Zynga Enters Web3 with Sugartown

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my opinion this is an exciting moment for all of us working in the space as our listeners well know there have been not many large established developers who have taken the plunge into the web 3 Waters especially in the western markets so to have a big player like Zinga validate web 3 in this way is a big deal and I suspect we will look back at this in the future as one of the seminal moments in the unfolding of the great web 3 gaming Saga so to find out if I am right about this we have a great guest the perfect person to dig into this topic Our Guest today is Matt wolf he is zinga's VP of web 3 gaming and he has a really interesting background both in gaming and outside of it and brings a in my opinion unique perspective to the web 3 space especially from the Zinga perch I'll let him tell you more about himself his journey to web 3 and what Zing is up to Matt welcome to the Pod thanks nio I love this pod I listen to it all the time you guys do a great job so it's really fun to be here uh awesome yeah so um um you know what can I say I've

always been attracted to emerging Tech and new kinds of value propositions and and web 3 is certainly very alluring uh in in in in that so yeah I'm happy to be here great great well we always like to start the episode especially with folks like yourself with a lot long history in the in the industry uh with what was your journey into web3 what Drew you into the rabbit hole Yeah so you know like I said I've always been attracted to emerging tech and and new kinds of of um new kinds of of of Paradigm pushing um Solutions let's call them and so you know I got into crypto around 2014 because of that there was somebody on my team at Coca-Cola who was you know at the time Bitcoin mining and and he was talking to me about it and I was very interested in it and um and read the white paper was fascinated by it and got into some crypto around then and then from there uh the years went by and when the bull market came for nfts in in 21

uh I like so many others um were drawn to it and played around with it and had a lot of fun with it um knowing by the way that um it was the Wild West uh which I loved I mean I love being early it's really hard to I think for innovators to uh not get excited with something like that and I'd been an adviser to a a company that was a web3 company already so I was kind of sort of close to it and they were playing around with nfts at the time I was an adviser for them but I immediately saw the potential for games um as a viable you know utility and I started playing a few of them and and found them interesting um almost Arbitrage related at the time but saw the potential um overtime especially as it related to just pure uh ownership and so given my background in games and and Brands and Innovation um you know I joined with Zinga U and the rest is history awesome um yeah Zinga is interesting because it's one of the first large game developers especially in the western

markets to enter the web 3 Waters as I alluded to in the in the intro so uh I'm very curious to hear like what do we start at the very high level 30,000 feet tell our listeners what is zinga's overall web3 strategy what are you guys doing yeah so you know I think first and foremost you know we're we're a large company and and we've got a rich history in um in looking around corners and and really innovating and so with web 3 um I think first and foremost we're here to build capabilities in new areas you know if we're not learning and if we're not pushing ourselves we're not growing as an organization uh so I think the first thing is capability building um and then of course and I alluded to this a little bit earlier um we're here to empower players as true asset owners I mean I think that is the one um paradigm shift with web 3 very important um that in Providence but I think in particular empowerment through ownership so regardless of tech um this is a really attractive user proposition in my opinion

um and we're seeing an amount of of of also saturation in in more traditional forms of gaming you know PC console and mobile um we do a great job in both obviously us and our our parent company but we also see web 3 as as a potential blue ocean um de you know believing deeply in the technology behind it um as well as the the empowerment of it the the Providence of it um we just think that web 3 gaming has huge potential um to become another pillar and standby or next to more traditional games I don't really think web 3 for us is an or it's probably an and um but but I think that you know as we move forward whatever flavor It ultimately takes or whatever problems It ultimately solves or or value that it brings to gaming um I think it's here to stay over time and I think it's got a tremendous amount of potential as we move forward yeah it's interesting you said another pillar you know standing next to that that implies not replacing you know we've had some

folks on this on this pod and some folks of the industry who truly believe you know they're they're you know Visionaries in that sense they truly believe that web3 gaming is going to replace certain kinds of games or certain genres of gaming that's not my view it sounds like that's not Zing's view either it's additive purely additive it is not going to replace anything it's just going to be something different that players can engage in is that about the right read of what you guys are how you guys are thinking about it too that's correct I mean I think that um that we've got obviously a lot of games in our portfolio and a lot of successful games in our portfolio um that we really value and that our players really value um again I think for me and and for the company web 3 really comes down to you know ownership and so what we want to do is first roll to the market with something that's purpose-built um that's original that was built for this world so that we can learn so that we can um get really good uh at understanding how this works not just with web 3 natives

but the Art and Science of video games plus the addition of Finance uh get that formula right and then look to other ways to bring value to players as we move forward uh potentially on web three rails right um but the the way we get there when you're a company of our size is to first um you know run experiments um and tests in the market now I'm not saying sugar toown is an experiment or a test of course it is but it's also a product so I just don't want to spook holders or spook the world that like oh it's just a test but we have to learn and the reason is because this Market is so Anonymous it's so decentralized there's really no understanding or data um of how these people want to consume this form of entertainment or um or or even how they want to um utilize web 3 and so before we're really able to move to scale at a level um that will um make sense to our organization across a portfolio we really need to understand

what this is what the market looks like how they want to interact with us and do that responsibly and do it safely yeah so you bring up one of the the big questions I had for this for this episode which is you know players i. Gamers have up until this point by and large not been enthusiastic shall we say about traditional developers embracing nfts and other web 3 components uh Ubisoft famously faced a massive backlash when they tried adding nfts to Ghost Recon breakpoint what has as approach been with regards to the player community you kind of teased at it a little bit there uh in the last answer um what are you guys doing to make sure that you're treading carefully into the player community not alienating them bringing them along for the ride and what has their response been uh so far yeah so I think the first thing that we did um is we wanted to take a really authentic and responsible approach to the market so we wanted as we entered this new sector um really immerse ourselves into the sector Bottoms Up not from the top down um so I will say that

it has been exhilarating to do that um it's also come with an amount of personal um and professional vulnerability um because like you know um you know I come from games um and I grew up in the games business web 2 games um and so the last thing I want to do is is put myself in a position where um I would alienate um the web 2 industry which I deeply love um but an innovator and I can't help that I you know we we pursue our love and in this case um I love to push the envelope I love to bend light and look around corners and do all those things it's fun for me um and so when we approach the market we approach the market as pure as we could we surrounded ourselves with experts from web 3 U many of which um you know the audience understands and knows about um and then we also brought in people people on our team full-time as as as uh as employees

that have a reputation in web 3 and are very very good and and crafty at at at building real communities and doing marketing and really understanding um this space so when we built sugar toown it was built from a from a point of view of um sector expertise um as well as um a sort of like I said a bit of a Bottoms Up approach and that meant that it needed be totally unique totally original which obviously put a lot of pressure on our internal systems as a public company um but by virtue of doing that um I feel like we brought a really pure web 3 game to Market or a web three really games platform to Market um and I think the community realizes that I think they embraced it um not everybody's going to be happy all the time but I think the majority of people enjoy what we've created and enjoy the level of commitment that we have to the industry to do this correctly um and

authentically from the core um so one of the things that I want to ask you about is you started zinga in December 2021 which of course was right at the very peak of the crypto Bull Run um and obviously games take a while to build especially at large companies and especially things that are ambitious like sugar toown is um how long before you joined had Zinga been working on these web three initiatives and then how have those initiatives evolved since then as you've taken over and as of course the environment has changed quite dramatically at least in the crypto markets so you know Zinga leadership had been discussing web 3 prior to me joining but there was nothing really super actionable until I got there um I think they wanted somebody who understood the sector but also understood traditional web 2 um knew how to build teams and knew how to build uh Brands and sustainable business and so when I got there um um I was sort of

tasked to do these things uh and excuse me um web 3 leadership um you know has largely remained you know unchanged in that we're here to empower players as you know owners but the road to get here um has evolved of course and so what I mean by that is um the vision that you know I originally had when I got to Zinga has remained you know fairly fairly focused and and and and and basically unchanged but the process like the product and and what we built has evolved over time um you know the first thing I did for example when I got here was I built an amazing worldclass team of like-minded and really talented people um and it's through this Union and this group of of folks it's almost like a like a spec ops team inside of a larger organization we were able to um

codify over this vision and and and uh or unionize over this vision and then um and then bring it to life and and I think it wouldn't happened well I know it wouldn't happened without the without the focus and dedication and and support of our of our most senior leadership within the company um and that has remained um the same since I got here so that actually brings me nicely to my next question which I was planning anyway Zinga is of course now part of too interactive um you know $25 billion Behemoth you known for Grand Theft Auto Red Dead Redemption NBA2K lots of other great franchises too many to to list here uh so you're not just navigating the Zinga legal structure you know internal company processes and policies you're also having to navigate the Take 2 policies legal processes how supportive has take two been on this this journey into web 3 how autonomous can you guys be as a team uh as part of a larger company in in fact as part of two larger companies not just one I mean we don't

have enough time on the podcast for me to go through are you there yeah all of the uh all of the needles we had to thread to bring Sugar Town to life but I will say this take two has a rich history of empowering the companies it combines with period you know and Zinga has a history of always innovating and pushing the pursuit of possibilities um in gaming uh first with Facebook and our Facebook games and then with freeto playay mobile when by the way free tol mobile wasn't so popular as you may recall oh absolutely yeah I yeah absolutely I mean I think that this is a really interesting point a really important Point that's I'm just going to jump in here just real quick because I see personally I see web 3 pretty analogous with free-to-play mobile when that first came there was a lot of backlash there was a lot of anger how is this going to work Apple ruined the pricing you know 99 Cents was all you can ever charge you know if you give it away for free who's going to pay but that just played out into this huge Market of course we all know that now but it wasn't entirely obvious at the

time how it would play out would freeto play be a thing and I think we're very similarly positioned here with web 3 in that we just don't know how it's going to play out it's going to be a bunch of experiments and I really do believe I'm a Believer web 3 will be bigger than we think it can be certainly today um sounds like I see you nodding your head so I'm presuming you agree but that that's where we are I think right now so I'm I'm glad you brought up that point because that's exactly right these shifts can be quite dramatic slow at first and then very quickly uh quite soon yeah I agree with you Nico and and for the audience that may be listening that's not super familiar with what web 3 is and it's it's not just around games like it goes well beyond games into other forms of utility and so I agree with you that web 3 is a thing that's going to be here and stay um and proliferate and evolve over time um to provide actually more value uh through ownership to to to to Consumers out there um but yeah I mean I mean going back to it you know Zinga had has a a

rich history of pioneering um and so ultimately take two um is supportive of zinga's initiatives and they're trusting of its leadership uh including me uh and the proof is the history and that I can say this now I couldn't say this three weeks ago but I can say it now is that sugar toown is live it's in the market it's operational and I give a lot of credit to my team I give a lot of credit to the support structure around us um but obviously we're working within um parameters that many many other web 3 games projects don't have to and that's because you know we're a public company and we have to stay really squeaky clean and we have to make sure that not only do we stay squeaky clean um which we are but also we're providing fun and value to our consumer um so that we can compete and I think we are doing those things yeah I actually had a you you use the phrase here needle to thread and now of course you use the other phrase

squeaky clean uh I had a chat not that in fact last week um with Scott kingburg Scotty K who's a longtime zingga I was there with him back in the the early days when he was out with Snoop Dog blowing up uh safes in the Nevada desert uh by the way listeners go and Google that go on YouTube there's a video of uh early Zinga PMS including Scott cburg who is Now sing as Chief product officer with Snoop Dog in the Nevada desert blowing up an armor car uh you know to celebrate the success of Mafia wars back in the early days uh fun time those were fun times and I'm sure they're fun times now too but uh but quite different so but yeah I was talking to him sorry for the detour and uh he said that you have the patience of a saint uh having had to deal with some of these large company um you know legal uh things so kudos to you guys is what I'm saying here kudos to you guys to you and to the Zinga team and to the take two team for actually bringing it to Market and being one of the very very first large established Developers ERS with regulatory hurdles

in place you can't just Cowboy it you know in the wild west like some of the smaller startups can um and bringing sugar toown to to Market so well done and I'm that's gonna bring me to my next question actually which is I think I know the answer to this but um curious to hear your your insights on it you chose to partner with Forte uh which is of course the web three gaming infrastructure company very well funded uh founded by Kevin Chu of Kabam Fame uh why did you go down the partnership path instead of building your own infrastructure um and how are you working with Forte what are they doing for you guys and how are you guys working with them yeah well we wanted to focus on what mattered most to us which was um getting a a viable games product to Market as quickly as we could and we didn't have um the size team that would that that we would need in order to both build infrastructure and um you know build a a great game experience it would be a k do I suppose um not just building an airplane while it's about to take off but building the whole airport and all of the comms and everything around it so

um you know I made the call to to to move into um you know a partnership situation that would give us a bit of infrastructure um with like-minded people and I think you know you mentioned you mentioned Kevin um you know obviously exam and then there's other folks like Josh Williams um who's current CEO and another founder and we just found a real sort of kinship with them um they have always been great supporters of us since they first learned about our vision day one um they've been you know tireless working with us to create um infrastructure uh elements that we needed um so that my team didn't have to worry about that we could focus on the entertainment side um and great gaming paradigms and paradigms and Loops not necessarily you know all the infrastructure that goes with it and so when you put all those things together I mean it did make sense to partner on the infrastructure side um but um yeah I mean I I I think the other piece of this too from a philosophical

point of view of view is that um Forte is a you know a lot of the people there understand mobile because they came from cabam right and so you know you're in a situation there where you know we're mobile games maker and they came from that world so it made a lot of sense gotcha and uh you mentioned mobile actually we we're going to get into sugar town next but um mobile I guess is very important for you guys this is a mobile initiative um and and mobile needs to be a part of your web 3 strategy is that fair to say yes so it is fair to say and and this gets me into a whole another I don't know if you want to go down this road right now but but you know we you know I think mobile is really important I mean obviously it's near and dear to us as mobile game devs I mean that's what Zinga does uh and we know that mobile comes with a tremendous amount of reach and scale and we also know that for web 3 to be you know what we want it to be um it needs new people and it needs to scale and proliferate and we think that mobile um is an Avenue for that it's not the only Avenue for it

but it is a an an undeniably uh attractive Avenue given its reach and its scale um we think with a new value proposition like web 3 and true ownership there's a new value prop and we think that it's possible that that new value prop could drive an awful lot of new audience to create almost a blue ocean there got it got it okay so uh let's uh shift gears now let's get into sugar town so that was that was the 30,000 foot view you know what's Zinga doing did you guys get here you know what needles did you have to thread sounded like quite a few um but now let's get into sh town uh so this is zinga's very first web three game it's actually more than a game I believe it's a platform you're pitching it but you're going to tell us more about that but I do have very critical very important first question right off the bat um how on God's green earth is the game called Sugar Town and not sugarville uh This truly feels borderline sacriligious and I know that uh if Mark pinkis if you're listening like I I I know you'd have some words to speak about this I yeah he

would too you should get him on the show and ask him um he was around when we were naming um for sure that this was before um the take two combination so Mark was still you know our chairman um but I you know we wanted so so first of all um we actually thought long and hard about what the name for this thing could be and um we wanted it to be a little bit more reverent and a little bit punchier than some of our other titles just because we knew what audience we were um going after and we knew that it needed a little bit of edge to potentially be attractive to that audience but we also um wanted to create something original and unique for the market that didn't lean directly on our existing successes uh and um so by creating this purpose-built sort of unique to web 3 um product um we sort of designed this to to to feel fresh for for for the for the uh for the

for the market and um we went to Great Links to do this by the way and I don't know if you recall you probably don't many here won't have any idea but the first two to three months of Sugar Town was totally Anonymous we were running it on Twitter and we didn't announce who we were we were very clandestine about it and the reason was because I firmly believe and this is through all my years branding and at Coca-Cola and building you know working on billion dollar franchises that if you can win the hearts and minds of a core um those 300 those thousand people those whatever 25 10,000 people they have the strength of millions because they're really really bought into what you've created and they will be your first Defenders and they will they will love you for what you've created not for who you are because if they love you for who you are what your brand is it could be fleeting so that's why we were Anonymous and we did we we created a really core group of loyalists

that many of whom are still with us today loving our product defending us giving us ideas it's a true build with versus build for um Alliance and relationship we have uh and then we um and then we and then we announced ourselves uh as Zinga and things obviously got larger from there um but yeah we you know we we really wanted to to to to enter this Market with care and we really wanted to come forth with an original Ip also and en closing because most people that have been in entertainment for a long time understand that with an Emerging Market Comes This sort of once in a cycle opportunity to have an unfair shot at creating real success with an original Ip and um it gets far more difficult as the market um evolves and and uh and matures so that's another reason why yeah that's interesting actually I didn't know you

guys were totally stealth uh in the early uh phases so that's that's definitely news uh and it seems very different to the Ubisoft experience where they came out as Ubisoft with you know one of their beloved IPS and said we're going to put nfts in there and you know I think we saw the backlash right that came from there so uh interesting to see that you guys made this choice and kind of went the Grassroots level to gauge whether there was actual real support for this product for this game not because it's from Zinga not because you know a big company is putting nfts in their games no it's because they like this product so makes total sense and actually explains the sugar toown name so maybe it's not sacriligious after all well it's it's additive let's just say that and there is there by the way there is connective tissue back to the farm and if you go into sugar town which you can get to if you have the nft you can see on a hill um that there's a farm back there and I don't think a lot of people know this but it's clickable and if you click on the farm it'll actually launch our zing website so there's some fun Easter eggs there there you go

Easter eggs I love it yeah we did like we we did like we we have there is connective tissue back to our lore and back to what made us you know um beloved as a publisher you know years back awesome well that's great to hear um okay so now let's finally get into the actual nitty-gritty uh what is Sugar Town um you know as a game what is it as a platform you've teased the fact that it's going to be a platform for additional games not just a game uh and how does it incorporate web three elements yep so you know it's a rich story that ties back to our Farmville DNA but it lives on through this new um sort of uh uh story envelope called sugar toown um it's uh it's it's a true web3 games platform and by that I mean um and this was strategic by the way um it's not just one game it's a it's a host of games and I don't even call them mini games anymore because there's some richness to them and they're far more deeper than for example a hyper casual miname or something like that um and so

by going wide you know um and a little bit deep we are able to create a variety of of products a variety of games now why would this be important why why should we care about that it's because like I said earlier we're trying to understand and and really learn the business we're trying to learn who wants to play What Not by what they say but how they play and uh as a result of that it makes a lot of sense to go with variety so that's what we did and we're rolling out our games one by one in a Serial manner um and um the first game called ngmi is playable now it's event based we turn it on and we turn it off and we turn it on and people are playing it and play testing it right now having a great time um they're winning rewards which are these auras and they're really enjoying it but soon we'll turn on the next game and the next game and they're actually opaque in the carousel so you don't even know kind of what they are yet although many of our smart consumers

our holders have figured it out I mean the hive mind never ceases to amaze me they're so smart but you know we're rolling them out and it's as we roll them out we will have different kinds of events we will put them out in different combinations and we'll continue to add to this faucet and create a real world of games inside of sugar town and hey that may turn into um other Developers wanting to develop games for sugar toown it may come down to some ugc we'll see and we have vision for it but right now we're building the games and and sort of making sure that they're tight that they work that they do what we say they're going to do and that we deliver people um what we say we're going to deliver when we say we're going to deliver because honestly right now in web 3 that's probably one of the most important things to do to ensure that these people understand what they're getting when they're getting getting it and the quality of which we're getting it while we keep them safe that's very

important that bar of Excellence we need to raise up and and hopefully if we do our part to do that and others other responsible Founders then we hope all boats float and web 3 becomes the amazing place we know it's going to become and and people feel really safe um coming into it so one of the things you mentioned there is you know making sure you have this this Quality Bar but then also being responsive to your community um that's new in my opinion in web 3 compared to historical game development methods this idea that you're opening yourself up making yourself a bit vulnerable with this community of owners now right who have a stake essentially in your success or failure um versus the traditional way of building games where you're kind of keeping it secret for as long as you can so the competitors can't copy and then release it out into the open and you know hope for the best right in many cases although of course you do a bunch of testing and so that I think is really interesting um has that been something that you guys have had to adapt to as game developers this notion of building out in the open being vulnerable to your

community uh opening up to to players before you might want to honestly it has you know we've had to adjust we've had to change our own behavior and think about things a little bit differently I think what many folks in web 3 especially Natives and holders in particular even some new Founders they don't really understand how difficult it is to make compelling games they just don't um and it it it it costs a lot more in terms of resources than folks think time and resources Etc so we're not that worried about somebody coming in and and and and you know sort of like beating us to Market or anything like that because to us it's a it's a host of different things it's a it's a spectrum it's it's great gameplay and great game Loops the decisions to make these kinds of games sure then you got to execute then you got to have great ux you got to have a great economic Paradigm in our case we have to stay within strict compliance so that we're safe and we

keep people safe then you have to deliver against your promise so the timing all has to be right you got to have the right kind of community communication the right kind of moderators which we do our moderators are terrific our marketing folks are terrific our community folks you know all that has to be right and then you have to be brave enough to actually innovate maybe not innovating on you know the next triaa game when you combine these things together I don't care who you're talking to this is innovation when you put these things together that have never fit together like this and you're trying to approach a market um that you don't totally understand yet because there's not a lot of data there yet this is pure Innovation and it's as much art as it is science or Finance but it's hard and uh and and we toil at it every day we work really hard at it we're very committed I think it comes through in the product but I'm not too worried about people following us because it's hard you need you need a real team and you need you need real vision execution yeah no joke uh building games is hard enough as it

is building games in incorporating blockchain and Community before you're really ready for it and all that uh it's even harder so yeah uh kudos to you guys for for getting out there and and what seems like a pretty positive response well I'm going to get that in a second but I do want to ask you uh very explicit like the collection that you put out there 10,000 collection I believe 6,000 were released or minted um to to Holders initially and then 4,000 or I think 3,900 99 if we're being precise are being held back for you know events of rewards Community giveaways and things like that uh so what are these auras what do they actually do what do they Grant what utility do they Grant players yeah so so the auras think of them like um I mean we've got a great story lore behind them which I won't get into because you didn't ask that but the auras essentially are are um access to Sugar Town almost like if we made um an amusement park um the amusement park has a fence around it and you can't can't get into the amusement park without a ticket in our world the tickets are

auras but what's unique about our tickets is they're all unique and they're all generative in their art so they're very collectible um and they're and and they have value you know they have value based on what's trading on the secondary Market um but they also have value in the utility that they provide so you can't get in and ride the rides play our games unless you go through the front gate with your aura um web 3 makes that amazing you know I mean it's it's like you know it's a non-custodial uh nft a digital collectible and you can go in and through that technology we can you know really determine whether you are an actual holder of one of these or you're not and if you are your let through and you can enjoy the product and win some you know win some things or you know just enjoy with the community or whatever um and have a good time um and so auras um to us are are access and and ownership and collection and collectibles um and and they also come with um all of this experiential gameplay and um other things that we're working on right now that I can't get into too much detail maybe you'll have

me back later we can get into it then but there are other things Beyond um absolutely you know what we're building even that we have plans for in the future yes absolutely I definitely want to follow the story obviously Zing is near and dear to me as our longtime listeners will know I mention it at least once an episode um from my my time there and I'm also really excited to see like I said I generally am excited to see a large developer that does have to go through a lot of Hoops I know from experience um you know the legal and the regulatory framework that you have it's not easy so I'm very excited to follow the story of sugar toown and and how Zing is navigating these these web 3 Waters so you're welcome back anytime um I believe the auras mint was free is that that's correct yes that's correct okay and what what I think was interesting is uh when I was reading up on it um you it was free but you made it only available the mint was only open to residents of us Indonesia Philippines Thailand and Vietnam um why only those five regions it has to do with mostly

Privacy Law and um and how we're how we have to navigate that very very carefully um there's also some elements in in the in the game through some mechanics we have that um that um we need to you know be be cautious about but mostly it has to do with privacy um and so what I'll say is that as we continue to evolve um our privacy standards and um and and make them um you know even um better not uh more complicated to the user but actually more uh more efficient let's say or more or or or or better integrated into the product um we will open up new markets and I do have some favorite markets I want to open up as soon as possible so you know just think of it like this was our roll out to be extra safe to be extra by the book that's how we have to be um and then over time we will open up to more markets that's the plan uh and uh and I again for speaking from my team

I'm really proud of my team I mean you keep talking about you know like the the the needles we had to thread but you know it it's it takes a lot of work you know and we have the learn about law we have to learn about treasury we have to learn about cyber security in ways that we've never really had to as a as a as a core games team and we're not the biggest team in the world so it's been a real really cool experience and and a really sort of eye openening experience as we have now successfully threaded into the market um but that's the reason why but again I I just want to be clear um as the product evolves we want to open it up to more and more markets remember this is a live Ops product now it's not a oneandone thing and we're good live Ops operators for sure for sure okay um so as of the recording dates uh we are recording on Tuesday October 10th um the 6,000 oras that are out there currently U available on open SE to trade um out of the 10,000 Supply they rinted on September 13th and

they've already traded a total of 3200 eth which a current prices is over $5 million which is quite impressive in my mind uh in a relatively short time the floor price is holding at about 0.25 e the time of recording or just under 400 bucks current prices and I have to say those numbers are really impressive for free mint uh especially in the current crypto environment and especially because there aren't you know you only have one game out so far and all the the rest of the product hasn't hasn't rolled out yet said it's a live op um operation so what do you think is driving these numbers what's what's going on with with the metrics uh saying obviously being very data driven organization um how do you view these numbers are you happy with them and uh what are the main drivers we didn't know quite what to expect you know this is our first product so uh we were kind of curious um what was going to happen and I agree that having a Freeman and having um you know the floor climbed to what it did was was was really you know exciting to see um but I think there are other

metrics that we are also excited to see including the percentage of our Ora estate which is pretty substantial at this point um I think that combined with General sentiment on Discord um and Twitter especially with level of Engagement and retention we have definitely points to this product being on its path to success so we're excited about that um I think that uh you know as we move forward um the these are metrics that we obviously want to keep our eye on at all times because many of them signal product Health uh but also um keep in mind it's a live Ops product and so there may be es and flows as we continue to evolve it but obviously I'd like to well I'll say I I don't know if I can say this legally but I would certainly love to um see the floor you know climb to stratospheric levels which would be an indicator that you know people um highly value the project and I personally believe the project right now is actually undervalued but I don't know

if I can say that legally so Brian if I can't I don't know I'll see you say on the podcast as far as I'm concerned you can say whatever you want but anyway I that was just my own my own concern yeah that's my own thought my own editorial there but you know I I do I'm very proud of our launch here's here's the other thing that um I want to say really quick if I can slip it in here Nico is that you know my team you know we've had every time we we we run a a a beat like for example with our Mint or our um our staking uh dropping the gameplay we have a a pretty substantial war room of all our crew shows up you know our entire core team and every time it's been Flawless knock on wood and it's pretty miraculous considering this is our first go to market we've never done this before it goes to show the level of of of executional capability and um and professionalism of my team they are phenomenal group of of of devs they truly are and I I my hats off to them

I'm honored and inspired to work with them but um but each time in our war room it's typically tumble weeds because there's nothing much going on to fix and so we really get the satisfaction and enjoyment of watching our our our users our holders react to the product Real Time versus US running around putting out putting out fires a lot and and we're very lucky to be able to do that of course we've had to put out a couple of fires but it's been it's been a lot of fun seeing this product come to life like it has yeah I mean that's that's impressive you know one of the things that if if any listeners haven't worked in web 3 and haven't been kind of Hands-On with the development process uh it obviously adds a lot of complexity but it also there adds a lot of risk because uh as my co-founder and CTO likes to say there are no takesies backies in blockchain right if you screw things up like there's no such thing as a hot fix right if somebody exploits something um because you screwed up as a developer

and it's a free-to-play economy so what you know you can always claw claw things back I remember players don't like it but you as the developer obviously have centralized servers and you can do whatever you want um if you screw up and screw up the economy you could make tweaks on the Fly do a hot fix you know clawback some some currency that went out there no problem at all but with web 3 and with blockchain there are no takes Backes you screw up that's it like you could blow up your economy in in one Fell Swoop um and so that is actually really important I think for folks to note and that is another reason why I think it's so impressive for a very established developer doing this because the the uh eye of Sauron which is what we used to call Mark Pinkus but obviously noer there but the eye of saon is on you guys as as uh Front Runners right as Pioneers as a large developer going out there and I think that that probably adds an extra layer of stress perhaps a little bit of pressure but it certainly adds aay layer of QA that has to be happening in a way that a

free-to-play economy just doesn't have to worry about yeah that's true uh and I'd be I i' I'd be I'd misspeak if I said I wasn't living breathing and sleeping web 3 in this game I mean I don't think there's been a night as long as I can remember that I didn't actually dream about this this product and um and how to navigate through this sector effectively and successfully yeah and I think we've I think we've done everything we can do and um and I think that you know clearly like going back to your original note here it's like retention and engagement numbers are super strong and they have really blown past our expectations we've seen um higher play times than we even forecasted um over the last you know 15 hours a day or something like that across three days with our events so it's just like the the take rate the play rate on this stuff is astronomical

so like there's something here right like and and by the way many of our holders have more than one Aura and and are very very um committed to the project and yet they still spend like tons of time playing communicating when we're not playing in Discord there is something here um and it's really great because we can take this as a foundation and we can build on it and and build something you know pretty pretty pretty sustainable and that's our mission durable sustainability in web 3 over time um one of the things you've mentioned a couple of times now and I wanted to ask about it anyway and now is as good a time as any is staking um you have added staking uh so you mentioned that you have a high percentage of your auras currently staked and given that everything's um public on the blockchain you can probably tell me what that percentage is um what have you why have you Incorporated staking um and what do players get uh from staking their auras right so um so the auras um the

auras are basically um it's it's part of the it's sort of like part of the web three EOS ethos and it's part of our strategy to stay close to web 3 culture and so um in our case sustainability is always top of mind so staking in our game allows you to earn energy which lets you play the game and the rewards uh uh are always tricky to keep sustainable so we're always exploring new Innovations and ways to you know create our our faucets and sinks such that you know a new token um that comes in will be sustainable as well and and so for example with our LBT token which stands for a lifebound token um it's a non-transferable token that exists on chain um so you fully own it and but you can't but but you can't sell it it can't be transferred um it can only be

rewarded to players um in a healthy way uh for the game economy while still supporting blockchain technology so we have the auras which are access to the game and you stake them to earn energy to be able to play the games which then give you sugar which is an in-game um offchain currency which you know is a is part of our reward structure and then we're also playing around on the edges with these um these these sort of lifebound token which um are rewards to players and uh that that rewards them for staking for a period of time um and again these are things where we're we're we're actually bringing to Market to understand how people react to them to then give us a sense of like oh we should tweak this or we should double down on that right as we continue to evolve and build in liveops so this leads me to my my next line of questioning really which is that minting nfts on ethereum staking even knowing what staking is uh as a gamer you know for rewards and many other elements of web 3 that you've incorporated into

sugar time even the terminology I love the name ngmi by the way you know not going to make it to those of uh you who are not as crypto D gen as as I think Matt and I are here um but you're really going after a core crypto D genen audience here as your as your starting point and I know you're on the record as saying that you are starting with this crypto genen audience you didn't use the word Deen I'm editorializing here but um but that is that is what you're doing and So that obviously is limiting in terms of the overall reach that you can get because there's a lot of Hoops to jump through and we know that you know that market is going to be hard to scale that uh sustainably uh you have said that you start here this is your Beach head you figure it out and then you go to the mass market after that and you you grow Beyond but the the key question here you know the billion- dollar question is how do you actually plan to do that how are you going to grow Beyond this core crypto audience you know this core web3 Enthusiast audience which is very passionate and I'm not surprised you have have really high retention engagement numbers I'm not even surprised of your FL floor I'm impressed

by it but I'm not surprised by the floor price even though you had a free mint um but that doesn't really matter none of that matters to the the average mass market player and gamer where do you go from here how do you grow that audience to the size and scale it needs to be for something like a Zinga yeah it's a great question Nico I mean I so first of all growth and scale I want to just get this right off the top and say very top of mind for us right web it's small right now and so our objective is to help bridge the gap between web 2 and web 3 as much as we can um obviously where we're at right now is testing and understanding and exploring um what a good paradigm shift is Right web two games don't have ownership in them web three does as well as Providence what is that value proposition do we have the right combination of things are we um are we hitting a nerve with the current audience that's there because they're the core and what I've learned over

years and years of branding and and and actual IP growth and development is um you have to win the core to win The Wider Rings right if you're not authentic to the core it's very difficult to be authentic and win you know the secondary and tertiary ring so you know yeah we did the hard thing and the hard thing is to create a native product to appeal to um a brand new user that we didn't fully understand and we're not from that world and I think we're one step there right um we we've taken some good strides with Sugar Town we're starting to understand it uh we're starting to our live Ops process now and things look you know good so far we've got a really good core audience but the question is how do we then um you know bridge the gap and while I can't dive into you know super Telegraph specifics right now in the house um um we do have hundreds of millions of players uh if not billions um we're always eyeing scale in every game we're exploring and

so you know I think um a uh a a logical Next Step might be to come up with a um a paradigm that we know works with um Mass Market or like web 2 game gaming in terms of a value proposition um but invite them into a world for example like sugar t down where they're enjoying a product they're enjoying um playing the games um there may be some sort of ticket remember how I said auras or tickets maybe there's another collectible that is um you know perhaps more widely distributed um and that they can experience a portion of Sugar Town um and then while they're in Sugar Town um potentially something um could happen or there could be a new value proposition that sort of onr RS them very gradually and very safely um into the ownership side of digital

Collectibles um and that could happen in a number of different ways with a number of different Technologies I can't get into But ultimately what what I see is is a is a convergence it's it's taking the knowledge and the approach and the kind of product we've created in sugar toown and then inviting more and more and more people into it until it it it becomes a games platform that's really built on web three rails um but we do it gradually you know because the last thing we want to do is triple down on an idea that's fairly untested and force feed that to an audience we don't we don't totally understand I mean everybody runs their business differently but I would say at least from my point of view an approach like that uh could be taken as a bit irresponsible um so we're we're taking our time and we're and we're approaching this I think in a very smart thoughtful organic way we're we're we're doing everything we can to provide value

to our existing users and we're very conscious that there are day ones and they've been with us you know since the start and as we um sort of proliferate sugar toown to a wider audience there will be different value propositions potentially to new users um potentially on different platforms yeah so you know one of the things that I one of the reasons I'm so excited by zinga's move here and you actually getting product to Market you know many companies have talked about it or at least paid lip service to it during the crypto Bull and maybe are a bit more quiet now and certainly haven't released anything but part of the reason I'm so excited for Zinga to be doing this is because you have that unfair advantage of scale um I mean Zinga used to be and probably still is to this day very very good at Cross promo right like getting players from one game to another where there might be an affinity um and that is something that no native web 3 developer I.E startup you know who doesn't have scale yet can do that's impossible there is no scale so every single installer every single player you're trying to bring in you have to do that either organically through Word of Mouth which of course is very very hard um or you have to pay for

every install right and that's very expensive um especially in the post idfa world so one of the things that I'm quite excited by and I know you're not going to Telegraph exactly what you're going to do so I'm just gonna you know put my own commentary on this um but I do think that once you are ready for the the doors to open so to speak you've learned enough you've done it you know done the testing um true singga style I'm sure it's still to this day very data driven data formed um there is that opportunity I think to drive a lot of cross promotion from the portfolio into sugar toown and then obviously vice versa and this is what's also so exciting you can offer something of value in those other games to players coming into sugar toown and vice versa too uh and I think that's really interesting and I think that's something that I don't know if you're thinking this way U I know I'm thinking this way um but very very few native web 3 teams can actually have the luxury of even thinking like this where you could say hey we've got this game over here farmel or we got Zinga poker or whatever and you could offer something of value in

those games within Sugar Town and vice versa and that's something really interesting and that's something that really only web 3 unlocks through the true ownership piece um so anyway I I'd love to hear your comments on that to the extent that you can comment on it and again without telegraphing what you're going to do but that to me is so interesting and so exciting and such an unfair Advantage um on the Zinga side the best I can respond to that is to say uh we do have a lot of um potential users that we can tap at a moment's notice uh so hypothetically it one could be uh one could be excited that you could flip a switch and invite a whole host of people at at scale into a into a new project at the same time right with great power comes great responsibility you know so like so like before we we even consider considered doing anything like that we need to make sure that our rails are tight that we've

got good compliance that we've got a fun product for people to play that our community is ready for that level of of scale um and that we are confident in the the the property we're confident in the value proposition um to to move in a direction hypothetically uh that could invite uh more players into our universe and by the way um that is one angle you know another angle we think about a lot too is um just straight UA right and and top of funnel um value prop on the UA on the user acquisition side um as to say um you know what are people playing for you know what is the new value proposition this isn't something on the web two side that's going to happen overnight in fact we've seen the vitrio that comes with core Gamers when you even mention the idea of an nft nowadays and so you know I prefer to call them dig Collectibles I don't know what you call them Nico but everybody kind of has probably their own spin on it now but um

I think before we even go towards you know um sort of introducing a value proposition on the sustainable ownership side for players um we need to make sure that we've evangelized it properly that we've communicated uh the value properly and that people feel safe and they don't feel like they're going to get taken advantage of and obviously you know any one of these calls uh wouldn't be complete or at least completely honest unless we mention you know there has been you know some some some stuff that's happened in the history of of this space that has been unsavory and uh all I can say is we're here to do our part to to to elevate and to make these things you know sustainable and durable do what we say we're going to do and I believe if we do that and we have a good value proposition that web 2 users can really understand and value and appreciate they'll come over in in the

millions right and then of course we have other ways to invite our own players into a world once we've proven it out but for now we're really happy with what we've got and we're just at the very beginning of it right we' only we I think we have like we have like five things in our Carousel we've only launched one it's this is only the second event with a limited test so we're just getting started um but I hope you hear it in in my voice and my tone and and I'm certainly you know galvanized that that we've got something special here in Sugar toown we've got the right Partners we've got the right thinkers in place I got a brilliant team we've got a good support apparatus in the companies to hopefully um you know bring something lasting uh fun and valuable and safe to the market no I I 100% buy it uh I also call them digital Collectibles by the way and I have done ever since Reddit had that incredibly successful roll out of their digital Collectibles um that yeah that nobody

realized was an nft um and they just got it and millions of people I forget the exact numbers now it was very least hundreds of thousands I believe it was millions of Reddit users were happily collecting these digital Collectibles um and oblivious to the notion that there might be something you know block chainy happening under the hood right and I think that's where you're exactly right like there are definitely millions of people who are interested in engaging in digital collectibles in games it's just a question of finding them and you arguably already have them in your network uh so it's just a question of understanding what characteristics these players and collectors have and how to then you know funnel them from product to product so yeah I'm very excited for you guys and and definitely buy the vision for uh digital Collectibles true ownership uh of in-game assets to be a real driving force for engagement retention and of course as we already know very well from web 3 numbers might be small but they monetize extremely well because there is that passion that

early adopter Mo notion there so yeah absolutely 100% by that okay we are coming close to time but I have a couple more questions so if hopefully you got a little bit more time to to go here um I did want to ask you how big is the team that's working on sugar toown um if you're able to share and uh Beyond Sugar toown do you have any other web through initiatives that you're you're working on sounds like it's mostly just sugart toown now and filling out those Lobby cards with you know the games that you're planning and the events but tell me more about the team how big it is um and uh what are the other things that you guys are working on yeah we're we're focused on we're primarily focused on sugar town right now as our first as our first offering and it's very fresh to Market so it's got a lot of our it's got a lot of our mind share uh and it's a really fun um toy to play with I gotta say like the team like I just got to add this because you'll appreciate this Nico but like we've been under wraps building for a little while and um and and so to come out with the product finally and to have people consuming it and playing it it's like the most fun for a Dev right because now we have a relationship with our users we have a back and forth we're

talking to them all the time it like brings a whole new level of dimensionality into our build process so we're having a bunch of fun with it and honestly I'm not the only one who dreams about the game like my team are so dedicated like we're just it's a passion project for us and I think the soulfulness frankly is coming out and and reaching holders because that's how much we put into it and so for us um I can't imagine like all of a sudden just working on something brand new in the portfolio but I am a scale guy and I do build uh you know I'm a b i buil businesses so for us um you know we want to widen the portfolio over time um we're looking at um um collaborations and Partnerships uh we're looking at new play paradigms um I always talk about casual competitive and I just put a poll out on my Twitter uh and people want to see casual competitive and Esports as it relates to Sugar Town which I find interesting and fascinating I I didn't think they'd choose that as number one and it kind of ran away with it so I

think there's you know we again we work closely with our community and so to try to answer your question as b as as as spoton as I can it's like yeah Sugar Town is getting a lot of our mind share right now but there's a lot of capability around sugar toown and the operational nature of sugar toown which lends itself to a host of other um portfolio um enhancement let's just call it as well as our ability to do now starting Partnerships and collaborations uh potentially with other projects with other brands um and then pursue this this casual competitive um potentially comp casual competitive Vibe um and all of this within our web three platform um and I think that as the market matures as we see new pastures of green um and as we continue to expand the team which by the way Shameless plug because we're looking for the few the mighty uh who are willing to uh explore something like

this and really have the skills to do it product people some INE people that kind of thing um as we pursue this uh uh I think um our portfolio uh will widen and um my intent is to make us a real leader uh in this sector uh even beyond what we are so um we're humble um we know that we don't know everything here we're learning as fast as we can we're grateful to our community I'm grateful for the company and the team and uh you know I I just I'm just thrilled to be in a sector that is as intoxicating and as exhilarating as it is because everything else seems kind of not as it's it's just pretty wild how fast the space moves and how much it keeps us on our toes which I love yeah you know I I had one more question lined up for you but because you ended so strong I think this is the right place to stop um so Matt uh I love the vision I'm very excited for you guys congratulations it's no mean feat to get a game out especially for established

Dev like Zinga to get a web 3 game out with all the you know threading of needles that was involved so thank you so much for coming on the Pod today and sharing all of this uh I learned a lot and I really enjoyed our conversation thanks Nico thanks for having me it's great to be on the Pod after listening to it for so long I appreciate you yeah and a big thank you as always to all of our listeners we'll be back next week with more interviews more insights and more analysis from the weird and wonderful world of web 3 so until next time friends stay crypto curious and feel free to send questions guest recommendations and comments to me my email is niiko n.co if you enjoyed today's episode whether on YouTube or your favorite podcast app make sure to like subscribe comment or give a five-star review and if you want to reach out or provide feedback shoot us a note at podcast.co or find us on Twitter and Linkedin plus if you want to learn more about what navic has to offer make sure to check out our website

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