Keynote: Blockchain Technologies in the Gaming Industry - Alex Van Hulle, CTO, Redlight Finance.

foreign [Music] [Applause] topic you've got here Alex so Alex is the CTO of red light Finance is talking on blockchain Technologies in the gaming industry which could could be anything I don't know go for it awesome thank you so much so yeah like you said my name is Alex I'm the chief technology officer at red light Finance um and I'll be talking about you know Innovation and developments in the gaming industry and specifically from the blockchain sense um so just an overview I know most of

you all already know this but for those of you that don't you know the gaming industry is rather large right 159 million a billion sorry uh market cap it's absolutely crazy it's one of the largest Industries in the world and it's a growing year over year over year without fail because every single person I feel like is getting into gaming whether it be mobile whether it be actual PC or console and it's very important to continue to grow the Innovations because the consumer at the end of the day is always going to benefit from Innovations and from the companies that are competing for those Innovations now the driving force of the gaming industry like I said is is plainly Innovation whether that be ar VR blockchain Gaming you know I remember back in the day playing arcade machines yes I'm only 25 but still arcade machines you know the best thing ever you had the same patterns over and over again playing Galaga recognizing those patterns and then beating that game by getting a high score of 99999 right and

we grew from that we went from a set pattern to playing single player games to multiplayer games to uh adaptative consoles to a connect camera so your console can see you play and it's definitely something that's continuously innovating and it's very awesome because we have the Innovation such as cloud gaming and subscription-based services and then of course we have the increased popularity of mobile gaming I mean come on who who doesn't you know poop and play a video game on their phone come on right and just a little bit of Statistics uh it has a growth of 9.3 percent reaching 196 billion by 2028 that's a that's a lot of money a lot of game developers want to get in on that we're seeing Indie Games becoming more and more popular you have Early Access on Steam I remember playing a game I feel like it's so old now it's called rust and I was part of the pre-alpha version of this game and it was like at the time the greatest thing ever you were playing in the zombie apocalypse you got to survive build your house and

now it's this multi-conglomerate studio with multiple different games and they're growing every single day and that started with three people and it's very important to realize why this is important because these types of Innovations and that came from the unity engine at the time these types of Innovations allow the growth in that sector and I feel like that is what blockchain gaming and blockchain Technology specifically with nfts is aiming to accomplish now the largest market in the entire world is North America for video games who knows why and it's followed closely by Europe and Asia and the majority of gamers are male and they happen to be between the ages of 1835 now that's changing because we're getting older all of us are and I don't think that I'm going to stop playing World of Warcraft 10 years from now when they're on their 30th expansion because I'll just keep playing it because it's a fun game right and I think my kids will enjoy it when I have them so and I will introduce arcade

games as well because it's always something that you know nostalgic you'll have the sentimental value when you're enjoying them with your kids your friends your family you're starting to play these different types of party games we're going to continue to grow this industry year over year and of course as we're noticing with the free to play model in-game purchases and micro transactions are becoming such a thing of the future where everybody's making these AAA titles and they're going to charge you that five dollar convenience fee because you want to speed up your time on your building that you're playing on your phone or you really like this skin for this gift like fortnite that you're playing your kid really wants to buy I mean how many people have bought V bucks for their nephews nieces or friends and families right just because their kid wanted something in this game there's no reason why you can't monetize this further by creating those actual skins and those entities nft technology and then even get more money from the secondary value

not only as a person but as the game developer through royalties now we all know about the Innovations in gaming starting with you know virtual reality augmented reality I'm super excited for Apple glass I was sad to see that it got postponed indefinitely but we'll see where it goes we got cloud gaming and streaming services that are becoming more and more popular especially on the consoles where you can pay a set price and you have access to all these games usually they're old games but for example on PC if you have origin you can pay EA 15 a month and get access to every single title that they come out with even if it's brand new instead of paying 70 dollars a game which is what the current price is going for newer games right and then of course we have Mobile gaming and 5G technology that's always constantly growing you've got Apple arcade growing you've got the Samsung Google play all of that stuff incorporating all these different types of games from puzzled games to board games to Tower Defense games all of

these different genres available simply because you have a phone in your pocket and all of those different Avenues and industries are able to integrate web3 technology very seamlessly through red light Finance now blockchain technology is super simple it's a decentralized ledger that records transactions across network of computers if your Bitcoin for example the network of computers is the miners if you were a proof of stake system like ethereum those network of computers are validation units that just confirm information and get rewarded for that and we're similar now each block contain in the chain contains that information in a reference to previous blocks in order to maintain that ledger and that's super important for digital asset ownership because unlike a database right it's constantly running and constantly going as Steam were to shut down tomorrow every single person that's been accumulating skins for the past 10 years is uh you know out of luck that's it steam's gone there's they shut down

the game so you can't no longer do anything with those skins and that's what's so very important about digital asset ownership is because we want to continue to grow even past the games that we're playing there's no reason why you're playing one game and that skin or that item or that pet can't be used in another game it's very important to continuously create sentimental value and of course continuously create monetary value through these assets like we're seeing already on platforms like Steam and of course the benefits you get transparency and security uh crypto security is unlike any other yes I know you can read all about the fabulous hacks that happen for hundreds of millions of dollars those are more like exploits uh user error trying to hack a blockchain with brute force is near impossible you'd have to have the most powerful computer in the world times 10 and even then it would still give you a run for your money it's more like exploits and that's happens in any

industry you just hear about it in crypto a lot just because of how much money is currently involved and of course if you go with a non-privatized network you do have decentralization which is super important if you're looking to continuously have something that you don't have to take care of yourself a centralized server for example like steam again if they just shut down that's it whereas if you had a decentralized network it did not matter if they shut down it would allow you to continue working and allowing to use those assets that are on that chain and the challenges of typical blockchains like ethereum Finance polygon is scalability not able to handle large number of transactions you're not able to continuously grow the barrier of Entry is very difficult and that's where Red Light Finance is coming in with our gasless blockchain because it allows us to integrate a seamless user experience and to already established games if you've played a crypto game they're they're kind of crap because they sit

there and they focus on just the monetization of the game itself and not the beauty of having a game right I I've played Eldon ring recently and it's a beautiful game it has great graphics a fantastic storyline you know it keeps you going I want you want to get to 100 completion you want to play that game well if you play a simple crypto game like a bounce when you're just sitting there bouncing it at the end of the day it's it's just nothing for you with our technology you can take an already established AAA title into great web3 technology and you don't even have to change the user experience because of our gasless nature and of course like I said complexity is it's so hard I mean if you doing advertisement in this space and or you've watched any YouTube videos and you've seen that advertisement for a game what are the chances that you click on that game like oh this is pretty cool I want to play this if you had to learn a whole new industry that's outside of

just playing the game you might be a little bit turned off you're like I don't really want to I don't really want to play anymore I got to learn how to use gas I got to learn what crypto is I got to learn how to keep tokens in a wallet I don't even know what all these numbers and mean like I don't get it I just want to play this game it looks so cool we're trying to change that do you just download the game don't worry about the crypto industry don't worry about the integration with blockchains we take care of that and you don't even notice it and you're still have digitalization and ownership of all of your assets so a decentralized gaming it's a very interesting topic because if you integrate for example uh MMO it's a large multiplayer online you can integrate decentralization and decentralized assets and tokens into that MMO and allow you to continuously keep up to date those items whether that's refreshing metadata whether that is uh selling it on the secondary market and getting a royalty fee whether that's selling that item to a person as an

in-game transaction and then keeping the licensing for that item allowing them to create content and artwork but because it's a digital asset you can automatically see from an nft Marketplace and get a royalty even if they created an image by hand and they say for example you had a weapon that was part of your game that person bought that weapon they now have the right because they own it they have the right to utilize that in their artworks through our nft Marketplace it will automatically recognize that weapon as part of your collection and pay you a small royalty fee every time they sell that you even if it's their own unique artwork and that's what's super cool about the possibilities of decentralized Gaming now my favorite topic is nfts because everybody thinks nfts is just pictures and they don't do anything and that for the most part true but nft technology on a rudimentary level is so interesting because you can do so many things with it you can do medical data

you can do game assets you can do real estate you can do Deeds for your house you could do titles for your vehicles all of that could be a digitized asset you no longer have to utilize paper pen contracts lawyers just to get involved and to prove ownership of something all you have to do is tap your phone all you have to do is send a link QR code with certain people and certain wallets you can give access temporarily to those nfts to to people that you choose to if I with our technology if I chose to take my medical data go to my doctor I can give him a link to my medical data for 30 minutes and he has access to my medical labor for 30 minutes do you know how important that is for international travel because I don't want some random person I have no idea who who they are the access to my blood work and my medical data from back in the United States because God knows how much that already cost me to get all that done so nfts also allow you to be bought and sold that's super important a lot of

games like for example EA Sports and all of their sports games with ultimate teams they try to limit what you can do with those assets you can't sell them on a secondary Market or you risk being banned right you break their terms of service in my opinion that's the wrong mentality for it because at the end of the day if I decide to sell something and it's worth a thousand dollars that game industry can make a two percent one percent or ten percent whatever they set Commission on that item in the end it would bring more money back for the game developers than to simply just block it and restrict users from utilizing that tool that's where nfts come in handy and community building the nft community and the crypto Community is unlike any other community I've ever been in or worked in it is at the same time ruthless and Cutthroat and also fun and family oriented I've been involved with splinterlands actually Infinity um my metaverse uh what's it called defy

kingdoms all of which are prominent nft games and their communities are always helpful they're always involved they're willing to help you out and teach you how to be involved in the industry and I want to eliminate that teaching factor and just have the family-oriented gaming sense that you have love and have every day with other online video games and of course monetization like I spoke about before it's very easy to monetize within a gaming uh within web3 gaming whether that be tokenization of an asset you have to buy my coin another in order to purchase this item in game whether that's selling nfts in the secondary market and collecting a royalty whether that's selling nfts directly to the consumer in your app all of which can be monetized in so many different ways you can have a hundred different skins that are AI generated and you can have seasonal things seasons are actually up and coming in video games every I feel like every single video game now has different seasons with different content that comes out every two three months

one month all of which is gone by time you get to season four I don't have access to season one stuff but if I really like a skin or like an item that's in season one and the game doesn't support nfts or web3 technology or no Marketplace there's zero way that I can get that item from season one and I find that ridiculous because if I really enjoy the game and I'm getting into it I'm going to want that item I'm going to want to get my collection and keep it growing and that's awesome because through monetization of blockchains you can do that you can have your Seasons you can expire nfts you can make them rare there's nothing more like taking 10 royalty fee on a hundred thousand dollar nft because it's a super rare one of one that you can't get anywhere else and before you say I don't see any nfts selling for a hundred thousand dollars uh if any of you sports cards collectors download Panini direct click on blockchain they're selling a hundred thousand dollar cards a pop for a

blockchain nft card absolutely insane and in my opinion web3 and decentralized gaming is the future of gaming I think more and more you'll see companies integrate this type of Technology within their games just to give the user a better experience overall I think right now what the hurdle is is the teaching aspect to every single user and once you eliminate that for example through our technology it really helps you innovate and helps you allow the usage of this technology for your users and I'm not going to take up too much more time but transforming user experience is super important but we don't want to change its seamlessness we do not want to make it more complicated for a user to play your game you literally just want to play the game and that's what's super important about what we're trying to do at red light Finance in conclusion like I said nfts are the best thing since sliced bread when it comes to monetization inside the gaming space and you're definitely going to want to look into how you can utilize

web through technology in order to grow the possibilities of your game whether that be something as simple as a secondary Marketplace integration of nfts integration of information or tokenization of your game thank you everybody for coming out [Applause] quickly ask you a question stay up there and I'll quickly last question so so uh just as far as as far as I understand what you're doing you you are a a separate blockchain so you're a new blockchain obviously there's quite a lot of blockchains out there I mean like dozens hundreds thousands um there's a question does the world need another blockchain or obviously you guys think it does so what would you say with the main advantages of using of using red light as a competitor ethereum or great question so currently the gas prices of ethereum are about five dollars for a simple transaction on red light it's zero not zero dollars not zero cents literally zero it's free like air uh it's free like water it it's it costs

nothing to utilize and operate on our chain and you do not require any tokens in your wallet you can simply add the network to your wallet and you can interact with anything on our Network good answer thank you very much [Music] [Applause]