This conversation with Corey Wilton and Renz Chong comes after the two teamed up to create a new horse racing video game. Wilton, who help create Mirai Labs, was building a game called Pegaxy. Through Mirai Labs, Wilton helped to create the game while Chong offered the support with his product BreederDAO–which allows Pegaxy players to custom create assets and skins within the game and mint these assets as NFTs. User-built and audience-generated content and digital assets is a trending subject in 2023’s gaming world. Overall, the conversation was conducted in order to understand where gaming, web3, the blockchain, and crypto all intersect.
This interview was recorded via Zoom after Outsidergaming’s Asset Manager, Ryan Gallagher reached out to Corey Wilton and Renz Chong to understand how they fit into the wide world of gaming.
The interview was arranged to record a podcast-style video interview. However, the interview has also been transcribed below so that readers can key in on different topics discussed during the interview.
And it goes like this…
Corey Wilton:
I am currently in Hanoi and we go between, I guess our staff go between Vietnam and the Philippines as well. So I’m obviously Australian, uh, live in Australia probably half the time, um, a quarter of the time in Vietnam, and a quarter of the time… I don’t know where I am, I’m just all around the place similar to Renz. So, yeah, I guess like there’s a little bit of background and, uh, our first game was in web three for the studio. We were blessed enough to be quite popular back in 2021, and 2022. And, since then we’re just shipping, uh, building three more games, hopefully shipping them towards the end of this year [2023].
Ryan Gallagher:
Very nice.
Renz Chong:
Hey, Ryan. And nice to meet you. So, yeah, I mean, just like Corey actually started BreederDAO, like as a web3 company, right? Um, and, you know, initially started off with Infinity. We really just focus on asset creation. Started off with, you know, the idea of decentralized gaming with playable characters, and so did a bunch of characters. Eventually, you know, also did the same for Pegaxy, and a bunch of other games. Right. And right now, you know, we’re seeing that, you know, the different components of like, gaming is also all already being decentralized as well. And we’re now moving away from just the idea of, you know, giving out the, the decentralization aspect on the playable characters, but also expanding it to other areas. So like content lower, uh, and the like. And specifically for us, we’re actually touching on like asset creation, so the next focus after playable characters, which is what we’re still doing, even until now is now, but on the skins and wearable parts. But yeah, overall, like the, the goal for us is to be able to touch on, you know, asset customization, creation, being able to allow users to generate their own content and then plug those back into the game or into the virtual worlds of their own choosing. So, yeah.
RG: Interesting. So, I guess for your guys’ background, I’m not anything of a huge tech guy or gamer or anything like that. However, I’m, my background is more in journalism, so I think, you know, where I lack in knowledge of gaming, I think my journalistic, senses help me to, kind of ask the right questions and also, study things in an unbiased way and kind of, take them for face value where I think maybe, you know, any other conversation with another, you know, really niche gamer, might have certain questions that would, would dive deeper. So, excuse me if I’m a little behind. But what I understand so far is that, in the gaming world like you guys just said, that is just starting to get a little bit more customized and people are kind of understanding what they can do and how they can impact the game. So, and as I also know you guys have worked together for the game, how do you say it? Peg-axy? Or is it Peg-acy?
CW: Pegaxy or Pegacy, whatever’s most comfortable.
RG: So where did you guys, I guess first kick off that idea of, a game that, you know, the user can have more of an influence on, and also how does that relate to, the current technology and, as I understand it, the crypto world?
CW: Sure. Some context, me and Renz actually met, like the two companies I guess met, naturally because of another product that Renz was working on with BreederDAO. I guess their initial product was back in 2022. So we’re just aligned with what we were also building in this space. We didn’t need to work directly with each other, however, it was just in our favor, to be friendly because we are in the space. Uh, but of course they had a large shift, towards, uh, I guess user generated content. Not so much in what you would expect UGC to be with videos and stuff like that, but, just straight up in game user generated content. And for us, I think UGC is hard to deny, at this point when you look forward, how much influence it does have on other players’ retention and stuff. So it was a pretty obvious thing, uh, for us to work with someone like Bri Dow, especially with the backing that they have, the how capable their team is and being friendly with the founders as well is obviously going to be helpful because you’re able to understand, their vision much clearly, cause you can spend time with them and understand what they wanna build. So it just aligned with what we thought was the future, I must admit. But, uh, in Renz’s perspective, I think we are just one of many in his large catalog, so, I’m sure he can give a much broader perspective.
RC: Yeah, I guess I just met Corey at the height of his popularity, right? Where he didn’t even bother chatting with me until I actually showed up at his event and I actually cornered him. But yeah, uh, overall, I think Corey is one of the few founders who actually was able to showcase the power of web3, right? So, you know, everything that we’re actually building here aren’t anything, you know, from the previous, um, I guess iteration stuff like gaming, we’ve already seen how people grind and then actually sell their accounts, right? And, the early stage of what we call play to earn just made it so that instead of having to sell these accounts for profit, you can actually just sell the assets themselves. And I guess the idea of creating these characters isn’t also entirely new, right? But what’s entirely new is that the ability to actually give that person that ownership back to the user. And that actually created a huge change because as a consequence to being able to own the asset, then you’re able to in a way, um, transact using the asset, right? Buying and selling these assets to end up creating that entire loop where, you know, users form like these certain tokens that are necessary to be able to create or generate more of these assets, right? And now was like the initial generation, right? I think for us, even the UGC component, right? You see, for example, Roblox decentralizing content, allowing developers to create their own idea or create their own games, right? Um, and then, you know, you’ve seen, the likes of Zelda are already becoming popular because they use the UGC aspect in an open world situation, right?
And what we’re seeing is that there’s actually a shift towards allowing people to create different content. Because what we’ve seen is that, you know, there’s a bunch of stuff that users or the community can actually do that developers can even think about from the get go, right? And giving that power back to the user in a form of like, you know, them being able to own and then being able to, you know, get rewarded for creating these kinds of content is something that, you know, blockchain is enabling us, uh, in a, in a better manner or in more efficient manner. And ultimately that’s what we’re seeing right now. Um, hence why there is also a lot of adoption in terms of the use of blockchain and I guess like generally, you know, the idea of early concepts like NFTs and whatnot.
RG: Yeah. So I guess there’s a, a lot to unpack there, but I think the, the big thing that everyone can understand, whether you’re a gamer or, you just a passive gamer is that a lot of the–for social media is a good example–most of the user’s interaction with that is just building the platform itself or furthering whatever advertising they have going. And kind of just building the Instagrams or the Facebooks or the Meta or whatever. Where you guys are at, as I understand it, is, not only are the games growing and the technology growing, but the users are actually taking away an asset, like you said, that is theirs and can be monetized as I understand it. So, it’s a big shift, I think. And where do you guys see that going over the next, five, I mean, things go so fast, maybe five, if not 10 years.
CW: I think, at least from my perspective, maybe Renz has a different perspective here. However, I feel that the more time that we’ve spent here building, the more natural it seems to have become, uh, the closer it is blending to just what people are used to in the traditional gaming space as well, initially back in 2021, I think, most people in this space would be able to attest to this: It felt as if we had discovered something new. It felt as if we had just changed gaming forever, well we learned the hard way that that is definitely not what happened. Uh, it was a bit of a false signal for sure. And what I feel that we have done is just allow a new experience within what already existed, which is taking something from within a game that you may love so much, and seeing a user who wants it and being able to say, do you wanna buy it? Something like that, right? It’s a very simple experience, but it’s just something that hasn’t really happened before. And there’s still so many kinks right now, like, to be completely honest with you, that makes an economy inside of a game exceptionally difficult to build. And it’s probably why we haven’t seen it in such a mainstream scenario. Also, it will depend on what type of game you have, if you have a casual game, if you have a hardcore game, very different economies as well. So how these users interact with each other if they want to. Yeah, I think, I guess to answer the question in five years, I’m not sure where we will be, but it’ll make a lot more sense. Uh, however, I’m not too sure if it will be as revolutionary as we thought. I think it would be much more natural and highly adopted, which means there’s still a lot of money to be made. Uh, it’ll just feel as if nothing really changed. It’ll just be a natural progression from my perspective.
RC: Yeah. I actually agree with Corey a lot with regards to, you know, uh, initially we thought that, you know, we’re absolutely introducing something that’s groundbreaking, but only to realize that, you know, these are actually things that have already existed just packaged in a different way, right? You know, the monetization part of these assets, uh, in game is actually just one of the facets or one of the applications that I feel like people have now discovered, right? Or being able to, you know, sell these assets to another person. But now that humans or the community actually own their assets, right? There’s a lot of things that they can do. In fact, there are discussions where, you know, the original IP may, or like the, the IP that I currently have, uh, with my asset right now can even out live original creator. Previously it was entirely up to developers to actually develop assets. Now you’re seeing all sorts of, you know, adoption in terms of, you know, assets being converted to merch, merch being created as like brands, right? And, you know, even assets are the same IPs being used for, or to build other games, right? And, and, you know, these other games may become more popular than the original ones, right? So that created a new way of thinking about things like these assets, these IPs, uh, which used to not exist, right? Because developers were actually the sole owners of IPs. They decide what they wanna do, if they wanna create like, you know, uh, merge if they want to create like, you know, uh, alternative stories or like comic books for that one, right? It’s like a new shift because now you’re allowing people to participate. And I guess like, maybe to add to what Corey said, I do agree with him that five years, 10 years is actually a bit hard to pinpoint where we’re going. But the point of the matter is that right now we’re at the early stages where we’re trying to experiment what exactly blockchain has to offer with regards to gaming, right? Is it really, you know, about like, decentralizing the creation of these assets? Is it really about giving power back to the community in terms of determining where the game would go, with the governance systems that are being introduced within games? Do we want the community to have a say in how the story would evolve, for these games? Or, you know, do we just entirely leave it up to them to actually develop the next chapters of the content, right? So there’s a lot of things that are unsure with blockchain, but the point of the matter is that they allow for these things to happen. And it’s an interesting experiment because we don’t know. It’s the first one that we’re seeing, we don’t know where it’s headed. We don’t know if people would actually buy into it or not. Or if it’s a concept that will be sustainable in the future. But yeah, overall it’s a pretty nice experiment.
RG: Yeah. It’s really exciting. Especially where you guys are at. I don’t know, uh, you guys seem around my age, I’m 27 years old, but, um, what about you guys?
CW: 26
RC: I’m the same age as you, at least for now. Probably gonna be older soon.
CW: You guys are old!
RG: So, yeah, I mean it’s, it’s, it’s cool to see people of our generation that are now starting to enter this, um, I guess bigger impact area of professional, you know, their own professional industry and carving their way. But I guess, where I guess we need a little bit more info is how you guys really got here. What got you, Corey, to creating this game and this gaming company? And then for Renz, what got you to, this software or this blockchain element that you guys have created?
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CW: Yeah, it’s a great question. It definitely was not planned, I’ll put it that way, but I think it came from just pure interests. So 2017 was the first time I dove into crypto. That was a typical ICO phase. Maybe people are not familiar with that, but it was basically a startup company and they’ll sell some tokens and you try to make some money. And I was putting about a hundred dollars in and I would lose about $300 a week, half my salary trying to get rich. So, uh, that’s how I got exposed to it. But, it was just like a side thing that I was really interested in and I paid attention to while I focused on my other career at the time back, back then, which was, which was e-commerce. Um, all very blessed to be successful in that one. And then I just decided to come back and look at what was happening in this space. And I think it was the end of 2020, NFTs were just starting to make a little bit of a wave. There was a platform called OpenSea, which is where you buy and sell them, just like a marketplace. And I saw one that was for F1, like Formula One, and I was like, sweet, I love Formula One, I wanna lose some money, let’s buy it. So I spent a couple grand on that, and played the game. It was super early. So what I decided to do, cause I wanted to invite some friends to play, but because it was so early they didn’t have any tutorials, I made a video so that I could just send it to them so I don’t need to explain it.
It got like 50,000 views or something like that. And one of those viewers was my co-founder and he was like, do you want to build this game? And I was like, no, obviously, I dunno how to build a game, I’m just playing the game. But, he just kept talking to me and I was like, all right, let’s give it a go. So initially, honestly, I came in as a CMO. The CEO position came maybe eight months in. From there, obviously we saw what we liked in the market, we saw what was moving. We adopted what was succeeding or initially catching traction. And also we shipped a product very, very quickly. We had great timing, we did solve a problem. We provided a solution to a big problem at the time. And yeah, that’s 200 million dollars goes to a 2D horse racing game. It was pretty wild at that period of time, I must admit, looking back obviously as it’s even more insane in hindsight, but right now, we’re much more comfortable because of that. Yeah. I’ll pass over to Renz.
RC: So I actually dabbled with crypto as well, like Corey back in 2017, but only just, you know, trying to make huge profits, right? First I heard about it from my friend–earning like, a thousand on a token that I didn’t even know of. And so I was like, how can I be like you and earn that much as well at a young age, right? So yeah. Bought like a few of the shit coins, was earning a lot cause able to multiply my funds 3x in just a few months. And I’m like, I’m not getting this in stocks, right? For context, my background was in consulting back then, and so everything and even equities. I was very much fascinated by the world of finance. And then there came 2018 where, I guess I lost like 99% of my portfolio and I was like, you know what, just leave it there. Maybe next year it’s gonna be a 1000x and I’ll just be happy and I’ll just retire. But that didn’t happen. So in 2020, when I first heard about Axie Infinity, I was like, this makes so much sense. I know a few people who have been buying a lot of these accounts because they wanna get these characters. And so, I’ve been like an avid gamer for the longest time and free to play. That gotcha component really got me. I’m the type of gamer who wants to collect all of these characters, especially when I love, or when I feel attached to these characters, and the game itself.
The idea of being able to own your assets and then eventually sell them if you get tired of them really appealed to me. And so I started playing Axie Infinity. I live in the Philippines and so there was a lot of buzz around scholarships, guilds, managers, and the entire system, right? So during that time, left and right, you would enter a random restaurant and you would hear people saying that they actually want to become part of a guild. And so it hit me, that if everyone’s just wanting to play and to get these assets or there are managers who would wanna buy assets for their followers and everyone wants to create a guild… Maybe there needs to be a player who would actually be supplying these assets. And so we actually pitched this idea to an investor. And so we started with a proof of concept, tried it, and then realized that we’re actually making a lot more money producing these assets because we can then optimize for specific traits after identifying the math behind it. And then we can actually sell them directly to the guild. So it became a B2B solution where we produce these assets, wait for them to actually hatch and then sell them off to the guild. And so that ultimately became the start of BreederDAO. We were basically selling to friends and friends of a friend, and then eventually we were selling to all the major guilds.
So yeah, that’s how we basically started and then identified an opportunity, and a gap in the market. And then, now working on producing these assets, and also expanding to not just playable characters, but eventually skins, wearables, and every other asset that can be seen within games and within a virtual world.
RG: Very cool. So for Renz, what other games besides Pegaxy do you service right now?
RC: Yeah, so right now there’s not a lot. I guess most of these games, if not all, have already slowed down. Some of them have even stopped operations. But we did a bunch of stuff. We did Arena, crypto unicorns, etc. If you were involved at the height of 2021 to 2022 or early 2022, you would be familiar with a bunch of these projects that I’m talking about. We’re actually more excited about the future because the initial iteration of these games, and I guess Corey can attest to this, is that everyone was following the same template from the success of the original game. And there was really not a lot of innovation, right? So based on an already proven model, which created the success for Axie Infinity or Pegaxy. Because they were the first two games that actually came out, which really means a huge guess mark, and made the world know about this in general. In the future what we’re already seeing is that asset creation is gonna be a core component. Like these games and games that are being developed right now are getting to the quality of the games that users would really wanna play. We really believe in the future the asset prices wouldn’t be as insane as before where a horse would cost like $2,500, right?
Or even would cost like $800 and would like three years, right? These prices wouldn’t, you know, be standardized across like every single asset. Only the rare ones, for example, would actually even reach the prices. But there will be an opportunity to generate these assets and there will be buyers for these kinds of assets. It’s not only do they wanna play them, but they also kind of wanna collect them in a way because these are assets that they get to own, and they can vary.
RG: As a kid where I did most of my gaming, it’s something that you thought might, in your dreams might happen… And then now it seems like it’s actually coming to reality. Like one of the games that I went back to, I used to play Pokemon all my life growing up, and then I recently, I got the switch and I got the Pokemon Scarlet, and I was like, wow. Everything I wanted when I was a kid, like things that I wanted to do that I thought like, oh, like maybe I guess it’s not possible yet, but now it is. It’s so intuitive and the game is just really freaking cool. I guess what for you guys both, what were your games growing up and what games do you still play nowadays?
RC: So growing up, it’s mostly FPS games for me. You know, Counter Strike and all of that, right? So I guess I was always fascinated with killing people. Being able to get the top score and getting into the leaderboard [laughs]. Not in real life, just in the games! But for me FPS [games] and, just like you, Pokemon, I guess every single generation I’ve played sometimes even both versions. Mobile still is something that I’ve always liked. Also, League of Legends, DOTA 2, and even mobile legends. And I’m still playing. But the most recent one I’ve played, and which I really love, is Honkai. It’s very unique, you can play it on your mobile, but the graphics are of different quality altogether. Genshin [Impact] kind of introduced that–the same group is now introducing his game called Honkai, which actually made a ton of money. And it’s interesting for me because they’ve already started teaching about all of these concepts, there’s a metaverse into the game. It’s becoming more and more interesting because the conversations are becoming more and more real. These are conversations that you would not only exist or you would not only see in these games, but can also see in real life. Conversations that you would normally have with your friends.
For me, the gap between what’s digital and what’s physical is becoming closer and closer and, you know, the experiences that we’re having, at least in the digital world is becoming more and more immersive that, you know, in the future, I don’t think like we’ll be able to really differentiate. Or even if we can, we’ll actually value or will actually place significant value on digital experiences that we have. Previously, it’s been, it’s actually really far right? Like, you know, it’s actually digital and you know the experience of digital doesn’t really compare to how you do it physically. But as we actually develop the technology as a whole–we’re now seeing that digital is becoming more and more realistic and more and more immersive that, you know, sometimes you just wanna stay in the digital, versus physical.
CW: I just played CoD, to be honest, just like a shit ton of CoD.
That was about it. And then sometimes Minecraft when you get in those vibes where you wanted to build some stuff, and then you just abandon it and come back to it in three years and you’re like, I remember this place. Yeah. So it was just like CoD. And then unfortunately I tried to be a pilot in the Air Force, so I started studying hard in like grade 10, and I was like, no games. And then, who would’ve guessed I wouldn’t become a pilot? And then I’d be building games like, God, it’s so ironic. But yep. So it was just CoD man.
RC: Full circle!
CW: CoD owned my life. Yeah. And then I didn’t even become a pilot. Sad times, but mine’s not very cool. No.
RG: Hey, I mean, everyone’s got their own story and their own path. I guess, on top of that, Corey, for your game right now, who plays it, tell me a little bit more about the game and if you were like me, someone who’s never played it before, if you had to give a little bit of rundown on what it’s like to play the game, who plays, why they play, things like that, I’d love to hear about it…
CW: Sure. So I guess when the initial version was out, we have two versions. We had the first one, which has been sunset. So the first version was a large demographic. I would say 80% split between the Philippines and Brazil. Because of the financial side of things within the game, the desire was to earn money through playing the game. And then, a vast majority of the funds. So out of the $200 million, I would say $180 million would’ve been split between the Western world. So the USA, UK, and actually Singapore was a big one as well as Australia. So usually the countries where their average spend is quite high, it’s just the typical scenario. They came in and spent a lot of money in it. The everyday players were from developing countries like the Philippines and Brazil. And then in the next version we’re obviously taking a more, traditional casual game approach. So, for all three games, actually for Pegaxy, our IP is well known in the Philippines, so we are blessed enough to be able to penetrate it a bit easier for a bit cheaper. So we’ll definitely have a focus there. However, the US just spends a lot, or the Western world in general just spends a lot. So, obviously we’ll be targeting those types of players and the introduction of in-app purchases, in-app advertising will exist in these casual games as well that we’re developing. And, for the players, for the people who haven’t played, sorry, it’s just essentially a horse racing game with inspiration from my Crash Team Racing or Mario Kart as well. This is the kind of emotion that we wanna give, and make it a–I wouldn’t say casual–more like a mid-core game where people are quite attached to their characters and they’re willing to trade back and forth for the other two games. One of them’s inspired by Arch Hero. I know Ren spent a stupid amount of money on that game. And, so we’re building, I guess a bit more of a hardcore version. And, the third one is actually inspired by Tamagotchi and Pokemon Go, just carrying it like, Habbo Hotel type of vibes. Just a quite casual game, with some pets in it. So, that basically summarizes it.
RG: That’s cool. I haven’t heard the Tomagotchi name in a while. That’s, it’s been a while. That’s definitely a flash from the past.
CW: Nostalgia
RG: Yeah, big time. But yeah, I mean the customization factor, I think, the sky’s the limit so to speak. And then obviously racing games it’s like, who doesn’t love, something like Mario Kart.
CW: Classics
RG: Or the [Burnout Takedown and the] F1 games and I mean, they’re just something that even my dad would play.
CW: Timeless
RG: Exactly he could come down to the basement where me and my brother would, you know, beat him in every game we’d play, but he would still enjoy a racing game.
CW: It’s just like, yeah, you pick it up, you know how to race, you gotta win. That’s the goal. There’s not much, it’s not very complicated. Just win the race, that’s what we want.
RG: Yeah. And then adding the customization factor is something that hopefully will keep players coming back cause they feel attached and if they can make money, which is a brand new part of gaming…
CW: Obviously It’s not guaranteed. I think where Renz’s team’s technology really does come into play, obviously is the customization and it revolves around interactions and retention. So it helps someone like us quite a bit. But the money side of things is primarily based on speculation for sure. It’s not so much you just play to earn money. That was the original thesis. We were very wrong. So now, to be completely honest with you, it just comes back to when you played, WoW. For example, these people will grind their accounts for a thousand hours. You know, someone out there wants an account with a thousand hours in it because they’ve done the bullshit, they will buy it. Uh, that’s really speculation. Now you need to try to get a decent price for it. Similar situation, but the blockchain basically doesn’t require any talking or any risky shit. Or give me your card details, send me the PayPal before I transfer your account. The blockchain is just permissionless, you don’t need anyone. It’s like, put it up, I’ll buy it. No talking. And it solves a lot of things.
RG: Yeah, That makes sense. And I guess for Renz, your, this technology, what, what do you see its uses going forward? I know I saw something that, maybe there was an investment. I recognize the name Andreessen Horowitz.
CW: The biggest in the game. The biggest in… Yeah, that’s a good one.
RG: So I saw that on the, kind of on the, the PR when I was learning about you. I know one of them was [Marc Andreessen]. Where does he come into play? I think he was on the Rogan podcast at one point and he–I forget his background. Do, do you guys remember?
CW: I think he’s a big IT company–he used to own a massive IT company, right? Then he sold it for a couple billion and then that’s when he started a16Z with a partner. But their background is, you know, they’re investing in everything right now. The biggest or the biggest. So it’s quite a massive name. Yeah.
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RC: Yeah. I think they draw from their experience as founders. Like the struggles they had as founders and then, you know, how they wanna eventually translate those. From a16z port coast company you actually can feel the support that they give to you. And drawing from their experience, right? Where usually during the down times or, you know, during what we call bear cycles, right? Uh, it’s where founders usually struggle a lot, not just in venture capital, but also identifying a product market fit. And so, for us, you can really feel the immense support from the team as an extension of your own team. Being able to ask someone from their team about every single subject or every single matter. Where if you need someone who can help you with recruitment, they would actually offer that. If you need someone who can help you run things about how best to actually push it to the market or how best to concept it out, they also have ultimately all of these came from their experiences as founders where they also struggled and they also had like a hard time but eventually became successful and so on themselves and started to realize that they can actually do more holding or creating a venture from being able to help founders who are also struggling, but have huge potential.
RG: And so I guess for your technology and I guess give me a little bit of how to explain it a little bit more, just cuz I’m so out of this, this world a little bit. How would you explain this technology to someone that, again, that doesn’t know anything about it, in your words or in your layman’s terms?
RC: Yeah, I guess we’re building a bunch of like different products. The main one is actually a bit straightforward where the idea is that if you are manufacturing things right, you need equipment… The idea of being able to master these assets that are previously not available, is something that we kind of pioneered at the start, right? Being able to create tools that will help you scale your operations and identify the best possible combinations is one that we actually built ourselves. And eventually this sort of machinery is gonna be made public. Or, will actually enable people to identify, build, acquire, or interpret data, information, that’s easily digestible so that they’re able to produce their own assets with their own liking.
The second product that we’re also working on outside of the creation or mass creation of digital assets is more on our digital playable characters. It would be on the skins side, right? So wearables. Skins have always been the bread and butter of a bunch of these games. Sometimes, you don’t earn from the game itself, but you earn from selling skins. Because people inherently want to look good, right? But you know, what’s very different from the way we’re doing it now is that we’re also introducing a UGC component because previously, the very definition of games or skins within games is for your character to look good, right? Because, even if you can’t play really well, as long as you look good, at least like you die fashionably, right? Or something like that. If you’re able to customize the same set of like skins, the same set of like wearables, then you know, what Corey was saying about being attached to that character makes much more sense. Because that character is now a representation of yourself. You actually embedded your identity into the character and you can actually customize not only the look of that avatar, but you know, how, you know, every single aspect of the avatar–the headgear, the armor–Kind of represents you. It could be your style, it could be your own face plastered on like the armor itself, right? Or it could even be as simple as a branding or an identity that you attach yourself. Much like we see in ESports Organizations, right? The idea of decentralizing the asset creation process and being able to take an asset from a particular world and bring the same one to a different world, just changing how it looks or how it’s actually used. Be it in a form of aesthetic or an actual weapon. It’s something that is made possible by blockchain. The attempts of individuals before to adapt the same assets from a singular game isn’t really something that would fly before because developers would always think about revenue. If I actually bring in already existing assets, then I would actually lose… But now people are seeing that adopting these new assets or these old assets from a different game allows me to create or to do vampire attacks on these already existing needs. Whereby, if I don’t have an initial user base and I allow them to use the same characters into this platform of mine, then in a way I’m able to attract them or create that initial base of characters… Or a base of users rather. So, yeah, for us it’s really about being able to, you know, attach your identity to all of these assets, to be able to customize it in your own liking, in your own style, and ultimately be able to use that across the different games that you actually play. Because we believe in the idea that eventually our digital identity will be as crucial, if not more important than our physical ones because these will actually allow us to go to further places or farther places. It allowed us to or will open up new opportunities for us as well.
RG: I mean, I guess that is already true in a lot of ways, and it’s a little, scary and uncomfortable to think where it could go, but also exciting because I think the opportunities are more, and it’s going to give a lot of different opportunities to a lot of different people probably gonna create a lot of different problems that we’ll have to solve as well. But, we’ve already seen that with technology and social media and things like that. But, in general, where do you guys go next from here and what do gamers need to know about, Mirai Labs or Pegaxy, going forward? And then what do gamers need to know about the products that [Renz and BreederDAO] are going to be offering?
CW: If you wanna play Pegaxy (peg-ah-see), play Pegaxy, it’ll be available. V2 isn’t public now, but it will be available. And then if there is no necessity to experience the Web 3 side, we have the foundation of a complete game. But if you want to extend the gameplay beyond that, if you like speculation, if you like to involve money, but not give it directly to us, then you have the full ability to do it. And, obviously as new technology develops, especially from the BreederDAO (breeder-dow) team, the experience will get far superior. However, of course for us, this is a very long game. Ironically, I don’t mean game, literally get the game, but, it takes a long time to develop something like this. So for sure, there’s these early versions that people will see. I mean, you can feel free to judge it, feel free to play it, but, our vision is far, far grander. So play all the games that we release just to try to understand the experiences. I’m sure many, many people who do watch this will probably not like Web three, and I can understand why, because some of the people in Web3 say some pretty insane things, try to sell web3 and push it onto other people. But I think both of us, Renz and myself, are here trying to just provide solutions and different experiences to them and not force them to do anything that they don’t want to do. Just enhance what already exists. So yeah, if you want to see possibly a new experience within a game, then, that’s what we’re trying to do. Everything Mirai Labs does… play it.
RG: And how does someone get involved? Like if they watch this interview and they wanna play the game right away after it, what would they have to do?
CW: We obviously have the Discord community and they’re the ones who usually get early access, right? So yeah, I would say dive into Discord and ask us, you can reach out to me obviously personally on Twitter or something like that. I’m sure I can get you access as well, but it is like, we restrict it to like a hundred players at a time because we’re obviously collecting data on shit is breaking all the time, right? So we need to fix it. So we don’t want a hundred thousand players in there. And they’re all like, your stuff’s broken. And I’m like, I know. So that’s where we are right now. It’s probably like three or four months out until it’s fully open. So if they watch it now, in three to four months time, then just go download it from the app store. If not, then just reach out to us and I’ll maybe let you in. I dunno, exclusive that’s it.
RG: Renz, what, what about you? What else should gamers know about the products that you have right now? And what do you guys do? What’s next for you guys? Um, what do you have on your horizon?
RC: Sure. We actually call ourselves, or at least we like the factory of the Metaverse for good reason, right? We anchor ourselves with the idea of mass creation and customization, essentially our users to create the way they play, right? We started with allowing users to create their own playable characters, creating their own representations or digital representations, right? We’re now moving into the idea of customizing or allowing them to create their own or their own style. Or create their own fashion within these digital worlds. Eventually, where we wanna go is that, we wanna allow you to create your own strategy, create your own experience, create your own, whatever… But it’s really more on the empowering user, to be able to build, because assets ultimately are the building blocks, and we are a factory for a reason, right? We wanna enable users to create all sorts in whatever form, in whatever shape to their own liking, without having to spend a lot of resources outside of their capacity. So, yeah, I guess, you know, Pegaxy is one of the games that we’re actually partnered with, but we’re partnered with a lot more. The goal is to be able to provide assets across the different metaverses and across the different worlds that people will sooner or later learn about, and that we’ll actually be spending more time in these worlds more than our physical. So yeah, for us, it’s really about reshaping the way people create their assets and adding on that customizability, allowing you to own your identity, own the way you play and ultimately properly represent yourselves.
CW: In short, really quick, if you don’t mind me jumping in. I think the perfect way to explain BreederDAO with the context of Pegaxy is if we produce a game where there’s a really rare asset that everybody wants, BreederDAO has the ability to get together as a team, figure out how to produce that asset and create supply for that insane demand. I think personally from at least their first product, is a very easy way to explain it in layman terms. For people who maybe are coming from the outside and don’t understand why people want this stuff for Web three, just imagine something really rare inside of a game. A lot of these web3 economies allow you to create, or produce assets in the game through playing. And the BreederDAO team is exceptionally good at playing these games, believe it or not, and they know exactly how to produce these assets as well. And then someone possibly like me, or even just like Renz, who is willing to spend money to get that rare asset will come to them and buy it so that they can get in, possibly with a head start.
RC: Yeah. I think that’s a perfect way of actually talking about, you know, the original and I guess like the first product that we actually offered to the market. Yeah, expanding more than that. It’s really about asset pay, something giving the power back to the users to be able to create themselves with.
RG: Yeah, I think, going back to how you explained it in terms of like Roblox and especially, you know, the younger generation seems to freaking go crazy for it. So I think that’s a good tie there that will help people explain. And honestly, the possibilities as I understand them, I’m listening to what you guys have to say, are again, endless. And I think the future is gonna look pretty crazy, as we go forward with both games and ideas and the technology around them. But again, I appreciate you both taking the time today to get on the call. I hope to send you guys an article published on our website for OutsiderGaming.com.
CW: So I was hoping you were gonna say merch!
RG: I’m hoping that merch is coming in soon. That was part of the plan that everyone in these interviews will have merch in the future, but right now we’re just, just starting. But absolutely, I think that’s, uh, it’s in the future for us. All right.
CW: I’m in, merch swap. It’s a deal.
RC: Absolutely. I love that. Thank you, Ryan.
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To Conclude…
Please find Corey Wilton of Mirai Labs and Renz Chong of BreederDAO online. They are both (obviously!) super active in the web3 and gaming world. If you’re interested in hearing more from these bright, young gentlemen–let us know! Outsidergaming and our editorial team hopes to continue these conversations into the future. Thanks so much for tuning in!
References:
Corey Wilton
- Pegaxy was recently featured in TechInAsia: Pegaxy 2.0 – can a hybrid Web3 game succeed?
- Corey’s commentary has previously been featured in Fortune, Reuters, and Business Insider
- His recent writing has been placed at CryptoNews.net, TechCrunch and CoinTelegraph.
- Corey Wilton is the CEO of Mirai Labs, the international Web3 game studio behind Pegaxy. Players in Pegaxy breed winged horse NFTs called Pega that they use to compete in races. Interestingly, BreederDAO’s tech is fundamental to Pegaxy’s tech stack.
- Corey’s commentary has recently been featured in Fortune, Reuters, and Business Insider, and recent writing has been placed in TechCrunch and CoinTelegraph.
Renz Chong
- Recently featured on the Crypto Hipster podcast speaking about why gaming guilds are the vehicles to onboard the next billion metaverse users
- Previously covered in TechInAsia: BreederDAO vies for a place at the heart of the GameFi universe
- Renz named in Forbes Asia 30 Under 30 linked here
- Renz Chong is the CEO of Web3 gametech and NFT provider BreederDAO. Their ‘AI Skins’ let people use AI to generate multiple 3D models and skins that are minted as in-game NFTs. Demo here.
- Side note: BreederDAO is founded by three 30-Under-30 winners who raised $10m last year to launch a series of AI-driven web3 game tech products in a round led by Andreessen Horowitz’s a16z and Deplhi Digital.