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#26 - Web3 Gaming and Composable MMOs with Steve Wade
58 Plays5 months ago
Steve Wade is the CEO of Midnight Evergreen, a web3 gaming company creating deconstructed MMO experiences. Steve started his career as an eSports player and built a digital currency in 2005.
Steve's Early Days
In 2005, Steve created a digital currency called the Zyon token, which was used internally by game developers. This innovative system allowed developers to exchange their time and skills within a collaborative environment, though it faced legal challenges due to labor laws. Despite this early setback, Wade's passion for digital economies persisted, leading him to further explore the potential of blockchain in gaming.
Steve's early experience as an eSports player and deep understanding of digital economies laid the foundation for Midnight Evergreen.
At Midnight Evergreen, Wade envisions a new genre of MMOs that deconstruct traditional gaming elements into standalone experiences, all interconnected through a central social hub, Evergreen. This approach allows for diverse gameplay experiences while maintaining a cohesive ecosystem.
One of the unique aspects of Midnight Evergreen is its embrace of bots. Players can earn or purchase bots, which can then be used to farm resources across different games within the ecosystem. This innovative approach aligns with Wade's belief in the value of participation over mere ownership in Web3 environments.
Building the Evergreen Ecosystem
Evergreen serves as the social hub connecting all of Midnight Evergreen's games. By breaking down an MMO into various mini-games such as fishing, racing, or house decorating, each with its own standalone appeal, the ecosystem allows for a more dynamic and interconnected gaming experience. These games, while independent, contribute to the overall narrative and player progression within the MMO.
Wade emphasizes the importance of community and player-driven economies. Players can trade items across games, creating a circular economy that enhances the longevity and engagement of each title. This system not only enriches the player experience but also sustains the game's lifecycle beyond the typical three to six months seen in many modern games.
Focus on Double-A Games
Midnight Evergreen's strategy focuses on developing double-A (AA) games, which strike a balance between indie and triple-A (AAA) titles in terms of budget and production quality. These games, with budgets ranging from $1 million to $5 million, aim to deliver high-quality experiences without the excessive costs associated with AAA titles. By partnering with specialized studios, Midnight Evergreen can produce a variety of games efficiently and cost-effectively.
Community and Governance
Community involvement is central to Midnight Evergreen's vision. The company plans to implement a governance system where the community can vote on which games to develop next, using a token-based voting mechanism. This democratized approach leverages the collective wisdom of the gaming community to identify potential hits and ensure that the games developed resonate with the audience.
Future Prospects and Industry Trends
Looking ahead, Wade sees the future of gaming as one where the distinction between Web2 and Web3 blurs, with live service games incorporating elements of both. He believes that the ability for players to participate in and contribute to the game's ecosystem will become a standard expectation.
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Transcript
Intro
Introduction of Steve Wade and Midnight.io
00:00:09
cyberpunkmetalhead
fellow gaming enthusiast myself, I'm always you know fascinated by by new things that come into gaming, especially the intersection between gaming and blockchain. So it's really fantastic to have you here today.
00:00:22
Midnight
ah Thanks. I appreciate the the opportunity. I think there's you know there's a lot of noise in Web3. So whenever we get a platform to speak and try to cut through that noise and bring real games to real people, I think that's great.
00:00:35
cyberpunkmetalhead
Fantastic. So um if I can ask, when, how did you first get into
Early Ventures and Zion Coin
00:00:39
cyberpunkmetalhead
crypto? What has your journey been like um up until now?
00:00:43
Midnight
Oh, that's a good question. So ah I created a digital currency in 2005 for game developers internally to use. And it was great because we had about 80 developers working ah using the the, you know, we call it the the Zion token. There was Zion Coin at the time, after Zion National Park, Z-I-O-N, but I spelled it with a Y instead.
00:01:02
cyberpunkmetalhead
Right.
00:01:07
cyberpunkmetalhead
Right.
00:01:09
Midnight
And it was great because we had 80 people, we had artists, we had programmers, we had business people, we had IPs, and we were developing a game where everyone was, you know, using this token like to, you know, it was is essentially a measurement of their time. Like if I was willing to give 16 hours to someone's game project, then I would get 16 of these tokens that I could use to pay someone else for my project. And it was going really well for about seven-ish months. And then one of the 80 developers said, oh, you know I can't pay my electricity bill with with this token.
00:01:39
Midnight
They ended up suing us in the state of California.
00:01:40
cyberpunkmetalhead
Right.
00:01:42
Midnight
And the US said, oh, well, you you know you have to pay people minimum wage. I'm like, well, we're not really. And so that was ah the first foray. And then obviously, we started investing. um
00:01:53
cyberpunkmetalhead
ah Did the token had a value at all? Like a monetary value?
00:01:57
Midnight
It wasn't really a monetary value is more just the measure of time. So like everything was project based. Like you say, well, I need 10 hours to to make this 3d art asset or, you know, it's six hours to code your user login.
00:02:03
cyberpunkmetalhead
Right.
00:02:10
Midnight
And so then essentially you it was, it was hour based, right? So every, every one token was worth one hour. Um, but, uh,
00:02:16
cyberpunkmetalhead
Okay. And, and could I redeem that for my, say my hourly rate of a hundred dollars an hour or something like that?
00:02:21
Midnight
You couldn't in 2005. I think we've, you know, we've we've gotten to a better place now with ah with with with tokens.
00:02:23
cyberpunkmetalhead
Right.
00:02:28
Midnight
um we had We ran the largest download website for ah for MMOs and people actually donate it with Bitcoin.
00:02:33
cyberpunkmetalhead
Uh-huh.
00:02:36
Midnight
And this was, you know, 2009.
00:02:39
cyberpunkmetalhead
ah That's cool. That's so cool.
00:02:41
Midnight
Yeah, so it was it was it was a good time. ah So we've been in it for a while. Uh, I love the idea. You know, the time is money. Um, you know, I started selling digital items, uh, in the late nineties, right? So I was a, I started out as an e-sports player and I was going to ands and you know, I wasn't getting first or second or even third, but I would get like four, fifth, sixth.
00:02:56
cyberpunkmetalhead
Uh huh.
00:03:03
Midnight
And, uh, for fourth, fifth or sixth, you don't get a check with money. They're like, here's a sword in Diablo or, you
Transition to Legitimate Business Models
00:03:09
Midnight
know, here.
00:03:10
cyberpunkmetalhead
Right.
00:03:10
Midnight
a warcraft three account or something and i would just go to you and sell it and then i was like well you know if i can just sell this why not just start farming so i had had seven computers in my parents basement all in dial-up uh farm a bunch of different emos and we you know we grew to
00:03:29
cyberpunkmetalhead
Did you write your own bots to farm or or something like that?
00:03:33
Midnight
Yeah. Uh, at first it was all manual. And so it was like me and six of my friends, we were just doing things manually. Like I remember one guy was in charge of photography and ultimate online. Uh, one guy was PVPing and like Diablo to like, just like steal stuff so and it. And, uh, eventually, you know, we did have bots. think it was like a script or something we we started using like and that made life a lot easier because you know when you're a teenager we were like 1670 at the time everything was just a pixel like oh I want some real cheese or I want a guitar I want a car like how many pixels is that and ah so like the idea of like digital
00:04:06
cyberpunkmetalhead
Yeah.
00:04:08
Midnight
items as you know a way to pay for my university, pay for some friends university. It was it was magical. and you know Eventually, that kind of pivoted. ah eBay shut us down. They said, oh, you can't sell gold in the US anymore. and you know we were We were just kids. so We pivoted the business. I wish I would have went to Asia and continued to Gold Farm because people became billionaires. But we we became a legitimate business. Our first two real companies were World of Warcraft and Guild Wars as our clients. And so we you know we we became legitimate fairly quickly. um We started doing free-to-play. We were an early company doing free-to-play in 2006. That was um Area Games. They acquired us fairly early.
00:04:55
Midnight
Uh, and then the one I was really excited about, uh, I led play span.
00:04:55
cyberpunkmetalhead
Right.
00:04:58
Midnight
So not a lot of people know play span because they changed their model.
00:05:00
cyberpunkmetalhead
Oh,
00:05:01
Midnight
It became visa gaming. Uh, so visa acquired them for 240 million or something ridiculous. Um, yeah, it was a, it was a good exit, but the basis for the company was to do exactly, you know, kind of what things are happening with three.
00:05:07
cyberpunkmetalhead
wow.
00:05:13
Midnight
Now it was like, if you're playing Star Trek online or to Lord of the rings online, ah you could trade your items between users, or you could sell
Impact of PlaySpan and Web3 Applications
00:05:20
Midnight
your items. ah So we created the first publisher sponsored marketplace. And ah there's no blockchain at the time, but you know, gaming companies have a good handle on things. um And I absolutely love that. And yeah it was just it was too early that we had to pivot to more of a payments model. And then I did a few more companies, exited became an investment banker, and did a bunch of transactions, I became like known as the
00:05:36
cyberpunkmetalhead
Yeah.
00:05:45
Midnight
If your company's in trouble in ah the game industry, you came to me. And so we did like 22 transactions. um But towards the end, we started doing all these Web3 like capital raises. Shrapnel was my very last client. And I was like, well, you know if they're veterans, I'm a dinosaur. I'm a fossil. ah But I love the idea that you know I don't think ownership is a real world in Red
Participation vs. Ownership in Web3
00:06:08
Midnight
3. I think ownership is fake. But I think participation is real. And if you are allowed to participate in an ecosystem that you spend your time, then that's great.
00:06:12
cyberpunkmetalhead
Yeah.
00:06:18
Midnight
And so we jump back in with this. And so I think that's a long answer of saying like ah I was born into digital items. And I love it here.
00:06:27
cyberpunkmetalhead
No, I love it. And I love to hear it. and i was so i the The one and m MMO that I sang hundreds of hours in is called Kapal Online.
00:06:35
Midnight
I know cable online.
00:06:35
cyberpunkmetalhead
um it's You did.
00:06:36
Midnight
I worked on it. I did.
00:06:38
cyberpunkmetalhead
That's fantastic.
00:06:40
Midnight
Yeah.
00:06:41
cyberpunkmetalhead
What did you do on it specifically?
00:06:43
Midnight
We were ah the publishing partner. We brought it over. Who is the developer? ah But essentially we did localization for it.
00:06:53
cyberpunkmetalhead
OK, so just making sure that servers and channels in each area kind of work the way they should. And yeah, because I remember there's when you sign up.
00:06:59
Midnight
That's right. So we did some balancing that was a little like for most of the games we brought over from either South Korea, Japan and China, like they were intentionally very grindy, right? Because they were free to play.
00:07:10
cyberpunkmetalhead
Yeah.
00:07:11
Midnight
um We did try to balance them a little bit better. um So we did we did some balancing changes. ah But for the most part, they were they were just straight ports. And we wanted to make you know, make sure that they were going to be fun and understandable. And so you you'd have a lot of these, ah you know, very intricate stories that made sense in Asian mythology, but then when you came to the US, it'd be like, I don't know, a lot of people don't even care about stories sometimes. But we, you know, the the idea was, ah you know, try to take this big story and, you know, Disneyfy it to where like anyone could to pick could pick it up.
00:07:47
cyberpunkmetalhead
Right.
00:07:49
Midnight
And so we call it globalization, not just localization. um So it was it was a good time. But yeah, I haven't thought about Kubal in a long time. that was That was an early one. That was like 2005, 2006, 2007. It was like one of the first games that came over.
00:08:03
cyberpunkmetalhead
yeah Yeah, I think that's when it was released. And I do remember at the time, because I picked it up around that period, um that it was indeed very grindy. um you kind of had to You had you had skills different thresholds of skills.
00:08:12
Midnight
Yeah.
00:08:16
cyberpunkmetalhead
And in order to to get better, you had to either use the skills a lot, like go with dungeons or go kill mobs or whatever, or go with the training dummy.
00:08:21
Midnight
yeah
00:08:23
cyberpunkmetalhead
And you would just have to manually go with that training dummy for hours and hours and hours on end. Later on, they've actually um implemented some mechanics that you could auto train at the training time. You could just leave your computer to run and you would just automatically skill, level up your skill and stuff.
00:08:37
Midnight
Yeah.
00:08:40
cyberpunkmetalhead
ah But I've definitely spent a lot of time.
00:08:40
Midnight
Well, I'm glad they allow you to do that. like I had the different ways of balancing things on the F1 key. So it would like macro for me when I was away.
00:08:49
cyberpunkmetalhead
Yeah.
00:08:49
Midnight
It was a weird that drinking bird that would like hit your key.
00:08:54
cyberpunkmetalhead
Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, 100%. And then you started getting, um you had a few companies that were making and selling bots. At first, the bots were free. Everyone got hooked on the bots in Cabal Online, and then you would have to pay a subscription to continue using the bot.
00:09:02
Midnight
Yeah.
00:09:06
cyberpunkmetalhead
It was a good strategy and probably a good run for those companies for a few years.
00:09:10
Midnight
Yeah, I think bot companies still do well. And in fact, I spent the majority of my career fighting bots in MMOs, right?
00:09:16
cyberpunkmetalhead
Right.
00:09:17
Midnight
But actually, at midnight, when they're deconstructing them, we embrace them. um So we actually allow people to have multiple bots. And we actually give you bots that you can acquire by playing games or by buying them from other users. So other users can train up bots to sell you. Then you can go farm different games that you don't own. and So like we we we've definitely embraced bots. yeah you
00:09:39
cyberpunkmetalhead
That's fascinating because yeah normally like most games are just trying to minimize or to completely remove the idea of bots. So tell me a little bit about Midnight then.
Deconstructing Traditional MMOs
00:09:50
cyberpunkmetalhead
What's the vision and how does that tie into the game that you're developing Evergreen?
00:09:54
Midnight
Yeah, so ah we created this, what I call a new genre of MMO. It's the the deconstructed MMO. For most MMOs, like Gabal Online, you need two things to be an MMO. You need a persistent world and you need a social hub. There has to be more people in this world. And what we had decided was you know we don't really need the persistent world.
00:10:12
cyberpunkmetalhead
Right.
00:10:16
Midnight
right Everything is connected. If there is going to be a metaverse at some point, everything's going to have bridges to bridges. And so what you really need is the social hub. And so Evergreen for us is that social hub that connects all of our games together. um So if you were to ah break apart World of Warcraft or Cabal Online, you could probably break it into 26 separate games that all combined into one. And so we broke that apart and we said, look, well, you know, this is a fishing game.
00:10:38
cyberpunkmetalhead
right
00:10:40
Midnight
This is a Barbie dress up game. This is a house decorating game. This is a racing game. This is a pet simulator. ah And, you know, those are all their own separate games um and those games should be able to stand alone. ah So we are, we, they're what we call double A games. So not, not as expensive to make as trip away, but above ND. So budgets are, let's say 1 to 5 million per game. Uh, so decent, decent side game and you actually you're in the UK, you might appreciate the dub way.
00:11:03
cyberpunkmetalhead
Okay.
00:11:06
Midnight
There's a lot of really great dub way publishers in the UK. Um, team 17, uh, curve digitally.
00:11:11
cyberpunkmetalhead
Oh yeah.
00:11:11
Midnight
I think think they make really fun little games. I think team 17 did like 26 games last year.
00:11:18
cyberpunkmetalhead
to eighteen Team 17 are these the guys behind the worm series.
00:11:18
Midnight
Uh, Exactly. The worms guys.
00:11:22
cyberpunkmetalhead
I love those.
00:11:22
Midnight
Yeah, they, yeah, they, exactly right.
00:11:22
cyberpunkmetalhead
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
00:11:25
Midnight
Yeah. Uh, I'll play a game of wars with you later after the, I guess, say like it what a fun game.
00:11:28
cyberpunkmetalhead
100%. I haven't played it in so long. i use i I used to just love playing it. I played the 2D ones. I've also played the 3D ones as well. um And yeah, really fun games.
00:11:38
Midnight
Yeah.
00:11:40
Midnight
Yeah, no, I well, that's I think that's the key word.
00:11:40
cyberpunkmetalhead
Love them.
00:11:42
Midnight
It's they're fun games and they're fun for a certain reason. um ah That's a word that I think it's thrown around with three quite a lot is fun. And what people really mean is fulfillment, because you you get fulfilled in different ways, right? Like worms, it's it's a fun social party game. You're like, you're not there to, you know, farm materials that you're going to like go and sell to to things is is this year, you're enjoying the moment, you're enjoying either with your friends or online play.
00:12:04
cyberpunkmetalhead
Right.
00:12:09
Midnight
And so like every game has its own type of fulfillment. And I think in Web 3, you can't make a game for everyone. So a game for everyone is a game for no one. You have to figure out what your core niche is, and you make a game based on that niche, and that game has built-in audiences. ah So like for us, we think 70% of those audiences don't want to touch the web three part like they don't want to worry about trading and what about crafting and worry about anything online. um But 30% of them we expect ah to participate. And so if you're playing worms, you you know, ah your time is money, or like time is money friend right from wow.
00:12:39
cyberpunkmetalhead
Okay.
00:12:46
Midnight
ah If you put in, you know, 70 hours to that game, you should be rewarded in some way, whether you've done achievements or you've you know done, you know, story mode campaigns with your friends. ah We all touch these worlds in some way. And, you know, whether we know it or not, they they stay with us when we go to new games or when we go to, you know, there's part of our life, right? We grew up, you know, some of us, you know, I remember playing, you know, what, GoldenEye, right, so on N64 with my friends.
00:13:10
cyberpunkmetalhead
Right.
00:13:10
Midnight
And I still think about that lovingly. And so, like, we want to, you know, have something to go forward with the player, the stories that we do matter, the stories that we've done live on. But do it in a way that doesn't make you super powerful. You have to be thoughtful how it works. If you have this sort of over-smashing that you achieved in one game, you can't take that to a racing game. What that's going to do. And so we have a fairly interesting system of semantic interoperability that we think will carry over and people will enjoy. And it kind of connects everything together.
00:13:45
cyberpunkmetalhead
So when you said that you expect about 30% of people to to be interested in Web3, is that based on a focus group or some kind of research that you guys have done to determine that?
00:13:55
Midnight
Yeah, so we've actually done a lot of focus groups. um One of the the favorite ones is one with Deloitte. ah that would you know That's actually given our white paper. I think we're one of the only one who has a Deloitte logo. ah Very expensive. and but yeah if this is not It was enjoyable to work with them, actually.
00:14:09
cyberpunkmetalhead
I bet it is. yeah
00:14:12
Midnight
It was a great gaming team. um But what they had found was the biggest issue in gaming right now, because there's so much choice in gaming. is once a person finds their main game, they stick in that main game, and now it's very hard to peel them away to play something different. And you know the way that we look at solving that problem at midnight is like, we don't want you to move. If you want to stay in that game, stay in that game. um But we want to build a circular economy. So if you're playing you know whatever game that is, you know Cyberpunk Metalhead 42, an FPS game, and ah people, you know you love that game. You want to spend time and money in that game.
00:14:49
Midnight
Maybe you want to buy an item from the item store. Well, Midnight doesn't sell items in the item store. Other players do. And so say you want this you know black frog skin. Well, ah the only way to get that black frog skin for ah your FPS is if you go play Barbie Dress Up. You don't want to play Barbie Dress Up, but someone in Canada or someone in the Philippines, they love those games. And you know so they have they're setting on 20 Black Frog skins. And they're meaningless to them in their game, but they're meaningful for you. And so you're now willing, it's a hardship, right? If you don't want to play another game, ah you're willing to spend two bucks on a skin. And so that's the the whole idea where the utility and other games will help um other games be a a little longer lasting. um And that's actually something people don't talk about too often is games, lifespans are actually very short.
00:15:38
Midnight
you have maybe three to six months for a typical game before it starts to to decline. um Yeah, so 100%.
00:15:44
cyberpunkmetalhead
Right. Yeah, I feel like that's that's like probably like especially accurate in single player experiences with no without a lot of replayability. For me, even single player, if it's done right um and add new elements like a Souls like Elden Ring, Dark Souls, this kind of game, you could still go in for the challenge.
00:16:02
Midnight
Too hard for me.
00:16:04
cyberpunkmetalhead
You could go back in for the challenge and still have ah an enjoyable experience. um Whereas if you play a story focused game like God of War, which is an amazing game, um you maybe don't want to go back because it's like I know the story and it's very story driven um or like Hellblade.
00:16:14
Midnight
Right.
00:16:22
cyberpunkmetalhead
It's like five or six hour experience, but it's fully story driven. It wouldn't make me want to go back. I feel MMOs maybe have longer lifespan. And then at the other end of the spectrum, we have the GTA games. I have like 12 year lifespan or something.
00:16:38
Midnight
Yeah. like if If we ever got a game that lasted, you know, we'll chase success. I think we we just try to be more conservative. So like our our idea is, you know, we want to have to the point where there's a game a month, right? Like team 17, 26 games last year. Like we'd be happy with 12 games.
00:16:53
cyberpunkmetalhead
Right.
00:16:54
Midnight
And you know you might like the game that comes out in January. You hate the game that comes out in June. You're OK with a game that comes out in September. But like in November, you really love that game. And so maybe users play three or four games a year out of the 12. And we think that's a pretty good could number. Because you know if you're if it's a single player game, or you know even if it's multiplayer, If you get, I feel, at a minimum, you should be getting about 20 hours of a game. right If you're paying for something, 20 hours seems like a ah good place.
00:17:18
cyberpunkmetalhead
Mm.
00:17:20
Midnight
And so we think there should be at least repeatability for at least 20 hours. to you know you've You've done everything. You've created a lot of achievements. you' you know You've got your $20 worth for $20 an hour. That seems fair. um And so that's that's kind of the goal. um
00:17:35
cyberpunkmetalhead
That's cool. So do you when you build these these separate games, um ah do they have elements that are interconnected?
00:17:36
Midnight
but
00:17:44
cyberpunkmetalhead
or i'm I'm also guessing in terms of the workflow and the development the development workflow, you kind of have to maybe have an engine that works, that can produce multiple types of games, so you don't have to like ah rebuild the wheel every time, essentially.
00:17:58
Midnight
Yeah, so that's exactly right. So the guys over at Playable Worlds, they're building their own engine so they can you know make a bunch of games. We we took a more cost efficient approach.
00:18:08
cyberpunkmetalhead
Right.
00:18:11
Midnight
And so like we went to studios, so like our three studios, they specialize in certain kind of games. So the one in the UK, they do card games and racing games. ah The one in l LA, they do 2D pixel brawlers. ah The one in Thailand, they do kind of things like overcooked and like moving out, kind of like top-down fun games. so And so we went to these companies because they've already had engines for them, right? I think, you know, our 2D pixel brawler, the original engine of that game costs about $6 million dollars to make, and we're able to develop it for less than, you know, one and a half million.
00:18:38
cyberpunkmetalhead
Right.
00:18:42
Midnight
And so whenever we launch a game, we're almost already in profit. And so that's that's kind of our model. We we don't want to recreate the wheel. We're not trying to make new genres of games. We're taking genres that people already like. where We are um adapting a story. Now, every game should be able to stand on its own. Like, if we launch a game, the web 3 shouldn't matter. People should want to play it because it's a fun game ah to them, right?
00:19:05
cyberpunkmetalhead
Right.
00:19:06
Midnight
And they get to their their fulfillment from that. ah But we think you know we'll extend the lifetime of that game with Web3. And so that's either you know player-driven mods or DLC expansion. like There's a lot of things you can do to to expand the life of a game. um But when that game launches, it's ah it's ah it's a you know people can look at it as its own world. ah The primary reason to play that game is because that game has its primary story. ah But there is a secondary story to every game that feeds into a central narrative and that advances the MMO.
00:19:36
cyberpunkmetalhead
Right.
00:19:38
Midnight
And then we have a fairly cool tool system um that developers and IP holders like because ah you know maybe two years ago, you probably heard the word interoperability a lot.
00:19:38
cyberpunkmetalhead
Right.
00:19:48
Midnight
And then it disappeared because interoperability is hard.
00:19:49
cyberpunkmetalhead
It is hard.
00:19:52
Midnight
I believe we've solved for it. um Most developers and teams like it. ah you know we've We've found a way to, ah you know I think there's let's Let's say there's six issues with interoperability. There's technical challenges, right? There's you know just incompatible technology and pipelines among different studios, which we've solved for.
00:20:06
cyberpunkmetalhead
Hmm.
00:20:11
Midnight
There's aesthetic and narrative challenges, which we solve for. um Just really functions and mechanics. Like you know like so etc if you have this sort of overslaying in a fantasy fighting game and you go to a racing game, how do you solve for that? Which you'll figure out a way. um So there's like the you know the development side. On the next side, it's like legal challenges, right? if i have you know, Star Trek or Star Wars in one game, how do you take that to 15 other games without, you know, Disney getting mad? And so, you know, kind of had a thing, legal challenges, which I think we've solved for.
00:20:37
cyberpunkmetalhead
Yeah.
00:20:41
Midnight
um There also needs to be some kind of business and sentences because developers don't like new tools, right? Unless they're, there's either users or money, like they're probably not going to use your new tool and and work with it around. But like, weve we've kind of worked with that with the token. um And the biggest thing I think with web three is, game companies have to find some level of cannibalism for their own revenue and have to get back to the players. right So if I'm selling black t-shirts, which I think we both like, ah the idea is you know midnight itself could sell black t
Economic Model of Midnight.io Games
00:21:11
Midnight
-shirts. Maybe we sell 100 black t-shirts. We make a million bucks or something. ah That's great for us. but like
00:21:18
Midnight
we really need to turn that over. So like now instead of Midnight getting a million dollars for black t-shirts, we give it to the users. um So we lose a million dollars, but now we have a user base that wants to stick around because they can see how they can make money in the game. um And it's not like a scammy grab. It's like, hey, they played the game. They got the black dye and they got the wool, they crafted it and someone else wanted to buy it because they wanted the black t-shirt to wear. um So instead of us, you know, profiting, we love it to the users and Midnight makes his money from the the upfront sale. So, I think that's a lot of things that Web3 companies get wrong. We're like, oh, I'm going to have this NFT, I'm going to have this token, and we're going to do well. But if you can't keep the lights on to keep the game studio alive, then you're in trouble. And we're starting to see that now with a lot of companies that have launched tokens, the tokens that didn't well, but there's not enough liquidity in the token, and they can't afford to keep the lights on at their studio. So we've probably looked at seven or eight companies now that are on the verge of shutting down either good IPs, good teams, good technology. And we're looking at all of them.
00:22:15
Midnight
We're definitely a, you know, a consolidator in Web3 space. And I think that's going to be coming in the next six to eight months where, you know, some companies, you know, if they're just not going to be able to do it.
00:22:21
cyberpunkmetalhead
Right.
00:22:26
cyberpunkmetalhead
Yeah and I mean ah at the other end of this this spectrum you have game ah publishers and gaming studios like Ubisoft that are jumping on NFTs because it's hype.
00:22:35
Midnight
Yeah.
00:22:38
cyberpunkmetalhead
I remember yeah you used to have NFTs for weapons in in some Ubisoft games and Then you stop hearing about it. After 2021, after the the NFT hype kind of cooled down a little, so did those companies with with the NFTs.
00:22:49
Midnight
Right.
00:22:53
cyberpunkmetalhead
I didn't have an opinion at the time. like i'm kind of I'm really optimistic about tech. I always like want to find out what the next thing is, what it does, how it works. I'm curious. but like gamers from what I know, from what I've seen on Reddit, they tend to be quite cagey when you introduce a new mechanic, especially out of all audiences, you know, Redditors, which were proven to be the least profitable audience that you could ever market to.
00:23:09
Midnight
Yeah.
00:23:18
Midnight
Yeah.
00:23:18
cyberpunkmetalhead
and They are they were very cagey about the idea of NFTs and saw them only as a cash grab or another way that Ubisoft or EA games can make more money off of, you know, already sixty, seventy dollar triple eight games that they
Discussion on Quadrupway Games and Franchise Formulas
00:23:32
Midnight
Right. Yeah.
00:23:33
cyberpunkmetalhead
sell.
00:23:34
cyberpunkmetalhead
and
00:23:34
Midnight
Quadrupway now, right? that' Isn't that the thing? $80 Quadrupway games?
00:23:38
cyberpunkmetalhead
And...
00:23:38
Midnight
Isn't that what they were pitching?
00:23:38
cyberpunkmetalhead
Oh yeah, it was... Wasn't that a recent one? Which which one was the first quad...
00:23:41
Midnight
I think that was a meme. Yeah.
00:23:43
cyberpunkmetalhead
Oh right, they called...
00:23:43
Midnight
I had them over, so it's just a meme.
00:23:44
cyberpunkmetalhead
I think they called it the um the Assassin... No, the Assassin's Creed, the pirate game that Ubisoft released recently.
00:23:50
Midnight
That's right. I think you're right.
00:23:51
cyberpunkmetalhead
Yeah, it was referred to as a quadruple A game.
00:23:52
Midnight
Yeah.
00:23:54
cyberpunkmetalhead
You couldn't even leave the ship and go and loot the town.
00:23:56
Midnight
Yeah.
00:23:58
cyberpunkmetalhead
um But it just goes to show that you know like these companies, they've become so important in the consciousness of of the you know of gamers that even though I'm i'm sure many many gamers that ah play their games resent the company, but they still continue to play the games.
00:24:14
Midnight
Yeah.
00:24:15
cyberpunkmetalhead
I've personally really gotten bored of, um I haven't played any Assassin's Creed past, I think the third or the fourth one, but just to see that there's one coming out, just like NFL, just like FIFA, it's like, it I don't think it should be that way. I think a formula for games is make a great game that people enjoy it with a unique story and then try to offer that experience once again without you know going back to, oh, let's just milk this until until we've we've but you know we've exhausted everything around that.
00:24:46
Midnight
Yeah, well, I think I like that they just milk thing. I mean, that seems to be trendy in video games and Hollywood, right? If there was an IP that was a success, we're going to, you know, take those fans for everything they're worth.
00:24:54
cyberpunkmetalhead
Yeah.
00:24:58
Midnight
um I know i I was chatting to a woman last night.
00:24:58
cyberpunkmetalhead
Yeah.
00:25:03
Midnight
um ah ah um mr come but we We were both kind of like, airing our grease with Diablo 4. We both like the Diablo series, but you know, ah you you spend 70 bucks for a game and then now you have to spend 15 to 20 bucks, 30 bucks even for like a horse cosmetic and where I can go buy a DLC for, you know, 20 or 30 bucks for like a brand new game.
00:25:25
cyberpunkmetalhead
Right.
Midnight's Business Model Explained
00:25:26
Midnight
And so that's that's kind of wild. And so at midnight, like our whole idea is you know midnight's gonna sell you know our games up front are five to forty bucks right we're not going to be a seventy dollar game but we'll be five to forty bucks we will have an item store where you can go and buy that that skin but midnight's not selling it right that's you selling it right that's a player selling it so it's player to player transactions which we think users will be a little more interested because it's not a money grab at this point it's it's us providing a service Uh, because users do want to, you know, you know, I think there was a ah study back to the studies. Uh, I think 74% of gamers said they would probably spend more on games if they were able to, you know, have agency over those items, right?
00:26:04
Midnight
If they could, you know, sell them in a a secondary market, which we want to have a primary market.
00:26:05
cyberpunkmetalhead
Mm.
00:26:09
Midnight
Um, or if they transcended the current game they're playing, right? You know, it was like, you know, think about credit card with loyalty points. Like if I spend money in this game, I should get loyalty to, you know, your platform or your publishing service or whatever it is. And so like we we are leaning into that, right? You know, we're not going to make a huge amount of money because of allowing users to buy and trade items among each
Importance of Player Agency
00:26:30
Midnight
other. But what you do buy and what you do get as a company is a loyal fan base that knows like, oh, if I buy this midnight game and I play it for 20 hours, maybe I acquire four grapes and those four grapes are worth, you know, 10 bucks. Well, now that's 50% off my next midnight game.
00:26:50
cyberpunkmetalhead
Yeah, I feel that's very valuable for um users, especially when people are used to to grind or to do something or to to work for something in a game like Lord Gamers.
00:27:01
Midnight
and Yeah.
00:27:03
cyberpunkmetalhead
having programmed to kind of enjoy a certain extent of, of great well, and then when it comes to RPG, at least, there's a certain level of grinding that you kind of expect, especially if it's if it's online, if it's an MMO.
00:27:15
Midnight
Right.
00:27:15
cyberpunkmetalhead
So to have a marketplace where you could sell these items or but you know take them to other games, that's super exciting. um I would love to hear and to learn more about how it how exactly it works, because like you said, I think, um a bit earlier, you couldn't import a sword in a racing game. So I'm guessing there's a certain criteria or certain rules that allow you to to import these items, but also, you know, i'm not not just what the item does, but I'm also curious how exactly you would translate, say, damage from this game into the other game and how did that and za get calculated with the sword that you transfer over.
00:27:51
Midnight
Yeah.
00:27:54
Midnight
So all digital items that are crafted will have ah tags, will have certain attributes
Intricate Item Tags and Keys System
00:28:01
Midnight
associated with them. Right now we have a list. of The first basic list is 42 different tags. And so it could be a you know ah quickness tag.
00:28:06
cyberpunkmetalhead
Mm hmm.
00:28:09
Midnight
right And so that can make you 1% or 2% faster. And the game would decide, like well, you know ah there's running in my game, or there's driving in my game, or there's flying in my game.
00:28:13
cyberpunkmetalhead
Right.
00:28:19
Midnight
So quickness makes sense. right It can make you faster. But then there could be you know something that makes your aiming more accurate, or your head shots more deadly, right the critical multipliers times two. Well, that might not make sense in a lot of games. And so a game would ignore that. So every game developer that comes into our system, they get this list of 42 different dropdowns and they say, well, these 10 make sense for my game, right? And so they'll take those 10 games or 10 tags. And then there's different keys that users keys or our version of NFTs.
00:28:49
cyberpunkmetalhead
Right.
00:28:50
Midnight
And everyone has a loadout, you can have four keys equipped at a time and you go to different games. And so you might have four keys um and the fishing game and the tags you know give you a better chance of collecting back but black bass. But when you go to the the fighting game, well now because you have these four black keys associated with you, ah well now maybe your skin's hardened so you have you take 10% less damage. And so the keys do different things in different games, um but they do something in almost every game. And so it's not always one for one, ah but it is meaningful, right? So if you spent time and resources ah you know crafting and are are buying from another player,
00:29:27
Midnight
um You know that that game will live on. And then the the materials associated with that game, so like five years, six years from now, um maybe there's a new game that comes out. And you're like, well, you know I have this ah you know black fishing key um from this game. I don't play that game anymore. But the resources, so like I'm going to break it apart. I'm going to destroy it. I'm going to get the resources. I'm going to build something new. And so yeah, so we're we're pretty excited.
00:29:47
cyberpunkmetalhead
Right. That's very cool.
00:29:50
Midnight
Yeah, I think it's going to be a fun way to
Crafting and Player Experimentation
00:29:52
Midnight
to look at things.
00:29:53
cyberpunkmetalhead
Oh, yeah, definitely.
00:29:53
Midnight
At least it's unique.
00:29:55
cyberpunkmetalhead
Yeah. And the kind of combinations that you get and the the the yeah that like discovering how certain tags do certain things in those games.
00:30:03
Midnight
That's going to be a lot of fun for people.
00:30:03
cyberpunkmetalhead
that Oh, yeah, I bet.
00:30:04
Midnight
Yeah.
00:30:05
cyberpunkmetalhead
I bet it will. Yeah. And maybe would you know or you wouldn't find out and until you've jumped into this new game to figure out what they do in this game?
00:30:12
Midnight
Yeah. So we have some things that are known, and then some things are mystery. So like you might have to craft something to find out what it does. And I'm ah yeah i'm sure like in a month after it comes out, there's going to be someone with a web page that's like, hey, this is the crafting resources if you combine.
00:30:25
cyberpunkmetalhead
But of course, yeah.
00:30:26
Midnight
But at the beginning, like we want people to discover. And so we've done some things with internal tests where you know we have one game that's a four-person dungeon runner. And, you know, if everyone craps different crees, your dungeon is completely different, right? So if someone has like, oh, I want more poison skeletons. And so like, oh, well, now you're playing more poison skeletons. One guy might have things for like hidden NPCs. And so like, well, now you can go to this hidden vendor and and buy stuff. Another guy might have like makes the boss fight 10 times harder. And so you don't or or just make your heads giant, right? It could be just visual, like everyone has giant heads.
00:30:56
cyberpunkmetalhead
Right.
00:30:58
Midnight
And so like, you don't know, it's gonna be kind of wackity. It's almost like, a But do you remember like the Mad Libs comics where you'd like write a story but then you'd fill it in with like random words?
00:31:06
cyberpunkmetalhead
Right, yeah, yeah.
00:31:06
Midnight
Yeah, so that's kind of how the games are played, right? The games become a little bit random depending on what keys people are using in your party.
00:31:13
cyberpunkmetalhead
That's a very cool idea. I'd love to experience that. um
00:31:16
Midnight
Yeah, we'll get you into a beta at some point.
00:31:19
cyberpunkmetalhead
100%, yeah, definitely.
00:31:20
Midnight
Yeah.
00:31:20
cyberpunkmetalhead
I feel like I'm the right target audience too.
00:31:23
Midnight
There you go.
00:31:24
cyberpunkmetalhead
So do you guys then see, because you've said sometimes you invite developers and you you list the the kind of tags that they have available
Creating Interconnected Universes
00:31:31
cyberpunkmetalhead
for their game. So um is Midnight then also kind of an infrastructure layer for gaming companies to come in and build in you know in this interconnected universe?
00:31:40
Midnight
Yeah. ah gave me chills. Whenever I hear the word infrastructure or platforms, it like it sounds like you're not being very creative. that me like I'm just building tools.
00:31:50
cyberpunkmetalhead
Yeah, I mean tools are very important.
00:31:50
Midnight
But I mean, we are. We are.
00:31:52
cyberpunkmetalhead
I'm i'm just yeah.
00:31:52
Midnight
Yeah. So like I really want to like, I'm a storyteller. I want you know the the idea that the worlds are connected. ah The way I look at it is like the games that we publish ourselves, those are Those are, you know, first party games. Let me give a note. So like Disneyland or Disney world. If you go to Disney world, you could go to like the star worlds experience, the Pixar experience. Those are experiences. Like you feel you're in that IP when you're in that world. But then if you go to like the teacups ride, you're just on the teacups ride.
00:32:23
Midnight
And so the way that we look at games is like first-party games are experiences, and then third-party games, if a developer who wants to come to us, they're a ride.
00:32:24
cyberpunkmetalhead
Hmm.
00:32:31
Midnight
And so everyone's a part of the same ecosystem, but just some are a little more immersive than others. And so we we do want more people to come in. We do have an infrastructure. We do have a tool play. um In the beginning, it's not going to be like Steam, where everyone can just like throw a game on our system. It's going to be more curated.
00:32:47
cyberpunkmetalhead
Right.
00:32:49
Midnight
um But we you know do get to the point where like people want to develop you. like if Do you want to be just a game without a companion app and without the the ever a living world that is evergreen? Or do you want to jump in or not? And so I think there's going to be some some fun things we can do with bringing more
Current State and Appeal of Midnight's Alpha Stage
00:33:06
Midnight
games in. We're actually ah negotiating with a large game company right now. They've raised $50 million. And they you know they don't have a Web 3 Play. And we're like, let us be your Web 3 Play. And so we might have some large games we're bringing in.
00:33:18
cyberpunkmetalhead
That sounds really cool. That sounds really cool.
00:33:20
Midnight
Yeah, I'm excited about everything we're doing.
00:33:23
cyberpunkmetalhead
so it's So then Midnight is a relatively new venture, right? From what I could tell, from what I could read as well, I couldn't find, ah say, a demo or something.
00:33:30
Midnight
Yeah.
00:33:32
cyberpunkmetalhead
So Evergreen is still in development as of right now.
00:33:35
Midnight
That's right. So we have the um version alpha, I guess. It's not even version one.
00:33:43
cyberpunkmetalhead
Right.
00:33:44
Midnight
It's like it's it's pretty early. ah you can play the you know You can download on iOS or Android. um We'll have a web app that you can play. ah It's 2% of you know eventual, but like people wanted it now because people in Web3, they want to get it early. They want to start farming for airdrops. They want to start farming for materials. And so ah the thing is now people can come in, they can farm things in their ticket. I don't know. It takes a long time to farm. like We do not make things easy on people. It's it's kind of like go back to the the Korean grind ah for MooMoo. So like I think
00:34:13
cyberpunkmetalhead
Yeah.
00:34:15
Midnight
You know, the most I've seen in any of our players, there's one guy who's been playing since launch and he has like six tickets and tickets are, um you can transfer for tokens. um The ratio is, forend right now it's fairly high. So like if you have a ticket now, it's worth a lot more than you know the tickets will be the next season because it's it's going to get easier as the the app gets more developed.
00:34:33
cyberpunkmetalhead
Right.
00:34:34
Midnight
So like if you want to get in now, that's the you the most bang for your buck. ah it's it's you know it's It's okay. I mean, I log and I played every day because I have to test it, but it's definitely not the full game yet.
00:34:44
cyberpunkmetalhead
Yeah.
00:34:45
Midnight
i And so like some people like, oh, but you know it's it's a process I can see.
00:34:46
cyberpunkmetalhead
Right.
00:34:49
Midnight
Let me see early. A lot of people can't see through the process. They need they needed a finished product. And so like i'm like if you know if you want to wait for the finished project, I think that's what I tell people to do. But if you're there because you're you know your level of fulfillment is ah earning tokens and be ready for that token pop, then you know maybe you don't mind as much.
00:35:07
cyberpunkmetalhead
Yeah, well, I feel that's a strong hook for Web3 and crypto people in general, like the the fact that they're in, they have to be in early. That's one of the things that, you know, so it's it's a good enough hook.
00:35:15
Midnight
That's right.
00:35:18
cyberpunkmetalhead
I wouldn't expect a lot of them to to to to think that this is a finished product or
Norms and Comparisons of Early Access
00:35:23
cyberpunkmetalhead
finished game. um It's also like the gaming industry has kind of made it so that early access has become fairly common. um you You expect to pay up
00:35:31
Midnight
Yeah, super super bad, right?
00:35:34
cyberpunkmetalhead
if do Yeah, exactly. But I mean, I have played a few really good early access games that I couldn't even, you know, I couldn't tell it's early access. You could have just downloaded that game for me, may may get me to play it.
00:35:42
Midnight
Yeah.
00:35:45
cyberpunkmetalhead
And I couldn't tell you, yeah, this is early access. Like one of them that came to mind was V rising a couple years back when he was still in early access. And it was very polished for an early access game.
00:35:57
Midnight
I don't know that game, but it looks good. Kind of Diablo-ish. I'm just pulling up the Steam page now.
00:36:01
cyberpunkmetalhead
um Yeah, so the idea is kind of it's
00:36:02
Midnight
Very positive. 78,000 positive reviews.
00:36:06
cyberpunkmetalhead
is very Yeah, it's a big game.
00:36:06
Midnight
I've never heard of this game. Wow.
00:36:08
cyberpunkmetalhead
You play as a vampire um and you build your castle, right?
00:36:10
Midnight
There you go.
00:36:12
cyberpunkmetalhead
So it has some of the like Valheim grinding mechanics. You got to go get stone, ah go get some wood and go get other materials and then refine materials to build your castle. But then one unique feature that it has you being a vampire is that during the day, you have to travel, you have to stick to the shadows. If you don't stick to the shadows, you'll burn.
00:36:29
Midnight
It's fun.
00:36:30
cyberpunkmetalhead
So that kind of changes the way you navigate the map.
00:36:32
Midnight
Yeah.
00:36:32
cyberpunkmetalhead
It's really cool.
00:36:33
Midnight
All right. I've added it to my wish list. I'm going to wait for the next sale, and I'll add it to the back lock of games. But yeah, I've never heard of this game. um i did play Survivor games. We did play the vampire hunter survivor. I quite liked it. I played on mobile. I played it on Xbox. I was surprised like how simple the game it was to how fun it was.
00:36:50
cyberpunkmetalhead
I haven't played it.
00:36:54
Midnight
And then after I played it for like 20 hours, ah my friend said, oh, you like casinos. I'm like, wait a minute. I don't gamble. I live in Vegas. Vampire Hunter is like basically just a slot machine. like It's just numbers and everything flashing around. And they're like, oh, I guess I got it.
00:37:06
cyberpunkmetalhead
Right.
00:37:11
Midnight
yeah
00:37:12
cyberpunkmetalhead
What's it called, vampire?
00:37:12
Midnight
but like a Vampire Hunter survivor.
00:37:18
Midnight
should be our vampire survivors. I added the hunter.
00:37:22
cyberpunkmetalhead
All vampire survivors.
00:37:23
Midnight
Yeah, I added the hunter.
00:37:26
cyberpunkmetalhead
Oh, and nice. I see. Overwhelmingly positive. 200,000 reviews.
00:37:29
Midnight
Yeah.
00:37:31
cyberpunkmetalhead
Wow.
00:37:31
Midnight
Yeah. And it's like the simplest game um to make. ah they I believe they've recently added multiplayer. I haven't tried multiplayer yet.
00:37:41
Midnight
But I love the idea.
00:37:41
cyberpunkmetalhead
That's cool, though.
00:37:42
Midnight
And that's, I think some we're going to see in web three where tools, AI, things are getting, it's a lot easier to make games. I think there's going to be a game that, you know, one person make that hits a billion dollars in revenue. Like I'm, I'm very excited for the future of game development.
00:37:55
cyberpunkmetalhead
Oh yeah, ah definitely possible. in he It may have already happened if you're familiar with Manor Lords.
00:38:02
Midnight
I did see that game. and Yeah, I, I didn't play it, but like that was quite a lot of hype, right? Like people were.
00:38:09
cyberpunkmetalhead
Yeah, it's it's a real-time strategy slash world-building game where you build your your own medieval village, ah but you can also raise an army and and just go to war.
00:38:16
Midnight
Okay.
00:38:19
cyberpunkmetalhead
It's early access, but the the thing gets built by one guy over a seven-year period.
00:38:25
Midnight
Oh, that's fantastic.
00:38:25
cyberpunkmetalhead
And it looks amazing. It looks like a AAA game. It it it looks fluid.
00:38:28
Midnight
Yeah.
00:38:29
cyberpunkmetalhead
And yeah, one guy developed that that game. it It definitely has become a lot easier to build really good games. um But it's also, I feel, the barrier if you're if you're looking to compete with AAA games, it's it's also much higher because you've got like these astronomical budgets for some games.
00:38:45
Midnight
Sure.
00:38:46
cyberpunkmetalhead
um And
Challenges of Onboarding Users to Web3
00:38:47
cyberpunkmetalhead
the recent trend of including
00:38:48
Midnight
And not only the budgets, it's the users, right? um So one thing everyone talks about Web3 is like, oh, we're going to onboard the next billion users to Web3 through games. And I'm scratching my head. It's like, we have 200 million users on Xbox. like where Where are we getting these 800, 900 extra million users from for Web3?
00:39:04
cyberpunkmetalhead
Yeah.
00:39:07
Midnight
So I think you know ah core gamers, you know if we could get to 20 million Web3 players, I think that would be amazing. 20 million actually. like real gamers, not there because they're you know hoping that an NFT goes in value or they're going to get something from the token, but they're there to play the game to enjoy the game. like i think that Let's hit that milestone first before we worry about a billion.
00:39:29
cyberpunkmetalhead
Oh yeah, a hundred percent. but And I feel that's exactly why maybe not a lot of people have gone on and played a web three game now is that for the longest time you could like, there was no real, any value proposition. It was just, well, this is a game and NFTs look. Right. Okay. But does it improve my experience? Does it make it unique? Does it add the new twist to it, you know, or is it the same old formula, but plus NFTs?
00:39:53
Midnight
Yeah.
00:39:57
cyberpunkmetalhead
Um, so I feel like with something like midnight where you have different worlds that are interconnected and you can interact with items and what I feel that that's a really good hook for someone to like, at least go in and figure it out and see why that experience may not be possible without Web3, without blockchain.
00:40:15
Midnight
That's right. So I think a lot of people get very excited about technology and they try to so you know they try to create problems. right and i like you know like we Like I said, we you know we had a digital currency in 2005, 2006.
00:40:25
cyberpunkmetalhead
Yeah.
00:40:30
Midnight
We did the player-player marketplace in 2010. There's a lot of things that doesn't require blockchain the gaming space can do. And so I don't think like Minecraft or Fortnite or Roblox will require it because they're their own walled garden. But something like Midnight, where we're working with five, six, seven different studios, having a shared ledger like actually makes a lot of sense. And so having a tech stack that people can get like, well, of course, like we're going to use these tags or you know our game has to you know know what this game's talking about. like I think that makes sense when you have different
00:41:05
Midnight
companies involved. And so like, yeah to me, it's like one of the best use cases for for blockchain is because you're doing things with a bunch of different developers.
00:41:12
cyberpunkmetalhead
yeah Yeah, I think that is definitely the strongest hook for it. But then there's also the real economy side of things. You can take these items out, trade them on the market,
Real Economy Aspect in Gaming
00:41:22
cyberpunkmetalhead
trade them on the market outside of the game, which again, it's it's a unique thing that you you just don't have without with our blockchain to that extent that is decentralized.
00:41:22
Midnight
yeah
00:41:31
cyberpunkmetalhead
You could take, I guess, items out of Counter-Strike and sell them on Steam if you wanted to.
00:41:39
Midnight
Well, people do, right? I mean, that that secondary market is fantastic.
00:41:41
cyberpunkmetalhead
ah but Yeah.
00:41:43
Midnight
I think last report I read, I can't remember who did the report, but I was like, Counter-Strike did $200 million dollars a year, and then its secondary item sells for like a billion. And I'm like, oh, that that's what you want, right?
00:41:51
cyberpunkmetalhead
Wow.
00:41:52
Midnight
like that's That's fantastic. like That's that has ah yeah know a rare case where you have a mega-hit game. But I think that's, you know, that's what you want. You want the ability to take items out and, you know, profit from them. Because there's there's a bit of RNG, right? You don't know what cash you're going to get. You might get this legendary Hawaii skin for your AK-47. And now it's worth the or the knife skins, I think, with a the expensive ones.
00:42:14
cyberpunkmetalhead
Yeah.
00:42:14
Midnight
My knife.
00:42:15
cyberpunkmetalhead
Yeah.
00:42:15
Midnight
That's my knife twirl right there.
00:42:15
cyberpunkmetalhead
Yeah.
00:42:19
Midnight
Yeah, i it's very exciting.
00:42:19
cyberpunkmetalhead
No, it's a great. It's definitely super exciting. I would love to see more of it and just to see, you know, games that actually feel like games that are, you know, have have more than just, um I know, I was talking to these guys that work on Phantom Chain. They've developed ah and an MMO game called S4 Kingdom. um And it's a great game in that what it tries to achieve, but it's it's idle play. So for me, it's not super, how should I put it? like
00:42:52
cyberpunkmetalhead
it's
00:42:55
cyberpunkmetalhead
It's not for everyone in the in the terms of in the gameplay mechanics. it's It's very low maintenance. You go in, you fiddle with some stuff, you go in the next day rather than ah an an emerge and immersive experience where you've got a story and know and and ah and a narrative thread that you follow actively doing the playing the game.
00:43:06
Midnight
Yeah.
00:43:15
Midnight
Yeah,
Casual vs. Immersive Gaming Experiences
00:43:15
Midnight
that makes sense.
00:43:16
cyberpunkmetalhead
ah
00:43:16
Midnight
I think there's been a lot of games that yeah doesn't draw me in, um but they're fun for the moment, right? I mean, I don't i like Mario Party, right? When I'm playing with, because we have friends over it and everyone wants to play Mario Party, or I might whip out a phone game when I'm in the bathroom for too long and just, you know, playing solitaire or something on my phone.
00:43:27
cyberpunkmetalhead
Yeah.
00:43:32
Midnight
ah So like, theres I think there's time and places for games where you can find and enjoy like, there's different types of games written, but like, To your point, like when I want to actually game, I like to sit in my chair, get immersed in the world. you know I love single player games.
00:43:44
cyberpunkmetalhead
Yeah.
00:43:46
Midnight
I'm playing a lot of Fortnite with my um my nephew and my wife.
00:43:49
cyberpunkmetalhead
That's cool.
00:43:50
Midnight
I actually had a call yesterday. um we were we We already had crowns, so we're getting ready to to to win again and stack crowns if you play Fortnite. And I forgot I had a call with Namco Bandai. And so I was like, oh, you know my wife's computer's like right beside me. I was like, OK, I've got to take this call. Don't don't say anything. And it's a work, right? Namco Bandai, a bit large company. And we got third place as I'm on the phone.
00:44:12
cyberpunkmetalhead
Yeah.
00:44:15
Midnight
And I was like, third's pretty good. And she's mad at me. Because I had to take this call. I'm like, it's the best I could do with V2. but
00:44:23
cyberpunkmetalhead
Yeah. Oh man. Yeah. the The pressures of gaming. I haven't played Fortnite, no, but my girlfriend and I play, uh, we've played several like local and and online games together. One of them that we're playing right now is, um, slay the spire and it's a card game.
00:44:35
Midnight
I fight it.
00:44:37
cyberpunkmetalhead
Yeah, and it's so it's so addictive. It's very good. And he's got a multiplayer mod. So you can actually install this mod and you can both play together on the map. You can't um like fight the same enemies in the same room, but she's going to go one route. I'm going to go one route. And then if we find relics that are relevant for the other one, we can go to this trader in caravan and we can switch relics and stuff.
00:45:00
Midnight
I like that.
00:45:01
cyberpunkmetalhead
It's cool.
00:45:01
Midnight
Yeah. I have not played the multiplayer and I didn't actually didn't even know it had a multiplayer. That's pretty cool.
00:45:05
cyberpunkmetalhead
Yeah, it's community it's so it's a community mode. Someone built it and he it works really well.
00:45:08
Midnight
Oh, okay. So, oh, interesting.
Extended Lifespans through Community-Driven Mods
00:45:10
cyberpunkmetalhead
and ah Actually, it's it' a good question for for for Midnight and your guys' vision. um Do you expect community to to build things with with Midnight or to add new content to the games?
00:45:19
Midnight
Yes. 100%. So earlier in the conversation, we talked about games die, you know, three, six, nine months, they don't have long lifetimes. so We expect because of the way we're doing evergreen, our games will live nine, 12, you know, 16 months. ah So we get a little longer of a lifespan because communities will be adding mods to the game. Like every key, we actually look at a mod so we think we can extend the lifespans there.
00:45:40
cyberpunkmetalhead
Right.
00:45:43
Midnight
But also we think the community will let us pick hits, right? We have this what we call the midnight scorecard. It's a five-step process for how we greenlight games to bring them onto the platform. And between me and the rest of the team and the teams that we work with to build games, we're probably close to 400 games.
00:45:59
cyberpunkmetalhead
Oh, wow.
00:46:00
Midnight
Do we develop? Yeah, so it's it's fantastic. you know i've I've done, by myself, 45 games. And I've only had two real failures. And and and one was no, it wasn't my fault. So I'll say one. ah But even even in that,
00:46:12
cyberpunkmetalhead
Sir.
00:46:14
Midnight
um We want to have a step six where we say, look, these are the 10 games that we want to make this year, and we want the community to vote on them. And so that's what one of the use cases for the token where they can stake them.
00:46:24
cyberpunkmetalhead
Mm
00:46:24
Midnight
And if you like you pick one of the games that lasts for 10 years, then great, you've done really well. But there is this this, well, there's a couple books, but one of my favorite books is called The Madness of Crowds. And you know this this idea is, let me start.
00:46:34
cyberpunkmetalhead
hmm.
Community Voting on Game Development
00:46:38
Midnight
Have you ever seen the show Who Wants to be a Millionaire? Are you familiar with the the concept?
00:46:42
cyberpunkmetalhead
Yeah. Yeah.
00:46:42
Midnight
Okay.
00:46:42
cyberpunkmetalhead
I used to watch it here.
00:46:44
Midnight
Oh, well, there you go. ah So like, then you so they had this thing where like, you would have 50 50, right? And so the odds are 50 50, you get it right. And then they would have like, ask an advisor or an expert, and then you would get like, maybe 61% of the time, they would get it right.
00:46:50
cyberpunkmetalhead
Yeah.
00:46:57
Midnight
So slightly better than 50 50. And I would say, you know, midnight are advisors, right? So we get it better than 50 50, but 61%. But when they pull the audience, it was like 87 to 91% of the time, they would get it right. And so like if we have this massive audience and we can say, look, here's 10 games, you pick the two, they're going to pick hits way more than we will. And so we're we're actually very excited about like letting the community come in, help us pick the right games, and then helping extending the life of those games.
00:47:15
cyberpunkmetalhead
Oh, yeah.
00:47:22
cyberpunkmetalhead
That's a very cool idea. and Yeah, definitely. I hadn't considered governance when it comes to making games, for sure. So much value in that.
00:47:28
Midnight
yeah Yeah. Well, it's definitely like you can't, you know there there has to be steps, right? You can't just say, well, what games do you guys want us to make?
00:47:33
cyberpunkmetalhead
Right.
00:47:34
Midnight
Because then you can get like the meme stock people. like We want you to make. What was that?
00:47:37
cyberpunkmetalhead
It can be fully open-ended, because all you're going to get is this, submit like, Hentai and Rule 34 stuff, if it's open-ended, yeah.
00:47:39
Midnight
Yeah.
00:47:42
Midnight
but That's exactly right so right. Yeah, you know.
00:47:46
cyberpunkmetalhead
yeah I know the way the internet works. You give it choice, you give it open choice, it's going to fuck you up. but
00:47:52
Midnight
Yeah, okay. Well, where do we go from the conversation now?
Future of Gaming Industry and User Participation
00:47:58
cyberpunkmetalhead
um Where do you see the industry going in um in three to five years from now? The gaming industry.
00:48:02
Midnight
Oh, that's a great question. That's a great question. ah So I think it's not going to be so much web 2 or web 3 because I think it's just going to be gaming. I think if you have a live service game, you're going to have to let your users participate. And so what other technology you're building on like you know maybe it's not a blockchain, but it's whatever your own internal thing is, you're still going to have to let users participate, especially if it's live service. If they put it in time and money passed a premium upfront sale, I think that's just the you know that's the future. um We have been fortunate.
00:48:31
cyberpunkmetalhead
Mm hmm.
00:48:34
Midnight
So what we started two years ago, it are now very trendy. ah So Double Way Premium Games, everyone's talking about it this year at GDC. ah Pal Worlds and Helldivers were the two big breakout hits earlier this year. They got everyone excited for Double Way Games.
00:48:46
cyberpunkmetalhead
Yeah.
00:48:47
Midnight
And so like we looked really smart because we started two years ago, like all the investors came back to us like, Hey, I thought, what are you guys
Game Discoverability and Mobile Trends
00:48:52
Midnight
up to? Um, we, you know, we, we like the companion app. We like the discoverability is, is the issue for, for users. Um, and you know, if you look at. where do people find, you know, yeah I guess, rap where do they find, you know, PC console games, they find them on their mobile phones, so like discoverability is on your phone.
00:49:11
cyberpunkmetalhead
Yeah.
00:49:13
Midnight
And so if we think leaning into that's the right thing, and then for Web3 for tokens, um if you're not a digital gambler, the idea of an ecosystem token, It's better than like, I'm going to bet on this one game, this one token. And you know if this game fails, then my token goes to zero. But in our case, like the token is built kind of at an MMO model where you know the value of gold in World of Warcraft would go up on patch days or expansion days. ah So we built a model where Midnight will always have a patch or an expansion. like Every month, there is something coming. And you're talking about like you people might not like the game in January, but like that April game is super hot.
00:49:47
Midnight
And yeah, so like there's always something new. um We're not a game for everybody, so we're niche games. like Again, you know you know if you you try to create something for everybody, you're for nobody. And so like we we think we have the right system.
00:49:57
cyberpunkmetalhead
Yeah.
00:49:59
Midnight
um But you know I think I look at the question mostly Mostly for Web3, when people are looking at you know what comes next in next two, three, four, five years, ah there's a lot of guessing. I think we have a good things. But for us, I looked, you know what has been happening the previous five years? like What has been a stable foundation for games? And that's you know how we came up with the way games, because the way game companies have some of the cleanest balance sheets that you'll see in gaming. um The risk is is less.
00:50:31
Midnight
Um, now the, the chance for a hit is higher, right?
00:50:32
cyberpunkmetalhead
right right
00:50:34
Midnight
So like most of our gains will return one, two, three X, maybe five X. Uh, typically now maybe one in 30, we get a hit, right? She's your 10 X or more, maybe one in a hundred games. We get, you know, a power worlds or hell divers. That's a, you know, a blockbuster. Um, but we try to be very conservative because we want to be around for the long time. Like we're not just like going to launch a token, you know, the founders take a bunch of money and and leave. It's like. Uh, every one of our teams, like you can look at, um, two of the teams we work with, stainless games and way forward. Those companies are three decades old each, right? They've been making games for, uh, for a long time. And you ask the founders, I'm like, you know, why don't you sell your company? Why don't you retire? Like, well, what would I do? I'm just going to make another game company. Like I have, you know, all these people here.
00:51:15
cyberpunkmetalhead
very bad Yeah, very good point.
00:51:17
Midnight
Yeah.
00:51:18
cyberpunkmetalhead
um So if yeah you're you're saying that there's AA games have a much cleaner balance sheet compared to triple A's and that's obviously because there's not that amount of budget that goes behind. So the the risk tends to be lower. um But then that also means that it takes less pressure. It takes some pressure off you guys from having to over promise and, you know, create demos that are maybe not accurate.
00:51:43
Midnight
That's exactly right.
00:51:45
cyberpunkmetalhead
And I guess has happened before. And it it's only happened because of the pressure that the studio felt at the time to get those people in the game.
Flexibility of AA Games
00:51:55
cyberpunkmetalhead
And then the people try the game and go like, Oh, well, I want my money back.
00:51:58
Midnight
That's right. Yeah. You got that, what, two hour rule on steam and there's quite, quite a lot of it. Yeah.
00:52:04
cyberpunkmetalhead
Yeah.
00:52:04
Midnight
So I think exactly right there. I mean, obviously there's pressure from our teams because we want the game to be good. Um, but we don't have to spend three years making it heads down. Most of our games are six to 18 months and the game is out the door and.
00:52:16
cyberpunkmetalhead
Okay.
00:52:17
Midnight
ah people enjoy it. But that's, you know, we have a clever way of doing it. Like I mentioned, we go to certain studios that have experience in certain genres.
00:52:22
cyberpunkmetalhead
Right.
00:52:25
Midnight
ah But I think that's a smart way to do it. And, you know, which we're like with new AI and new tools, it's gonna be quicker. um So, you know, we might have a five man team knocking out a game every six months. And that would be super cool.
00:52:36
cyberpunkmetalhead
Right.
00:52:37
Midnight
Um, we want to avoid like the hyper casual games.
00:52:39
cyberpunkmetalhead
Hmm.
00:52:40
Midnight
Like we still want our games to be, have an immersive feel, right? There's, there's a couple of double games I've been playing. I just, I beat, um, nobody saves the world out of a company in Toronto, Canada. I think 16 8 12
00:52:50
cyberpunkmetalhead
and Okay.
Variety and Partnerships in Game Development
00:52:52
Midnight
a.m.
00:52:52
Midnight
games, 16 a.m. games. I can't remember the name, ah but it's like this one little game. You couldn't even play it full screen because it didn't look right. Uh, but it was like, it it was, it was, it was clever. It was fun. It was, you know, it was kind of a 2d game and just really enjoyed it. I put. maybe 22 hours into it for 16 bucks. that was I felt pretty good about my money.
00:53:09
cyberpunkmetalhead
Okay.
00:53:11
Midnight
And so like's that's the idea. you know mean You think fun little things.
00:53:16
cyberpunkmetalhead
So then in terms of the way they look and the way they play and the way they ah and what they offer, um are you talking mainly 2D games or 3D or a bit of both? Will they have voice acting, et cetera, et cetera?
00:53:26
Midnight
Oh, we're where're we're Yeah, so all games are different. So there might be some 2D games. We might have a chess game, but like here's an FPS game that's fully 3D.
00:53:38
Midnight
ah you It's funny you mentioned voice acting because we're talking to a well-known American fast food franchise that has a well-known actor as their announcer. And so we're talking about making an FPS game with this fast food franchise with that actor.
00:53:49
cyberpunkmetalhead
Right.
00:53:52
Midnight
And so, ah yeah, some games will have larger budgets. Some games will be ah you know ah look a little more modern. I think a lot of people will say like, oh, it's a triple A game.
00:53:59
cyberpunkmetalhead
Right.
00:54:03
Midnight
But people don't really have a definition what triple way actually is. like I can make a game look graphically fun. What makes triple way, triple way is that you've spent more than $60 million dollars on development. And so like I can have a game that looks like a $60 million dollars game, but like it's only two hours because I can't i can afford ah to make a 12 to 20 hour game um at looking at that level.
00:54:13
cyberpunkmetalhead
Yeah.
00:54:23
cyberpunkmetalhead
Oh, yeah.
00:54:23
Midnight
And so, yeah.
00:54:23
cyberpunkmetalhead
Yeah. There's, um, not sure if you've played, if it's your cup of tea, but lies of P, um, is, is a good, is a great example of that.
00:54:31
Midnight
I've heard of this one.
00:54:33
cyberpunkmetalhead
It's a soul's like that's also, it's using kinds of ah bloodborne aesthetics.
00:54:35
Midnight
Yeah.
00:54:38
cyberpunkmetalhead
It's like, um,
00:54:39
Midnight
I'm starting to see a trend in the games that you play.
00:54:43
cyberpunkmetalhead
yeah i do I do like those punishing games. I do enjoy them. I've i've played probably every decent souls like there is out there.
00:54:51
Midnight
Yeah.
00:54:52
cyberpunkmetalhead
ah But the cool thing about Lies of Peace is that um it's this studio's first game and they're an indie studio and it looks and it feels and it plays like a triple A. And this just goes to show that you all you need is a relatively small but passionate team to create a high quality game.
00:55:12
Midnight
That's exactly right. Yeah, I'm looking at the videos now. It looks good.
00:55:19
cyberpunkmetalhead
very Yeah, it's very good.
00:55:20
Midnight
Yeah.
00:55:20
cyberpunkmetalhead
it's i was i wasn't I wasn't aware that it's ah it's a AAA game only after I finished that it. AAA, an indie an inie game, and the first first game that the studio ever made.
00:55:28
Midnight
Yeah.
00:55:30
cyberpunkmetalhead
um Yeah, mind-blowing. And with i'm I'm sure that with AI, like you mentioned, you're going to have more opportunities to streamline. You're saying by voice acting, yet you could you could pay the actor to come on into the voice, but you could maybe license the voice and then just use AI to say the lines over and over, save yourself you know additional costs from there.
00:55:46
Midnight
yeah
Role of AI in Game Development
00:55:50
Midnight
Yeah. Some actors are OK with that. Some aren't. You just have to make the the right ones. like I think ah Bruce Willis, is he's very on board. If you want to license Bruce Willis's voice or or likeness, I think he's 100%. But then you have others who are like, don't don't touch it.
00:56:02
cyberpunkmetalhead
That's very cool.
00:56:03
Midnight
So like ah I'll take Bruce Willis all day.
00:56:06
cyberpunkmetalhead
Oh yeah, yeah. Or or we if you have Scarlett Johansson in her and OpenAI going like, I saw it and I couldn't believe it.
00:56:10
Midnight
Oh, did you see that?
00:56:14
cyberpunkmetalhead
Like, could we could we use your voice?
00:56:14
Midnight
Yeah.
00:56:15
cyberpunkmetalhead
No. All right, we're going to use it anyway.
00:56:16
Midnight
Yeah.
00:56:17
cyberpunkmetalhead
but
00:56:18
Midnight
Yeah. Yeah.
00:56:20
cyberpunkmetalhead
there's
00:56:20
Midnight
That's that was wild.
00:56:23
cyberpunkmetalhead
There's so much in AI that right now just is not is not regulated. And I feel like it's kind of already too late for any pertinent regulation to take place in AI because the the big companies that have already are backed up by Microsoft like OpenAI or or Google, they've already scraped everything they could scrape.
00:56:36
Midnight
Yeah.
00:56:39
cyberpunkmetalhead
Like from this point onwards, everything that's going to happen is you're just going to have barriers for any it new entrance in the business, which is just going to further solidify the position of these two or three AI giants.
00:56:40
Midnight
Right.
00:56:51
cyberpunkmetalhead
And I'm not sure I like that.
00:56:51
Midnight
Yeah. Oh, it's I mean, I'm looking forward to the day when I just own a bunker in a farm somewhere in the middle of nowhere, and I ah cast off all technology. But for now, I'm going to keep playing games and making games. But the the world the world is getting, like, if if you step back, if I step back from gaming, it's it it's troubling out there.
00:57:07
cyberpunkmetalhead
That's fair. that's fair
00:57:13
Midnight
I don't have the answers for how to fix the world, but I can i can fix some digital economies.
00:57:18
cyberpunkmetalhead
Yeah. Or you can just fix, like you said, your, the the reality around you, you know, just, just going somewhere in farmland.
00:57:22
Midnight
Yeah, exactly. Right.
00:57:24
cyberpunkmetalhead
What are you thinking? Arizona. That's right.
00:57:26
Midnight
there I actually have friends who moved to Arizona. No, I need, I need some greenery. Um, you know, somewhere where there's some trees.
00:57:31
cyberpunkmetalhead
Right.
00:57:34
Midnight
Uh, I don't know. When I figured out, I'll let you know.
00:57:39
cyberpunkmetalhead
Sweet. Yeah, same same here.
00:57:41
Midnight
Yeah.
00:57:41
cyberpunkmetalhead
I do i do like that. um so I listen to Tool and I ah follow the the the lead singer and I know that he's got a um ah a vineyard and a ranch in Arizona. And it's always really funny to me every time I think of that because out of all places, he's chosen to open a vineyard in Arizona where there's no rain at all.
00:57:53
Midnight
Okay.
00:57:58
Midnight
Yeah. I'm trying to think like that's it the cost of water has got to be.
00:58:04
cyberpunkmetalhead
Oh, it's got to be insane. Yeah.
00:58:06
Midnight
Yeah.
00:58:07
cyberpunkmetalhead
Yeah. But apparently grapes grow, um ah they yeah they produce more sugar content if they struggle. So if they're just at the point of just, if you don't water them enough, if they're being underwatered, apparently that maybe it's a strategy. Maybe the wine is just better.
00:58:21
Midnight
Okay.
00:58:22
cyberpunkmetalhead
I've never had wine from Arizona though, so I can't speak.
00:58:22
Midnight
I didn't know that. Yeah, go I'm going to say, I'm going to call it lead singer one.
00:58:29
cyberpunkmetalhead
Yeah, a Maynard, Maynard Vineyard.
00:58:29
Midnight
Okay.
00:58:32
Midnight
There it is.
00:58:32
cyberpunkmetalhead
I'm sure there there there must be in some supermarkets.
00:58:33
Midnight
Yeah. Maynard James Kenyon. It does had a catasys sellers.
00:58:36
cyberpunkmetalhead
Yeah.
00:58:40
cyberpunkmetalhead
Okay.
00:58:40
Midnight
All right. Jerome, Arizona. there There it is. All right. I will, uh, I'll pick that up for the weekend.
00:58:46
cyberpunkmetalhead
Just nice. um So apparently it takes seven years for a vineyard to break even.
00:58:48
Midnight
Oh, no way.
00:58:52
cyberpunkmetalhead
Yeah, it's three, four years.
00:58:53
Midnight
That's longer than a game.
00:58:55
cyberpunkmetalhead
It's longer than a game. I was just thinking that. Yeah. Because it takes how how long does it take Rockstar to build a new Grand Theft? It's like six, seven years big games.
00:59:01
Midnight
Oh, the big games. Yeah. Well, I mean, some of those guys like Bethesda, right, like the new Fallout, the new Elder Scrolls, there's like 10 year release schedules.
00:59:04
cyberpunkmetalhead
yeah
00:59:12
Midnight
ah So like yeah, it could take a while.
00:59:13
cyberpunkmetalhead
Yeah.
00:59:14
Midnight
But you know with Rockstar, they get to milk that game for 10
Financial Success of Major Game Developers
00:59:18
Midnight
years after the fact. I think can Theft Auto 6 has like grossed more money than any other game in history or something ridiculous. like it's you know they They're doing all right.
00:59:27
cyberpunkmetalhead
Oh, yeah.
00:59:28
Midnight
I don't i don't feel bad for them.
00:59:29
cyberpunkmetalhead
i and I don't feel bad for that. Did you know that they they're kind of have a foot in in Web 3? I was talking to the co-founder for Horizon do.io. I'm not sure if you're familiar with but them.
00:59:41
Midnight
That sounds vaguely familiar.
00:59:43
cyberpunkmetalhead
they they They're in Web 3 gaming. they've they have um but They've developed one game, but they also created a sequence engine, which is supposed to help game developers
00:59:47
Midnight
Oh yeah, I've seen this logo.
00:59:55
cyberpunkmetalhead
access and use Web3 data seamlessly. And it also integrates with ah Unity and other game engines. So that's their thing. And in their funding round, one of the, yeah, take two.
01:00:04
Midnight
Yeah, greatness to investors.
01:00:07
cyberpunkmetalhead
and So the take two's there, which means Rockstar's probably kind of interested in Web3, which is really cool to
01:00:09
Midnight
Yeah.
Seamless Integration of Web3 Technology
01:00:13
cyberpunkmetalhead
see.
01:00:14
cyberpunkmetalhead
I'm not sure if we're going to have cryptocurrency or NFTs in GTA 6, but you know, it might just happen in a future update.
01:00:14
Midnight
Yeah.
01:00:22
Midnight
Yeah. Well, what I like about web through right now is like everything's kind of hidden, right? People don't have to worry about their wallets. People don't have to worry about like what chain a game is running on. It's just happening. And I think that's, you know, to your, early liquidquo I think that's gonna be the future.
01:00:31
cyberpunkmetalhead
Yeah.
01:00:34
Midnight
It's gonna happen and people might not know it's happening, but it's it's there.
01:00:38
cyberpunkmetalhead
Yeah. I feel like that's when, you know, this industry is mature enough is when you don't have to deal with all the complexities, you know, whether you think gaming or whether you think, you know, defy or trading or just interacting with a certain project. Like right now, it it just feels like a really. Like if I didn't know anything about blockchain and cryptocurrency and I went into the space today, I wouldn't know where to start. Like, okay, maybe I'm going to start Ethereum or Solana or any of the other hundreds of chains that are available for me to just, you know, go down a rabbit hole.
01:01:06
Midnight
Yeah.
01:01:14
Midnight
Yeah.
01:01:14
cyberpunkmetalhead
And it's a deep rabbit hole because they all, there's no standardization. Some use, you know, Ethereum uses Solidity to code smart contracts, but then Polkadot uses Rust and then some use JavaScript and it just,
01:01:27
Midnight
And then you have SWE and Aptos, they're on move, right? And that's a, yeah.
01:01:31
cyberpunkmetalhead
Yeah.
01:01:32
Midnight
So like, yeah, it's very complicated. You want to remove those barriers definitely for end users.
Upcoming Companions App and Announcements
01:01:40
cyberpunkmetalhead
Yeah. A hundred percent. Um, so what are your guys plans then, um, for this year and for next year?
01:01:47
Midnight
Yeah, so this year we'll complete the next version of the the the companion app. um So that's hopefully will be finished by December. there's Every two weeks there's a new patch. So like we're just adding new features, refining. um We have two games. They should release end of the year. um My current goal is like end of November.
01:02:06
cyberpunkmetalhead
nice
01:02:08
Midnight
And then we're going to do our token launch this fall.
01:02:10
cyberpunkmetalhead
Nice.
01:02:13
Midnight
And so yeah, some three three large milestones. We're also going to announce some larger games we're working with, some larger partnerships that we're working with. And so I think you know there's there should be a lot more news coming, maybe end of summer, maybe towards August.
01:02:21
cyberpunkmetalhead
Nice.
01:02:26
Midnight
We'll be announcing a lot more stuff.
01:02:27
cyberpunkmetalhead
Oh, sounds exciting. Is there an airdrop?
01:02:30
Midnight
ah There probably will be.
01:02:33
cyberpunkmetalhead
Okay, that's cool.
01:02:34
Midnight
Yeah.
01:02:35
cyberpunkmetalhead
And if people want to get involved and try the games and claim the airdrop and all that, what are the the main socials and and where they can follow you?
01:02:43
Midnight
Yeah, the best way to follow us now is Play Evergreen on Twitter, and you can join our Discord as well. I think we've got um close to 30,000 people in in Discord now, so it's popping in there. I like that. ah Twitter is growing. you know I didn't have a Twitter two months ago, and then everyone's like, oh, we have to get on Twitter. And so like I'd have a personal Twitter in the company Twitter. was you know where I think we're at... Over 200,000 people in two months? That feels like a good number.
01:03:07
cyberpunkmetalhead
Oh, wow. That's a great number.
01:03:08
Midnight
um Yeah.
01:03:09
cyberpunkmetalhead
It's a fantastic number.
01:03:11
Midnight
Yeah, so it's it's it's it's all moving. People seem to be ah digging what we're putting down.
01:03:16
cyberpunkmetalhead
Yeah, well, it feels like it's a testament right that people feel like you you guys are doing the right thing and you're you're building the right tools and the right games have the right vision. um And it's it's great to have that social proof for sure.
01:03:27
Midnight
Yeah, I think it definitely makes the team feel better. like if people People care about what we're doing.
01:03:31
cyberpunkmetalhead
Yeah, 100%.
01:03:35
cyberpunkmetalhead
It's very reassuring. um And I will definitely keep an eye out on on any games releasing. um If there's a beta that I can apply to, just let me know and I'll i'll definitely test some stuff.
01:03:44
Midnight
Yeah, yeah. We'll we'll get you in. We'll get you into the next beta.
01:03:47
cyberpunkmetalhead
Nice. Awesome.
01:03:48
Midnight
Yeah. I'll make sure we have some vampires and then.
01:03:48
cyberpunkmetalhead
um
01:03:52
cyberpunkmetalhead
Vampires or Vikings? And and I'm there the whole day.
01:03:54
Midnight
Vampires. Oh, I feel like there's an opportunity for a vampire Viking game.
01:03:59
cyberpunkmetalhead
I feel that's an untapped market.
01:04:01
Midnight
Yeah. Okay. I'm going to look into, I'm going back to the team right now.
01:04:02
cyberpunkmetalhead
feel undead vampire Vikings, 100%.
01:04:06
Midnight
Yeah. Sounds good.
01:04:09
cyberpunkmetalhead
Well, listen, this has been fantastic. And thanks for coming on and and talking about Midnight. um It's genuinely, it's an exciting project. And he's done some, he's doing some unique things that I haven't seen in gaming or Web 3. And yeah, i'll keep an eye i keep I'll keep an eye on it. And I wish you guys all the best. And you're always welcome to come on in a few months time or next year, and just to kind of check in on the progress, see where you guys are at, what games you've developed and released in the meantime.
01:04:36
Midnight
Oh, that'd be great. Thanks for the invite. Yeah, love to have an update.
01:04:40
cyberpunkmetalhead
Awesome. ah Well, thanks again, and have a lovely rest of your day.
01:04:45
Midnight
Likewise, cheers.
01:04:46
cyberpunkmetalhead
Cheers. Bye, everyone.