Thomas Pan: Deconstructing Bored Ape Yacht Club’s Dookey Dash

[Music] hello and welcome to the metacast crypto quarter brought to you by novik I'm your host Nico gory first off Happy Valentine's Day everyone um we are going to be setting the mood for you guys um I'm kidding we're going to be doing something a little non-valentine's here we get to say words and describe game designs and analyze Concepts that are so outlandish out of the norm of web 2 that you would actually never associate them with a professional business of gaming podcast like this one but we have to do it we have to do it for the science for prosperity for the insights because we are in fact talking about what could be the very first big successful natively web 3 game and maybe even more broadly a game ecosystem that has emerged since axi infinity and I'm really not exaggerating here you're going to see why once we get into some of the numbers it is very different to Axia but that is exactly what makes it so intriguing it

is in place earn or play to own or when to own it's not following their prior meta or any of the prior metas that we've seen and it's not trying to create Economic Opportunity in developing world it's not even trying to be Mass Market in all honesty at least not yet but it is doing something really unique it's leaning into community cryptocurrency and nfts in a way that demonstrates a deep deep understanding of what the current web3 audience is looking for and what works and I emphasize the word current web3 audience because we are of course extremely early in the evolution of web3 gaming and who knows what the future holds so we could be totally off but I do know that uh Our Guest today shares a lot of these convictions as well so buckle up everyone we are diving into the sewers quite literally to talk about dookie Dash the skill-based infinite Runner which was released on January 18th very recently by eucalabs and Yuga are of course the 800 pound crypto native ape in the room they're the owners of the biggest nft collections in the world including poor Dave Yacht Club and its various mutant and canine

derivatives as well as owning a couple of other OG projects like mebits and crypto bunks they've generated billions in secondary sales on openc they've raised ungodly sums of venture financing from Andries and Horowitz and they have by far the most mindshare and street cred in the crypto and nft space so we are we are talking about you know the leader in the space but the big question is can yoga Labs translate that into gaming success and we know they're trying to do that they've had a couple of really interesting key hires recently which we'll talk about once again into the episode and they have stated they want to get into gaming and dominate gating so um we are going to try and answer those questions uh and more and to do that we have Thomas pan who writes about nft's crypto and web3 in a substant newsletter aptly titled web3 with t-pen and he recently wrote up an excellent deconstruct of dookie Dash which you should all go and read um and which we will be talking about today and going a lot deeper than even that piece did uh we'll post a link in the show notes as always so you can go check it out so

t-pan it is great to have you here again welcome back to the pod Nico thanks for having me again always a pleasure excited to share my findings my thoughts potentially a couple predictions and I agree with everything that you've mentioned in regards to duki dash dash oh my gosh um been in the sewers too much um and there's just so much going on I think from a marketing growth perspective where I focus more on but also gaming as a whole we know that web3 gaming is going to be a very large driver of adoption growth um value to the space on top of entertainment which is what gaming is at the end of the day but um the playbooks are still being written I think Yuga is potentially writing one of them and I think it's very interesting when we think about it from that Paradigm in regards to how to incorporate tokenomics how to think about engaging and empowering your community more than some sort of traditional

established methodologies and also how a brand a company that started from a digital basically a collection of digital Collectibles um that was board API Club has now sort of ventured into the gaming space we'll see how deep and how broad that will go but I think there are signs that they are here to stay and become a serious player in a large scale potentially way all right well that is we're making some bold predictions here everyone so uh before before we we get ahead of our skis here uh why don't we talk a little bit about what what the game is so let's start let's actually start with some uh slightly salty language here uh for Valentine's Day um I'm actually uncomfortable using the official game announcement wording um you should go read it it is it is quite something it is very web 3 native um I will instead use kind of the web 2 translation of it uh which I'm going to use the words of Chris Messina who's the inventor of the Twitter hashtag and he's a top Hunter on product hunt and he submitted dookie dash for product hunt

um and he describes it um in these words so I quote Chris Messina here dookie Dash is a skill game played like an endless Runner you have to save the key from Jimmy the monkey's anus by going up through the toilet grab your sewer pass and jump in by February 8 2023. uh I have never heard a game announcement like this in my entire life um what on Earth is going on here what is dookie Dash why I'm in a in a board ape sewer system who is Jimmy the monkey why is there a key in his anus how do I play the game and what am I doing how do I win yeah um if for anyone that's been following board API Club as a brand and just what they've done from activations to how they really get their Community excited and just their language their creative and all that fun stuff they like to be a little graphic uh I wouldn't say you know bordering PG-13 rated R and more tongue-in-cheek right so like you mentioned Nico um there's a key coming out of a

monkey's anus and I think the quick backstory here is first of all looking at the board API Club roadmap so for anyone that has an understanding or closer understanding of what's going on with the general roadmap um probably about a year ago now but a while ago Yuga Labs released an illustrated roadmap with some milestones and very vague descriptors of what their roadmap would entail so some of those things was nft NYC their first ever large scale activation um in late 2021 one they actually had a and this gets interesting we could talk about this a little bit more later they actually launched a mobile game apes called Apes versus Mutants January last year and now we're at the stage called the trial of Jimmy the monkey um and in parentheses MD versus mm1 prologue and then there's uh a paw print of assuming probably a dog so we're at

that stage right now um and board apiat Club released a video showing uh Jimmy the monkey and his friends they're having a party um and for some reason a traveler from the Medieval Times hands this box and this was all sort of uh released with more details via sneak peeks effectively there's a key that was provided to Jimmy um they were partying because that's what they do in the swamp and then Jimmy accidentally somehow swallows the key while playing beer pong and he tries to go to the restroom to get it out of his anus and his friends go search for the key so that sort of lays the scene for why you are doing the dookie Dash and it's funny how they spell it right dookie in that term is d-o-o-k-i-e this is a play on words d-o-o-k-e-y so again this really just emphasizes on the humor this isn't just a game this really emphasizes the brand and this is sort of a new way I don't

want to say brand new way but this is definitely leaning more into just the type of groundwork that has already been laid in terms of the personality the tone of what Yacht Club has done so to the average individual you know sewers you know crap things Keys coming out of anuses that's absolutely disgusting however boarded by club and yoga Labs has owned that and is able to play on that in a way that many other brands and companies can't don't copy that per se but think about how that even came to be and how they've continued to lean on that and tasteful and tongue-in-cheek ways yeah it's it's very it's very on brand for them uh that's the first thing that kind of comes in comes to mind and and you know in my intro I said um they've really leaned into what web3 and Their audience really Their audience once right and I said they're not trying to go Mass Market with this but it is still a very very big moment in in web 3 gaming history I think again I'm not exaggerating when I say that I believe this is the next big moment post-oxy

Infinity very different um but uh perhaps the next big experiment that's going to unfold so let's talk a little bit about the actual game itself it is important that this is a game they have launched it as a game it is skill based uh it's an infinite runner in the style of Subway Surfers or Temple Run games like that um and when you have a skill based game it's important that it feels fair to the player I believe at least it feels import it's important that it feels fair to the players um and while it is tongue-in-cheek it's more of an entertainment experience you know it's on brand but people are playing this to win whatever is in that box right and so do the players of this game based on your research feel that the rules are fair for a skill based game are people playing this and feeling like okay if I'm good at this game I can beat other players that are good at this game too by practicing I can get better and better is that happening are you seeing that um in in the community yes so overall in regards to is the game

fair yes there it's not going to be perfect no game is perfect in regards to fairness I think a very simple example is in many different games with various characters with different Buffs or abilities and things like that off occasionally there is a character that a lot of a lot of players like and it gets nerfed right they do game balancing and character balancing and that has happened to a degree with dookie Dash in regards to they do have occasional updates game maintenance sort of down periods for shorts amount short amount of time because they sort of discover bugs and fix things up so in regards to fairness going back to sort of the mechanics of the game in order to play you need to have a sewer pass and your sewer pass is basically your ticket or your token to actually access the game and this is actually a very important important note to to be aware of for

those that haven't been following closely this isn't available to the public this isn't something where you can you know you pay it's a one-time purchase to access the game you need to have that pass and that pass if you wanted to um get that today let me just do a quick calculation I think you did that yesterday in Nico but I just want to be extra sure it's over four thousand dollars it's about 2.78 from you know some some tools that I use so um how did you even get that in the first place holders of board apiat club and mutant 8 Beyond Club were able to access this and there were four tiers of this so if you had a mutant API club and only that um you got the tier one sewer pass these sewer passes could be upgraded a level if you had a board ape Kennel Club which is the companion collection to the original bayc collection so if you had a

mutant and a Kennel Club then you were tier two if you had board ape only your tier three and if you had a board ape and a kennel you were tier four so the differences between the tiers were their varying boosts to your ultimate score so to a degree instead of pay to play it is um or to get the highest score you ideally wanted the highest tiered pass to maximize your score along with a board Abe Kennel Club and if you had that to begin with and minted that great you had a tier four sewer pass depending on your different Holdings if you had multiple you meant multiple passes if you had one I had a mutant for the record I just sold it immediately I was traveling I wasn't sure what was going to happen I didn't have time I'd even play and I completely regret all of that um and I wish I didn't bring my ledger while I was traveling but that's a whole different story and don't do that it's probably not a best practice

um but uh those tiers help you boost your score as appropriate um quick quick question in between here so um I I definitely wanted to touch on these tiers because this is kind of where I was going with this fairness question yes um you know typically like this would be in web 2 this would absolutely be pay to win right people would be like ah man I gotta go and spend like 120 000 which I think is the floor price for a board ape at the moment plus whatever a kennel dog is to get the tier four like that's the ultimate definition of pay to win right like literally you got to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in order to to get there so why is there no uproar like is this just the difference in web 3 versus web 2 mentality is this what web like what Yuga has figured out is that their Community like it's a status symbol for them to have these things they don't care that like they don't have the tier four they're just happy that they have the tier one and they're part of the club so to speak how how does this really factor into the gameplay because I have to believe that

a tier one sewerpass just has no hope of winning like literally has no hope of winning you have to have a tier four pass um yeah so how does that jive with the notion of like people don't feel cheated so to speak by only having a tier one um and we're gonna get into some of the stats here because I think you've done some calculations like there's like a 94 play rate on the sewer passes which means even the tier one sewer passes are playing the game even though they know they have no hope of winning ultimately so yes how does how do you how do you how do you square that like how do you have fairness on the one hand and then the ultimate in Pay to Win and for there not to be an uproar yeah I think there's a few factors at hand and also in regards to the activation or the the play percentage of those series passes in order to continue along the storyline this is only a prologue potentially even but this is just part one of multiple parts of this journey for this activation this

campaign even this game which might ultimately in hindsight become a be a mini game and that's one thing I do point out we don't know there's probably a metagame but this might just be a mini game so in regards to is this fair I think there's a few other factors at hand and we'll talk more about this particular piece but there is a token sync so um for anyone following uh yoga Labs has apecoin powering the Yuga ecosystem this is you know owned by the community to a very large degree there's a treasury there's a dow that votes on various initiatives and to additionally boost your score and also the in-game boosts that help increase your score you can purchase two apecoin which at this time of discussion probably about 10 to 12 dollars to boost that session and that Dash so that is something that's available to all different classes so even though that's not the end-all be-all to get you to first place to win the the magical golden key um that helps additionally there are

players with tier one sewer passes that do reach very high scores um I don't know for a fact how high definitely not top 10 because the boosts at that point matter a lot more because those boosts are on a percentage basis so if you get 500 000 versus 700 000 that percent is just in at on an absolute basis increases a lot more um but that does help as well in regards to the fact that this is a skill based game and this is skill based mint based on your score lastly I think what you're already alluding to to a degree Nico is that if you held this in the first place if you minted this in the first place this is a version of an airdrop so you don't necessarily lose I think that you would think about it in the inverse in terms of how much you win you can just sell your pass like I did without even playing you could sell your you could hold on to your past you don't need to

play and you could just sell it at a later point because you're patient and you saw the price rise from a low of 1.2 each to a sort of steady high of about 2.5 to 3 eth that's great too you still win right for the holders to be clear so for the new entrants that want to join in then it's up to their decision and their budget to be thoughtful about do you want a tier one do you want a tier two three or four pass so I think that's part of the reason why there has been no uproar and on top of that Yuga understands that communication I think a lot of Brands web to web3 doesn't matter what industry you're in communication is key and they made very clear that there were different tiers for this mint weeks in advance maybe even months right there were four tiers what you hold determines what tier you are and the more valuable collections or combination with board ape and kennel that you hold you will get the better thing and then they revealed what the better thing

actually entailed so communication the the reality for holders that this is an airdrop of sorts and for anyone that got that you can't exactly lose and also that it's skill based so even if you are in a disadvantaged position you can still rank higher much higher maybe not top 10 top 100 but much higher so you know it's one thing to have minted a sewer pass by virtue of holding one of these uh you know tier one two three or four combinations of board a ecosystem uh nfts but it's another to actually go and buy a four thousand to ten thousand dollar ten thousand is the tier four current floor price on on open c um why would a non-board ape ecosystem holder spend four to ten thousand dollars on the sewer pass what's what's in it for them obviously they can try and compete and if you buy a you know tier four for 10K it's still a lot cheaper than you know owning a hundred twenty thousand dollar board ape uh in

order to get that tier four um pass but what's in it for them like why would somebody who's a non-ecosystem member uh buy in for four to ten thousand dollars in a sewer pass just to compete in the game when presumably the ecosystem or whatever new games they're gonna have or new you know adventures in the Jimmy the monkey Saga uh come next would still require you to have a board ape or a mutant or a Kennel Club um what's in it for a non-board ape ecosystem holder why would somebody buy it and they have they have I don't know if you know the exact numbers but um I think superpass has been about four million dollars in secondary sales um when I checked yesterday uh give or take so it's not huge it's not billions like it is for Port Apes but it's still millions of dollars are being transacted why buy a sewer pass if I'm not in the ecosystem and it doesn't get me into the ecosystem yeah that's a very great question and I do want to preface the answer with just the reality that you know the average person should not purchase this type of

asset especially or or even just access to the game if they don't financially have the means or stability to do so and also on the flip side for game developers that are operating in the web through space to expect people to act in such a way whether it's because of low Supply whether even because it's a an established Brand This is a Yuga thing it's very important to understand what's going on and even maybe emulate elements but you know don't expect exactly the same results so in regards to motivations here the the reality is to a degree that the various collections in the Yuga ecosystem are not necessarily the most affordable a mutant ape haven't checked recently but probably approximately 14 ish 15-ish eth last I checked maybe a week or two ago aboard API Club I think from a U.S dollar standpoint over a hundred thousand dollars crypto punks me bits separate ecosystem even though they're owned by Yuga it's not cheap to enter you have

other side which is much more affordable between probably the 1.5 to 2 each range that's their metaverse and that's land that's not necessarily what may be and we'll see a playable character another profile picture collection or digital collectible something that complements your board ape or anything else if you are a holder in the ecosystem so in terms of an entry point this is a relatively affordable entry point there's no guarantees again in regards to what this can be but there is a lot of benefit knowing that this is part one of a multi-part saga story maybe even game they're actually were sneak peeks of of what might be to come in regards to uh the results of holding playing and also Gathering different parts for this game on January 19th bayc actually

tweeted out uh and again playing along with their storyline and all those different things there's a dog Prophet they call Gary so basically it's a dog they sort of just coronated him or sort of assigned him as a prophet licked a toad without uh for lack a better word uh the the dog got trippy uh because it licked a toad and started sketching things and in the sketches which was basically a sneak peek there were these meccas that were revealed um with dogs operating in the center potentially so this really was a premonition of what is to come and there was more further speculation in regards to what this might be whether it's playable assets another digital collectible collection that might be a pfp or something for other side TBD in that regard but I think that combined with being able to join the Yuga ecosystem in a more prominent way and also if you think about it from the addressable market and the reality that Yuga is at a position

that's more or less leading the pack I think it's hard to really argue otherwise at this point um people want in so what are those various entry points additionally it's important to realize that there may be holders um board ape holders immune holders other other ecosystem holders that want to actually add more sewer passes knowing that this leads to more so maybe they only have one board a they don't have enough capital or they don't want to use their Capital to purchase a second but they want a lot of sewer passes because they believe that there's upside and for whatever reason Financial or otherwise for this so they might just load up on a lot of sewer passes so a lot of basic economics but also thinking about audiences thinking about track record thinking about what is to come to though no one knows exactly what so obviously a lot of speculation and Yuga are the masters of string people along for lack of a better phrase over a long period of time and teasing lots of teasing as to what could be and who

knows if they even know what they're going to do with with this story or these games or these assets or whatever but um you've mentioned that the 26 000 sewer passes have been minted um and uh again the prices of those range from four thousand to ten thousand dollars from tier one to to tier four um do you happen to know how many dookie Dash runs have been made by non-board ape holders versus um existing holders I would imagine most of it has come through hey I own the board eight I own a mutant I had a dog like I have these passes I'm sure why not why not run I got my surpass free um but you know 4 million has been transacted on openc um in the secondary market so some folks are buying these sewer passes and are not holders presumably what percentage do you do you happen to know what percentage is holder runs versus non-holder runs who are playing the game I do not unfortunately I think that's very interesting and and the reality is um to a degree this is something that

can be queried on the blockchain from a data right that's why it's interesting Everything is Everything so somebody could do this math and look at like okay like what percentage is just catering to the existing ecosystem which is a perfectly fine thing to do right keeping your community engaged right and again you go really good at doing this um so if this is a play to retain and engage your already existing audience and 100 percent uh Duke Dash runs is by your existing holders whom into the sewerpass and like why not I got it for free I might as well do this run see if I'm any good at this um you know it's a really interesting question to ask is how much of this is has opened up the Yuga ecosystem to folks who are more price sensitive who can't afford 120 000 board ape or can't afford you know a fifteen twenty thousand dollar mutant um but can afford for I mean it's it's an odd person who spends ten thousand dollars in a tier four pass but then doesn't doesn't go for the meet and nape right but I'm sure those people are out

there so I think that's a super interesting question and I hope one of our listeners who's good at querying blockchain stuff actually does this math because I would love to know how much this has opened up the yugalabs ecosystem or the board AP ecosystem to newcomers who are not buying into the Apes but are buying into the the sewer passes um as a cheaper entry point and are competing for for you know to to win presumably I agree I think from a data perspective in terms of what's publicly available and I think we'll get into at a later Point what's not as publicly available from a game standpoint this is fascinating right whether you're again you're you're in the web through gaming space web 2 Gaming space even outside of gaming to understand what a collection like this where there is there's a requirement for engagement I do want to emphasize you need to play it could be a score of one it could be a score of 100 it could be a score of 10 million right it doesn't matter you need to actually participate at least

once in a validated verified not not cheating way in order to continue along with what the next phase is summoning right so so that's what gets very interesting about this and on top of that this is a closed environment right you need to have a sewer pass this is sort of antithetical to a lot of best practices right you want as many people to play your game as possible so you maximize the footprint Yuga doesn't care about that and because of that from a data standpoint from a secondary Market standpoint from a who's minting who has what are some people accumulating even more as a result it gets very very interesting so yes I agree in terms of seeing who's new coming into the ecosystem and I would even add on to that right because I think there are sort of point in time data analysis that could be done like what we're describing here super important very relevant especially at this point in time but when you think about it a lot of longer term you know sort of time Horizon on a longitudinal

standpoint if I were you go or if I were on the data team oh my gosh so much fun um I will look at those particular users Day Zero as an example day zero day 30 day 365 however you want to slice and dice it do they eventually enter the Yuga ecosystem at a later Point why can that be tied to an actual qualitative event could that be tied to a physical event versus an announcement versus you know some sort of association with another board API club holder as an example right and if you could determine what those that those points are and why and if you have statistically significant data to determine like hey this event actually causes ecosystem to change or grow or do this in a very particular way that's an Insight whether it's just for the company themselves whether it's for the industry to actually take a learning from that Playbook that gets very very interesting because this all sort of leads to onboarding and sort of Engagement in

different ways that I just don't think people have really done quite yet and quite yet successfully yeah no I degree and then this is again why both t-pan and myself are not exaggerating when we really do believe that this is kind of a another watershed moment in web Pro gaming I think this is one of those moments where we could be totally wrong of course who knows where this base is going to go it moves at a million miles an hour um but uh we have a both have strong conviction that this is a really interesting moment in time um and it's probably going to spawn a brand new meta let's be honest you know just like oxy Infinity did um you know once people start hearing about some of these numbers and seeing how engaged we're going to get to that in a second we're going to talk numbers in just a moment here but before we do that um I want to talk a little bit about um a key part of the gameplay this is really key is that every player you know or every superpass holder can play as many times as they want um and there is a set time frame which is pretty short it's only a matter of weeks like if you go on vacation you miss out right um and so they chose uh

January 18th was when they minted I think they minted the sewer passes um and then February 8th uh is the I think the the final deadline for playing and then on February 15th which is tomorrow if you're listening to this on on Valentine's Day when we're gonna air this episode um February 15th is going to be the day when they reveal uh who has the highest score the passes the super passes will be validated um and whoever has the highest score is at least this is what they say is going to win the key in Jimmy the monkey's butt um and it's a key to a and I quote here this is from from Yuga mysterious and very important box okay so let's not lose sight of what all of this talk is all about um this is about winning the key in a monkey's butt to open a box and whatever's in the box is going to go to the winner uh at least that's what we believe as of the announcements what is in that box uh what does the community think isn't in the Box I I know one of the things you call out in your newsletter is there's just a lot of speculation right and there's again you guys really good at doing this kind of

teasing you like oh there's a mysterious box what's in the box what is in the Box do we know and and what does the community think is the most likely scenario overall you know in short no we don't know no one really knows want to make that very clear it's speculation is great because we live on Twitter and that gets a lot of engagement right educated speculation especially um and I don't think it's blind per se but I mentioned it earlier there's likely some version of a new collection being created here uh direct things are pointing towards some sort of Mecca Gundam robot you know type of machine there's something called power sources that's a hundred percent confirmed that will be summoned at the later stage which will be February 15th I imagine between the time of this recording and maybe airing there may be more sneak peeks and maybe even some details we're not not you know tpd can predict the future on this one um and there also has been some some

points that other uh community members have noted where as an example um someone pulled a quote saying that uh Gordon and garga the the core founders of board uh yoga labs and Port API Club mentioned that they do not want to create any more pfp collections or you know core collections the yoga ecosystem if that's true then this will be another collection but one that's either complementary or additive to for example maybe other sides um their metaverse that they're building not sure right so those are sort of the general directions that that can go additionally um you know what has also been confirmed is that there is a and this is something that I like to point out because I just feel like not many people remember this as much except maybe you know core community members there is another game being developed and this is public

information you could find it if you just dig around but anyway games uh a game developer now is a fully owned subsidiary by animoka um you know has teased over a year ago you know just just illustrations of a you know a Mech type of figure being built um and and that was with board apial Club because that was tagged right so that seems to be potentially something right so maybe there's another game that somehow gets integrated at a later point to other side but whoever gets first place and of course um because this is a skill based mint you know second place still gets something very good good maybe not the best but it sort of goes down sequentially I imagine there will be some sort of tiering mechanism some sort of percentile mechanism that will either determine sort of percentage chance of receiving something with Rarity and or maybe an absolute basis through the distinctive distinguishing the tiers but

first place probably gets some version of a one-on-one something that just no one else has related to the key and what's in the box and then that sort of moves down so that's the general thought process and what people are sort of gravitating towards in regards to speculation but also predictions and some sort of um some level of educated assumptions uh so people are obviously very excited about whatever's in the Box um and again calling out that you can run or Dash as many times as you like and I think one of the crazy uh stats that you pulled in your newsletter and you're going to give us some updated numbers here that you can't get anywhere else but um there have been a ridiculous number of dookie Dash runs for how few again only 26 000 sewer passes um how few people there are there have been are in your newsletter you said there had been four million runs I think you're going to update that number first in a second um the the number at that point that was 150 runs per sewer pass or over 10 runs per day per sewer pass

um that's just an incredible amount of intense gameplay right like that's just a crazy number um for for any game um never mind one where you gotta you know connect your wallet and you know do all these kind of jump through a bunch of Hoops um you know have eight coin you know if you want the boosts so uh for first of all please update us with the latest numbers which I know are even bigger and then secondly you know what what are some of the takeaways here you know tell us also about like the percentage you know completion purse or pass and what what's really interesting to me is what happens you know after this game is done because it has a limited shelf life right so does it does the game just die off and you go on to the next game or the next adventure or the next chapter or Quest or challenge or whatever you guys doing um is is this and I kind of emphasize enough like how weird it is for like in a web 2 context where game developer to launch a game that would only have like a three-week shelf life right you're

only expect you build all this you know content is expensive game development is hard it takes time to to develop a game that you expect people only to play for three weeks right and then for it to presumably die off uh it's so against all best practices right and so uh for players to play a game tens you know 10 plus times per day every day knowing that the game is gone again I get that there's a prize at the end of it so it makes sense in in some world but in another world it's just complete nonsense like it goes against every single best practice so first off update is on the stats because they're eye-popping they're kind of crazy and then secondly you know what do you make of this weird phenomenon of having a game that you spend a bunch of time developing and then just expect it to go away yeah these are very great questions um And in regards to high level stats that was one thing when I first wrote my piece I think a couple weeks ago I was just like looking at the leaderboard

which is publicly available and they publicly share some fun stats for strategically um thoughtful and smart reasons right one for the community themselves leaderboards are a very powerful motivator everyone loves to brag everyone loves to compare people like to look at numbers and see who's up top that's just a fact um what I found also interesting that does not happen as much uh and not in such a live setting is the amount or the number of dashes or the number of plays on top of how many players or how many sewer passes let's say specifically were actually playing right so let's start with the sort of utilization rate or the play play rate is wow so to call this play utilization right great I make up a new term maybe it'll be an industry term you heard it here first um at least as of this morning 25

904 passes were minted out of approximately a total of 29 000 so I'm assuming I'm assuming who knows maybe they're just inactive accounts and sort of wallets out there sort of on vacation this is the thing yeah like you're going to be really upset you're on vacation you have three weeks to play and it's like damn it I could have won you know anyway they lost their wallet just like Bitcoin right there's billionaires out there millionaires out there it's just you know it's lost um but out of approximately 26 000 just a shade under 26 000 passes that been minted so far uh just over 24 000 have actually played the game at least once that ratio will adjust over time but more or less it's going to be in the low to mid 90 percentage maybe a little higher assuming you know we have just about a day left so 93 percent play utilization rate right like in gaming I mean Nico you're you're more informed than I am but I don't know of any metric

that would be like even I don't know 90 plus like whether it's any type of conversion rate I mean if there's a pair conversion rate of like that like you know boom like you're you're just instant uh holidays because you know presumably there are duplicate sewer passes in there as well right like if I was an original mentor of board apes and I happen to have a hundred of them in my my wallet and you know I would presumably be minted you know 100 at least 100 um you know tier three sewer passes right and so yes I'm gonna sell some of those sure right and then this is where the question about new entrance comes in but every one of those sewer passes has then been played with which is kind of crazy like you know is it is it a case of and I know there aren't that many people like there it's mostly unique holders now you know most of the people who you know minted 100 are now very happy and very rich and so sold off many of many of their board eight um but but but nevertheless there are going to be people who hold multiple sewer passes and that presumably means

that they're playing with all of those different sewer passes in order for presumably for a multiple you know chance to win multiple times so to speak or you know more bites at the Apple or whatever you know analogy you want to use so that is an incredibly remarkably High player utilization rate to use your term let's see if it sticks yeah um what what explains that yes yeah so with some of the elements and some of the sort of parameters of this game and this General mechanic and and what Yuga is doing with this activation um there is incentive to right there is absolutely incentive too and you know whether Yuga wants it or not there's Financial incentive right so it's important to realize just like axi as we mentioned in earlier there was a lot of incentive to stay engaged there's a lot of incentive to play for hours on end whether you're you know a scholar whether you're in a guild um no matter where you were in that ecosystem so it's it's important to

realize that there is that incentive additionally regardless of the financial incentive it's important to realize that there's an additional incentive to continue along with the story regardless of one thousand dollars a million dollars a hundred dollars if you don't participate in the game you don't get to participate in the summoning you don't get to participate in what they've already hinted at in regards to multiple stages in what they call like EVO to EVO 3 and there's multiple paths to EVO 3 who knows exactly what that entails but you don't get any of that right so even money aside my gut would tell me that that play utilization rate would be extremely high maybe 80 percent instead of 93 or maybe it will be 95 by tomorrow but you don't get to participate in the story regardless of making money or not and everyone loves Yuga and board API Club story they've been working on it for almost two years now right especially if you minted um back in April 2021 right so so I

think that's important to realize you don't always have to use money or like a specific Financial incentive or like you know Market making something because there's going to be secondary volume that helps don't get me wrong that's going to move the needle materially but if you could create a story and you using use different types of hooks and carrots and potentially sticks to encourage your community to join along with your journey and you need to do X Y and Z and they're already bought in again if they start from zero well like who knows but but that's one thing to that that's probably underestimated people automatically think about like hey I can make ten thousand dollars I can make a thousand dollars I could you know flip this to eventually get it sure don't get me wrong that's important but there's a story to be had here and it's very clear that there's so much more to come in regards of this Arc yeah climbing it's a classic fomo piece again isn't it I mean and again that's what you guys so good at is creating fomo so are you suggesting I mean this is all speculation we don't know exactly what what's going on why um but you're suggesting if I can paraphrase and just

you know um uh summarize the high player utilization rate even for sewer passes that are presumably your own multiple super passes that are owned by the same person the reason they're playing with all of the surpasses or most of the surpasses at this time is because each sewer pass needs to be played with at least once in order for it to qualify for whatever okay so yeah yeah exactly so I went to college so the story yeah such a clever I mean it's simple and in retrospect you know kind of obvious but again you don't really see that in web 2 um you know this is a very web 3 native thing where you meant a bunch of tokens and you need to use each token in order to actually qualify for it's almost like a lottery in some ways right like um so okay so um we've um alluded to this and this was a a point that you made very strongly in your newsletter actually sorry you didn't update us on all the numbers let's go yes yes yes um so more more quickly uh in regards to the note the total number of dashes as of earlier this morning we are at 7.14

million so this is getting approaching double and I think in the last day we're probably gonna crack eight at this rate right everyone's trying to get higher scores in really quick some quick plays hiring other people we'll talk about that too to play for them um with again 24 082 passes actually playing so this is a smaller subset 93 of the larger play utilization rate so that averages right now just shy of 300 plays per pass so again if if Temple Run doubles if I can see temple runs numbers again this is across all players right this isn't saying this is the top 25 percentile or whatever like I don't even know what that would be then you know that would be even higher that's 296 plays and this includes a again like your example of a holder of 100 board Apes well they're just going to play like 90 of them once right so if you want to think about median versus average I would love to see those numbers those are obviously in-house but this is this starts to get very

interesting when you think about motivations when you think about which types of holders break this down by tier one tier two tier three tier four break this down by weekday versus weekend break this down by where they're located break this down if um you know this this is a new entrant versus an existing holder of the board API ecosystem I think the data the data gathered here is going to be very fascinating along with motivations and the last piece didn't answer this yet what's next for the game I think you make a very good point Nico I think there have been other folks who have mentioned a game like this takes you know on the low to mid million you know seven figures to make make sense high quality game yeah you could argue to a degree this is a reskin but still this requires game development there's a lot this is blockchain enabled don't get don't forget that right there's incremental costs that web 2 games are like hey let me just reskin Temple Run fine you know that they had to consider that you know other folks don't on top of the fact that security is very very important here because there's a lot of motivation to you know

cut corners or you know incorporate different modifications to the game because this is on the client side at least there are things that you can do and on the server side and on their side they're going to do other things to sort of mitigate a lot of that so what's next there are interesting plays here I mean they could keep this as a game for all holders but more interestingly and this goes back to sort of thinking about how this is sort of a Walled Garden for their holders and Community right now for Access maybe afterwards they open it up to the whole ecosystem right and maybe there's actually a secondary prize so you could tack on layers to this right and that that could turn they could just do a sort of monthly leaderboard annual leaderboard and they could actually enter the ecosystem in a different way so I think that could be interesting I I don't know if they're going to do that that might get too complex but if they even just open it to the public what happens in the wake of the summoning and other parts because this wasn't available available to everyone yet and they could

see hey connect your wallet what do these people hold are these also still board API clubholders so sewer pass holders playing just because they like the game and they want to check in every now and then maybe that will become a part of the story arc where they can incorporate Easter eggs at a later point where actually the community or even the public or the general web through ecosystem now that it's public go back to because now they have a game that they know that works and has mechanics and they can modify it they can reskin it Etc so this can be an asset this can be an investment that actually proves Roi over a longer period than just now hmm yeah I mean I have to say they've done a very very good job I mean again we're speculating wildly here we have no idea what they're going to do but the fact that there are so many different positive paths forward um that all makes sense right both for holders and for a broader audience of Gamers out there um just shows how good of a job they have done putting this out there putting

the lore out there building the the fomo building the hype building the t's um getting this incredible incredible level of Engagement people playing hundreds of times thousands of times tens of thousands of times in order to get the high score and sharing it all on Twitter of course and that's my next topic for you in your in your newsletter one of the phrases you used um that stood out for me is is content multiplier this is Hugo labs's or board ape ecosystem content multiplier um what did you mean by content multiplier um we can we can guess but um how how has this game you know this piece of content created it's almost its own ecosystem of new content not just on Twitter but you know we're starting to see twitch streamers we're going to talk about professional um you know Gamers who are playing this because they want to we're also going to talk about people renting out their their um their sewer passes are not renting out but like loaning them out to

professional Gamers who are just really good at playing games like this has spawned this incredible ecosystem of content that has brought attention to non-ecos even if they haven't bought in it's brought a lot of attention to the to uh the non-ecosystem folks both Gamers and just casual observers and my goodness me we're doing a metacast podcast on on the topic we're spending a good hour uh talking about what yoga Labs is doing and dookie Dash and um you know a key in a monkey's butt like it's incredible what they've accomplished in terms of getting people talking about this and this is what Again part of the reason why I think this is a watershed moment or potential watershed moment in web 3 gaming is because it's not just about the game it's also about the content and how that's kind of evolved around uh this one silly like you don't get this with Subway Surfers you don't get this with Temple Run like you get some of that but you don't get this incredible explosion and this this eye of Sauron for three weeks like observing this crazy

phenomenon that's happening right now so talk to me about content multiplier what did you mean by that and how has it actually multiplied content um out there totally agree with me the points that you mentioned and I think with how I even decided to write this piece about dookie Dash's one-to-many content multiplier dookie Dash was covered by everyone and anyone and I'm not a fan of just covering the same old thing but a specific angle of a popular headline and if there is a unique headline there then I talk about the really popular topic and what stuck out to me was not the game was not you know what they did preceding the launch that was all great and worthy of being written about but what really caught my eye was when this launched and I was even traveling so I definitely wasn't as engaged across you know different you know channels and social Etc as I was but it was very clear to me everyone was talking about dookie Dash and for understandable reasons but what was more interesting

that I noticed and this doesn't happen often was all the different ways people were talking about dookie Dash and when you think about it from a growth and marketing standpoint that's a dream right first of all if you don't have to spend anything on marketing that's amazing and if the thing if it's and it's organic right and if it goes viral just through organic which is what happened with dookie Dash that's that's even better right that's as good as it gets and that's what happened with dookie Dash so I really broke down from my observations the type of organic content hence why I called it dookie Dash's one-to-many content multiplier one game granted it was a significant investment on yuga's part but this one game spawned all this different type of content and all these different categories of it so I broke it down the first being score and rank we know everyone loves to talk about the rank and score that still happens today three almost three weeks later if people are getting first place if people are

reaching a personal record um people are reaching a high score you know people like to brag about it there's a lot of that there will always be a lot of that until this competition ends tips and tricks again you know how to get a higher score different ways to sort of avoid certain obstacles you know Twitter threads about all that especially early on when people are better understanding the game mechanics and how to get a higher score that's more established now but that was a very prominent category of content or especially in the first week gameplay people just like to record gameplay and you know especially if it was for a high score or just different things that they were doing so that added not if it was on Twitter as a channel that obviously added the video element not just text or a Twitter thread General commentary there are a lot of different comments about board API Club just how much I love the game in general not really specifically talking about the mechanics of the game like the other categories but just hey I really like the game great job Yuga or I never played games before now I do this is awesome

um I love dookie Dash just as an example and then there's the other category by itself can't really put into any of those above but for example there was a prominent azuki developer that wanted to just try hacking the game white hack a white hat in a white hat Manner and he gave uh his flowers to Yuka labs in regards to they did a pretty good job and he eventually found something to work around but you know talked to the developers and the team about it and they patched it up right and then there's many other things that are derivative there so when you think go back to the way I described it one to many content multiplayer it's very uncommon to say the least and especially from organic standpoint that one piece of content whether it's an announcement a game one thing that leads to all this other stuff in gaming in particular there is potential for this right web3 games web 2 games you know anything in that space because it's a much richer piece of content allows for this I think

what made it very interesting is this is competitive this is skill based so then the first two categories I mentioned tips and tricks and particularly the score and rank coupled with the fact that this is a three week time box period added to the Groundswell of content on that front and when you think about it from the one to the many and this is one thing I distinguish in the sort of framework I create the one is created by the team and then the many pieces of content are proliferated by the community right so thinking about that Dynamic is very interesting and important so what the team the studio what the effort can feed to the community to then be the marketing department proliferate gets quite interesting if you arm them with the right seed for that content to be created and I didn't necessarily draw this out per se but this is only even on Twitter right if you want to add multiple Dimensions to this you think about the channel so that's Twitter but then what about all the conversations going on in Discord of all those categories what

about from a written standpoint or a verbal standpoint all the Twitter spaces all the podcasts all the newsletters with all these different categories and all these different angles of content then twitch streams talking about similar things too so this really becomes not just a multiplier but sort of an exponential multiplier so how can this be emulated at least in bits and spurts is something worth exploring and looking into more and it's not just about you know the sheer volume of content being created which of course is helpful because you can't help if you're living even adjacent to this ecosystem of web3 you're gonna know you you know about dookie Dash you know about yoga Labs you know what's going on right now but it's also about who is doing the creation of of the content and who's doing the playing of the game and I think one of the things the interesting things that you you called out um I think not so much in the newsletter but when we were talking earlier was there are now professional Gamers

um who are playing and there are holders who are loaning out their tokens uh two professional Gamers to play the game and try and beat the score that is really really interesting and of course there have been professional gamers in Esports you know for for quite a long time now that that's not that part isn't new but what's what's quite new in my mind or at least very uh interesting in my mind is the notion that I can be a owner a holder of a digital asset and I can safely give it to somebody for a you know temporary period of time have them compete with something that I own and then safely have it returned to me after this three-week contest is over talk to me about that Dynamic that is incredibly interesting to me um while perhaps not super unique it is you know it's a it's an emergent behavior that I think deserves some more conversation um it's it's something that really unlocks I think uh something unique

about web3 in a way that web2 just can't do yeah definitely I think it's very interesting in regards to the new Dynamics and mechanics are showing up uh depending on um what the sort of activation is or what's going on there are situations and there are solutions that are coming about to allow for a concept called warm delegation so let's say you hold a very valuable asset in this case let's say a sewer pass you want to keep your sewer pass in a very secure place because you don't want to get hacked you don't want to even lend the actual nft or token out to someone and you know even if you trust them at one point maybe they turn out to you know be a bad friend and run away right that has definitely happened before in the space so it's always important to hold your assets in a secure manner so you know you're sort of stuck you're like okay well what do I do with this thing I suck at dookie Dash maybe you don't even want a professional

to play the game on your behalf and increase your score as much as possible maybe you just want your friends to play right just to experience dookie Dash right let's not even think about sort of the financial motivations or like the score motivation just like I want to share the love I happen to have a sewer pass I just want to have other people enjoy it so in the concept of warm delegation you could basically Grant and I'm oversimplifying this but you could Grant access that a particular token that you hold has to other wallets and that's called uh you know different terms for it but in this case I'm calling it warm delegate right you're delegating that access to someone else in a warm manner right meaning it's from cold to hot wallet hence warm so as a result people who have these sewer passes can let their friends play they can pay professionals to play to increase their score as much as possible and also this is allowed right this this is not against the rules this is also

something that's just very interesting and fascinating to see what people do to increase their scores either by themselves or through other manners and again this is something to watch closely because there might be situations where there is another similar dookie Dash type of situation not from Yuga but a different company or game studio and they're like you can't do that right how do they manage the cheating potential cheating and cutting the corners things like that but the warm delegation part gets fascinating in regards to its use cases even outside of dookie Dash but it really opens up the concentric circles of marketing content reaching someone's end goal also just enabling different things to happen so I think that's something also to take um a close look at for example in the future in a game maybe you don't want to sell an asset a very rare item in the game but you want to just loan it out right this isn't quite loaning out in that situation because there maybe are other direct ways to do that but this is

a version of that to take note of that will have other use cases in the future yeah yeah very very interesting again there are so many facets to dookie Dash and what yoga Labs is doing here not just on the gameplay side but the marketing side and the teases and the you know the community element really leaning into nfts and what what they mean and kind of almost embracing cheating in a way that in web 2 Gaming you would never do and recognizing like well we can't control this so why don't we just lean into it right um and certainly they can't plan all of these aspects out um and and you know control everything that happens that's that's really antithetical really to web3 and decentralized nature of what we're what we're kind of observing here um but leaning into it as much as possible and saying well this is what it means to to own an nft and you know so by all means loan it out or delegate it out or have a professional streamer play

um really really interesting um and again I don't know how replicable this is because obviously I think one of the key things we've got to call out here is board apes are incredibly valuable to a large and desirable to a large number of people so I don't know of any old Tom Dick and Harry you know game developer could have done this right and could have created this level of excitement um there there needed to be that notion of this is a valuable asset this is a valuable ecosystem this is a cool Club to be a part of um for this to actually happen right um I think that's important to to call out you can't just manufacture these these different elements and and you know replicate what you guys done there needed to be the community first um and then from there you can start to kind of ride that wave a little bit okay I have two quick questions um one thing we haven't talked about a lot is um is eight coin so um you know eight coin is is the Yuga Labs you know board ape ecosystem token

I got airdrop at some point last year I forget exactly when uh it was but second half last year middle of last year um a lot of excitement around that for holders um I even uh I bought a mutant and a Kennel Club at that point just to get the eight point drop I think a lot of people did that um and so and by the way I've since sold them so I haven't actually not played dookie Dash in case anybody was wondering um but uh uh apecoin is a part of the game um I was surprised by how little uh it is utilized how small a part of the game is you can buy these little boosts um but it's relatively cheap air quotes compared to how expensive the the nfts are um so I'm curious to hear your thoughts on what role does a coin play in the game uh why did yoga Labs incorporate it the way they did why didn't they do more is I guess my question um is it a sink it doesn't seem like it's a very big sink if it is

um the drive price movement at all for a coin uh and what could yoga Labs have been thinking by incorporating a coin the way they did as lightly as they did that's really what I'm asking you could have done a lot more with acorn in the game especially given eight point is going to be the the coin the token the fungible token of the the board aposystem why not do more with it definitely definitely um so so of course definitely we're not behind those closed doors but this is the way I would think about it right and I want to bring it back to a small point I made earlier during this you know episode which was this is not yuga's first game I want to emphasize that and that will really make this point more clear they launched a game called Apes versus Mutants January at the end of January 2022 and it was um it was a little bit more of a Dungeon Crawler like an infinite dungeon not infinite but a Dungeon Crawler um uh I forget any comps off the top of

my head you could look it up but uh this was available to the public right however if you're a holder you could log in connect your wallet and log in your score um and there were different uh sort of levels and all that fun stuff you could upgrade there were no sinks right A year later they come out with dookie Dash right infinite Runner sort of hyper casual-esque obviously skinned in their their sort of brand and everything with a small token sync right but close this time so basically they had a very strong understanding of Engagement player rates all that stuff oh and and I forgot to mention in that first game that was launched last year Apes versus Mutants um they had prizes and the prizes were not they were physical prizes right they were not like you know another Mint or anything like that they're like exclusive t-shirts I think the the number one the first place for the mutant side because it was two sides Apes versus Mutants and different sets

of prizes for each was like a car like a mutant ape themed car which is actually pretty cool um as a prize so you know there's a lot of similarities and differences in regards to what I imagine and formed them with their decision so the big difference with dookie dashes they were actually incorporating their first token sync right and also when they launched January last year for Apes versus Mutants there wasn't a token out yet all right so that's important to note so they're taking what I believe is much of their learnings in a hyper casual game understanding engagement specifically from the holder standpoint maybe from the non-holder standpoint they realized that wasn't worth investing in and they'd rather keep it a closed environment for now because that those are the individuals most incentivized play and then they Incorporated token sync so what this will do and clearly is basically they they were not from a meta standpoint right they were Alpha Testing beta testing and they're going to have a much larger and richer ecosystem from a gaming standpoint is my uh assumption

and prediction that incorporates that public versus holders right syncs of varying degrees how do you think about prizes in a physical sense in a digital sense in something that may directly be related to Hugo's ecosystem versus something that's completely not and more for clout and just repping so I think they're having a very thoughtful approach and why they didn't do more this is a token right there is money involved with this and there are price movements involved with this um and you know to a degree we have to remember a lot of this still has some degree of regulatory looming overhead so I think having something that's 10 to 12 versus hey you can maybe do infinite ape coin boosts in one single play that gets a little dicey for different reasons right when some of the smoke has yet to clear just from a broader standpoint so I think this gives them the best vantage point that allows them

to incorporate these types of think sinks in a very thoughtful way and that's pretty defensible but at the same time allows for more room as they gather more data and I think that's a very very important theme here from a public blockchain standpoint from an internal first party standpoint to a gameplay standpoint to a tokenomic standpoint and they have I'm sure looked at case studies of the axi Infinities of the world um even the step-ins of the world any sort of you know some degree incentivize mechanics where there's tokenization syncs earning Etc this is not play to earn in regards to a tokenomic standpoint this is a skill based mint right and they earn in a very different way but they can pay in a specific way with apecoin so that's the way I would think about it and imagine they are at least 2 a degree with a much more well thought out thesis too yeah interesting how yeah to me it was really interesting how little a smaller role it played but yeah I totally take

your point which is they're playing the long game they can afford to play the long game there's very well capitalized um and actually that brings me to the next question really comment a common end question is uh you know a couple of their recent hires have been very telling um they are bringing over Daniel Alegre who's the CEO of Activision Blizzard um he's joining them at the end of q1 uh this year as their new CEO um I think they've hired a uh ex-scopely Chief gaming officer um I think one or two other really pretty senior hires from from the gaming World um maybe an obvious question but what does it signal to you to see all of these extremely experienced gaming hires and I'm gonna preface that or follow on that question with a is there also risk involved right if they're clearly signaling their gaming Ambitions I'll answer your question duh uh yes um obvious question their signal of

their gaming Ambitions but does it also include significant risk they are very web 3 native they are very crypto native um as an internal team and I know they don't they don't build their own games per se but they write the lore they create the you know the fomo they um uh they're just experts that engage in the community is there risk um by hiring these very web to first uh senior Executives and I'll use my own experience from Zynga we did well back in the day hiring from EA all of the EA top brass that worked out pretty well but this is almost this is almost like apples and oranges you know web3 and web 2 we haven't seen great success with web 2 native game developers building in web 3 yet and vice versa we haven't seen great web 3 native crypto native folks doing well with games yet this is the

exception this is why we're saying this is a watershed moment um the risk in my mind is that they open themselves up to the same myopic approach from web 2 where it's like well this is how it worked in web 2 so we're going to do the same thing in web3 that's clearly not the case right what youga loves has done with dookie Dash and board apes and over the last two years building but like that doesn't happen in web 2. it's not the same thing so they're single they're gaming ambitions but what does it mean to be hiring senior Executives from like Activision Blizzard and scopely and places like that yeah first of all those hires are massive and I think even though those are typically talked within those circles I think as time passes and everyone in the industry especially web3 has the memory of a goldfish when you think about the release of dookie Dash you get caught up in the okay who has a high score one's an x-mint do I have a sewer pass or not do I want to get a sewerpass or not you know it's taking

multiple steps back and to for myself as sort of an industry analyst of sorts like looking at these things and thinking about okay well what direction are they headed in and who have they hired to allow for that so Daniel Alegre Spencer Tucker Chief gaming officer at Yuga who was hired in September by the way and Daniel legre's news is much more recent it's clear you already answered the question yes lots of gaming Ambitions I think in regards to risks absolutely um again uh I mentioned it earlier I'll mention it again and the playbooks are still being written and this is a Playbook right of sorts it's absolutely one that should not be replicated and like copied to a t maybe elements or certain pages of it yes um but even this specific Playbook has not finished being written maybe this is just a chapter maybe this is the whole book who knows right and in regards to risks what they what what has been

mitigated to a degree is one uh with and I imagine to a degree with uh the the hiring of Spencer Tucker and also Daniel this these efforts were to at least I imagine a large degree already built and decided the main decisions were made in a way prior to them actually joining at least to a degree right particularly Daniel that great so it seems like from a core Yuga team point of view there's already a lot of thoughtfulness when they're thinking about gaming and they do need the chops and maybe industry connections and sort of different level of institutional knowledge and even executive institutional knowledge take them to that next level but it is promising that this has been pushed out and received with a fair amount of fanfare and positive response without necessarily you know a large executive coming in to make those decisions just yet additionally I think this goes back to

yes cliche terms and buzzwords but they started with a community and brand right so they have these flywheels and growth Loops that will sort of happen to a degree independently of the gaming side so what the Hope here is and I imagine is as they sort of build out different divisions so to say as an example and mind you they acquired a Content Juggernaut called we new labs and acquired those collections too so they have the sort of brand side the marketing side through the fact that you know owners can have a commercial license for their respective Brands then you have the content initiatives that have been created and then you have what seems to be a gaming division or sort of at least apartment being created these all can complement each other but also independently grow so this isn't necessarily A hey this is we're just a gaming company eventually they might brand themselves and such and I would find that very interesting if so but they started from a very different point

of view and then now they're becoming something else just like how a lot of even some of the largest gaming Brands and sort of titles in the world have started approaching the world of entertainment right the show hurricane yeah The Last of Us Last of Us yeah I mean I don't know if anyone's watching but it's a great show in my opinion so I've heard great things one thing I'm just going to push so I I agree with you or at least I don't disagree with you that that you can have uh separate divisions of essentially a a brand it's a brand right like board Apes now and all of the sub parts you know of yoga Labs or the different collections are all brands in their own rights and you can use them in different ways you can use them for um on t-shirts you can sell a bunch of four-day looking t-shirts right that's the easy the merch side of things right you can make games that like they're doing now with with uh dookie Dash um and I think what you said is true up to the level of like Chief gaming officer higher but when you're hiring an

Activision Blizzard CEO who theoretically should have the final word on what the the kind of executive plan is going forward I think that doesn't introduce an added layer of oh we're now a gaming company that's the only pushback I would give you I don't know if that's going to happen or not I don't know if uh the original Yuka Founders are going to be still exerting a lot of sway over how the CEO operates which by the way is not a great place for a CEO to be to have the original Founders exert a lot of sway if your CEO your CEO so that's the only pushback I would give you and I think that's why I was asking about the risk pieces it's fine to hire a chief gaming officer and have that be a division and like they're in charge of the gaming piece but when you hire a CEO from a gaming company especially a web 2 gaming company that's you know Activision Blizzard has all the baggage that it comes with I think that does introduce an extra layer of risk um either for for Daniel in his decision making if he's being overruled by the founders or kind of the original vision

for the brand um or for the original brand if Daniel gets to exert uh CEO power in the direction they go so I think those are they're a little bit in conflict with each other in my opinion let's see how it plays out but that's the only pushback I would give on the points which are well taken uh yeah yeah no you and you make very good points on that front and yeah it can't it can't be um it should not be taken lightly and and I think that does come with the other side metaverse play there there's something there from a gaming standpoint metaverses are our gaming ecosystems like you could call it whatever you want but like from a broader standpoint it is an ecosystem that has a lot of gamification involved at the minimum whether you call it a game or not and I think that is something that Daniel Alegre at least from an experi experience standpoint probably can attest to to a degree he didn't manage a metaverse or anything like that but I think you make a very good point and

if if you're a jack of all trades you're a master of none so they they are moving I agree in in that direction carries a lot of risk with dookie Dash seems like it's a great start to say the least at least agreed agreed all right well we've gone we've had a long episode we knew this would be a long episode um but and there's more we could talk about this is a really really fascinating case study it hasn't even been written yet uh we're recording this on February 7th uh tomorrow is February 8th which is when the contest officially ends and then there's a week um until the 15th when they reveal so this has not yet been written there is more to talk about um and I'm hoping we can do some kind of follow-up whether it's um you know pointing to t-pen's newsletter or maybe even another episode if there's enough to talk about about what happens next with dookie Dash you know V2 and how the story unfolds uh and I just want to say a big thank you t-pan um incredible insights as always uh very data uh you know focused on on your approach which I love um and so really looking forward to

seeing um what comes next in Reading certainly I'm sure you're going to be covering this um and I'm really curious to see what the key in should be the monkey's anus unlocks um and on that note I had to get that in there on that note uh t-pan thank you so much I really appreciate as always thank you uh and a big thank you to all of our listeners we will be back um next week uh with more interviews more insights and more analysis from the weird and wonderful world of web3 um never weirder than today I think on this episode so until next time friends uh stay crypto curious and feel free to send questions guest recommendations and comments to me my email is Nico navic dot Co and you can find me on Twitter at Nick of thefin DMS are always open until next time thank you [Music]