Panel: The Metaverse Magic: Building the Worlds of the Future.

hi everyone so let's start our panel with amazing speakers so I'm um CEO of narsan Studios Pakistan's largest Unreal Engine gaming studio based in Pakistan and also in Dubai so I do have amazing panels where we're going to talk about the magic of Meadows building the worlds of future so I would like every one of you to take like one or two minutes to introduce yourself Oscar starting from you thank you I'm Oscar Wendell I work with Dubai World Trade Center and put on the show The Future blockchain Summit that's happening in October this is the sixth year and this year we're going to go very big on gaming web3 gaming in particular hi I'm Vincent I run niftycraft a blockchain gaming company with a vision of cross game item interoperability

to do that we have a solution called craftware to Import and Export items between games and we build our own game using craftware it's a 2d sandbox MMO good afternoon everyone I'm Muhammad balushi I'm the CEO of the IFC Innovation Hub which is a subsidiary of Dubai International Financial Center responsible for everything that it does around fintech Future Finance the future of economies we are a physical jurisdiction that is home to about 700 plus Innovation companies we also run the recently announced Dubai Ai and web3 campus that that we aim to build in the in the next few years but starting hopefully soon and yeah thank you Alex hi um do you hear me okay I'm Alexander yurias I'm CEO and co-founder of Club kui Club quiz mobile first 3D social matter words

and we help people finding like-minded people and friends online in a very playful way so when you come to club cool you get an avatar you dress up your avatar and then you go to Virtual parties to meet new people and that works very well we have 40 000 creators and they create all the outfits you will see on club kui actually 1 200 outfits a day are created as we are talking here and we have a lot of views in Brazil turkey France us and now we're looking into the Mina region because we think our product would work very well here thank you hello everyone I'm Bilal just saw my head business development at dmcc dmcc is a leading international business district with more than 23 000 companies but I have a particular focus on our Tech ecosystems we have the dmcc gaming center and crypto Center and the metaverse sits at the intersection of both so I'm very excited to be part of this panel thank you everyone so as our topic is

building the digital world so Alex starting from you how can we make sure and ensure that all those digital worlds are engaging and immersive for all those users that's a good question um before we did Club cool we created games so we know about games if we know about how to motivate users to play a game have fun stay retained if we are talking about metaverse experiences or in our cases social matter with uh you have to be clear that you still have to serve a need of the user so in our case it's not like playing a game and be successful and be competitive it's more about the social aspect of a meta was place so to say so it's very hard for social networks like lapui to retain users and to attract users so you need you need to take your time to find out about what type of experience you have to present to the user in our case it's

like it's very clear we help you finding friends and all we do is like focused on this so we bring in stuff like a match party of dance party a fashion party or be a Creator create outfits for your audience and this is a very focused experience and it's not like that you can do a racing gaming Club cool stuff like that it's very focused on on parties and vibrant and crazy avatars and show your identity connect to other people and express yourself be a Creator but everything is centered around the Target or the aim to meet new people and connect and mingle and this is it's a very focused metaverse experience and I think it's it's very important to be clear when you start doing a matter with uh product why should people come to you

why do you retain them and how do you do that and for us it's like a meaningful experience build friendships yeah but Oscar considering these digital worlds there are still some challenges which we always face and there are some of the Innovations which still needed in the matter words so what do you think about it uh I just want to comment on what you're saying it's impressive what you've achieved you told me 75 000 users per day in a that's right in your metaverse that's one of the biggest and I'm reflecting on what you're saying here you're recreating social environments clubs concerts meeting new people but when we were speaking the other day I was reflecting on what has made other social communities very successful like Facebook unlike Friendster and Myspace Friendster in Myspace had the same concept of meeting strangers from around the world whereas Facebook the typical user will

have maybe 500 friends and these will be people that they know in the real world or people that know other people in their Circle right and so I think a big question is like what does the metaverse serve it is about enhancing the social interaction that you have with existing people in the same way that chatting like I think the big opportunity with metaverses is that you can socialize with people in ways that are outside the social norms that you have um face to face like if you're communicating with a girl you just met or with a colleague late at night on WhatsApp is very different from how you're communicating face to face and the metaverse I think is such an opportunity to experiment and step out of boundaries I just want to hear before we move on what you think about that as you are building metaverses yes when we look at our users I mean not

everybody is like extrovert many people are introvert many people have to overcome certain obstacles when they approach other people so in club kui it's very easy to to connect to people from all around the world or from around you in your city it depends what you are looking for and the Avatar is a great means of self-expression and you can show your a true identity in club kui and you it's an option to reveal about yourself and when we started Club Coupe 10 years ago we called it a 3D social network so the idea was bringing our gaming background and combine it with a social network and that works very well for us now but it took some time to find out what it needs and all those rooms and parties let's be clear they are an alibi to meet new people so if you go to a party and you listen to music you have you can say okay do you like the music yes I like your t-shirts

are you a fan of a certain Band Whatever everything is like visualize through your avatar and if you look at avatars you will instantly say I find this Avatar attractive yes or no and if the Avatar is attractive and it's you're attracted to the avatar probably want to know more about the person behind the avatar but still when uh from your side like there's still some of the trends and recent things which needs to be come up into the Midwest because we saw this lacking off user experiences and you've been into this gaming since like more than a decade but what do you think what are the most recent Trends we have to bring it up into the metaverse now so uh to set the stage a little bit uh I think the metaverse is already here but the vision of the metaverse versus far from achieved when you look at the metaverse as being like the new iteration of the internet

and that's gonna take a while to get built there's a few components Technologies elements protocols standards uh technology that all have to come together and they all have to serve you know the 3D immersive experiences some other elements are synchronicity real-time Communications interoperability whether you do it via blockchain or without the blockchain so today you have Club kui you have fortnite you have Minecraft all these experiences that to a certain degree satisfy you know whatever we Define as components of what we Define as the metaverse but our but lack everything else and I think the biggest point that lacks is interoperability so today I cannot take my kui dress and move into fortnite with that dress and wave it around to say that I'm one of the ogs of club kui for example uh

while which shows how rudimentary the State of Affairs is in the metaverse because essentially I cannot move with my Nike shoes into an Adidas store now I don't know if in real life the Adidas store will let me in but physically I can do it uh so I think all these great experiences you mentioned bad user experiences I don't think they're red they're amazing look at Club kui look at Minecraft they just don't interoperate their siled away from each other there's another technical aspect that kind of defines the metaphors and it's also very lagging is uh is the real-time synchronicity uh of interaction and communication today it's built on the Legacy infrastructure of the internet IP protocols and whatnot and maybe maybe it's not ideal for what we expect out of the metaverse so uh some smart people are working on this

but my mission is on the interoperability side so I cannot comment on the network side right but um Muhammad from your side the way he has always been accepting the new technologies and so that brings up my next question what Dubai government is doing for the businesses which are coming up into the meadow versus and what are the new policies which the government is working on yeah so I think uh Dubai again is quite a progressive and ambitious uh towards anything new that that comes in the market and metaverse of course uh was was quite obvious and I think last year His Highness announced the metaverse committee High committee uh which is the position which basically has the mandate to position the boy as a hub for uh for the metaverse economy or for metaverse players uh and and hence there are specific government

institutions that are that are working in their capacity to to uh activate that mandate now there's a lot of work on the policy side which includes the DIC as well so some of the things that we're looking at from a policy development perspective is uh how does digital identity look like within the metamers how does data protection look like now we have an issue with data protection in the in the current Uh current scenario How would how do we kind of come up with the legal framework or or ruthless regulations for it to be controlled within the metaverse and then also I think we need to build the right ecosystem around metaverse as well so that's where different government bodies are doing a lot of work we as the IFC actually announced a metaphors accelerator and the aim of that is twofolds one is to push that government mandate but also responding to the market because we have a lot of our clients a lot of our financial institutions a lot of government bodies that actually reached

out to us and they wanna they wanna see what the metaverse could mean for them now metaverse could sound very sexy but uh everyone there was a lot of hype around it but but what is the exact use case for a a bank what is the exact use case for a difc now you could create a digital twin of the IFC or whatever you could create something for an institution but how do you actually commercialize it everyone asks asks me how do you commercialize the metaverse you can invest millions of dollars in it but how do you commercialize it uh hence I mean these uh requests when they came to us we we conceptualized the program where we said okay we'll create a program where we bring in startups and companies experts in the metaverse space that could actually work and help you guys visualize what that use case could be and how it can be commercialized for example I have a bank that is very keen on uh creating a a branch in the

metaverse but not just a prototype they actually want to do commercial transactions how what is the viability of something like that today and then we have logistic companies that actually want to see how could the metaverse enable their facilities we do have a couple of companies from in in the luxury in the retail space again how do they take uh I mean yeah we know those are the use cases but how do they actually develop it and more importantly how is it commercial because it has to be commercial at the end of the day so I think that that's something that we're trying to help and also I think we're in this phase of learning and evolving I think there's a lot of education required we ourselves are also learning in terms of what kind of use cases are there what kind of policies are there and I I it's an evolving space I think right and Bilal what do you think about the AI uh and the regulations which are

related to the metaverses so what are your comments that what the regulatories has to do for the wherever staff thank you so I mean the AI is obviously a developing story and and there's going to be regulations needed for that but I'm actually more interested to also add to the previous points about about the metaphors itself because um you know in dmcc in the crypto Center we have more than maybe 40 50 metaverse companies that companies the majority of them are developing games or have developed games but we're actually seeing other use cases and I think back to the similar point that we're hearing here is finding the right use case is key and we're seeing a lot of Education technology uh looking at meta versus a channel and one of the companies we have is called meta Visionaries they're using meta versus a way as a tool to promote space education and simulating space education for example um education I think is a good use case I mean it's kind of like taking baby steps not we don't have to go to a

complete commercialization uh a model but rather look at what can the metaverse do to simulate and and to create that experience that can maybe help take you know a current experience to the next level uh we at BMCC ourselves we're also looking at the metaverse as a use case for um business matching I mean we have a very diverse business sector business Hub with companies from different business sectors wanting to connect with one another and metaverse is basically a place where they can actually do that permanently instead of just doing events uh all the time for example this can be a permanent place where people from different sectors can meet and can match and connect and maybe even transact I mean eventually as a first phase it could be just meeting but as a second phase uh transacting is definitely an opportunity there a question to any of you this question was circling around in my mind when Tim Cook came and launched Apple Vision Pro I know they didn't share uh and mention

metaverse World in apple Vision Pro and we normally relate which I kind of like I don't agree that VR is equals to metaverse but still it has some of the use cases with the mirrors so what do you guys think that what's the Apple Vision behind the Apple Vision Pro which just came out any of you can pick it up foreign ERS and I think that's for good reason because if you look at Apple it's a company that when they when they present a product they give you a clear message why would you need it what can you do with it and if you look at the use cases they demonstrated with Vision Pro they make sense we it still has to be seen if it if users adapt it but it makes sense to um watch a movie on the region Pro if Vision Pro is light enough you have a

huge Cinema 3D experience makes sense from a consumer's point of view makes sense you can sell it to Consumers and and all the other use cases like 3D photos you can consume 3D photos makes sense you can have like a conference call in 3D people lining up in front of you in 3D makes sense initially probably the product is too heavy but this will be solved in version two three whatever so but they didn't mention metaverse because metaverse is very diffuse what is the matter was what exactly do I do there should I mean like why should I be there for example metaverses tend to be empty and it's nothing worse than an empty metaverse if you go to a metabolous and you can run around walk around in an empty mall that's not fun and you don't even buy the Gucci bag because you cannot show it off to your friends and so um the metaverse itself or what we think meta

was experiences could be it's to defuse diffuse for the consumer and apple is a consumer company and this is why they didn't mention it from my point of view yes I think an important question is what is the metaverse then and does it require goggles I think the ideal metaverse is where you can interact with people virtually for instance with screens in a room like the Star Trek Hollow deck where you can recreate any environment and you can't tell the difference between who is there physically and who is there virtually the recent development with Google Starline for instance and it's more towards a vision of a real metaverse in that sense and to me a metaverse it's not just living in a virtual world that is the interaction with people and having digital assets that are traded and is

parallel world to your real world not a replacement of or or an alternative world I mean what's your comment um regarding consumers I don't think Apple intends to uh make it available in consumers hands early on look at the price points and look at the use cases so it kind of like reminded me of of the Mac early days they were made for like just designers I didn't try the Vision Pro yet though I want to so I don't know if it's heavy not heavy and what not but absolutely the use cases are very Niche and make sense but from where we are now till when it becomes a more um widely available device I think it's still a while and apple realizes that

okay and what do you guys think and see the meta was to revolutionize the gaming industry and what's the linkage of gaming with the metaverse because we see like you mentioned the meta was was there since long ago but what do you think that what's the currency because right now the the experiences of all those matter verses are crappy to me so and what's our what what the things are lacking inside and what do you see the potential of gaming within the meteors and as I mentioned earlier uh games existing games are the very early version one of the metaverse so even the metaverse Skeptics say that for example Gabe Newell the CEO of valve the steam platform uh who's very anti uh concept of open metaverse for evident reasons

he says why would I want to like use a concept that's already existing since Final Fantasy ever existed uh so what is it worth what he's saying really is that look at Final Fantasy it is a metaverse um and so and I buy into that that thesis that the existing uh immersive games are the first version of the metaverse uh they use technologies that the metaverse will want to use um they lack a few things that the metaverse vision wants them to go towards and some like epic are already pushing that way with their store with their Technologies how they made the engine like a version of the engine open for fortnite Creative um so you know short answer is games are the tip of the Spear of the metaverse even right now right so Muhammad uh next question like

how can we attract the local talent and create businesses that keep up the technology advances of the metaverse so Talent Development again becomes essential when we when we look at Advanced Technologies or future Technologies with metaverse or be it AI I think uh there's a global shortage in Talent uh and uh when you come to the region again I think we must uh accept that we don't produce Talent we're always uh we we kind of depend on on importing talent and that's where I think um and the government realizes that and and hence it always bets on its ability to attract Talent making it as easy as seamless as possible to attract the top talent in the world by giving them the best lifestyle uh the best uh living standards and also I think things like the golden Visa I think the overall

Visa process the the freelance visa and whatever I think these things have made it very easy for us to uh to import talent but uh but not ignoring the fact we do have to focus on upskilling the existing Workforce each and every institution I think even ourselves I mean we need to know how to use this technology I'm a metaverse or AI or if not use at least understand how it works I mean while looking at a screen I think so so there's a big upskilling requirement across sectors I think the government is doing a lot of work uh making sure that there are specific task force forces in each government institution that actually knows how web3 how Ai and how meters how these Technologies work and how could they be implemented in the government infrastructure but likewise we also have a responsibility that we make sure the private sector is also has this capability and and knows what this could

mean for them and how this could impact their businesses and and how they should prepare for it from a human resources perspective right so when you mention about the inter interoperability before but question to you Alex [Music] um how important is interoperability between the different platforms and the digital worlds within the metabolism well right now it's not important because all those big metaverse type of products like fortnite and Roblox and Minecraft they are not interoperable Club kui you cannot export your items you cannot bring items into the uh social world but um I think we are moving towards standardization and finding our ways to make things interoperable but let's be clear all those worlds they are that are

still there and when they are successful obviously users don't need it yet so you have to do it correctly and meaningful so we did not use blockchain in the past but we are working on technology to use it in the future we call it item Bridge so we want to give our creators the possibility and ability to export items into other worlds and import items into their world you can show off like an nft you own for example in club cool it makes sense because you have reference you have your rooms and spaces makes sense to show your board ape and but it's like baby steps and if you talk to very successful big games the game designers probably are say okay in my product in my game everything has a meaning and we cannot just bring in any type of content it would look like trash yard you know so you have to find a way to make it meaningful

Oscar I love your critical thinking by the way so I would love love what you what you have comments about it about the interoperability which is some Reflections on that I think there's very little commercial incentive for the studios to have interoperability that is one thing but when you look at these digital assets they're only valuable to show off to a community that actually relates to that digital asset I'm guessing that if you're a fortnite player and you've got some digital asset that is uh desirable and impressive it doesn't translate to another Community necessarily where they don't know what what's what's being alluded to I mean that that's that goes for every brand name in the world right I mean if you never heard of it there's no premium to be charged so I I know like in in the world of gaming and metaverse and trading it is assumed that there's going to be a big market for interoperability but I think fundamentally the first principles should be questioned all

right so below you you mentioned about the use case of the education but what do you think about the use cases of metaverse or the digital twin within the state of real estate and the tourism industry I think it's big I mean a lot of people are looking at it a lot of people are doing it we're also looking at it as well and I think it's just the perfect tool to promote uh real estate and make it just easier for people to experience what they're about to invest in or about to buy in that's just one of the many benefits I think as well and I'd like to also build on the topic of talent I mean yes absolutely Talent upscaling is important but not just for new talent and individuals but also for startups I mean we have a lot of companies coming in wanting to build projects in the metaverse and something that we do for example at the crypto Center is we have strong ecosystem partners that can provide such support to those people for example some of the blockchain protocols that we have that offer grants for companies to build on their protocol we

have bypit who's our listing partner that's encouraging metaverse games to list their tokens on their exchange for example so that support environment for new metaverse companies to come in and be able to innovate and collaborate is also necessary just to probably build on the on the real estate aspect I think and I've been speaking to some of the largest developers on on this everyone's of course exploring creating a digital twin just to give consumers that experience of offline projects or whatever even existing projects but just to kind of get an experience of what it could look like but I think this um there was a huge uh I think fuzz about people actually buying and owning real estate in the metaverse world I'm a bit cynical about that I I don't know how how valuable that is and how tangible that is and and if there's a there's a real market for it

so guys we just have to end up I do have a lot of big list more questions to ask but we have to end up with like two three minutes so I would give every one of you for few seconds to give any suggestions you want for to our audience um it's early uh P of course has have a healthy dose of skepticism I wouldn't say you know just be dogmatic about believing in it or be against it I think you know even the most immersed in it still wonder how much they know about where they're going and what needs to be done so I feel there's a lot of polarization between Skeptics and maximalists and and things should be really realistic at the end of the day Oscar well I think I mean we are here

sports festival and what's the connection to metaverse right I think Esports and gaming is about entertainment and metaverse it's a lot about Commerce I like a quote from from our friend Paul at game changers he says there's no such thing as play to earn there's play to have fun and um what I find fascinating with the metaverse is that there's so much money being poured into this but the games are getting worse what is that about you know like um at the end of the day we need to look at why what is the demand out there and what's this what's the function that's being served and should you necessarily connect Esports since and gaming with with essentially gambling um and if so I mean I think that should be addressed to yeah sure so um the metabus is is the future they just need to have more patience and embrace it there's a lot of

nice projects coming out from our crypto Center and gaming center and if you have any projects that you want to support with we're here Alex I think we are constantly defining and redefining what the meta verse is and definitely okay if you look it up it's like a a network of interconnected worlds and you have interoperability and you have like ownership and transaction between users these are all things we have in games since many many years and of course yeah I think it's about meaningful meaningful experiences meaningful um use cases and it's not enough to think about meta reverses or yeah matter was products just technology and people become if technology is good or if it looks good no you need to find the niche for euro-specific matter words product and this is important it takes time and a lot of a lot will fail let's be clear about

that but those that will survive and found their Niche will be successful yeah yeah I I I believe the metaphors says uh is going to be amazing I think it would uh touch many aspects of our lives but I think uh where we are today we need to be mindful of uh of what is uh what will actually uh make a difference as opposed to things that are just hype thank you everyone thank you for joining me to coming up on a panel thank you