Wednesday, April 3, 2019
Blockchain, Video Games, and the MLB: Interview with Randy Saaf, Lucid Sight
For all the hype around the blockchain – the computer algorithms behind the popular Bitcoin cryptocurrency – there are some real, solid promise behind the technology. Los Angeles-based Lucid Sight (www.lucidsight.com) is applying that technology “behind the scenes” to help power video games, using the digital asset features of blockchain to build ownership and scarcity into collectible video games. We caught up with Randy Saaf, the CEO of Lucid Sight, to learn more about how exactly the company is doing that, and why. Lucid Sight recently announced a $6M funding round from such investors as the ML, Salem Partners, The Galaxy EOS VC Fund, Digital Currency Group, Breakaway Growth, Frontier Venture Capital, and Animoca Brands.
What exactly is Lucid Sight?
Randy Saaf: Me and a couple of buddies started on of the first iPhone gaming companies back in 2008, called Jirbo. It was one of the launch partners with the App Store. We created fourteen of the first, 100 free iPhone apps. Jirbo was founded Jon Zweig, who was my roommate at the time. I was there, watching what he was doing, told him it was incredible, and said, “let's start a company!”. We founded Jirbo, and grew that, until it eventually became the large ad network, AdColony. Having gone through that adventure, we wanted to get into what I would describe as the next frontier of gaming. That's designing games on platforms that are fairly nascent now, like the iPhone was in 2008. Although it's ubiquitous now, in 2008, it was not guaranteed that everyone would have one in their pocket. It was still under debate. So, we founded the company, and starting building game on different platforms, to gain intuition on how consumers would use these other platforms. I believe that gaming is one of the first touchpoints for consumers who are using new technology. Consumers typically need reasons to be excited about a platform, and gaming is a good place to understand early adopters. So, we put out some VR and AR titles, and when Ethereum came out, we got excited about using the concept of using Ethereum and the blockchain technology to add digital scarcity to videogames.
I grew up in the 80's, and during that time, pre-Internet, scarcity was a fundamental part of my enjoyment of things as a kid. Those were things like baseball cards, Garbage Pail Kids, and physical toys. However, today's digital natives, those 13 year olds playing Fortnight, don't have any concept of scarcity. There is some artificial scarcity and control in videogames, but really, what you have is a license to use that stuff. You don't own anything in their game. When you buy Fortnight, you're really just renting it.You're getting a lease to the game. What we thought would be really cool, would be to make ownership a first principal in video games. It's never been possible before the creation of blockchain, basically, Bitcoin. Bitcoin created digital scarcity.
For example, there was no concept of that before blockchain. You could share a Jpeg file, and it would get forwarded and sent to everyone and no one would ever care who was the original creator. However, if I give you a Bitcoin, I don't have that anymore. That got interesting to us. We started thinking about it, and we decided, if we were going to do this, we would go big. We approached some major licensees, including Major League Baseball, MLBAM, and the player's association. They are known for being forward thinking, we gave them the vision of what baseball cards today might look like. Not on paper, but on digital, using blockchain to force scarcity, and to have it be playable and interactive. So, we set up a license with them, a dual license to get marks of the team and player likenesses, and launched the first, Blockchain-enforced digital scarcity sports game, MLB Champions.
How long has MLB Champions been available?
Randy Saaf: Actually, just one day. We did have a beta and an alpha test last season for seven weaks, but this will be the first full season. The way the game works, is you play along with the sporting event. If Clayton Kershaw pitches a perfect game, that's how you win new collectibles in this game. It memorializes the long tail of historic sporting events. It's not just who won the World Series, it's when someone hits a grand slam. When something happens, it generates a collectible, with enforced scarcity, and you can keep it, you can sell it, or you can give it to your kids when you die. It has all the traditional physical characteristics. There's a vibrand marketplace. There are players who were selling for $5 a piece in December of last yaer from our alpha, and now, even before the launch, were selling for $22 a piece. That's a 4X increase.
Is that through a marketplace or some kind of wallet?
Randy Saaf: The way it works, is you go to the website, and you buy players. It's very straightforward, it's almost exactly like you would have bought a baseball card in the past. There is an initial pool of players we're selling, and only a fixed amount. The players can buy them, you get some players you don't want, and you might resell those. There are certain physical characteristics of those players, and certain players are more valuable—for example, rookies and all stars like Bryce Harper. Those are inherently worth more. We've also added physical characteristics to add some rarity, randomly generated by statistics. For example, you might see a legendary stance, and each card will have a combination of who the player is, what they are doing, the stance, and what equipment they have. When players play in the game, depending on your own lineup, and what happens for example when the Dodgers are playing, anything from a home run to grand slam, you can get various amounts of in-game credits that you can use to buy more collectibles generated off those events.
So can players buy and sell thse among themselves?
Randy Saaf: Yes, they can buy and sell these themselves. If you wre lucky enough, for example, to get a Clayton Kershaw perfect game, you could sell it on the marketplace for $400.
Is this like a fantasy league?
Randy Saaf: It's somewhat like that. You set your lineup with the players you have, with a traditional nine players on the field, plus three in the bull pen and dugout, there are 22 positions you can fill out. Each of your players will have some characteristics, which physically increase your odds of getting those same characteristics in future generations. Depending on the events you play, you might gain a collectible from an event, such as a Grand Slam or Perfect Game, or even common things like a home run or triple. If they happen, you get a lot of in-game currency, which you can use to purchase those rare events. Even though there might be a lot of Clayton Kershaws that are collectible, not many will be Perfect Game collectibles, because they don't happen often.
How did you manage to get such a large, influential organization like the MLB to consider what you were doing?
Randy Saaf: The thing about MLBAM and the player's association, is they are known as very forward thinking major marks. Usually, they don't need to be first movers, they just need to be fast followers. The MLB Player's Association and MLBAM are known for this. They've spun out businesses which are now worth billions of dollars, which they've sold to companies like Disney. They are willing to rethink this. They k now that baseball cards have been intertwined with baseball from the beginning. We're approaching the 150th anniversary of professional baseball, and it's been a sport with lots of rich traditions, and collecting is a big part of that. They also know they have to bridge the gap to the digitial future. MLBAM invented high tech streaming, when they saw the Internet becoming a major way people consume media. Our pitch to them was very straightforward. Digital natives, those 13-year-olds, don't want physical tschotchkes. They don't want baseball cards. What is a huge prize for a 50-60 year old man, with baseball cards, is not interesting to most 13-year-old kids. That's not 100 percent true, but there's definitely a demographic change going on right now. Players who are playing Fortnite today, are going to be playing video game for their entire life. They are not going to age out of video games. This digital stuff is their future, not physical items. The idea is that you can still have all of the good things about collecting, if you are able to enforce digital scarcity. That's why we use Blockchain. It's not something you proposition to the consumer, because they really don't care what protocol is behind this. You don't care whether it's TCP or UDP delivering your website. For us, blockchain is just the pipe for creating digital scarcity, because if we didn't use Blockchain, we could just go and change a database setting. This way, there is a fixed supply which maintains value.
What's been the hardest part of creating this whole system?
Randy Saaf: Video games are very hard, in general, to make. Especially, if you want to make them fun. It's been challenging to find a sweet spot, where we have a fun game, but which still uses the blockchain technology. But, we're not making that the leading principle behind the company. That leading principle is digital scarcity. Building that into the game is the hardest part, because you can't just add blockchain to a game and make it fun.Finally, what's the next goal for your company?
Randy Saaf: We have a space came called CSC ALPHA, and we are publishing another game called Cryptic Conjure, which are traditional PC games with the same principles of digital scarcity. CSC is like the popular online game Eve Online, which has a self-sustaining economy. We wanted to take that same concept, in a slightly more casual version, which is not controlled by us, and will be based on a free market economy, which is possible only because we're putting the guts of this on the blockchain.
Thanks!