VR And The Future Of Gaming With Boss Fighters CEO Vadim Shevchuk, Plus: Omar Eibo Of 0ffsimpson

|Boss Fighters: Developing for VR is way harder but more fun because you’re interacting with your whole body.|Boss Fighters: Another big feature that’s also in development is user-generated content, which is important for the community.|Boss Fighters: The declaration of the system that we’re developing works like this: it is a cooperation between players who can’t be streamers and spectators. |Boss Fighters: If your game does not get a constant influx of fresh installs like what we call it in game design or users, the game dies off. |||||
July 19, 2022
Podcast

 

There is plenty of opportunity for development in the NFT gaming arena. Today’s guest is making the most of that with prime innovations and novel ideas to attract and retain players entering the space. Vadim Shevchuk is the CEO of Boss Fighters, a unique multiplayer action game using a unique combo of VR and PC-based competition to inspire all sorts of blockchain antics. He joins hosts Jeff Kelley, Eathan Janney, and Josh Kriger to discuss the possible key to the mainstream adoption of NFT-based gaming, the gamification of blockchain, and the community aspect that binds it all together. Stay tuned for a Hot Topic session with 13-year-old Founder of Offsimpson, Eibo, and watch out for a special giveaway with Boss Fighters Rowdy NFTs.

Listen to the podcast here

VR And The Future Of Gaming With Boss Fighters CEO Vadim Shevchuk, Plus: Omar Eibo Of 0ffsimpson

 

NFT curious readers, stay tuned for this episode and find out how Boss Fighters is using a unique combo of VR and PC-based competition to inspire all sorts of blockchain antics

Also, what might be the key to the mainstream adoption of NFT-based gaming.

Learn how this guest’s prized possession involves a very special sense of community. All this and more on this episode. Enjoy.

Don’t forget that we put a little soiree that brought out thousands of the world’s most innovative doers in the NFT space. Head to 2023.NFTLA.live to get on the whitelist for tickets to our bigger, bolder, and better but also just as an intimate and impactful event happening in Los Angeles from March 20th to 23rd, 2023. See you there.

This sponsored spotlight episode features Vadim Shevchuk, the CEO of Boss Fighters, the world’s first VR versus PC competitive action game with digital NFT assets. He is an experienced studio head, entrepreneur, and software and game producer, besides his duties as CEO. He is the Creative Director of Boss Fighters and has been working in CG and game development for years. He began his career as a 3D artist, including experience as a VFX artist, 3D animator, 3D generalist, and product director.

Boss Fighters is a unique multiplayer action game where VR players embody a powerful boss monster fighting a team of PC players in intense, fast-paced battles. Players enter the arena to become futuristic superstar gladiators that battle as Boss or Fighter and win valuable items, skins, and other rewards stored on the blockchain and tradable on the marketplace.

Vadim, welcome to the show. It’s great to have you here.

Thank you. I’m glad to be here. Thanks for having me.

It’s an honor, especially in these times when people want to focus on the markets and everything. We prefer to focus on real innovation, which is what you’re doing with Boss Fighters. It sounds like a ton of fun. We will dive in deeper, but first, where did this idea come from, and how did you decide to bring it to life?

The idea originates from our experience as developers. I run a company that develops VR applications and professional business applications like simulations. That’s where my obsession with VR started years ago when I got my first VR headset. The instant I was on my VR headset, I said, “I have to make the game in VR. It has to be something special because it opens up so many creative opportunities for game developers.” There’s so much uncharted territory in the game design space.

It has been a long way. We’re here making Boss Fighters because we decided to bring the innovation to Web3. The idea comes from multiple experiences that we had as a team of game and VR developers. I have an experience as a producer on a blockchain project, so we put everything together. It’s our dream project. We’re a team of fanatics that are trying to build this unique stuff.

Vadim, I appreciate how powerful the use of AR can be if applied in a creative way that’s engaging. A lot of people have tried to do things with AR for a long time. Some of it catches on and some of it doesn’t. The key is nuance in the execution and being so thoughtful. It sounds like you’ve put a lot of thought into what you’ve created here that we’ll talk about.

We studied the data and the way for VR users. We learned that the major roadblock is the lack of engaging experience. That’s what’s stopping the platform from developing the way it deserves. Developing for VR is way harder but more fun because you’re interacting with your whole body. It’s not interacting with a controller, a keyboard, a mouse, and stuff like that. You need to keep this in mind. This is where our experience with professional simulations helped us because you’re dealing with total newbies. You need to develop this experience in a flawless manner. Anyone can use the simulation program.

I was looking into the game through the site and stuff. It looks unique. Some people are on PC and some people are playing through VR. Talk to us about the overall features and utility of the project. The community is doing some cool stuff as well.

We have this game mode, which is a face-off with a VR boss. It’s a new type of boss fight. We are familiar with boss fights. The bosses are controlled by AI. When you pour down DPS to the bosses, they all repeat the same patterns. We want to break this, and because it is a competitive multiplayer game, the VR player embodies this boss. This creates a lot of replayability. Replayability is one of the main features of the long-lasting life of the project.

Overall, we have a set of features that we believe will make this project stand out. There’s this gladiator-style arena. We want to push heavily on the side of the gaming show. We have the special feature we call Watch-To-Earn. It is a cooperation between spectators and players. We will talk about this later if you wish. We have the asymmetric aspect where we can match VR players with screen players in different proportions. We can have exclusive flatscreen player modes to expand our player base.

We can have exclusive VR player modes like fitness VR stuff. We can even integrate the popular Move-To-Earn in a smart way without any Ponzinomics scheme. People are already doing fitness in VR. The whole market emerged when Oculus was released. All the fitness apps said, “Why don’t you play this active game? It is an active game where you crush and throw stuff with your figure in a physical environment. Why don’t you integrate a small reward for these VR players?”

Another big feature that’s also in development is user-generated content, which is important for the community. We use the tools to create the game, like a map editor and special tools for creating in-game assets. Once we publish them, we can release the tools to the community. The community can start building up and monetizing their creations. There are a plethora of options that are on the table for Boss Fighters. The fractured feature is the cool combination of the cross-reality battles between VR and flatscreens.

Let’s dig in on that piece a little bit more. That’s where the crux is. That’s the distinctive thing we’re talking about here. Tell us a little bit more about that. How does this work? Why is this so important to you as the Founder of Boss Fighters?

It’s important for several reasons. There are game design reasons why we want to do this. There are pure business reasons why it’s important to do an asymmetric style and mix these communities together. Let’s start from a business standpoint. Why is it important to create the asymmetric VR game? Why do we believe it’s the way to go? We know the VR market, although the community of VR is engaged. They play games constantly but it’s tiny in comparison to mobile phones.

Replayability is one of the main features of the long-lasting life of the project. Click To Tweet

We have a bit more than 20 to 25 million VR devices out there. Eighty percent of the market is controlled by Meta. In comparison to the mobile market, it’s small, even for PC and consoles. On the other hand, these VR players like the games they play because there are not a lot of VR games out there. Quality games are constantly bringing attention.

You need to make a game design solution to bring new members to this game. Why don’t we create this asymmetric multiplayer competition? There are a whole lot of unexplored features in this asymmetric genre. We know cool examples of games that explore these features, like Dead by Daylight and other titles that are popular. Why don’t we do this in VR?

It’s such an interesting feature to explore if done properly. What I mean by that is done in the form of an action game. Action games are the most popular titles in VR. That’s why I’m a bit skeptical about the whole stuff in VR, like metaverse. You just walk there and observe something passively. It’s not how VR uses their VR headsets. They play action games. From a business standpoint, it’s an important feature.

From the gameplay perspective, it’s interesting to explore what we can do. We’re excited to release our alpha and get feedback from the community. We’re not trying to replicate somebody. We’re trying to pave our way in this uncharted territory. As a creative director and game designer, it’s so exciting to do stuff, try to put it in front of the public, and see what they will say about the project.

Let me clarify. If I’m on the PC side or the VR side, can players be on the same team if they’re working off one platform versus another? Can VR plus PC players be operating as bosses in the game? How does that interplay work there?

The main game mode is the VR player embodies the boss. That’s the whole point. We don’t want to move away from this and allow PC players to control the boss because the whole gameplay of the boss is centered around physical interactions. That’s how VR works. You grab stuff, pull yourself toward environments, use weapons, and tear down buildings. It’s mayhem. On the other hand, fighters, which are flatscreen players, have to cooperate and play as a team to take down this boss because it’s dangerous. It’s a big monster. There are weapons and it can throw you through the building.

There’s a big forcing function based on the structure of the game as far as how people team up or not and what their roles are. That’s very cool.

It’s a big thing in the US. I can think of how all the CrossFitters could get into this game. They’re starting to look like boulders while they’re playing the game. There could be some viral meme videos going on there for sure. Hopefully, people choose things to hold that are not too dangerous as they’re playing this game if they want to simulate that part of it.

We started talking about the Watch-To-Earn mechanic. I want to go into more detail there because, like Splinterlands and Axie Infinity, each of these projects has pioneered a new type of tokenomics and mechanism for doing that. You mentioned this is new and unprecedented. What are the details there? How did you come up with the approach that you’re taking?

There was a long brainstorming process in trying to answer the question, “How do we bring more players and users to our ecosystem? We have limited VR players and a bigger portion of those flatscreen players.” We need to make something up with the streaming. Usually, it is a futuristic gladiator show. Coliseum 2.0 is the future. Why don’t we create a building game feature where spectators who are watching it on Twitch or other streaming services can directly participate in the battles in some way?

The declaration of the system that we’re developing works like this. It is a cooperation between players who can’t be streamers and spectators. A player can use our back-end platform. We’re not building Twitch or anything, but we use the credentials, so we can link your account. If you’re logged out of our system and you started streaming a battle, we can track how spectators you get on your stream. Depending on those metrics, we can increase rewards for VR players or just players.

You get the rewards after the battle, like some weapons or cosmetic items. We can give you better rewards if you get more spectators. On the other hand, this is more Web3-focused stuff. This is aimed at users who cannot play the game for some reason or don’t want to play the game but still want to participate. They get special on-chain assets or what we call tickets for watching these streams. The more streams you watch, the more tickets you get.

You can spend these tickets in multiple ways. You can spend them on the marketplace and get discounts on the in-game marketplace. You can get special assets that are only available for spectators. That’s creating this cooperation between players and spectators. If you’re a spectator, you get a special reward for participating as a spectator. You can list them on a marketplace. That’s the only to obtain this reward.

The core stuff in this Twitch API and all the streaming APIs is we can create an interactive game mode. We call them mini-bets, mini-challenges, and intervention game modes. Intervention is like Hunger Games. You type in the spectator’s chat commands and create weapon drops in the arena with some rewards. Mini-challenges are more fun. A challenge randomly appears during the battle. Nobody knows what the challenge will be. It’s a randomly-generated system. The challenges might be like that.

NFT Boss Fighters | Boss Fighters

Boss Fighters: Developing for VR is way harder but more fun because you’re interacting with your whole body.

 

You use your tickets as a spectator to bet or something like that, “Can the boss destroy 3 buildings in the next 60 seconds? Can the boss toss 50 players through the window during this battle?” Nobody knows what the challenge will be. If you’re a spectator, you could participate. If you win, you win some valuable rewards. The system is aimed at bringing in more users. We want to build up advertising and product placement because we have big screens in the arena. The opportunities are endless here.

My favorite thing that you mentioned was the ability of the spectators to make things drop into the scene. You’re almost like the gods in Greek mythology playing around with the mortals. I’ve mentioned this a couple of times in the show before. It was an NHL thing where they let the fans vote on the All-Star team. The fans played around with it and voted this underdog guy who was clunky and not the best player, but they wanted to see him on the All-Star squad, so they put him there. I love that. I hope you get to do more of that.

There’s something special about the engagement that you get out of people putting something on the line, either earning based on a bet they make or putting tokens, money, and their reputation on the line for an outcome. There’s something in there around gamification, fantasy sports, betting, and even the idea of having control of the outcome like Fan Controlled Football, which is a close group of colleagues of ours. We’re barely scratching the surface on that level of engagement. I’m excited to hear more about how that goes.

We need to get our butts at FCF to help us make a fan-controlled show.

That’s what we’re working on.

Let’s hit this preview. We looked at the gladiator arena-type thing. That’s what it looks like. It’s an in-the-ground battle, and there’s the main boss.

That’s the generic boss avatar. We have different boss avatars and a boss-customization system.

It’s wreaking havoc.

It’s whipping the other players around. That looks fun.

The fighters have a lot of maneuverability with the angles and directions of their limbs, what they’re doing, and how they’re moving. It’s a very experiential thing that’s going on there.

It’s especially fun for the VR players to have that feeling of being this all-powerful being and know that they’re real players that are having fun with that whole dynamic. I love it.

There’s always someone that comes to mind that you want to toss around if you’re having a bad day.

Josh, you played a lot of games. I do remember back in the day. We don’t talk even talk about you as a gamer in any context. What did you use to play? What was your go-to back in the day?

I had a convo with someone about this. We bonded over the fact that our favorite game growing up was Mortal Kombat. I was the Mortal Kombat champion at my local arcade. They used to hook me up with $10.25 every so often because I was on top of the big board. There were constraints in terms of gameplay back then that don’t exist now.

You need to make a game design solution to bring new members to this game. Click To Tweet

There’s this delicate balance between making it fun and innovative for each character, making the characters not be too strong against each other overall, and also giving characters some unique moves that make it fun. The competition and innovation in the industry have come such a long way. I can imagine the twelve-year-old version of myself loving this game.

We would have you probably on the show, Josh, if you were still twelve. Maybe you would show up for Hot Topics. There’s a great movie called The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters that you remind me of. It goes back. That’s the beginning of video game competitions and the genesis of a lot of what we’re talking about here. Something we hear about often is the divide between traditional and blockchain gaming. We’re curious about your thoughts on how Web3 gaming and blockchain play a role in the overall gaming architecture of the world. What’s your view on that?

To be honest, it’s a bit of an unfortunate time for blockchain games. It’s a bit early because of what titles emerge in 2021 and 2022. They mostly focus on the earn side. These play-to-earn games are the dominant thing in space. That’s what pushed most of the gamers away from this whole narrative because there’s not a lot of gameplay depth in these games.

What do gamers want to do? They want to play quality games. They’re not concerned a lot about the earning aspects or something like that. They want quality games that are fun to play, and that’s the next step in blockchain gaming. Blockchain is a tool to bring ownership of these digital assets. Players all over the world are spending millions of dollars every day.

I read that Diablo Immortal, with their monetization practice, is doing $10 million a day or something like that. People are spending money like crazy on games but they don’t get anything in return. They get fun but they can’t do anything with this asset. They’re all relying on the platform. There is no interoperability. That’s a problem that also blockchain can solve.

Blockchain gaming is the natural state of development of the gaming industry. We already see this. A lot of big names are coming into the industry. Making games is hard. It takes time. You need time to make quality games. Once quality games start to emerge, we will see a surge of lots of new quality games. Players or normal Web2 games will start to gravitate to blockchain gaming because it’s a tool to give ownership of the assets.

It has to be done properly and in ways where it makes sense. It doesn’t make sense to try to create another Axie Infinity because it’s not sustainable. You don’t need to invent the wheel again. You just need to do normal stuff like what the normal gaming industry does but give more tools to the community and the players and be more community-centered. That’s what the community wants.

Once people see that there are interesting and fun games to play, on top of that, you get something in return. You’re not only pouring money into the game but you have at least an option to list this asset on a marketplace. Somebody else can be interested in that. That’s when we see the shift. We’re still a few years from the moment of this big shift but in a few years, the industry will switch gears toward blockchain gaming.

There are so many nuggets in what you shared. It got us to appreciate your perspective there. I would love to understand. With that perspective in mind, what’s on your roadmap for Boss Fighters?

In terms of gameplay, we’re trying to invent something new, but in terms of asset ownership, we are betting on things that are yet to become popular, like VR and blockchain stuff. It makes sense for us to think in advance and includes these blockchain tools in the game. We had a call with our game design team about the system, “How can we create a non-artificial-looking system? How do we gently nudge those general games toward adopting crypto?”

The way to do this is you don’t need to force them into crypto. First of all, you need to have a cool gameplay experience. They will enjoy playing the game the way how we envision our game. It’s loaded because these are gladiators. They do not own the stuff. In Ancient Rome, they were slaves. Why don’t we do the same stuff? To own something, you earn these special points, prestige, and rewards and then spend them to mint assets or your reward as an NFT.

It’s stored forever then, but if you don’t store it, then we will have a seasonal system and do wipes each season. You can only store something in your inventory that was minted as an NFT. We’re not forcing. You still get the option to play with all this stuff during the season but if you want to hold them later or monetize your success like listing on a marketplace, then you need to mint it as an NFT. It won’t sound like a button, “Mint NFT. Link a wallet.” We need to make it as user-friendly as possible for normal gamers. That’s the way to go.

I love those insights. Before we end this segment, we always like to get a general perspective from our guests. We want to know what are some of the other interesting projects that you’re seeing out there, especially in the metaverse, gaming, and VR stuff. What are you inspired by?

I’m excited about what Gala Games is trying to do. This is an ecosystem for blockchain games. Myria is trying to do the same thing. They have big names in the space, like guys from Rockstar, Ubisoft, and Activision Blizzard. We see that big names are coming into the industry. Gala Games onboarded some teams that worked on The Witcher series and Call of Duty. In a few years, it will be a blast. There will be such a quality stream of games coming toward the community of normal and blockchain gamers.

NFT Boss Fighters | Boss Fighters

Boss Fighters: Another big feature that’s also in development is user-generated content, which is important for the community.

 

I like what they’re trying to do. They’re trying to create an ecosystem for developers like us to succeed. They’re building communities and tools for gamers. They all understand that you need to be as friendly as possible for Web2 gamers to make it successful. You cannot make a game and play with your 10,000 players. You need to grow your player base constantly.

I have this slide in our infographics. There’s one single game on Steam, a free-to-play title, The Lab. It’s a set of physics mini-games. It has almost as many users as the whole blockchain gaming industry has. It’s one single VR game on Steam. We’re super tiny in the blockchain space. I’m happy that there are guys that journey the industry and the ride. They will be leading the way.

Does that make it hard to make a sustainable and profitable game? Does it make it more difficult? Can you do that with a smaller subset of users?

I don’t think it’s possible. It’s not how games work in general. If your game does not get a constant influx of fresh installs like what we call it in game design or users, the game dies off. That happens a lot in game design, so you need to expand. You can only get so much with the current community. Either you go multichain and bring users from other chains, or the better way, as I see it, is to make it as friendly as possible for the general gaming audience and normal gamers.

Make it a fun game. Make it usable with fiat and credit card payments and then introduce an option to use tokens. Maybe it’s cheaper to use tokens in the game, “You have a battle pass for $20.99 when you pay with a credit card or you can get the same amount of value when you’re paying $9.90 in tokens.” It’s stuff like that. There are options that we can use here.

We are excited about the future. We have to be patient to get to that level of gameplay that we see in non-blockchain games, but I do think that there will be an inflection point in our near future. It’s going to be exciting to watch when we hit that. Thank you so much for sharing all those details. We will keep a close eye on you, the game, and everything you are working on.

I wanted to take a step back, shift gears a smidge, and ask you some questions that we call Edge Quick Hitters. It’s a segment that we use to get to know you a little bit better. There are ten questions. We’re looking for short, single-word, or few-word responses but we may dive in a little deeper here or there. Here we go. Question one, what is the first thing you remember ever purchasing in your life?

That was a gaming laptop. I was preparing to play Fallout 3.

Question number two, what is the first thing you remember ever selling in your life?

I sold a car but I don’t remember selling small stuff. It was the car. There was the big pile of cash you get.

That’s solid. Question number three, what is the most recent thing you purchased?

It’s a good grippy yoga mat.

Are you a yoga practitioner? Do you do a lot of yoga?

Yeah. I started doing yoga when the COVID pandemic began. When you’re locked down, you need to maintain your physical fitness. I found that yoga fits me well. It’s a cool practice.

We’re not trying to replicate somebody. We’re trying to pave our way in this uncharted territory. Click To Tweet

It takes that consistency and commitment to get to a nice and stable place with it. Question number four, what is the most recent thing you sold?

I sold my PS4 because I bought PS5.

I’ve been taking a theme here. Is there a gaming theme in your life? I don’t know what it possibly could be. Question number five, what is your most prized possession?

I hold some valuable NFTs but the most valuable asset I have is the team I work with. What I value most is the people I work with. They’re supporting me and sharing the vision. We have fun developing this project and working together for many years.

It’s special when you’ve got the right team and the right people you enjoy working with on these challenging problems. You are working on some crazy stuff. Question six, if you could pass on one of your personality traits to the next generation, what would that be?

Resist, never give up, and continue working on your dreams and building. Don’t let the world upset you too much.

It’s hard coming out of the previous crypto winter and experiencing this volatility that we’re seeing. It’s such an important message, especially when you look at the future of Web3 and what’s possible. Remember that and stay the course. You won’t regret it. This is when the real value is created for the future.

My niece, when she was little, asked her mom if dreams do come true. Her mom said, “Sometimes.” She said, “Last night, I dreamed I was a lemur. I hope that it comes true.”

Question number seven, if you could eliminate one of your personality traits from the next generation, what would that be?

It’s probably procrastination. I sometimes find myself playing too much of a game until I hate it. I can safely get away from doing something important.

It’s a mind-bender because, for you, playing the game is on-the-job research.

Sometimes I cannot stop for a long time. I play an excessive amount of time but it happens on rare occasions. I still feel guilty.

Question number eight, if you could buy anything in the world, digital, physical, service, or experience, that’s currently for sale, what would it be?

Health is the most important thing. I would buy something related to healthcare. I’m into supplements, health protocols, and all that stuff because I value the health condition. It determines your mood and productivity. You need to have this balance in your relationships, health, and work. Everything has to be in balance so you can pursue your long-term goals of building crazy projects. That’s an important thing that I would buy.

NFT Boss Fighters | Boss Fighters

Boss Fighters: The declaration of the system that we’re developing works like this: it is a cooperation between players who can’t be streamers and spectators.

 

It’s hard to deny that. It’s something we all struggle with, especially when things get a little out of whack in terms of balance. You get busy. You go heads down. Let’s move on. This is a little easier. Question number nine, what did you do before joining us on the show?

I was listening to Andrew Huberman’s podcast. He has amazing health-related content. I enjoy every single episode of what Andrew is doing.

You should have been listening to our show but we will forgive you.

We got some great content from him. We had a lot of other related things. Here’s the last one. Question ten, what are you going to do next after the show?

I would probably go to hit bed because it’s quite late at my location. I’m in Europe. Wellness requires proper sleep.

We appreciate you. That’s Quick Hitters. Thanks so much for playing along. Eathan, shall we move along to our next segment?

Onto Hot Topics, our sponsored Hot Topic is all about this thing called Offsimpson and its Founder, Eibo. He’s a pretty ambitious thirteen-year-old. He has generated quite a bit from his activities here in NFTs. He’s a big fan of the show. He reached out to us. We thought, “Let’s bring him on and say hi.” Eibo, welcome to the show. Tell us where you’re calling in from.

I’m calling in from Egypt.

Eibo, let’s start by learning more about what got you into the space and how you generated some of your first sales in the space, and then we will move on to what you’re doing next. I’m excited to learn more about what inspired you and how it has changed your life.

In the beginning, when I was age nine, I saw my dad’s phone and I saw that guy named Elon Musk. I felt that we had too many similarities. He has Asperger’s Syndrome, me as well. I like everyone that looks like me. At that time, $36 billion was his net worth. That was before he popped off when I was nine. I decided to learn about video gaming and make my first game to try to sell it. I’ll be honest. I don’t think I’ll be like Elon Musk. Musk is just a nerdy aspect of me.

You made a video game and sold it. How did that come to be? Did you have some friends to learn about it?

I just made the map. I did have friends at the beginning. They started learning with me, but over time, they decided to leave because they thought it was a waste of time. I see it as the best move I’ve ever done in my life.

We were talking with Vadim about how much time and effort goes into creating a video game. Maybe you’ve got a potential mentor here on the show with us. Vadim, what’s your advice to an up-and-coming video game designer? Are there any thoughts or questions for our friend, Eibo?

I was wondering what kind of video game it was.

Blockchain gaming is the natural state of development of the gaming industry. Click To Tweet

It was an Open World. I didn’t do any programming, stories, or anything in the game. I did the map, a few houses, and the roads. That’s all I could do, then I sold it to somebody. I don’t know if he’s going to make a video game or keep it. It’s not mine now.

It’s amazing to have done that and to be introduced to the space at such a young age. There’s so much potential here. You’re off and running on your next project already, Offsimpson. Tell us a little bit about it. What’s the story there? What kind of utility can we expect? It sounds fun.

For Offsimpson, I first made my NFTs on Photoshop. I also learned how to Photoshop. Over time I learned what blockchain and DeFi mean. Even if I tell my family that Bitcoin will rise, I can’t predict the stock markets and the cryptocurrencies. I can’t buy any of them because I don’t have a credit card but then I started learning about NFTs. I thought it was fun. I saw Bored Ape at the beginning of 2021 and told my dad I wished to buy a Bored Ape. He told me, “You can just screenshot it.”

I told him, “That’s not how it works. I don’t want a profile picture. I want the data on the computer to be in my name.” It was a few bucks at that time. It didn’t have as much value as it was. I like NFTs and the idea. When I popped up, he told me, “Are you sure it’s not a scam?” I told him, “It’s worth millions now.” I felt like I needed to move on. I don’t have a credit card, so I have to play with the cards I have. I’m young, so I have to use MetaMask or a cryptocurrency wallet. That’s what I used to make money.

A couple of sales were higher than the one that was sold to me, but the only thing that I needed was the money to come in a crypto wallet, not a credit card or PayPal, because I don’t have access to these things. Still, I don’t but I have to work with the cards I have. I’m not just lying in bed and waiting for money to come. I’ve been 1.5 years making $0 and every day staying up for nine hours straight, programming, learning, and everything. To be honest, I don’t like Elon Musk as much as earlier.

Tell us a little bit about the next project. How many NFTs are you creating? What would people get when they buy one of your NFTs?

When they buy one of my NFTs, I give them my predictions. I even started giving them my predictions to make sure that I could predict. I told them, “Once the NFTs are released, I won’t upload any predictions.” People are buying. I think if that project went so big, I would have control over cryptocurrencies. If I say it’s going up, it’s going up even if I have no proof.

I say it now because I see an upward flag and a double bottom but when I have a couple of hundred thousand people following what I say, I’ll have control. That will make me too much money. I’ll be honest. I want to buy my map back again so I can continue my game. It looks like he didn’t upload any game until now.

That’s a great use case for a utility in terms of this membership or access, as we like to talk about it.

It’s not the only utility. If you’re a gamer, you could join for $100. The NFT is worth $100. If you win, $200 is your profit. Even if you don’t have any clue about gaming, you can get a gamer. That’s how business works. You give him $10, he wins, and you took the risk, then you have the money.

There’s one more thing I want to cover before we have to wrap up with Vadim. When we were doing the preinterview for the show, you talked to me a little bit about why you wanted to be on the show and what NFTs have done in terms of the financial impact on your life. Even though the market goes up and down, $20,000 is a lot of money, especially for someone your age in Egypt. Talk to us a little bit about how that has impacted your life.

There’s nothing new. I can get my money but I’m happy because the price of the dollar to the EGP is now rising every day. I’m going to be rich here. To be honest, I want to move to the US.

We would love to have you out at NFTLA in March 2023 if you do make it out this way or if we’re traveling internationally and we find a way to connect. I love your passion and your vision. There’s so much room to grow. You’re about as early into this space as you could possibly be, given your age and background. You’re doing fun things. Thanks for coming on and sharing with us. This is exciting stuff.

To be honest, I don’t think NFTs would last more than a year. I knew what was going to pop up. There’s something called DeFi, if any of you heard of it.

NFT Boss Fighters | Boss Fighters

Boss Fighters: If your game does not get a constant influx of fresh installs like what we call it in game design or users, the game dies off.

 

It’s a big part of what we talk about here.

Blockchain is the new way of life. You don’t need a life with too many servers. You just have everyone’s computers.

We talked about doing a little giveaway for our audience. There are 30 NFTs. What’s the story there? What should we get our audience excited about?

I like giving out NFTs because if I give out the 30 NFTs and the 30 owners come, they’re going to be more interested to buy. I’ve got 3 or 4. I’ll have to put myself in the buyer’s place. I’m not going to be the first one to buy an unknown NFT.

Keep an eye out on our socials. We will give you some information on that giveaway. Where should folks go to learn about what you’re working on? Do you have any place where you’re posting this stuff or socials that people should follow?

There’s Twitter and Instagram. On Instagram, we have made 500 followers and on Twitter, I just made 40. I don’t know the reason Instagram is making much more followers than Twitter is. I realized that Twitter people suck. It’s based on a true story. Everyone new on Twitter is going to follow five. That’s it. They’re probably Gary Vee, Elon Musk, and maybe some companies, but they’re not following anyone else. I work hard on Twitter. I make 24 tweets a day.

We will try to get you some more followers, Omar. We will see what we can do.

What’s your handle on social?

It’s @0ffsimpson.

Take a look at it. Thank you so much for joining us. It was fun. Kudos to everything you’ve done. We will be watching closely. We see big things in store for you. Thanks for joining us.

You’re welcome. I appreciate you.

We appreciate you. We will talk soon. He’s thirteen. Everything he’s thinking about and doing and his perspectives are very interesting.

He’s got opinions and conviction. He’s being entrepreneurial. It’s pretty exciting. When we talked previously, he did share that this had a profound impact on his life around how he looks at what he wants to do with his life and how he relates to opportunities in Egypt. He’s ready to leave. He’s fired up by this industry. We caught him on a different day. He was being a little bit more modest about that part of things. It’s certainly inspiring how passionate he is about the industry.

Vadim, thank you so much for sharing everything with us about Boss Fighters, your vision about it, and your perspective about what’s important at the foundation. It’s critical and something that our audience will value, especially in these wonky and volatile times. Sharing that long-term perspective with us is so key. We appreciate it. Where can folks go if they want to follow your journey? What’s the best place for them to go to follow you on socials?

You need to have this balance in your relationships, health, and work. Everything has to be in balance so you can pursue your long-term goals of building crazy projects. Click To Tweet

The best place to follow Boss Fighters is on Twitter and Discord. On Discord, we have a vanity handle. Discord.com/BossFighters will lead you up to the Boss Fighters Discord server. On Twitter, it is @BossFightersVR.

Thanks for that. The word on the street was we were going to do a little giveaway for Boss Fighters also. Can you give us details on the contents there?

We’re doing a giveaway of five Boss Fighters Rowdy NFTs. These are from our genesis collection. It’s the character avatars for the fighters. They have dope characters and also additional utilities in-game and off-game. They act as keys to unlock different content that is yet to be released. Get the utility-backed character avatars.

That sounds as exciting as Eibo’s utility around predicting the market. Some may even find it more exciting. Thanks for that.

Please keep an eye on our socials for details on how to score one of those Boss Fighters Rowdies. Thanks. We’re very grateful for that offering. We have reached the outer limit at the show. Thank you for exploring with us. We’ve got space for more adventures on this starship, so invite your friends and recruit some cool strangers that will make this journey all so much better. How? Go to Spotify or iTunes, rate us, and say something awesome. Go to EdgeOfNFT.com to dive further down the rabbit hole. Lastly, be sure to tune in next time for more great NFT content. Thanks again for sharing this time with us.

Thank you for having me.

 

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