Welcome to the latest episode of Games From The Block Podcast, a fresh and new show about gaming on the blockchain, non-fungible tokens, and anything decentralized.
In this episode, George Tsagkarakis interviews Jason Cassidy, CEO of the Game Credits platform. We take a deep dive into the innermost depths of Game Credits and get to know more about Jason and his team, the platform, as well as its future.
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The Interview begins with Jason introducing himself and the project.
My name is Jason Cassidy, and I’m the owner and CEO of Game Credits.
We are the first blockchain gaming network and cryptocurrency in history, and that takes us back to February of 2014 when we launched our proof of work network, and we’ve been running ever since.
Our focus is on the e-sports industry and Non Fungible Tokens (NFTs), and our goal is to provide tools and services that bridge the blockchain gaming world with the traditional e-sports world.
We just recently back in July of this year, moved from our proof of work network to Ethereum. We did that, of course, because of the NFT industry and blockchain gaming, which are very harmonious at this point.
The industry’s most innovation by far lies on the Ethereum main net and the side chains. Look at the ERC 721 standard and ERC 1155 that enjin released. Those are driving a lot of business right now. We think it was a no brainer.
Some of the benefits Game Credits offer to the community and developers.
Big focuses for us are education and lowering the entry barrier for not just investors and consumers, but also content creators and developers and blockchain. How we built the services is just as important as what the services are. The key for us is that we use restful calls so that if you’re a developer that wants to start using blockchain-based services for your game, you can integrate our APIs and access our services.
We have an NFT exchange, an NFT creator tool, an e-sports from an organizer that’s all blockchain-based. You can get access to all of these tools and services without having any blockchain knowledge. You need to plug in a couple of APIs. It’s very straightforward.
We will be releasing an SDK software development kit probably early Q1 of next year, which will allow blockchain developers to jump right in and start making use of the services to the full extent, very easily.
One of the first cryptocurrency mergers and acquisitions.
We want to go back a little bit in history. Nova Token was an Ethereum project launched back in the ICO boom in 2017, we came from that company.
So what happened was I came over and joined the Nova token platform, uh, with Paul Barkley, who is now the CTO of game credits. So we essentially did a merger and acquisition.
They had spent a lot of time and money on the development, but they hadn’t put much money into marketing, into partnerships, into building up a cryptocurrency exchange.
I put together a plan to carry the company forward, and Paul Barkley, the owner at Nova token, agreed to go along with that plan, and part of that plan was for Paul to stay on board as the CTO. He was the brains behind the Nova token platform.
What you see today, all of the tools and services were built by the Nova token platform. We kept the Game Credits because that’s an iconic brand since 2014. It has a good reputation.
What is e-Sports for Game Credits?
Game Credits has always focused on e-Sports, and when we inherited game credits early this year, we inherited that focus on e-sports as well.
The tools that we have are e-sports, permanent organizer. That’s certainly something that we want to have competitive games make use of. With our rewards portal, we’re going to be working with the e-Sports industry, and I can’t get into too much detail on what that is just yet, but I can let you know that we’re working with e-Sports professionals.
We’re talking with e-Sports teams to introduce NFTs to the e-Sports industry because that’s going to be a big gaming piece. You’re going to see many of our plans to embrace the e-Sports industry and educate e-Sports professionals and fans on what blockchain is, what NFTs are, and what endgame item ownership is going into 2021.
Game Credits in terms of volume.
For a long time, Game Credits have been listed on top currency exchanges, like Bittrex and BitBay. On a good day, GAME can do well over $1 to $2 million of real volume. And that’s something I want to point out.
One of the false metrics is market cap because of all of the manipulation. The volume is quite often manipulated, and because we’ve been on exchanges for four or five, six years now, that’s given us time to build up the liquidity. So that it’s actual real honest, market-making, it’s not contrived, it’s not false. So while we would love to be at $10 million a day, and we’re working towards that, we are happy that we do have real volume there.
How many people work for Game Credits?
20 of the 30 people are full time. And those other ten people they may put in 10 hours a week may put in 50 hours a week. We have much flexibility there as we’re building up the team being remote. And the one thing that this allows us to do is it’s low cost, obviously because we’re not paying for a central location. And we’re also very flexible and lightweight. We can adapt to changes in the industry very quickly because we don’t have some of those intangibles in play.
About the Nova Blitz, a real-time, digital card game with “mostly positive” reviews on Steam.
We built Nova Blitz several years ago. It’s worth mentioning some of the histories here because it will give the listeners an idea of the craftsmanship, the strategy, the game theory, and the mechanics that we put into the game.
So when I met Paul Berkeley, one of the things that I was instantly attracted to was some of the backgrounds he had because he came from wizards of the coast. That’s a subsidiary of Hasbro, the board game company.
Wizards of the coast is known for creating Magic The Gathering (MTG), which I think today probably has over a hundred million fans. And Paul was able to work there with Richard Garfield for many years, the creator of MTG, I think 1993.
So Paul got a lot of inspiration for Nova Blitz. He learned about game theory and mechanics from working on MTG.
Richard is like Michael Jordan, or I guess these days, the LeBron James of trading card games.
Nova Blitz is fast-paced; it’s real-time with some fascinating mechanics. This game was put together over several years, and there is a lot of useful background and experience there.
Jasons early career in gaming might surprise you!
I played MTG when I was younger, and I was very fortunate to have a lot of success. I almost went professional and was able to buy my first house, buy my first car, and take a couple of years off to focus on some of my interests. I was like 20, 21 years old. I won some big tournaments, and I had a very high DCI ranking.
What about Regulation in gaming and NFT space?
Any owner in a blockchain company should at least have a little bit of worry about regulations because, frankly, it’s a real thing. Every year that the blockchain world continues moving forward, there’s more education that these regulators are getting through.
Regulators, after having ten years to wrap their minds around what Bitcoin is and what these other altcoins are, Non-Fungible Tokens are going to take a little bit more time.
We are cautiously optimistic because we retain legal counsel in every jurisdiction that we’re making many inroads into.
My experience from the FinTech advisory council of the Ontario Securities Commission showed me how much time and how much education the regulators need so they can fully make laws that make sense.
Two Sidechains, Matic and Skale, which one to use?
We are making use of the Matic Sidechain, and we’re probably going to be making use of the Skale sidechain.
Ethereum has this love, hate relationship. There’s so much stuff to use, that’s the love part of Ethereum, but the hate part is that because they’ve had so much success, they are seeing transaction throughput that is clogging up the network. And of course, that’s driving up the price. Many dApps can’t function economically because you’re not going to pay s$7 or $8 for a simple transaction. It doesn’t make any sense.
We initially talked with Skale as a side chain partner, and it had some delays in getting their test NetApp. And because of all the different platforms’ services, we wanted to mitigate any risks while working out some of the kinks and ultimately support them in taking the time to do this. They just finished their crowd sale. They did wonderfully. And I think they deserve that.
So, right now, we’ve got a working relationship with both Matic and Skale. Depending on the services that we release and some of the other projects that we have coming up next year, we may maintain a relationship on both. It may make sense, or we may pivot to one fully.
About Ethereum 2.0 and DeFi Congestion.
We believe that Ethereum will eventually figure out its scaling issues. But if that takes a little bit longer than expected, which frankly, let’s be honest, 2.0 is already being delayed a long time. So I think it’s fair to say that it could be continued to be delayed.
A big reason why the network is being clogged is because of Decentralized Finance (DeFi). We’re continually shaking our head at all the crazy stuff that we see happening on the network, but it’s a real thing. And I don’t think it’s going to go away. I think it may blow up, and there’ll be some dust settling, but I don’t think it’s a fad that will disappear next year.
‘Inventors’ of Decentralized Finance by accident.
The platform had some utility before it was released. There was this concept of having NFT rewards, but you can stake on. So if you were to go to gamecredits.org and go to our rewards portal, you could stake GAME tokens on a gaming partner. And then you can earn back both fungible, tokens and NFTs as a reward. So we kind of created one of the first DeFi use cases, but without really realizing it.
Stake GAME with the Rewards Portal & reap the rewards.
We’ve built here a way that holders of GAME Token can go to the rewards portal, and then they can put their game token to use with some utility.
Anyone can join up and sign up for free on our rewards portal as a partner. And when you do that, you open yourself up to our NFT rewards ecosystem, which works with GAME.
We have allocated several GAME tokens to fund our reward portal for the next ten years. So we have millions of game tokens that we have set aside. It’s part of our marketing budget.
There are 50,000 Game Tokens every week for the stakers, and then the other 50,000 game tokens every week is available for our game partners.
So basically, if you’re a game partner like The Sandbox or Splinterlands, you want as many people with GAME Tokens staking on your game as possible. The more game tokens staked on your game, the more of that 50,000 game pot you earn every week. Same for the stakers.
Right now, we’ve got over 33 million Game Tokens locked up on the portal, making use of the system.
Eventually, you’re going to be able to earn NFT rewards because the ultimate goal is that the rewards portal becomes an NFT rewards delivery system. S
It’s effortless to sign up. It takes minutes, it’s straight forward, and we get to promote you. That’s also a big thing. You can earn a residual income stream. You get a lot of free promotion, promotion, marketing, and advertising.
How do Game Credits benefit from all this process?
The answer is twofold. The first benefit for us is that as you can see, with about 33 million GAME Tokens locked up on the portal, those are now removed from the circulating supply. So over time, as more and more game holders are aware, they can earn NFT and make an income from this for next to nothing.
Users engage and support their favorite crypto companies, games, and other projects. Eventually, we could see 50, 60, 70 million, and think that there will be many game tokens locked up on the portal next year.
So from a supply and demand, token economics perspective, of course, the less supply that’s available to be purchased, as long as you pressure the demand side, the price should go up over time.
That’s something that we want to cultivate very honestly and ethically. We think that this is a real way to build utility. So that’s a benefit for us, but we also survive and thrive because of our partners. We need game developers, creating engaging games that have communities, and we want to help support that.
So from a game developers perspective, this allows us to start building relationships with these game companies with no pressure they have, they don’t have to sign any contracts. They’re not agreeing to anything other than just going in the portal. They can leave whenever they want.
Where do you see Blockchain Gaming in five years from today?
Five years from now, I expect to see NFTs having as much as a role in cryptocurrency, like fungible currencies do. And I know that’s a huge statement, but I think five more years from today, we’re probably going to be at a place where there’s a very close to an equal number of individuals that are spending time and money with the fungible currencies as they are with NFTs.
A significant portion of humanity knows about cryptocurrencies and Bitcoin, but they don’t get excited about it. It doesn’t have an emotional attachment to them. They may be very nervous about it. And for a good reason, in some instances, but non-fungible tokens are different. They are unique by their definition. And this could be anything from a piece of art to an in-game item.
I think that blockchain will seep into the traditional gaming rule, and NFTs are going to help that. So I don’t believe Fortnite is going to adopt NFTs next week.
However, player empowerment is valid. NFTs are genuinely creating the first real Renaissance for player empowerment in the gaming industry.
So five years from now, I expect that most people that are in the gaming world know about blockchain because they have to if they want to take a piece of the future in that industry.