NFTStudio24 host, Andrea Ocampo, sat down with BGA CM Flavien Defraire, CTO and co-founder of Legends of Elysium, Eryk Rutkowski, and Alex Lopez, the Founder of Soundpickr to discuss the role of Blockchain Game Alliance, and how different companies as members of this global community are contributing to the development of Web3.
The blockchain industry has seen a massive addition of new startups and industry leaders this year. Every party is actively contributing to bringing more and more people into the space.
Blockchain Game Alliance is an organization that gathers different companies and professionals to help them adopt blockchain technology in their careers. Legends of Elysium and Soundpickr are among the many companies that have joined BGA. Both have a unique model of two different industries: gaming and music, and through them, the audience can learn about how blockchain technology is adopted.
Introducing Blockchain Game Alliance
BGA is leading these organizations and individuals into the mainstream by providing a safe space where they can share ideas and find opportunities.
“We want to create adoptions by highlighting new ways to create, build communities, play games, and publish games,” Flavien said. “We want to provide an open forum for individuals and professionals involved in blockchain and gaming.”
So far, BGA has gathered media houses, video games, metaverse platforms, creators, builders, developers, managers, and more, each having a unique distinct professional background that can be a good addition to the community.
Legends of Elysium: The fusion of Card & Board Game
Joining the NFTStudio24 Podcast interview, CTO Eryk introduced the audience to the blockchain-based game Legends of Elysium. This game is a unique fusion of card and board games with a sprinkle of magic elements. It’s a perfect combination of “entertainment” with “learning opportunities” for players.
According to Eryk, the game was highly inspired by Neuroshima Hex, CATAN, Magic: The Gathering, Yu-Gi-Oh, and more.
Gameplay
The gameplay of this game is quite interesting because it has added a battle system in board games, which is “self-sustainable with delayed gratification mechanism by set high quality and playability.”
The game begins as players pick one out of three races, namely, Darkles, Orcs, or Humans to defeat all the Elysiums, but first, they must gather creatures in a deck through different battle modes. The game requires clever strategies to control the hexagonal boards and claim the powerful creatures.
Modes
The game basically has four modes to play since it’s a PvP game.
- League: Players compete in the weekly ranking
- Adventures: Single-player campaign modes where players get new characters from the lore and learn about new boards, races, etc.
- Tournament: A cyclical esports event with grand prizes
- Battlefield: Mini tournaments but the pool is created by the players
As a member of BGA, Legends of Elysium offers ownership over assets redefining the traditional gaming industry and showing the use of blockchain technology to the players.
Soundpickr: The Next-Gen Music
Alex Lopez, the co-founder of Soundpickr, also joined NFTStudio24’s podcast to share his platform’s unique model focused on music. The blockchain industry has a multitude of games and metaverses that are either silent or they’re playing music without the right permissions.
For Alex, the gaming and music industries go side-by-side because for a long time games have added songs to their gameplay but there were still problems with IP permissions. Soundpickr plays its role as a platform that can prevent intellectual property misuse and future issues in games by using blockchain technology.
The music platform utilizes NFTs to bring transparency, ownership, and engagement of fans with musicians. Alex shared that when it comes to NFT adoption, a lot of record labels he has talked to have pointed out limitations but also its strength of being transparent with listeners.
“With this technology, we’re trying to empower musicians and bring them back their spotlight,” he said.
Career opportunities in the Blockchain industry
BGA has brought many professionals from all over the world to join the community and many of them have switched their careers from big corporations to small startups. This shows that the blockchain industry is open to many career opportunities for young people.
During the interview, Flavien shared that the industry is quite vast. A creator can be seen in a lot of ways as it depends on the individual’s ability, whether they can create a new world or something else. There are opportunities for composers, developers, or anyone who can build something that has utility in Web3 and the metaverse.
The best thing about establishing your career in Web3 is that there’s no fear of being limited or getting ownership stolen by game publishers. “We try to explain to any gamer why having an open economy for blockchain games really matters.”
Blockchain vs. Traditional for Game creators
Eryk furthered the conversation by sharing that blockchain involves everyone in an ecosystem. Players can become game creators in Web3 games. He said that if developers create tokens and establish a DAO mechanism, then players take the role of decision-makers within the gaming ecosystem for future developments.
The blockchain-based games also bring together players through communities. In fact, Web3 is highly focused on building communities instead of isolating individuals, and in games, this is done by giving players transparency and decision-making ability.
When it comes to monetization, traditional games do not give any ownership over assets, instead, users can only use the built-in items in the gameplay while in blockchain games, there’s a proper marketplace where players can buy, sell, and trade their in-game assets, which has become a source of passive income for many gamers currently in the industry.
When talking about how blockchain games can achieve mass adoption, Eryk says along with the idea of ownership, the game itself should be fun and engaging to attract Web2 players. The developers can add the layer of blockchain and educate all users about it.
“In my opinion, every play-to-earn and play-and-earn project has a mission to accomplish,” he said. “They should extend adoption among players and make it easier for the public to show what exactly blockchain brings here.”
NFTs and Career building
Alex uses the keyword “community” to explain the importance of non-fungible tokens in blockchain technology. According to him, the gaming community has been strong because it always looks for new avenues to engage the fans but for music or any kind of creative industry, many challenges exist.
Although social media provides a connection between an artist or creator and fans, NFTs gives another level of participation because they’re the buyers-focused market.
Buyers and fans give the true value to the asset; this means even if, as a creator, you don’t have much popularity or millions of people following you, you can still build a career around NFTs. The idea is simply to connect buyers directly with artists without any third-party involvement so there’s value to what they create.
Alex points out that usually, creators have secondary careers such as a musician and a teacher because they don’t get enough recognition in society or are monetarily not paid enough. “NFTs remove the “and” after the title,” he said. “It’s exciting to be part of the space that empowers the creatives as an underdog; it completely changes how we understand the creative industry.”
How to join Blockchain Game Alliance?
Since BGA is a global community, a lot of professionals and startups might be interested in joining this organization. NFTStudio24 asked Flavien about the requirements of joining BGA to help our audience to which he shared that the team specifically looks at whether the company needs education about blockchain.
“We, at BGA Labs, try to tackle very specific subjects related to blockchain gaming,” he said. BGA currently has over 500 companies on board, and Flavien believes the team is trying to leverage that through the community. Another aspect of BGA is that it involves professionals who learn about Web3 and see practical examples of the technology adoption and then apply it to their own startups or organizations, which in return enhances the overall image of the BGA community.
Overall, BGA is like a companion in any individual’s journey to building their career in the blockchain space.
Educating the Players about Blockchain and Play-to-Earn
A lot of people aren’t aware of the play-to-earn mechanism in games and sometimes find it hard to keep up, which eventually takes their interest away. NFTStudio24 feels there’s a need for education about this game model to the general audience, so we asked Eryk how Legends of Elysium has tackled this challenge.
He shared that the game is much more focused on being entertaining and fun while the play-to-earn is secondary in hopes to speed up blockchain adoption. The game doesn’t force users to install wallets or other tools to start playing, instead, the team utilizes Web2 tools such as Login through Google or Facebook to attract players.
Once players are onboard, they play the game for free while the education process starts by rewarding them with in-game achievements and quests. For example, if a user has to mint their first asset, the game provides a range of tutorials to educate them on what is minting, how it is done, and what’s the utility behind it.
As a member of BGA, Legends of Elysium wants to educate users inside and outside of its ecosystem, so it has partnered with other companies to overcome the boundaries of education.
Wrapping Up
The interview wrapped up with inspiring messages from the guests to the audience who are hesitant to join or are new to the space but still struggling to find their career ground.
Eryk: “There’s somewhere a project or a tool that is building exactly what they need and with organizations such as BGA, they can find solutions and the right projects. They can not only get the right approach but also valuable feedback, so it’s worth saying what you’re doing and what you need.”
Alex: “I would like to say particularly to builders and founders. Education is extremely important but I think that we, as founders, are responsible to make things easier because talking about education makes me feel that we put the responsibility of understanding on the receiver. We must be accountable to make the process so easy that nobody needs to learn anything by making it a very intuitive and straightforward process.”
Defraire: “We have a very negative situation in the crypto market right now but it’s very good to be included in a community when you see that the developers are still building. Everyone is focused on what they’re building because they’re really focused on bringing new technology and innovation, and what it means to own digital assets.”
“The philosophy of owning game assets and focusing on the gaming side is very important to us, and that’s why we’re having a conversation. I think being part of the community in these troubled times helps to be convinced that something is happening in the market.”
Flavien also shared the future aspirations of BGA in 2023. He shared that the team will be bringing more visibility to the members and also hold more physical events to meet in person with the individuals who are actively contributing to the space. Flavien also thanked NFTStudio24 for giving them the platform to share their views with the members.
