When Kevin Beauregard discusses the economics of his upcoming racing game ExoGP, the CEO of game developer Atmos Labs wants to talk about ownership, not earnings.
At the core of the metaverse-focused game is the Exosuit, a type of armored wingsuit based on a non-fungible token (NFT) that allows you to build and add other NFT-based components to make it fly better and faster – on many different ones Species .
He described it as a Formula 1 meets flight mechanic. And just like many car racing games offer players the option to upgrade an engine, transmission, or suspension, ExoGP allows players to upgrade their suits in a way that involves crafting those component NFTs or buying those components, likely either in game or at a third-party NFT marketplace.
“I don’t like the play-to-earn narrative,” Beauregard recently told PYMNTS. “I focus on the word property. If you make money, it’s all about work. It’s not fun anymore.”
At the same time, he said, “That doesn’t mean there aren’t any real-money components… Gaming economies are real-money economies. People can trade the assets that [players are] create because they belong to them.”
However, this means that you have to spend a lot of time developing the economy as it is not fully controlled by a central authority.
Two competing metaverses
Beauregard said that the last point holds the key to the future of the metaverse and even the internet.
“There are two, let’s call them, divergent views of the metaverse,” he said. “One of them is the ‘One Ring to Rule Them All’ version [Meta CEO Mark] Zuckerberg’s version of it.”
See also: Meta Metaverse Weekly: Zuckerberg’s world will have hologram workers teleporting in
The second, Beauregard said, “is an open, decentralized … evolution of the next-generation internet,” commonly referred to as Web3, which posits a blockchain-based, decentralized web free from the centralized control of big tech companies and giving people the power full ownership allows their personal data.
However, Beauregard is a bit skeptical of the hype, saying: “I think Web3 is a buzzword that means different things to different people. I think the most important thing to take away from this is this idea of true digital ownership — the ability for people to own things that were previously short-lived. Blockchain provides the opportunity for that true digital ownership.”
This is especially important in games, as people work hard to build or win digital items, which game developers can weaken and effectively render worthless.
“The most important thing for me is that you give rights to your player base, you give rights to people who participate in the ecosystem,” he said. “And your ecosystem is stronger as a result.”
But your economy is more difficult.
Multiple worlds, multiple rails
Instead of a single metaverse where all experiences are stacked in a centrally controlled world like Metaverse or the blockchain-based Decentraland and The Sand Box (even if their control is provided by a DeFi-style DAO platform), Beauregard sees the metaverse as “the connection between all these different, different worlds” like the one ExoGP will live in.
See more: DeFi Series: Unpacking DeFi and DAO
ExoGP, due for release in the first quarter of next year, is what Beauregard calls “metaverse-native sports” – games built from the ground up for a more immersive virtual world.
The company’s first game is less about gameplay and more about participation — the “fan experience” — and what they do makes it more than just watching someone play a video game. “Because it’s ultimately a game engine, you can put a camera anywhere and let people choose their adventure.”
In a fully immersive metaverse like the Ready Player One movie — which even meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg agrees is a decade away — that experience shouldn’t be sitting in a virtual arena watching a Lakers game, he said.
“It shouldn’t be basketball because you’re in a virtual world and you’re no longer there to see a physical spectacle — you’re no longer limited to what a human can do.”
See also: Is the Metaverse only the web with 3D glasses?
Or what a single-world metaverse can or will allow.
Much like you can teleport from one neighborhood to another in Decentraland, Beauregard describes more of a series of bubbles that are independent immersive virtual worlds of all kinds.
But that requires “things like interoperability and the ability to move from one to the other,” he said. “It’s a really difficult problem to solve. However, I like this vision of the metaverse much better than the one-singular Ruler version.”
Interoperable payment tracks
When it comes to payments, interoperability matters. Even decentralized metaverses have their own closed payment systems and cryptocurrencies — like Decentraland’s MANA and The Sandbox’s SAND tokens — that must be used for all transactions.
It’s more difficult in a broader version of independent but connected worlds.
“You talk specifically about payment rail interoperability,” he said, adding that any interoperability “is a really tough question.”
First of all, you need standards – and the people who create them.
“Ultimately, to make this a viable experience of these worlds coming together and interoperability, that means you need to have some coordination” of things like which version of payments is going to be accepted across the system, he added.
Compare the current system – go to a cryptocurrency exchange, sell one token and buy another to be used in a specific metaverse – with the pain points you will find when traveling abroad and either the exchange rates of a Use credit card or go to forex booth airport.
“Relieving these pain points is a big challenge, but it’s one that’s very manageable,” Beauregard said. “These are problems that we know how to solve. It just requires coordination and ultimately work.”
Stablecoins are understandable
A good solution, he suggests, is stablecoins, as they remove the “cognitive strain” of making oneself think in another currency – in the way core NFT collectors tend to view them in the volatile Ether- cryptocurrency and not to be valued in dollars. Of course, there are reasons why the major NFT marketplaces are adding credit and debit card support.
“But there’s a huge world out there of people who don’t think in terms of bitcoin or ether or whatever,” Beauregard said. “It’s important to get to a basic unit of account that people understand.”
“It’s too early to tell what will come out best,” he adds. “But it boils down to a unique problem, which is that people need to understand how to be accountable for what they’re buying.”
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NEW PYMNTS SURVEY FIND 3 OF 4 CONSUMERS WITH STRONG DEMAND FOR SUPER `PS
Around: The results of PYMNTS’ new study, The Super App Shift: How Consumers Want To Save, Shop And Spend In The Connected Economy, a collaboration with PayPal, analyzed the responses of 9,904 consumers in Australia, Germany, the UK and the US and showed a strong demand for a single multifunctional super app instead of using dozens of individual apps.
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