper Labs or something like that yeah but you know how do you think about parsing out the what the investors want and the player investor cohort wants

yeah I mean I think what the investor wants is for the studio and the game to be successful uh and creating success like it needs to be done in a sustainable way I think that's one thing I think we've all learned from I guess what you might call the first generation of these planner games is what's sustainable and what's not uh and so with this I would say maybe the next generation or or what people like the revised versions people are taking those learnings uh and they're applying them and moving forward uh is creating something sustainable that can grow and scale along with the player base and I think that's what will make a studio successful that's what investors want and really that's what players want as well and so like putting a like aligning the incentives there is we all sort of win together when when the game and the studio succeeds uh and so I think that's a unique relationship in this in the web 3 Type

um formula that you know your traditional web 2 games are very top down you know investors LPS game developers or Publishers down to players um and they're players like I said earlier are the ones that make the whole thing work so got it um and then I guess like you know like you're obviously building out your studio over time right um You have just received your your seed round um from from Andreessen and playing and others um you know who are the people that you're looking to recruit um what gaps does uh I guess battlebound as a studio have you know what's that critical linchpin that you guys are gonna hit in order to basically bring Ava verse to a larger community of of players I assume everybody wants to grow right so totally yeah I mean so yeah we just hired our 20th uh employee and so that was super uh great it was our first full-time

animator um very excited about that hire and and the skills that they bring uh to the table and yeah we're we've sort of hit critical mass for the point right now it's like we're fully remote studio and I think anyone that is running a game Studio knows sort of the amount of uh effort in and energy that goes in the organization and and tuning the efficiency of of a company and so uh we're we're in a good pretty good place now we have really exciting milestones we have the team to execute on them uh we are hiring a a marketing director and go to market uh uh specialist uh which is interesting because like you know there's candidates that are great and a lot of web3 experience not so much gaming experience or a lot of gaming experience on so much web free experience uh so you know finding that right mix of skills and I guess that goes for more than just marketing but uh it's very interesting I'd say a lot of our team uh We've over indexed on the game side because we believe like without the core uh fundamental game

loops and and fun game then the the other aspects don't really hold up and so our team is very strong on the traditional gaming free to play competitive uh game side and and now we're ramping up and skewing more into the web series side as as more products come online and we look to push the studio more to that uh tokenized uh future yeah gotcha um and yeah there's gonna be I have to candidly say there's going to be a lot of competition out there uh against you guys it was looking pretty okay in gen one with the axes and the and the and the Zen runs but now there's just a strong influx of other web 3 Studios that are coming out of you know Studios that have shipped and delivered titles before you know uh and you there's going to be that kind of talent race for the best kind of people um you know in that in that regard you know I maybe you can answer this from two

questions two sides but if you had to convince um you know a player to come play ibiverse over any other web free game you know what would your what would your answer be I would say if to just come try out the game and see if you love it like see if it's something that uh you're excited about playing uh come bring your friends play with friends it's like and also like jump into our Discord and and hang out with the dev team the community there because it's like it's an ongoing process like I said and it's like the vision the ultimate vision for where the game's going um we are on on our track to to get there over time and so like if you want to be part of that process and you want to help shape it and you know be able to talk to extremely talented game developers about their thought process and join our Twitter spaces like uh it's available and this is it's more of a journey uh as as we build this together and so if like that is that pulls you in right and and you're excited about that and having some ownership stake in the

products and the features that we build um we do have uh an exciting uh airdrop plan uh that's all I can really say about it so it's like a good opportunity to come we get involved um so yeah sure sure yeah um it does sound like you're about to announce some exciting Partnerships uh and uh game modes it sounds like you've mentioned so um you know want to keep people aware of you know the activity that's going on for for battleborn um as a studio and Ava verse as the as the as the universe but you know I guess shifting on to the dev side you know there's a question that we'd like to ask people um at Stanford uh and we all have to kind of go through this this legendary course um at school that's basically about answering this essential question of you know what is your CEO superpower you know like why would people follow you um and so I guess this is a question maybe for you particularly in your background but um you know when you're looking to recruit it's extremely competitive environment you know what is

your CEO superpower why do you think you have a team of 20 people that signed up and quit their cushy AAA jobs to go jump on this crazy web3 thing yeah yeah that's a good question um I would say you know in talking from you know my team and and people I've worked with and people that left Riot to come work with me uh my personal superpower is just building games A to Z as a tech artist and as an artist uh I have very intimate knowledge of every step of the way of like how games come together and how to coordinate teams like working between artists and engineering and getting them to speak the same language and ensuring that we are building a scalable Pipeline and Foundation that lasts for the years to come and we avoid what is known and and the development trenches is Tech debt where we're paying the price for the choices and shortcuts that we're making today as a technical artist like that's uh my bread and butter and

we kind of are the glue that slides slots into the whole development pipeline uh to ensure things run smoothly and and we're building games in the best most sustainable way and more efficiently and so uh I did that on League of Legends for four years uh and and I've been able to take all those skills and learnings and apply them and a lot of the work that I did there is like directly contributed to the success and like where we are today as a company as a studio as well and so um yeah I'd say that is probably my my greatest strength is putting together the team and and allowing things to and empowering people to to work smoothly and efficiently to deliver quickly and iterate prototype quickly and go to market fast got it yeah the tech debt is a huge one man uh you know a tech debt at blizzard I think um but uh it's honestly it's almost it's almost unlovable and humorous in a way

uh I think that um many people even experienced this even from building Excel models honestly uh when you build things in a shortcut kind of way that you don't future proof anything that you're doing it becomes really challenging to to move forward um and it's a thing that I think affects organizations uh to the core no matter honestly like what kind of software or you know engine that you're building um yeah very true yeah um and so you know I want to uh ask a couple of fun rapid fire questions and then maybe ask uh you know uh if there's any special exciting news that you want the audience to know about that has to do with battle um battle bound and then you know I want to also say like give you some time to share what people can do to get in touch with you if um you know they're inspired by your vision and uh want to be that marketing person that you desperately need there's someone out there listening um all right but so I've got a couple of questions uh in a fun sort of way but uh

you know if you could take one game right now right any game in the world and Port it over to web3 now and same quality same gameplay same Art Level World design narrative Etc what game would that be and which game and why do you think it would benefit from the blockchain yeah Stan is a fantastic question and uh like it could be that like we are heads down building a shooter mode right now and and obviously the leverages web three and so the first thing that comes to mind is OverWatch um so goodness what wasn't expecting that one I know like check out my OverWatch loot box on the back of it I know I've seen that it's like how does that work uh and so like we're working on we're working on building a system where uh like you think of a hero shooter right and it's all about the heroes well and they versus it's very Avatar driven and we have all these different nfts and so like if we could put the entire kit of a hero shooter on a gun and then make a craftable weapon kit for that where

people are crafting millions of variations and able to Mint the best ones as nfts and trade them to each other um like that's the space we're working in uh and we're really excited about that and so uh yeah that's the first thing that came to mind because like that's uh that's very much top of mind for the team in the studio fascinating yeah I mean it's really interesting because there are so many projects right now in the web 3 space that are oriented around like farming kind of ecosystems and yeah the MMOs like the places right for people that are trying to build the MMOs but yeah um the the fps's there are some couple cool products that are coming up and it's uh it's a space that I think a lot of investors developers even Community people are like well does this work right and I think I have a thesis that I've written about before but it's there are certain genres that I think that lend themselves better to being web three games right and I don't know the FPS one I'm you know I'm waiting to find out uh excited about it uh but the FPS one is interesting I have

to say I totally agree with you yeah it's like you know web3 is not a solution I think for every game genre right and so it it lends itself well to to certain mechanics and and play style so it's really about leading into those and the products that you build got it okay uh very very fun one but um you know you're you're a gamer you've been a developer like almost you know since since basically like your whole life and uh you know if there's a video game world that you can live in uh what would it be and and why oh wow um so I grew up playing Final Fantasy games I love like the Final Fantasy uh stories and I must sucker for more of like the medieval fantasy style of those and so I don't know some of the older School final fantasies come to mind it's just like worlds that I fell in love with uh it's like final fantasy nine ah got it and uh but yeah I know yeah is

that sadan um yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah I'm a huge I mean probably living there it feel more like Game of Thrones and like probably not because it feels fun like uh I don't know after thinking about it for a second but like just kind of that those visuals and those stories uh you know just really entrance to me and really like affected you know how I approach game development and like I kind of why how I got into games in the first place so cool yeah I mean I'm a huge Pro for that I'm a final fantasy buff myself is um I have a hot take I think Final Fantasy XV is an unfinished Masterpiece um but no one agrees with me that's fine I stand firmly in my convictions um but I think that I think it's cool I mean it's a it's a one of the things the best thing about it about game studios is they have that kind of heart and soul to them and so it's a you know an interesting always interesting to hear people people kind of say to that yeah and then uh finally our this is a legacy question from the Nico era but you know

you know you're building a web for your game what's your what's your boldest prediction your total the most red pill thing that you can come up with uh for the future of uh of a web three you know I honest and I mentioned this at the top of this conversation I believe but like I think that right now people get really hung up on the concept of those words right or those letters went free and and to me this is a form of technology and like as it becomes more mainstream I think that the words web free themselves like just aren't going to be very important uh and and for this to be massively adopted by users uh like the the form of uh crypto and blockchain and like the actual Tech uh is really just gonna disappear and you're like you look at the new iPhones right like no one knows how it works it's like the amount of people that actually know how it works uh it's very very small and like no one cares like they can just use it and do what they want to do in their day-to-day and so like maybe this isn't super red

pill I'm not sure but I think as the industry evolves in the space grows like it's gonna just kind of Fade Away uh and become like household and standard in the respective Realms but it's not going to be this uh huge like uh um like hotly discussed topic like it is today gotcha well we're hoping yeah I think a lot of people are just gonna be like yep web three blockchain's gonna power the back ends and yeah just the the sheep of the world they're just not even gonna know it um and it'll be pretty cool um pretty you know pretty bold I think a little bit reasonable um I think yeah some some people have come up with some pretty uh uh offensive ones or well not offensive but uh yeah outlandish rather that's the better word um but and then finally you know like how how can people get in touch with you um any exciting news that you want to share about battlebound and what they're what's up coming in the next like month or two

um yeah so uh LinkedIn is great again touch me on LinkedIn or uh Twitter at op Tech art um so very very yeah on those channels a lot and then yeah we have the cosmic cup uh racing mode which we've been putting a lot of energy uh into as a Studios this next big game mode and they have averse and we're very excited about uh launching it and so that's gonna be coming out this year uh TB TBD on the on the uh on the exact timing uh but probably a few weeks after this podcast airs uh and like I said now is a great time to to get in Discord to get involved uh we have a lot of exciting features Partnerships announcements coming down the pipe uh and and leading into early next year so got it nice well that's Adam Hensel guys uh the CEO and founder of battlebound so if you want to get in touch with him like he just shared those news and again this is uh the end of another session of the metacast crypto Corner

um and we'll see you in next week or two weeks for me [Music]