#10 - Leveling up Web3 Gaming DAOs w/Sascha Zehe from Polemos.io

In this episode of the Token Takeover Podcast, I share a conversation with Sascha Zehe, Co-Founder of Polemos.io an exciting and fresh approach to Web3 gaming DAOs.

Polemos is building an onboarding system for traditional gamers into Web3 using their educational and community platform "Polemos Forge". As well as unlocking new earning potential with their non-collateralized NFT renting/staking platform the "Polemos Armory".

You can now watch this episode as well as listen! Check out my Youtube channel
https://youtu.be/_NCV3vGrtAM

Links:
https://polemos.io/
https://twitter.com/polemos_io
https://twitter.com/SaschaZehe
https://www.linkedin.com/in/sascha-zehe/

Follow us on Twitter - https://twitter.com/GamingStartUp_

Transcript

NoAutopilot: 0:00

Hey, what's up everybody? Uh, so this is a special episode of the Token Takeover Podcast because you can actually see my face for the first time. Hopefully, I have not let you. Um, today we are joined by, uh, Sasha. Sasha is from, uh, the startup, uh, PMOs. I pronounce that right. I'm always, I always feel like I mess it up.

Sascha Zehe: 0:24

Poly Lamos Palomas. Both are fine. Like everyone takes it, uh, with their own spin.

NoAutopilot: 0:29

Okay, cool. Uh, and we're gonna talk about today leveling up the Web three player and Dow experience. So, uh, Sasha, why don't we go, why don't we start and can you just kind tell us a little bit about you, who you are, what you've been doing? Yeah, sure.

Sascha Zehe: 0:49

Happy to. First of all, thank you for having me. Uh, it's been a while since we chatted on one of these, obviously in a different format, so, uh, happy to come back. Um, so personally I have a background in tech and gaming. So, initially started out as a programmer, um, took a detour and got a master's degree in history. Um, basically was gaming the entire, uh, university time. So 20, 22 hours a day Mm. O grinding and stuff like that. Nice. So, played some competitive counterstrike as a teenager and then slowly migrated into other genres. Uh, later on. I've worked in the, let's say, traditional gaming industry for several years as well. Uh, initially focused on customer support, community management. Then eventually, um, progressing into product management and just kind of like management as a whole, uh, being responsible for multiple game teams. And then two years of, yeah, about two years ago, I kinda like came across. Web three as a concept like NFTs, what that could mean for, for, for the gaming space. And personally, I got hooked immediately. Um, took me two, three days to kind of like really dive deep into it. And, uh, just the idea of having real ownership of assets was kind of like what really hooked me. Um, so from there, I very, very quickly kind of like. Tried to find my way in into this industry. I was in a regular IT manager position at that time, so I very quickly took most of my savings, invested in one of the. Projects in the space, which at that time was alluvium. Um, quit my job as fast as I could and went full-time into blockchain gaming, web three, gaming, game five, whatever you want to call that these days. All the above. The terms are shifting quite fast. Uh, personally, I'm sticking to blockchain gaming right now, um, but I know everyone has their own favorite.

NoAutopilot: 2:46

Nice. Yeah, man, I, uh, so for those who didn't know, so prior to, Starting this podcast and starting the startup and everything else. I had a YouTube channel and Sasha was the first interview I ever did on that channel. And I was so nervous man. So nervous. But the crazy thing is, even back then you were talking about things that blew my mind and it's really awesome to see how you guys have delivered on a lot of that stuff that will get in in the pod. But okay, so, so you found blockchain, you got excited about the ability to. Own your assets and where it was going for gaming. So, um, I always find this interesting. So, so during your time at Alluvium, it was almost like a hotbed of creativity, experimentation. And isn't that kind of where, where like your core groups spun out of, was just kind of chatting in the discord?

Sascha Zehe: 3:40

Uh, yeah. It, it kind of is. So, so I was, when I found Alluvium, I was. Pretty much worked from, from the first day. Um, so, uh, there was a huge promise, of course. Very great. Uh, kind of like initial leagues. The visuals were amazing even back then. Yeah. Um, and so I became quite active, um, became a mod and a lead mod quite quickly, uh, on their discord. Um, got voted into the council in two epochs in a row, and that's kind of like through all this activity there, I came across, um, Basically investors in this space already. Is there some large scale, very successful investors that have been in this space for, for several years? Uh, usually more in the, kind of like in the seat of, of a vc, uh, in some kind of fashion. And, uh, they wanted to do something in this space, kind of like the, this whole. Um, wave of, of activity and hype that came around with Xi blowing up and Ygg making a lot of, uh, fundraising and success through Summer 21, I think it was. And then people anticipating things like merit circle at the, the of year. That's kind of like when we were talking and they had already kind of like thought about doing something. So it was, it was about kind of like players in this space bringing players in. So we, we got talking, uh, together through kind of like all these Alluvium contacts and, and really hit it off. And, and so, so the, the five of them kind of like, uh, pulled me in as, as the six co-founder. Um, and we, we. Took, took off from there. So, so we thought immediately that just doing guilts, like they were kind of like ideated at that time is not what we wanted to do because this whole idea about plight to earn guilt, um, doesn't felt for us was very, Future proof, let's say. Yeah. So we anticipated something happening to this cycle of play to earn games. Everyone comes wanted, wants to take out money of your ecosystem, but there's no real incentive of putting money in unless you're speculating. So we felt like, okay, that's not gonna be sustainable. So we don't want to kind of like bet on that, but we still wanted to bet on. Ownership players bringing players into the space. And so we ideated around that and pulled in some great kind of like obviously investors as VCs, uh, initially to support our, not just kind of like from a financial standpoint, but if you have the minds of Delphi or framework U C P and a lot of other, oh, even just great, great founders that join us on the pre P period. Um, It was just some incredible kind of like mind share, like thought sharing there and incredible think tank that came came around. And that's, that's where we more and more than build out what Polyus was meant to be, which is basically a, at its core, a blockchain. Gaming platform meant to bring in players from traditional gaming and guide them through the whole experience. So it's, you can see it as something that is sitting next to the game developers and that doesn't cannibalize what they're doing, where their chain hands, the experience of game developers and gamers alike. So we're much more kinda like in sync with what the other people are doing in this space because we're not trying to get a kind of like something for ourselves. Gotcha.

NoAutopilot: 7:12

Yeah, that, I'm glad that you said that. That was, that was, uh, an observation I had made too. If, if, if everyone, when they go to play a web three game trying to find the maximum way to extract value mm-hmm. Like what's the longevity of it? Not, not very long. And so like some of the, some of the guilds and, and many of them have kind of pivoted now, uh, to kind of more like marketing firms. But yeah, I, that, that's really interesting to see that you guys were thinking about that two years ago.

Sascha Zehe: 7:44

I mean, if it, it's basic economies, like I'm not gonna sit here and say I'm the perfect game economist, or even real economy or whatever. You just said it. We have it on podcast, but, uh, yeah. Yeah. Um, but even for me, as someone that is not an expert in that field, uh, it was kind of like obvious. I mean, it's, it's basic math. Like if someone drains your account, they can only do so, do so for that long. Unless new money comes in from somewhere else. Right. And if you think from a game developer's perspective, how can you generate money with your game? Well, you, there needs to be an incentive for players to spend money on your game. And it can't be this specula type because everyone that's speculating. Just gives you money because they want to take even more money out, right? So you need to have the balance on the other side, which is the people, which hopefully is the majority, that are spending money on your game for entertainment purposes, for leisure time enhancement, whatever you wanna call that. I mean, look at a game like Fortnite. It's a free to play game. People spend millions and millions and millions on skins and whatnot. They're not doing that for speculation. Like they're not gonna take 1000 in and 5,000 out because they made a good investment. They're doing so because they want to get cool skins and whatnot, to have an even better time while playing the game. And that's kind of like where, where a lot of the space have pivoted to by now. Like people focusing on the game first. There needs to be an incentive for people to actually spend money on your game. And then of course, Depending on how kinda like deep the N F T blockchain integration goes, there's, there's room for people to kinda like possibly extract some value, possibly speculate on some investments, but it's certainly not gonna be this idealistic novel approach where people were hoping that everyone that starts playing, as long as they play very long, they can make a full-time living. Like the money is just not there in order to pay for that.

NoAutopilot: 9:53

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's wild to think that there was a point in time where if you're in the Philippines, you're somewhere you make more money. Local school teacher battling digital oxalates online. Yeah. Wild. Um, okay. So, and I think we've kind of seen, like, to your point, we've seen a lot of shifts from games moving to quality first gaming first, and so now it's kind of becoming. You know, how do you, how do you still gain users? Like how do you retain those users? Uh, how do you keep them engaged in mm-hmm. I guess, um, are there ways that, uh, PMOs kind of intersects with some of those goals for, from the game studios?

Sascha Zehe: 10:40

Yeah. It's kind of like, if, if you look at, uh, PMOs what it is about, it's basically we, we've built the platform with four pillars, like four core pillars in mind, and it's almost like a. Like a user funnel. The, the way that we're, we set it up. So at the first stage you have awareness, like in order to bring a user anywhere they need to be aware of it first. Like there's no way around that. Sure. So for the awareness part, we we're kind of like focused on. Gaming content. So we have Farers, uh, it's where we labeled that segment of, of the protocol. It's based like the naming, uh, is based on the ancient lighthouse of Alexandria. It's kinda like guiding people. So it's kinda like guiding people to where they might want to go. And throughout the Farris part of polymers, we're basically having. Um, key characters, podcasts. So we're also interviewing people, uh, which is being done by our head of content, Hal, in a very, very amazing quality, uh, which obviously is based on him being a professional journalist for, for a long time. So shout out to

NoAutopilot: 11:49

Hal. You're doing

Sascha Zehe: 11:50

great, man. Exactly. Um, so, and then you kind of like have a key characters podcast. You have articles on the side. Uh, we're currently expanding our own presence on YouTube, so it's, it's a lot of the stuff that you see in traditional gaming already making people aware. The, the, the differences here that while we're covering traditional games as well, we're also covering blockchain games and what happens in the blockchain space. Mm. So that's, that's how you create the awareness. Now when you have a player. That is aware of it, and that hasn't been kind of like put off by even mentioning of NFTs or blockchain or whatever, potentially could scare them away. You have an interested player. They, they still need to be guided at that point. So you get to the onboarding stage, and from my awareness to onboarding for onboarding, we've built the Polyus University. It's a custom developed learning management system. Um, you can think in the lines of, let's say Udemy for example. Um, just that it's not only. Video content. So it's courses where you can take quizzes, uh, where you can have written articles, where you can have, um, video content like guides and tutorials, all that kind of stuff where you can go a little bit more in depth and keep it in a structured format. And then you can have courses that build upon one another, let's say, I don't know, alluvium basics. And then from there you can take maybe alluvium. PVP tutorial Advanced or whatever, you know, advanced guides or strategies. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. All this kind of stuff. But the in, in the end, it's, it's basically courses about games, crypto basics, security online, that kind of stuff. So you, you're going through this funnel and you have the awareness, now you have the onboarding, you have an onboarded player. Now that player, when onboarded, like any player, usually wants to have the best time they can have. Now, how do you get that? Usually through additional knowledge. On one side, they can get that from the university. On the other side though, if you want to go deeper and maybe even play competitively, or that you might wanna look at analytics, you might wanna look at additional tools. That's where analytic, uh, uh, our analytics come into play. So you have the awareness, the onboarding, then you have the improvement stage. The analytics now, that one is the least developed at our end for now, just simply because a lot of the games that are very, very interesting are not out yet live. Yeah. So you don't have the APIs you can kind of like tap into to get the data. The games are constantly shifting, even partially in in large scale at the core gameplay level. So it doesn't really make sense to go hard on that front yet. We have some base, kinda like proof of concepts, uh, on our platform live already, but all of that is kind of like more beta proof of concept type. Uh, we're, we're going a little bit more deep on that, but you then again, have awareness, onboarding improvement, and if you have people this way, they're kind of like hook. Yeah, they're already in. They're playing. They are playing. They're improving, they are onboarded. But then you have kind of like this idea, obviously, which blockchain enables, is the part about asset ownership, owning your asset, getting NFTs, depending on how the game allows for that, obviously. And that's where this the last part comes in, which is the armory on our end. And that's kind of like from a development point of view, the very core of the whole platform, basically the Armory is a. Non collateralized game asset renting platform in of itself. So what does that mean? It means that you as a player, or even you as a game developer with storm and spare asset in your treasury, could go to the Armory if your game is integrated and you could stake those assets and make them available for rental by other players. So, Based on the demand on the other side and how many players actually utilize it to create some kind of, um, return. Obviously that's based on them paying rental fees. You get a share of that depending on how much of the collateral you put into that pool. So if you put a large amount into the pool, you get a large amount of the revenue that actually comes in via rentals being paid. Now why is that interesting? It's basically interesting because. We're at a time where a lot of game transactions are starting to shift. We've seen loot boxes for many years. They, they gain becoming more and more outlawed by a lot of people. Microtransactions had always had this kind of like, we maintain, whatever you wanna call that. Not, not a lot of people like it. Um, and then, then you have the, kinda like the idea about, okay, if people at players actually own the asset, Let them make money with that. But you don't wanna always sell the asset. Imagine you, you're playing a game. You have three amazing sets. You're really kinda like, uh, you love those sets. You don't want to have waste with them, but you can only wear one. Why not rent the other two to players that don't have them just yet and then want to try it out before potentially buying something themselves? Because a rental is always cheaper. Than a purchase. I mean, yeah. Why, why? Why should it be the other way around? I'm just owning it, like owning it temporarily. Why would I pay more than owning it permanently? You know? So it's a way for people to make money of dormant assets and it's that a way on the other side for people to test something out that might not be willing to commit to fully just yet. Interesting. Okay,

NoAutopilot: 17:20

so you're making me kind of think back to my League of Legend Day. Mm-hmm. I played league for, I dunno, like a decade. And I have a bunch of skins that are highly sought after, but when I'm in a game, I can only wear one, but I own 200 something. Yeah. So in this scenario, uh, at no risk. Right. Uh, I can stake them and then other players can, can rent them, and I can earn passive income from those assets.

Sascha Zehe: 17:49

Exactly. That's, that's the whole concept behind that. Obviously it always depends on, What NFTs are made available by the game, I mean, a game that, that doesn't have any blockchain integration, that's obviously not gonna work because it, it kind of like lacks the fundamental part of blockchain integration. Sure. So we, we couldn't just tap into World of Warcraft now, let's say and, and make. Rental available for one of Warcraft. Yeah, it's, it's not unchained. That's kind of like the, the minimum, uh, baseline that needs to be there from a, from technical point of view. But aside from that, the platform is chain and game agnostic. Now we have it live as a proof of concept for first game right now in, in kind of like as a beater test that's on Polygon. Um, and we're gonna expand from there, but, Essentially it's chain and game agnostic. So where we decide that we're gonna kind of like, uh, integrate a new chain or a new game, we can do so as long as the assets are on chain and available, of course. And we will over time, even throughout this year still, we will expand to additional games chain, et cetera.

NoAutopilot: 18:59

Interesting. Okay. So I'm gonna play devil's advocate a little bit, so Sure. So if I'm a game studio, And I earn royalty or sales from you, buying assets from my store. Correct. But now you can rent them at kind of a fraction of the cost where there may not be a revenue share agreement in place. Isn't that kind of a bit of a, a challenge

Sascha Zehe: 19:28

for. It really depends if, uh, what you make available. Now, a lot of the games currently obviously are going in the direction of, let's say free to play and then you earn assets in game. Um, I'm not sure if games are actually, will. Be able to get enough revenue through secondary market trading only, right? Um, right. It really depends. Um, may maybe some games pull that off. Uh, I, I don't want to kinda like, speculate on that. I think it's possible, but I'm not sure how likely it is, uh, to make it happen. But it like a lot, if you don't build a renting mechanic yourself. Then you also don't get the opportunity of players trying out playing with your assets for low amounts of money if you are only selling some. Now, if you are free to play, they can just go in and if you don't rent assets yourself already, then you're not missing out on any revenue streams there either. Of course, if you're selling and that's the only thing you do, there might be some cannibalization there, but I do think that. Very often it's offset by actually more people being willing to possibly try it out and then start spending even more on your game because they kind of like didn't have to commit with that much to begin with.

NoAutopilot: 20:52

Gotcha. That makes a lot of sense actually, the more I think about it, because it um, it's almost like if I was a musician and I released my music on YouTube, But now you can also discover it on Spotify or NAPS or whatever. Like the more places that my brand is represented, the more likely people are gonna enter into the experience I've built. And there's more people who. Spend money

Sascha Zehe: 21:19

essentially. Mm-hmm. You also have this potential retention, uh, boost. And I'm not saying it's guaranteed, but you have the potential of a retention boost for some of your most hardcore players as well. Because if I, for example, again, if I play World of Warcraft right now and I play hardcore, I have some great assets, like some crazy items that I would never sell, like this means then. They just sit there like I can only wield, well, unless I play dual weight, of course, but let's say main hand, I can only wield one weapon. Yeah. But I'm sitting there with kind of like iconic stuff that I would never, ever sell, even if I could, I would never sell these assets, even if they would be NFTs on chain. But now imagine I could rent them out. I still own them. They're sitting there idle, not doing anything for me. But now I can make money renting them out to other people. That's gonna keep me hooked to get even more cool assets that I might still not be willing to sell because I'm expanding my portfolio of assets that could be rented out. And the, and the other way around is also as a game developer, a lot of games, at least from what we've seen, uh, to some degree, they've sit on idle assets in their treasury. They're waiting to give them out for testing to people or, uh, hand them out over time or give them as rewards. Now you could take those assets and make them available for renting yourself and create a new revenue stream. You could just stake them yourself on the platform. Suddenly you are the one that actually gets a significant amount of the rental fees created, and there's no real risk, at least not from from an asset perspective. It, of course, needs to fit into your overall games economy. Like if you add a additional assets to the circulation, it, it hopefully fits into what you are trying to do with the game overall. Got it.

NoAutopilot: 23:19

Okay, so, so that's really exciting too then because. You know, a lot of the game studios that I kind of follow and talk to are in that bootstrap pre-seed, seed round. Mm-hmm. And it is a tough market to raise. So like a lot of'em have went game first. They've developed like prototypes or betas, but in their VC conversations now it's like, great, what metrics have, because it's more back to fundamentals and then your platform sounds like it has the potential to. Really support, uh, both user acquisition as well as retention. Mm-hmm. Is awesome.

Sascha Zehe: 23:57

That's really cool that that's at least the, that that's basically the, the foundation of the whole thing. Yeah. So it's to, like, our goal is to onboard as many gamers as possible into the space and give them the education and the access to assets. To actually stay and have a great time. Got it.

NoAutopilot: 24:23

Okay. Okay, so let's, so if someone's, um, they've never rented an N F T before mm-hmm. There's a gamer who's listening. So what does that process look like to like, find the game that you guys currently support, pick up an asset, jump in and start

Sascha Zehe: 24:41

playing. So we do have, if you go on polyus.il, we do have, uh, basically the Forge, which is we're calling the technical part of the whole platform that we're developing. And right now you can log in, you can kind of like, uh, connect with a wallet, uh, and then you get a Poly's wallet where rented assets are held. It's kind of like the technical foundation. You kind of, you need to be able to protect the assets. If anyone could take the asset into their own meta mask, uh, that they control, of course they, no, that would be bad protecting that anymore, you know? Yeah. That, that would be bad. Yeah. Um, so I, this is kind of like what happens. You kind of like, you claim your polyoma wallet if you want to rent some stuff, if you want to stake some stuff, you can kinda like stake it directly and then you collect your, the funds you get on the other side. And we are going to kinda like, Make that more and more frictionless. So there are talks about, uh, potentially getting, uh, like email logins or stuff like that. So I don't wanna commit to anything at this point here because Richard, my co ceo, who is, uh, taking the lead on, on on the actual development, uh, would probably, uh, be very angry with me if I promise anything that that hasn't been 100% You heard it first here folks, but obviously. Like our whole, kind of like the whole goal with Polyus is to, to onboard as many gamers as possible. Like obviously we want to make it as frictionless as possible for them to find games, get into the games, and get access to the assets they potentially want to use or have to use if they, if a game kind of like is gated behind owning something, so right now you would need a wallet already. But we do have free courses that teach you some stuff around crypto basics. They, they don't require necessarily to be logged in with a wallet just yet. So there's kind of like this education, that's where the university comes, uh, university comes into play that you're trying to educate people as much as possible. And guide them through this slightly, not frictionless, uh, process yet, but you see more and more stuff happening. I mean, the immutable passport that you're probably aware of as well. Yeah. They're doing a lot of stuff to make it as kinda like, as easily and, and seamless as possible to get into these games. Um, and I do think. One, two years from here. The times of painstakingly having to teach someone create their own meta mask wallet to then log into a platform that requires you to do all kinds of signing processes, I think that's gonna be gone. Um, it's still gonna be there, but a lot of the stuff is gonna be more on the backend and where it's needed. Later on, it's gonna be shown to people that had some exposure. To it already as they onboard, but you do yet it's not a requirement any longer for people that just came into the space and basically just want to get into the game and play.

NoAutopilot: 27:47

Yeah, and I, I love that too, cuz it's also gonna weed out all the garbage. It's hard to run a scam and build a good game at a good time or at the same time, you know, you can't Yes. Can't do both. It definitely is, and it's really expensive.

Sascha Zehe: 28:01

I mean, you can see it like look at some of the, the funding, some of those games already had and, and there there's more coming or just look at traditional gaming and, and the amount of money that goes into some of these games. I mean, it's, it's crazy. Like you, you can't do, like, I'm not saying you can't do a good game with. Little funding. I mean, they are incredible games being developed by indie developers, even solo developers. Uh, but obviously the majority of kinda like high profile games cost a lot of money. So, Which means they have large teams, they have reputation to, to, uh, secure and, and protect. Not that all of them do that well. I mean, we all seem all the bunch of scandals throughout the gaming industry over the last years and, and, and before. But, but that's like everywhere. Like it's where they're humans there scandals at at some point eventually. But, uh, in terms of money and the money that flows into the space, there are several. High quality development teams in Web three right now that are developing real games at a, let's say, AA level. Don't like the label necessary, but it's kind of like what people understand that, okay, this is, this is an actually a different level game. Yeah, yeah. The problem is that aaa, at least the way I see it and and understand it, is it's kind of like more in terms of what went into making the game. It's more about the resources, the budget, et cetera. AA doesn't necessarily mean good. That's where I feel like a lot of people sometimes, um, misled. The AAA game doesn't necessarily have to be good. It just costs a lot of money to make. Exactly. I you would hope that it's good. And a lot of them luckily are Yeah, but they certainly are AAA games in terms of visual fidelity and budget being spent on making it, that just aren't good.

NoAutopilot: 29:57

Okay, so I have a couple more questions, but on that note Sure. Are there any games that you wanna shout out that you think are particularly, uh, and, and particularly in a good position to deliver on a quality gaming experience?

Sascha Zehe: 30:11

It really depends. Like if obviously taking completely web two out of the equation, traditional games, since we're talking to, to obviously to a large degree about blockchain here as well. I actually very recently did kind of like a 14 day. Um, shout out to a variety of games on my Twitter. Um, so there's a threat pinned there with 14 games, one game each day, and then I compiled it as a threat afterwards where games that, uh, that actually need to check how exactly I phrased it. I. Think I said yeah, promising games and RAP three gaming. So I'm kind of like not saying these are the games that are gonna be hit, because it's very hard to kind of like foresee for anyone. No one has a crystal ball. Nothing's guaranteed. Exactly. But from what I've seen and with a lot of the game development teams, uh, included in there, I had personal contact already, maybe even to some degree. Play test access that public, the public may, might not have seen, uh, yet. And, and that's the kind of stuff. And those 14 games are certainly a big part of why I'm very, very bullish yet still on the space. Hmm. Even from a gamer's perspective, because those are games to a large degree. Why I feel that gamers really get something valuable and that's. Has always been what I think was missing early on. Uh, and I can only speak to kinda like two years and, and, and that, around that time I know that some developers have been there developing some kind of gamified versions of, uh, stuff even earlier than that. Um, but uh, two years ago I felt like a lot of games were still too much focused on. Well, the finance part of what they were doing, trying to capitalize on that. And from those 14 games, even though there's a lot of blockchain integration there, to some degree, more or less, depending on which game you're looking at, those games feel promising as games first, and then they come with some degree of blockchain integration, which just makes it a lot more exciting for me personally, because I do think depending on how it's integrated, it can add a lot of value. Two gamers as well.

NoAutopilot: 32:25

Heck yeah. Okay. So in in the show notes of this podcast, I'll put the link to his thread so you guys can check out those 14, him some love.

Sascha Zehe: 32:35

Yeah, I mean, let me throw three, four out now and then for anyone not mention, forgive me about that, doesn't mean that it's, it's a ranking here. Shout Bound is certainly one that I'm thinking highly of. Uh, they just have their play test. Uh, right now people are streaming it. Um, That also to some degree, I'm biased there. Um, it was taking on from, from a prior developer and it's actually a game that was initially kickstarted in two 17, which I participated in. Mm. So I, I have a kinda like fond memories and was very sad that it never made it to full release. So, so hoping best, uh, of, of course now happy ending story. Yeah. Yeah. Um, then you have stuff like, um, Legions and legends, um, from Azar games. Um, if you know, mark Artier as is kind of like the, the founder and c o he, he, he's, he's one of the key people behind, uh, EAs Star Wars mobile hit that has gross, I think over a billion by now. So the type of game they are doing with this RPG kind of like approach, it's obviously something that. Him and his team are very experienced then, and then they are, they are really showing with their free N F T collection, the Hope Falls, which kind of like play forever passes that they understand. This is. Gamers community first game first, and, and then you can take a lot of the blockchain, uh, value afterwards. Cloud Castle falls into a similar avenue. Um, amazing background in the team overall. Uh, J V C is kind of like co-founder and co, co. C o. He's, he's kind of like literally in the, uh, gaming, I think game developers, hall of Fame. Um, you were behind. Wow. Founding Trian, which was behind Drift. Uh, the m m o that was very popular for quite a while, um, was responsible for the Common and Conquer franchise at ea. Um, actually the, the creator of Heroes Might and Magic, the, the, the kind of like that game series, so the, this Amazing Talent Shrapnel as well, the team behind Shrapnel Neon. Amazing talent there. And I, I could go on like a lot of the teams that I've, like games I've listed in those 14 games have teams behind themselves that have incredible experience from traditional game development. And they're not embracing what Web three can bring or blockchain technology can bring on top. And that's where I think the sweet spot is not the crypto expert that are dabbling in game development, but the highly, highly experienced game development teams coming in and embracing blockchain technology as well.

NoAutopilot: 35:09

We're definitely seeing, uh, like a maturation of who's building in the space. Yes. And that, you know, uh, bear markets are painful, but it, it forces people to innovate and grow and refine. And I think that's one of the benefits of this one is that, um, can't bullshit in this market. No. It's real. Teams

Sascha Zehe: 35:32

building real stuff. I mean exactly. You could look at another game like Wild Card. I mean the team is behind Words with Friends. That's like, yeah, I played that. Yeah, I mean, obviously the different type of game, but there's a lot of credibility there, you know, and that's also the only reason how they were able to raise kind of like 46 million, if I remember entirely correctly, in 2022 for that. Game division for wildcard, you know, um, you don't get that kind of money unless you, you, you have something to show, or you're super, super early in some kind of highly speculative hype cycle. Yeah. Uh, which AI, for example, certainly had, I'm not sure if they still there yet. I, I'm not that close. Uh, at least not from, from a builder's perspective, certainly from a user perspective. But, uh, obviously then people are kinda like, they just want to get in early and throw money at you. Um, but, uh, from Wildcard, for example, another game that has been in development for quite a while, that is showing really, really high promises, but again, very experienced team behind that as well. Hmm.

NoAutopilot: 36:38

Okay. Okay. So let's, let's circle this back to the pmo. So yes. Is your focus now on getting players in or is it on. Finding game studios, publishers to partner with or is it both?

Sascha Zehe: 36:55

It's actually both. So for us, now that we have a proof of concept for, for the whole platform, it's obviously about establishing relationships with game developers and kind of like understand how we can work together. Uh, going to collaborations, partnerships, uh, build out are kind of like our service pipeline, all that kind of stuff. But it's also on the audience growth because if there's one thing we probably all can agree on in this basis, There's a lack of gamers. Um, it's probably less than what we see right now. So when I'm talking about lack of gamers, obviously that you have to differentiate between gamers and active gamers because there are a lot more gamers in this space, but not all of them are active because they don't feel there's anything worthwhile for them to play. Right. But even if you would take everyone that is kind of like. In this space already, and that is still positive about it. And that would play games. It would still be a tiny, tiny fraction of the global gamer population. Right? So what we're trying to do now is obviously also to grow an audience. Um, and to expand on that, that's why we're pushing, uh, a lot on, uh, stuff on our YouTube channel now, which is, uh, growing nicely with the great work of the, our content team. And, uh, So that it's basically both. Um, because we think now is the time. Games are slowly getting ready to come out. Some great games to possibly come out this year still, and 24 certainly we'll see. 10 plus great games come out, um, from, from my estimation, based on what I'm seeing. And it could be way more because I can only, like, I'm only seeing that much there. I don't know how many great games are being built in steals right now or just went past my radar. Um, so I do think right now is an amazing time to kind of like start communicating with game developers. See how we can collaborate through the kinda like. Pre not, so, not pre kind of like end development stage, internally release going forward from there together, uh, grow together. Because there's almost none in the space right now that that can say they don't have to grow anymore. Like there's no one that has a large gaming audience that can ta they can tap into. We're all at the beginning.

NoAutopilot: 39:07

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, so if there's a game studio who's interested, they wanna learn more, where's the best place for them to reach out to?

Sascha Zehe: 39:16

Uh, we do have a partnership form on our website. Um, that's one thing. Um, otherwise our discord, uh, is always an option. Uh, also easily reachable via polyus.io. Um, there's a discord invite link, uh, on the page. There's an ask of anything channel, uh, could make a note there. Usually that's where, ah, mods and community managers then also share the, the partnership form. Uh, but it's also where sometimes I personally kinda like just notice it and, and reach out myself directly. Nice. So these is where certainly through the page and then eyes on Discord or through the form directly. Boom. There you

NoAutopilot: 39:55

go folks. Uh, I'll put that link in the, uh, in the show notes as well to me. Travel's a little bit easier. Um, okay. Well cool. So I guess looking at the next three to six months, like what are you most excited to see within Blemo?

Sascha Zehe: 40:15

It's probably expanding on what we have. I mean, we've built. For almost two years now. Um, and the, the Armory in particular, the renting pod, um, which is live as a proof of concept for the first game now as well, for a while. That, that took incredible amount of resources time. Uh, there was a lot of technical hassle that needed to be solved. Uh, the right partners to be found. Um, Richard and, and obviously the rest on, on the technical side, including author party partners, they did an amazing job solving that. Um, so we're obviously incredibly proud to see this life and in action and so, Looking forward from a polymer standpoint, it's literally expanding on that, getting the tools that we have built now live on larger games, on games with larger audiences. To really see it in action, not just kind of like as a technical, uh, proof of concept, but as something that is alive and thriving. Um, that's something I'm really, really looking forward to. And it's obviously gonna happen throughout expanding to additional games and chains and, and also through kind of like just growing our own audience, because then we can help onboard those players into cool games that are coming out. So from a poly standpoint, it's really kind of like seeing. What we've built actually being used. And on the other side, helping to grow this space as a whole by just getting more players' attention of the cool games that are actually being built with blockchain technology. Man, I, I think,

NoAutopilot: 41:52

uh, I think I might have to hop in and try, try the platform

Sascha Zehe: 41:56

out. Sure do. So I mean, again, polys.io, they're all links easily available there. Um, and then you can take it from there for now. Still need a wallet of course, to log in. Uh, there's some. Stuff that you can access for free in the university. Um, but yeah, as soon as you're on polyus.io, you have the links at the top, university, Amory News, all that kind of stuff. So pretty easy to, to get everywhere from there, including taking a look at some of our latest news and key character interviews, et

NoAutopilot: 42:25

cetera. Yeah, you know what? So if you guys haven't followed PMOs, uh, shout out to their content team. So over the last, gosh, man, I don't know, year plus. I've consistently seen brand new YouTube videos amass, uh, some of the best threads on your website that I've like shared on my Twitter feed. Uh, so yeah, you guys should check'em out if you're not already. Good

Sascha Zehe: 42:51

stuff. Appreciate it. V

NoAutopilot: 42:54

Yeah. Um, so last couple things. I always like to wrap up these podcasts with. Um, is your team hiring or is your team raising? Is there's anyone out there who wants to get in touch on any of those things?

Sascha Zehe: 43:09

Uh, hiring, um, we're currently not, at least not at scale. That might be the, the odd position here and there every now and then. But I wouldn't kind of like put a. Flag up right now saying we're hiring. Um, raising, always happy to, if someone wants to reach out, uh, please do so. Uh, just, uh, shoot me a message directly@sashapmos.io or reach out through the form or anything else where, where I'll be able to pick it up. We're always happy to, to talk to people there, uh, and see if there's something that that makes sense for, for both sides. Uh, giving where we're at in, in possible fundraising rounds or whatever. Perfect.

NoAutopilot: 43:47

Okay. And then so when you sit down and you try and like get some insight into future web three gaming, are there specific, uh, Twitter feeds, uh, article writers, YouTube channels, podcasts that you listen to that you think are particularly good that you don't mind sharing

Sascha Zehe: 44:09

with us? I think a lot of the stuff you can get is from Twitter. I mean, we have to obviously just see what everything that is happening, if that stays kind of like the, the go-to spot for, for web three gaming news, uh, giving everything that is happening with threats and Elon and yeah, uh, Zuckerberg, et cetera. But, but for now, I do think there's some, some great people on Twitter that constantly share, uh, A lot of great stuff. I have to say that many of them are actually part of Wolf style. Um, so definitely a shout out to the wolves out there. They, they have some great people there that really, really, uh, add value and, and not just kind of like shit post for, for the sake of being entertaining. Not that there's anything wrong with that. If that's kinda like what you're going for, please continue it to everything, like everyone their own. I'm not saying it's bad and in any sense, but in terms of like, More thought through value, uh, if some people wanna follow up or don't miss out on, on important stuff that is happening. A lot of the world style members are very, very active on that front and also have a kinda like high capacity of, of providing good content and, and good news. Um, so that definitely something I would say Check, check out those members. Um, I personally, I, I do like, um, To take a look at Venture Beat every now and then the game section. Um, they actually, um, Cover both traditional gaming and blockchain, uh, very often. Mm. Um, so if you go to kinda like venturebeat.com and then it's category games, um, they ta they, they tackle blockchain gaming news as well, so even fundraising stuff. I remember Wildcard was on it with their fundraising last year and I've seen other blockchain related articles too. So it's kinda like, I like this one because it keeps the, the bridge between traditional gaming and blockchain gaming. So you're, you're not committing to kind of like one isolated space. Yeah. One little pocket. Exactly. For me personally, it's, it's essentially, blockchain is just another technology for gaming. Just like ai, just like vr, ar. Different platforms like console, PC or whatever. I, I think it's just mobile. It's just one technology that eventually will become a technology in gaming rather than a separate space.

NoAutopilot: 46:37

Yeah, I think you're, I think you're absolutely right on that. Like the, it, it'll be interesting though, I think in the near term, especially with like the news around Google play. Um, Because there are, there is a large crypto curious audience, many of who left kind of during this bear market. But, um, it'll be interesting to see how studios and games and projects message what they're building to those web two audiences who have heard maybe of Bitcoin that's like, as far as it's went. Um, but I guess to your point, maybe, maybe they, they won't and they'll more lean into gaming experiences. Gas. Just come play it with us. Yeah, could be. Okay. And then last question for you. Um, so man, you've built a startup. Uh, you've been through, you've been through, uh, part of the the bull market, part of the bear market. Any words of wisdom for folks out there who are trying to build, to build better, faster, smarter? Any words of advice?

Sascha Zehe: 47:45

Yeah. First of all, I'd say. Make sure you have a great network, great partners, because when you say, uh, you build their startup, uh, I'm hearing in my mind I was lucky enough to be able to. Help build their startup, um, because there's no way I could have done it alone. Um, I was standing on great shoulders and, and great people supporting with a lot of wisdom and expertise and money of course, as well. That's, it's kinda like something that you need when you're building something. I have a great and very, very experience a coco at my side for quite a while now. So I think one important thing is, uh, Don't neglect networking. Um, make sure that, that you have a great team, but also great people that you can reach out to if you need any other expertise that your team might not have just yet. Um, that's, that's incredibly important. I think. That's not just in this space, in any space you're building. Um, and then of course giving that we're. In a bear market for quite a while now, and we've obviously seen some large crypto scandals and layoffs everywhere and all that kind of stuff. I think it's, it's quite important to, to make sure you survive. Um, sometimes you, you gotta make some hard choices, um, or hard decisions. Um, But if that's what you have to do to survive, to get through it to the other side, uh, you, you just gotta do that. Um, if you like, if you believe that what you have is something that actually could thrive and grow, when things pick up again, then you need to make sure you get to that point, because if you don't, you'll never see it happen. You never even see if there was a chance to thrive because you were gone before it even happened. So I, I think like really being able to, to take the hard decisions, as difficult as it is sometimes in business, uh, that's important and to make sure that you have an incredible team and just overall network. I think that's probably two of the most valuable suggestions or advice I can give based on the last two years though in it building in the space.

NoAutopilot: 50:02

There you go folks. Words of wisdom. Yeah, those, those really resonate. Have you ever seen that, that, uh, that chart for startups? It's like, I have a brand new idea. It's gonna be great. Nobody likes it. Somebody likes it. We got two people. Oh, they left because it was terrible. Like, just a rollercoaster. Just survive. Yeah. Just keep going. Just keep going. You'll

Sascha Zehe: 50:23

figure it out. I mean, I just read, uh, just my last nugget there. I just read something about Mr. Beast, which obviously probably everyone knows by now. Yeah. Or at least has heard of, as is the biggest YouTuber ever. Um, I think he uploaded for two years and was like at. Almost no subscribers or whatever. Um, so imagine he'd stopped be before things started kind of like picking up. Yeah. Um, the, the, the, the whole space of YouTube and content creation would be vastly different. His input and kind of like his development and, and all the stuff that he's been doing wouldn't have been there. Whether that's bad or worse or whatever. Better or worse. Sorry, I'll leave that to everyone El else for themselves to judge. Um, but it would be different. And the only reason it didn't happen is because he couldn't like follow through until stuff happened because he was obviously convinced that. You just need to get better and kind of like survive long enough. That's it,

NoAutopilot: 51:26

man. Just keep going. One foot in front of the next.

Sascha Zehe: 51:30

Exactly.

NoAutopilot: 51:32

All right, Asha, this is great, man. I'm glad to see you're doing well. I'm glad to see that your team's doing well. And, uh, yeah, we should set up another one of these. Maybe, maybe I won't, you know, hold you off for a year. We'll, we'll do it in like six months or something

Sascha Zehe: 51:45

like that. Happy. So by then we should have some great games out there, so obviously we can talk about a lot more live games then as well.

NoAutopilot: 51:52

Heck yeah, dude. We'll even play some. Let's go. Why not? Absolutely. All right everyone. That's the podcast. Thanks for listening. Y'all have a great day. Peace.