Why V2 Games is investing in blockchain companies through the Future Fund

hello guys we are here the first interview at poppy gamer connects London 2018 it's really loud in this room louder than I was expecting so we'll shout a little bit but I'm joined today by Sam shandola of v2 game Sam why are you here Thank You James well you know this is my third year in a row a crock of gamers connect you know we love it we love London we love the venue what is that in past years II know I was here because you know we were looking for partners for our projects and our ventures but this year is very different it's very unique as a company we have a wall and we're really looking to actively invest in other studios and other projects and so I'm happy to announce that we just closed a new 10 million dollar fund called the future fund to invest in what we think is going to be the future of games and the future of gaming right we had a little chat beforehand about what you were thinking of going towards and blockchain came up as a as a potential Avenue now when people think blockchain they generally think especially nowadays cryptocurrency and stuff like that that's not quite where you're going with

this is it no not at all you know so people think of blocking your a discrepancy because most people's first introduction to blockchain was Bitcoin yeah right and then everybody saw Bitcoin prices surged up and down and then up up up up and then gotten up yeah right and so people are thinking that blocking is just about crypto but it's not it's a fundamental difference in how you build infrastructure yeah how you build you know the underlying technology that can power platforms right so the web as we know it is centralized it's build a centralized platform our company like let's say Facebook or Google is a central company you know that can own information and provide a service or a product to two people well blockchain is and is a pieces of our decentralization right it's just about well no one no one there's no one governing body right there's nobody one one single organization is to control data points and so we're looking at blocking and saying the way people little products in the future are going to be changing now we're getting more and more privacy conscious these days and so on other platforms outside of

gaming we're already seeing a lot of blocking based applications come out and these applications provide day-to-day activities that you can also have centralized equivalents for but they are doing it in a new decentralized manner so Nationals we're looking at saying how is gaming change with blockchain you know when do people start building games built on the blockchain and who will adopt them we already know that there is a massive following of people who are blocking enthusiasts who are hungry at this point for new content that will be on the Block in what do you think which games are gonna benefit from this kind of tech where do you see it working best in what like Jonah or what pay model what do you think I think it can work across spectrums so let's talk free-to-play for examples right cuz that's you know obviously you know a huge part of the industry today a free to the systems you know can still be hacked I think about that right that's blocking misses very difficult if there's no centralized database the database is spread so even if it gets to one node there's no knowing if you can get to the next node or not so a block

you will make transactions within games secure if you're somebody who keeps invest who keeps buying a lot of flu activity and your credit cards on fire and whatnot a you get complete peace of mind this is gonna be know how a security kind of thing that's just one component off it absolutely security is a massive confidence the other is true and verifiable information right how many times have you bought something as a game developer you know have you have you got an email from a customer saying hey I spent ninety nine cents in your game but I haven't got the five gems that I bought right and you have to go into your server and check out that the garden and on and sometimes they can be discrepancy now you know blockchain can help solve that problem by keeping a decentralized ledger that both the player and the game developer of the publisher can see to be able to arrive at one single concessions a transaction went through or the transaction did not go through and the last thing is unique ownership and this is something which I think is gonna be very interesting in the gaming space and and only applicable to the gaming space you you could technically

on a public blockchain have individual nodes that are unique and can only be accessed by you and you only now how are the title games you have a squad and I have a swarm in our games for us what yeah there's nothing unique about my squad and that's the same as your sword okay but what we can do is if it's on a blockchain you could create random components and then let's say aircraft a swore this is Sam's sword it is a unique score that only I and Y in the whole world own you may have a squad you know that is similar to you mine but it'll still be a little bit different and we can verify that because my squad with our unique app is in the blockchain which will have its property than elements and so will yours and so it's about you know getting ownership of very very unique items that game developers can craft or let people craft in their games I see okay then and the money that you're pushing towards that you've been able to raise from from investors that's primarily what you guys are about isn't it getting getting capital and then pushing it towards projects right yeah I like to look at ourselves as the bridge

between you know corporate finance world and the gaming world right you know we come from both wars essentially and and yes so you know blocking is a big component games built on the blockchain is a big component of our fund right now but you're also looking at you know more traditional activities you know regular free-to-play models as well but definitely you know if it's blocked and it gets a little bit more excited because we are looking at that and saying that's gonna be the future of games so that's where you think it's going because we've seen a lot of you know changes in the market we've even expanded this conference because it used to just be a mobile thing and then it became an XR thing as well we're dealing with VR we're dealing with augmented reality that's all coming in very strong now so where do you see like the next thing if it's going to be played games based on blockchain as a potential like benefits of security benefits to individualization and customization where do you see it kind of going beyond that beyond that is an interesting question right I can tell you 2018 we think is going to be the year of the blockchain I can tell you already I have about five or six meetings right now at this event

with people who are already developing game in the blockchain right it's still all it is at this point right I think this year you know we'll see it grow a little bit next year we'll probably hit like critical mass and we'll got a lot of developers looking into where and Sam to build for us for it and where it goes beyond that is anybody's guess to be honest with you it like I can pull something up like this but yeah well well after wait in CS Bo's see where it goes in future thank you for joining us today Sam that's the like a teacher