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CityVerse Tycoon: How Tomer Pascal is Bringing Real-World Assets into the Gaming World
45 Plays1 month ago
Greg chats with Tomer Pascal, the co-founder and CEO of Own Play, about their innovative project, CityVerse Tycoon. This episode dives into the integration of Web3 technology in gaming, the challenges of using blockchain and NFTs, and how CityVerse Tycoon offers a seamless gaming experience for both Web3 enthusiasts and casual players alike. Tomer also shares insights into the use of Progressive Web Apps (PWA), real-world assets in gaming, and the importance of community engagement in game development.
Listen Here: Exploring Web3 Gaming with Tomer Pascal
Timestamps & Key Takeaways:
- 03:18.22 - 05:27.34: Simplifying Web3 for Players Tomer discusses how CityVerse Tycoon integrates blockchain and NFTs seamlessly into the gameplay, making it accessible even for players unfamiliar with Web3 technology.
- 08:34.56 - 10:15.29: The Power of Progressive Web Apps (PWA)A deep dive into why the team chose a PWA over a traditional mobile app, focusing on accessibility and avoiding app store limitations.
- 12:41.68 - 14:09.52: Real-World Assets in CityVerse Tycoon Tomer explains how players can buy, trade, and improve real-world assets like buildings in Manhattan, adding a financial strategy element to the game.
- 16:30.44 - 18:07.91: Community Engagement and Feedback Tomer highlights the importance of engaging with the player community through platforms like Discord and the role of player feedback in shaping the game’s development.
- 21:22.31 - 22:58.44: Balancing Web2 and Web3 Challenges A discussion on the complexities of integrating Web2 and Web3 elements, and the challenges of running two startups simultaneously.
Transcript
00:00:00
Speaker
Greg here from the Player Engaged Podcast. Here's what you're about to hear in today's episode. We're going to talk to Tomer Pascal from City vs. Tycoon. We're going to talk about how City vs. Tycoon is making Web3 games accessible for everyone, even if you don't know a thing about crypto or Web3.
00:00:15
Speaker
the unique power of progressive web apps or PWA and how they change the game by avoiding app store restrictions and how you can actually buy and trade real world assets like Manhattan buildings all from within the game. So stick around, take a listen. You're not going to want to miss this.
00:00:39
Speaker
Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Player Engage podcast. Greg here. Today, we are joined by Tomer Pascal. He is the co-founder and CEO of Omplay, and they are building a new Web3 game called Cityverse Tycoon. They do a lot of cool things in their game itself, which is a little different than the things I've seen before in Web3 games, and I'm ready and excited to kind of get into that with Tomer. But before I get too deep into it, Tomer, thank you so much for joining me today. Is there anything you want to say about yourself?
00:01:07
Speaker
ah First, thank you for having me. Exciting. Tomer, 45 years old, ah father of four girls. um That would be my third startup company as a founder. um But I also have background is a as an executive in two publicly traded companies. um That's it.
00:01:32
Speaker
That's, I think the most important question we want to get off today is Tomer just got back from the errors tour with his four daughters. Are you now the biggest Taylor fan out there? No, definitely. I'm a, I'm a Swiftie. Uh, definitely. Um, it was all a whole kind of like, and, uh, uh, the true motivation, it was for me to see her show and my girls or gigs kids for that, you know? Um, but yeah, it was ah amazing to see their.
00:02:02
Speaker
uh, them being so happy, uh, of seeing her. And, uh, that's awesome. Right. You know what? that You did exactly what what a good father needs to know. You'll be forever in the depths of your daughters until they decide on who their next icon is going to be. definite Um, I'm excited to learn and talk to you more about city versus tycoon. and When we had our pre-call, you're doing some cool things in there with kind of the currency aspect, which I want to get into a little later today on the podcast, but can you kind of give our, our audience and idea of what type of game is City vs. Tycoon? um What was the the kind of idea behind it? and Yeah, so City vs. Tycoon is, is um I would say, is a monopoly-like or type of game, mobile game designed for mobile first, um with the twist that it's based on real-world assets.
00:02:57
Speaker
um where these assets, which we call buildings, are ah each is an and a asset or an NFT. ah and um And by that way, right, it kind of like add an extra kind of like cool financial layer to this type of game of kind of like owning real buildings, trading them, um um and hustling your way into dominance in the game.
00:03:25
Speaker
um If kind of like for the more advanced type of audiences, kind of like members ah members of the audience here, I would say, um think about a MonopolyGo or CoinMaster or all of these types of Web2 games, but with the aspect where you can actually trade the assets for real money with other players and collect their earning mechanisms in the game, um all based on crypto in this sense.
00:03:55
Speaker
So, and to kind of set level set with people, do you need to be involved in the crypto web three side of the platform if you want, if you don't want to be? Um, no, no. Um, and, and kind of, so the short, the, the, the TLDR answer is no, but a deeper answer here is the following collect, uh,
00:04:21
Speaker
The web tree elements, they are the enablers of our vision. Our vision, in this case, is kind like adding this extra layer of excitement of, oh my god, kind of like I can actually um own this asset and kind like maybe make some money out of it, um um and all of the the excitement around that.
00:04:45
Speaker
Crypto is an enabler for us of doing that Some people in the audience would ask why not doing it fiat based To be honest, it's just a freaking pain in the ass. That's why doing this in with fiat the Fiat payment systems or service providers. They don't really like trading in between individuals at all um they usually put a lot of additional burden which is directly translated into major costs of running this.
00:05:19
Speaker
um And um crypto in this sense, solve for that. The blockchain platform enables kind of like one to trade with each other without any intermediators in between them. And it makes it way more easier.
00:05:37
Speaker
Having said that, where it becomes more challenging is that if you want to appeal to what we would be calling an normies, right, or web to audience, where you don't want to have this pre-requirement of them having crypto, whether it's USDC or ETH or whatever, and having an unknown custodial wallet, which I assume that part of your audience is kind of like, um is freaking out of me even just mentioning it right now. ah That's where we needed to have an extra layer of investment where we wanted to support Fiat in the form of Apple Pay or Google Pay and make it super easy for a normie just to come in and purchase this asset, whether he or she are purchasing it from us or from a different player by basically using Fiat from their point of view.
00:06:32
Speaker
And all of the magic of converting this fiat into crypto, moving the NFTs from one wallet to the other, all of this is happening in the background seamlessly. So that's ah that's just the longer version of your question of kind of like, does one need to be involved in crypto? No. And the reason is that we're doing all of this behind the scenes.
00:06:54
Speaker
I find this interesting. so So just to confirm what you said, so trading fiat, aka US s dollar, euro, whatever you have, right? If we're both in a game and I just wanted to trade you something and basically pay you for an asset, people or wallets don't like that. They they don't want money, I guess, going from one wallet to another. So the way you solve for that is that you, I can come in, i can I'm a Google user, i I can use Google Pay to to buy into Citi vs. Tycoon, but then that becomes that crypto. crypto. No one needs to know that, right? It's just an in-game currency that's for Citiverse Tycoon. I can go through, trade it. Maybe I buy a property and I grow that property to 10x the value that I bought it at, and then I can sell it for Citiverse Tycoon crypto. I keep saying crypto with quotes for people that aren't watching the video here. right It's just the Citiverse Tycoon currency. And then i can I can cash out with my Google Pay wallet.
00:07:50
Speaker
Um, no, it's even simpler than that. There is, you're mentioning right now, you're an extra step of conversion that it's not really required. So maybe let's talk about a funnel or a flow here. You're a regular player that, um, uh, got to notice us through Facebook advertising, clicked on the ad, went to install our PWA. We'll touch upon this in a second.
00:08:18
Speaker
started playing the game for free. You're a renter in this game at this stage. So in other words, you're playing with a building that is owned by a different player in the game. And you will be paying rent out of your in-game earnings.
00:08:35
Speaker
But it's free. You're playing it. Behind the scenes, what happened when you signed up to the game is that we created a non-custodial wallet for you. okay For the listeners, a non-custodial wallet basically means that this is a wallet that is owned by you. Only you have access to this wallet. So us as game operators, we literally can't have access to funds inside this wallet. It's a crypto wallet that you have in the game. We created it for you. You sign up for this, kind like you you can access this crypto wallet either using your email and OTP or ah using your biometrics. um And you can also export
00:09:18
Speaker
all of the private keys of this wallet and access it outside of the game. So if we go under or we try to censorship you, whatever it might be, you still have access to your funds. You can move them and and do whatever. that That's a true meaning of a non-custodial wallet. So in other words, we are not the custodians of your funds in no way type or shape or form.
00:09:45
Speaker
um But at this point, you have zero there, right? And now, for whatever reason, you want to purchase a certain building um in our in-game marketplace. And that building is the asking price for it is $200. So you have a few options, different ways of paying it to this. um If you're a more advanced user, um you can literally ah send crypto funds from your external wallets into your in-game wallet. So let's say you can send 200 USDC stablecoins into your in-game wallet and go on and purchase this building in the worth of $200 using crypto. The seller will be paid with USDC that you just kind of like paid with. And the building will move to your in-game wallet. But that's a more advanced way. That's for the initiated.
00:10:43
Speaker
For the non-initiated, which is kind of like what you're curious to know, um you've seen the price the asking price to be $200. You click on it. And you have an option there of using your credit card. And the default would be either Apple Pay or Google Pay, depending whether you're an iOS or Android user. Let's assume that you're an iOS user. And you're willing to pay these $200. You just tap on your.
00:11:12
Speaker
um Apple Pay and the payment went off. Behind the scenes, what's actually happening is that these $200 US fiat dollars were taken away from your credit card, moved to our provider. And then, $200 USDC were sent from the provider to the seller's wallet.
00:11:41
Speaker
through ah through a smart contract and the building moved from the seller's wallet to your in-game wallet. That's it. You, as a normie, you have no idea that you just conducted an off-chain transaction to an on-chain transaction. You just know that it cost you $200 fiat and that you have a building in the game.
00:12:06
Speaker
What I really like about this whole concept, and and I'm not 100% sold on on Web 3 yet, and it's getting much, much more realistic as I'm seeing it and hearing it, especially the way you're describing it. I know for people listening, it sounds like we've really complicated this conversation, but we haven't. What I love is, like,
00:12:25
Speaker
You just play the game. You don't have to worry about your currency. right If I want to do something, right me is my normie. right I'm just, all right, I'm going to spend $20 in game using my Google Pay. right That's what it is. We are overcomplicating this because I'm asking about the back end of it. But like what I've always loved and I always heard is that the technology is going to thrive when we don't have to get into details and the nitty gritty and all that. And you and I are doing that for the sake of this podcast. But when you're playing the game,
00:12:52
Speaker
You don't have to worry about that. All you got to do is play the game. And when you're ready to make a purchase, make a purchase. If I don't have crypto, fine. I just use my normal stuff. Maybe I have doge coins that I have no idea what to do with. Great opportunity to start using that and converting that to something like that. So I love how this is basically a transparent way for me to be able to start using ah Web three apps without having to kind of bend over backwards to onboard and worry about all that stuff. um Exactly.
00:13:22
Speaker
We are not mentioning the the word crypto, NFT, web tree, non-custodial wallet, blockchain is not mentioned anywhere in our website, um in in the game, um and in our marketing materials for the web to audiences at all. It's an enabler. The main goal here is to have fun with a game that has tradable assets.
00:13:51
Speaker
Um, crypto is the enabler of it is not a goal. I love it. And I think that's the way to go about it. And I think you guys are on the right path. So you've launched the game. It's been live for about a little over a month now, right? ah I guess a couple of questions I have so far is, one, when you launch a game, right are there specific KPIs you're starting to take a look at, things that you're monitoring? Are there these first few weeks insights that you're starting to get from your community that you're you able to share with us? Yes.
00:14:24
Speaker
um ah A lot of it will be obvious to your audience here, right? Because there is no difference between a Web 2 game or a Web 3 in these matters. We're looking for engagement. So day 1 retention, day 7 retention, day 2 retention, ah conversion rates to paying members, members obviously. Other KPIs, if we're looking, they're in more nitty-gritty details are, in our case, um ah average amount of dice rolls per session, upgrades of buildings,
00:14:57
Speaker
buildings purchased. All of these are things that we're tracking since day one or minus day one. um um But what I'll add that is less obvious um like to the web two um listeners here is that the web tree side of the business brings an entire set of KPIs of its own. um the The web tree side of of the business kind of like, kind of like is, um has its own set of metrics in terms of kind of like community engagement, trading of our assets, ah and and things of that like that kind of like we are tracking as well. um um And I would just say that the community aspect of web in Webtree is
00:15:53
Speaker
is way more crucial than the community aspect on the Web2 comparable. um so So in this sense, it's kind of a pain in the ass running a company like ours, um because that as a founder, I can say that a lot of the times I feel like I'm running two startups at at once. um and and and And yes, that that can explain a lot in terms of kind of like why some other incubants choose to focus only on the web tree side of things. It's because that trying to do what we're doing, to be totally blunt and honest, in the last two years, it feels that I'm running two companies at once. And trying to kind of like forge all of it into one unified experience UI and game economy
00:16:50
Speaker
ah kind of like make it make it very, very challenging um ah in this sense. So that's what we're tracking. um And also we're tracking also just general feedback that we're getting in our Discord from people directly, kind of like telling us, hey, dude, this is painful. um So four weeks in, I would say that kind of like general metrics are
00:17:21
Speaker
are good. um Day one retention is 0.35% to 40%. Not stable. Some days, it goes down to 25%. And it's hard for us still to gauge why. um But most of the time, it's at 30%, 35%, 40%. I'm talking about the US side of the business ah when we look about it globally. um The numbers are still the same, but some other metrics are more favorable globally versus the US or vice versa. um um ah Day seven is in between 10 to 15.
00:18:02
Speaker
um um And that that that kind of like correlates our expectations because we know that we still have some things to work on that. ah Conversion rates for first time payments are above 1% from install.
00:18:18
Speaker
um So that's that's kind of like month one, ended up with this type of numbers. um um We still didn't open up the speed box to go you know full crazy in in the scaling of the marketing at all. We're talking still about um between hundreds to thousands of ins installs per day that we're generating. um that That's where we are at. In terms of feedback that we're getting about the game, so All in all, very positive.
00:18:49
Speaker
um not kind of i couldn There aren't many, many games on WebTree that managed to actually launch the game. um Part of it is because a lot of the other increments try to go after the triple A type of games, which is can be a five to 10 years development. um And while others took kind like a more web tree native approach. So these are games that are very, very web tree native and are not appealing to the mass audiences. So one kind of like there aren't many other alternatives to try to do what we've been doing. Um, so people are very, um, kind of like excited. They like the idea of playing ah a monopoly like game based on real world assets, uh, starting with Manhattan. Um, and, and, and we see it kind of like, we see kind of like
00:19:44
Speaker
We see them kind of like buying buildings and buying other tradable assets that we have, and that's cool. um We also saw some cool stories of WebTube people coming in, purchase playing the game as renters, being sick and tired of sharing their earnings with a landlord, um opting in into purchasing their first building, improving it, listing it in the marketplace, and selling it.
00:20:14
Speaker
um All of the ones that managed to sell their building kind of like took the money and reinvested it in the game by purchasing a new asset, which is cool as well. So all of these are the highlights and that's great. um In terms of feedback that we've been getting, kind of like and and we've been getting a lot of feedback and kind like we see it as a good sign that people care in many ways. The game is not fast enough.
00:20:41
Speaker
ah especially when you compare it to the Web2 comparables. And we knew it. We knew it before we launched it. um And and kind of during August, will will the game will undergo what we call a strict diet of of speeding up a lot of the actions in the game.
00:21:07
Speaker
um The core mechanic of the game is rolling dice and kind of getting actions. This is a tedious kind of like slow process that we made there. And it it's in these are iterations today of 10 to 20 seconds. And our goal is to kind of like shorten them to two seconds. Totally doable. um And that's what we're going to do in the next collect month. So every week, kind of like we're trimming some of the fat and releasing a version to the public.
00:21:36
Speaker
You said so much and that was so such great stuff. I mean, talking about these specific engagement rates, right, the day one, 37 retention rates and the percentages is fascinating to hear about, right? The average dice rolls, upgrade to building are things that I find fascinating that you're ah monitoring. And that's amazing, right? That's what you should be. And I didn't really realize that Web3 had specific KPIs, which makes sense. Obviously, the things are different. The the metrics are different there.
00:22:01
Speaker
um community we hear a lot about, right? Because they're doing UGC, they're kind of building it, they're kind of making things their own, they're trading it, ah which is important. But I love you youve mentioned feedback, right? And I agree with you, you're getting feedback, which means people are taking the time to play the game. And that's important, right? Because if people are playing the game, they'll give you that feedback.
00:22:21
Speaker
and And I appreciate you sharing kind of the the constructive criticism of that, right? Like game's not fast enough and you knew it, but it's great to be able to hear that. And now you have something to iterate on. And we try and stress that a lot with our audience as well as like get all and any feedback you can get, because some of it will be things that will help shape the roadmap and the next things you want to do. And some that you could put on the back burner, like Maybe it's not as important as certain things, but ah getting that feedback is great, and ah and it's awesome that you're doing it via Discord. um How does that process work? People are just in the channel, just dropping it in there, or you do have do you specifically ask specific members for that feedback? There are various ways of how we're collecting feedback. In Discord, we have a specific channel for it, so people can just put whatever feedback that they want, and we sort it.
00:23:09
Speaker
um We're conducting AMAs weekly AMAs that I'm leading almost weekly so people there they can send Whatever ask whatever and send whatever We have a certain discord channel that is only for the holders of our assets that so that gives us even more curated feedback and Believe it or not people are just reaching out to me through telegram or um or dm's in Twitter and asking and telling me stuff. It's a mix of all of these combined. All right, so about halfway through the podcast, I'd like to kind of do this like a fireball around, throw some quick questions at you. You good to go? Good to go. All right. If you are going to go to a bar, what is the drink you will order? Damn, beer. Beer. Simple. um What did you have for breakfast? Scrambled eggs.
00:24:10
Speaker
and, um, and oranges. What is your dream vacation and did you just do it? Um, well, I had it not, not lately, a year ago, uh, but it it will be involved in RV usually and my family and, um, you know, driving in the wild. So a year ago, we had a ah trip of three and a half weeks in Alaska, which, uh,
00:24:37
Speaker
It's just amazing. Yeah. Um, uh, yeah, that, that's the dream one for me. You're in Austin, right? Did you drive from? No, down there we took, we we, we, we took a flight kind of like to Anchorage, Alaska. We rented an RV there. Oh, cool. Yeah. Yeah. Driving from Austin there would be the next kind of like dream, but kind of like that's that I don't have the time. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. yeah But, uh,
00:25:05
Speaker
ah America in general and specifically Alaska, they were built for that stuff. It's just amazing. Yeah, highly recommended to anyone that can that like the outdoors and want to do it. Highly, highly recommended. What is the last game you played?
00:25:25
Speaker
um Zelda ah in my Nintendo Switch with my daughters still still in minute managed to finish that game.
00:25:35
Speaker
But it's an amazing game. Last question is, what is the last show you binge watched? ah Damn, so many. um um House of Dragons, I would assume. Yeah, that that would be the last one. Very disappointing ending.
00:25:54
Speaker
Yeah, it's a great season. um Perfect. You're off the hot seat. Thank you. um I'm curious on your background, right? Because you you said you were part of ah two public companies. You did a lot. But looking at your background, there's not much that has gaming related to it. um How did you find your way into co-founding a gaming company? Well, my first startup company, which was damn almost 20 years ago,
00:26:22
Speaker
um was a fantasy sports game that me and my co-founder back then came up with ah with a certain twist into it, which was that if you wanted to have, say, LeBron James in york and your squad, you needed to purchase at least one stock of LeBron James with real money, and it's a tradable asset as well. So you could sell it to other players in the game as well.
00:26:48
Speaker
And we're talking way before mobile and way before any idea of crypto. And so my first startup company was a game. ah um And I've been the highly involved through the different endeavors that they had in either promoting games through the the um customer acquisition side or other type of investments through one of the publicly traded companies that I worked at. um so So that generally all of the years I was very close to the sub to the matter. Um, but my co-founder, um, Boas, so he and I met at one of these publicly traded companies 15, 16 years ago. And, um, we stayed close friends since then. He ditched me early on, uh, to back then, a very small company in its early days called Playtica.
00:27:45
Speaker
And, um, he became their first, I think, VP of product and later on on GM there and, um, kinda like post their IPO and post my IPO in in my last company. Uh, the two of us ended out our vesting period and kinda like we were looking to do the next thing. And that's, that's how we got eventually into web tree gaming and kinda like, okay, let's, let's build a game together.
00:28:12
Speaker
So that's kind of like my history of how I got to this point. I love it. So so you decide to, I love how it starts with a fantasy trading app where where, not app, just game, where where you buy a purchase, where you where you purchase real things that you've gone full circle here. um Now with Cityverse Tycoon, it's a progressive web app, PWA. Can you explain for our audience that may not know what that is? What why what is a PWA and why do you go that route?
00:28:41
Speaker
Yeah, PWA is a framework that has been around for, gosh, I would say 12 years even, even more. um It was um initiated by the browser companies. So we're talking to here about Google, Microsoft, Opera, Mozilla, and Apple kind of like dragging their feet behind of kind of like adopting this as well. The the gist of it,
00:29:08
Speaker
is basically that if you develop a website in a certain way under certain kind of like conditions with certain manifest, um the OS and mainly the browser will know how to run this website as an app and not only in the context of the browser itself. So to be even more clear, say in an iOS device, um if a website was developed to be supportive of a p as a PWA, and the user will save it to the home screen. It will be saved on the home screen with an icon that is just like an icon of an app. And when one will tap on it, instead of ah of opening up Safari, the browser, with kind of like the UI of the browser, it will open it up full screen, which feels like an app, like a native app.
00:30:02
Speaker
um that' That's the gist of a PWA, of a Progressive Web App. oh Why this is relevant for us and why we've chosen to use it. um So based on our vision of that, this game needs to be a full support, a full web tree experience, right? So in other words, we want the user to be able to earn a token and use this token in order to purchase stuff inside the game.
00:30:29
Speaker
and want the user to be able to purchase and NFTs or buildings in our case and trade them. All of these elements um are not viewed um in the right way by the app stores, both in terms of their, I would say, journal philosophy and regulations, and and and even more importantly, based on their um um um I would say financial or monetization strategies to be more blunt and clear. If you want to monetize, if you want, the the app stores are very clear about that. As long as d az ah that the purchase is of a digital ah item, then you're required to use the monetization methods of the app stores. So in Apple's case, you need to use the in-app purchase system of Apple.
00:31:27
Speaker
um You're required. You cannot use any other alternative payment system. ah And obviously, that that they will take their cut of 30% from the trade in this point. um From our point of view, the 30% is not necessarily the showstopper here, but kind of like much more than that is just the kind of thing about all the flow that I explained before with crypto.
00:31:55
Speaker
All of this cannot happen with Apple or Google, just technically. Point aside to 30%. And that for us was a showstopper. But on the other hand, we wanted to have a game that is accessible in mobile. ah We don't want a game that is only can be played on desktop or on a desktop browser.
00:32:18
Speaker
Um, and that's how we got to the phase of kind of like, Oh my God. Kind of like, maybe we should use a PWA as a mean of bypassing the app stores. So that's how we got there. Yeah. I remember years ago, uh, the whole conversation that apps are going to die. We're going to go more towards PWA because you don't need the app store. Then you can just.
00:32:38
Speaker
have a native website do what you're doing. And it sounds like it's, for lack of better words, a way to get around the walled garden that both Google and Apple create and allows you more flexibility and freedom. Uh, and I imagine it scales better as well, right? Cause again, you can play on browse, you can play anywhere. Well, comes out with a bigger screen for us. Yes. It makes sense. Having said all of that, um, you won't believe how much kind of like the tech side of the business historically kind of the industry hate the idea of a PWA. Kind of like, um, the, I keep saying this, that kind of like for me, convincing, uh, VCs, uh, investing in us, despite us kind of like being in build a PWA was way, way, way easier than convincing my team of building on, uh, as a PWA. Um,
00:33:35
Speaker
Yeah, there are a lot of, um I would say there is certain dog kind of like ah dogma kind like type of thinking about mobile development. um I've been around before mobile, so I know that there were other alternatives in the past.
00:33:58
Speaker
um
00:34:00
Speaker
and And yeah, i would just I would just say the following, kind like if I would be knocking on the on on on the doors of, say, King dot.com, the creators of Candy Crash in 2012, twenty twelve we'll be telling them, hey, guys, why are you doing it in a native way? Let's go PWA.
00:34:23
Speaker
Rightfully, they would kick me out of their offices just telling me, dude, kind like life is so good. why why Why should we divert any resources to anything else? We're making money, we're getting the monetization, and we're getting the distribution. If I would go go back to them in 2017, I would think that their response would be exactly the same. Maybe they would be a little bit more open because of the fact of kind of like that maybe they're tired of paying the 30% to Apple.
00:34:51
Speaker
ah But still life is good. But I think it's kind of like if you knock on anyone's door post 2020, especially after the IDFA changes, all of the privacy stuff of Apple that literally fucked up, pardon my French, the customer acquisition side of business. um I think that on the business side, people will be way more kind of like ah open up to, okay, I need an alternative, but still the tech guy is there.
00:35:21
Speaker
It would be a hard conversation with them. Just imagine some of them has been working on these type of platforms and tech stack for over a decade. It's kind of like all of their career was built on kind of like developing on Unity and all of these other platforms suddenly going on a PWA route, which is kind of like HTML5. They hate it. They just freaking hate it. In my case, I needed to force my hand on our dev team.
00:35:52
Speaker
telling we're going, uh, shove it to their throat. That's how we we're going to do it. No, no other ways around because, uh, we have no future of going in the app store. Just know in our case. Does that also change your marketing strategy on how you have to get to market? Well, so back again, if it was in 2012, obviously it was a big change and same 2017. But I would just say that today, if some of the listeners are just believe that you are going to ah Build a web to native app, list it in the app store, and they're going to sit down and get traffic for free from Apple. ah yeah you're You're up to a harsh wake up call. ah um If you go to all of the publicly traded mobile kind of like gaming companies, their biggest line item of expense is customer acquisition or UA user acquisition.
00:36:50
Speaker
ah they're barely getting anything organically in the App Store. It's all paid on Facebook, TikTok, Meta, AdMob, Unity, and in Apple as well. um ah So to be honest, the changes are not so significant. In this sense, it's pretty much similar. Cool.
00:37:14
Speaker
Um, as the founder and CEO, can you tell me what skill set you kind of utilize the most of what you've learned over the years? Is it project management? Is it something else? Is it something else? Um, the ability to cry at night and then wake up in the morning with a full denial of the fact that I went up crying all night long. Uh, yeah, jokes aside, I would say.
00:37:43
Speaker
um Resilience is highly important as ah as a as a leader in an early, early stage startup company. um kind i I say that building up a startup company, again, I'm talking about early, early stages, right? It always it it feels like kind of like solving an escape room.
00:38:14
Speaker
But the difference is that you are not so sure that there is a result, that there there is ah a solution for it, right? There is always the question mark. And um our job is to have the right team um around us to help us figuring this out, mean quick in our feet. um and And I think it's more art than science, ah way more art than science in the sense of kind of like, how do you balance the fact of kind of like, um of of of having the mentality of um oh Plan B is making Plan A to work, right? um On one end of the of the spectrum, um not giving up, fighting, keep fighting on that. And and and and on the other end, being quick on your feet and pivoting and changing and, and you know, being opportunistic wherever you can be.
00:39:13
Speaker
um It's an art more than science, and I wish that I could say so give a you know um Tell someone how to do it. I'm not sure that I know how to do it so I i don't want to sit down here and kind of like tell you hey. Yeah, I have the the answer for that But I would say That that's a major one things that can help and I guess that they differ differ between different type of individuals is, in my case, I i would say that kind of like being a generalist helps. Kind of like being able to understand the tech side of things, the product side of things and the marketing side of things in a good enough way, right? To being be able to to really assess kind of like what the different people around me are telling me. um I think that it's a benefit.
00:40:12
Speaker
for sure. But again, I don't know how to tell anyone how to do it or how do you get it. I've been lucky that to that through my career, I've touched around many different parts of the different businesses that I can handle it, but it doesn't mean that that's the formula for it.
00:40:34
Speaker
I think you mentioned one of my favorite analogies now I've heard is that it's like you're solving an escape room that may not even have a true escape to it. ah And I think, you know, that's where resilience comes in, right? You got to just keep pushing, just keep pushing. it And you also just said, I like your background where like,
00:40:52
Speaker
You're a jack of all trades. You may not be an expert at any of them. But if marketing comes to you, starts to talk to you about marketing stuff, you have an idea of what's going on. Or same with development, or same with any other. like Again, understanding what's going on, you don't have to be the expert there. right But at least be on that same page and understand where they're going. I think it's fantastic. And and the last one that you said is that even though you're the CEO or co-founder, you don't know all the answers. And I feel like that as a parent. You used to look up to your parents like, oh, my parents know everything. And then you become a parent. you're like I don't know what I'm doing here, but but the kids don't understand that. So you said a lot there that really resonated. And and I love how you go about that. Yeah. um But but for sure, it's my decision, right? Like, i like there there's one thing that I can't escape from, is that we all can sit in the room and collect a lot of the decisions that we need to make. They are not. They're not like in the movies, right? kind of Like, so um it's
00:41:49
Speaker
You're always lacking data, um always, and and trying to get more data, by the way, is a lost cause by itself. ah Because going from 40% data to 45% is not literally going to change everything. yeah live kind of like we Our business is making decisions with imperfect data, information, by definition, phoenic um And sometimes we look at each other and kind of like literally we have no idea what's the best answer. And one thing that it's for sure is that it's my call to make the final one. And it's my responsibility.
00:42:27
Speaker
um and and And why it is like that? It just because it's the most efficient way of doing it. Kind of like you can't really make this type of decisions just based on voting. It's not really efficient way of doing that.
00:42:43
Speaker
Um, but we, we are, we're talking with everybody hearing all the inputs and then making the decisions. Um, I'm assuming that at least if you're at in an average day, I'm assuming that kind of like I'm getting it wrong by 80% of the cases. Uh, but the goal is that the 20% that I'm making it right, uh, compensate for all the 80% that I'm making mistakes.
00:43:08
Speaker
There you go. You just got to feel confident too, right? I mean, confidence goes a long way and lets your team get excited about things as well. Exactly. Exactly. Um, the mental part is important. I love it. Tomer. I think that's all I have for you today. Appreciate hearing all that stuff today. Uh, before we go today, Tomer, is there anything you want to share with our audience? Let us know where we can find you, how we can get the game, how we can do all that stuff. Yeah, definitely. It's a great time to join our game right now because it, uh,
00:43:37
Speaker
There are still many assets that are a gold good um um opportunities for people kind of like to to put their hands on. So there are a few ways that you can join us, either by browsing through our website, which is cityversedicune.com, and just um start playing the game, um or search for us on Twitter, cityversedicune.com.
00:44:04
Speaker
um and and start following us there, or myself, Tomer Pascal on Twitter as well. These are the best places that you can kind of like get and reach out to us, play the game. There's some cool stuff coming up in the upcoming weeks um that that kind of like would be awesome for you guys to ah participate and kind of like enjoy, including In the upcoming months, kind of like an additional city. Right now we're supporting only Manhattan, New York, but we're expanding ourselves to other new cities. So that's going to be cool.
00:44:40
Speaker
Very cool. And we'll make sure in their player-engaged blog to have URLs to CityVerse Tycoon to Tomer's Twitter as well as their CityVerse Tycoon Twitter. um Again, I appreciate you coming out today. This was a really cool thing and I'm excited to give the game a shot and start playing and see what I can do. So thanks again for coming out today and I hope you and wish you the best of luck. Thank you so much for having me. It was a blast. Thank you so much.