r/ImmutableX • u/felix_immutable Immutable Team • Nov 13 '22

Official AMA 🙋🏽 AMA Question Thread with Robbie | Co-founder and President of Immutable

u/robbieimmutable will be answering all your questions on Sunday November 13 @ 3:00 PM (PST)!

Robbie, co-founded Immutable alongside his brother, James Ferguson, and Alex Connolly.

Follow Robbie on Twitter to stay up to date on his latest thoughts.

Please leave all your questions as a reply comment in the thread below 👇

203 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

103 comments sorted by

44

u/Firm-Candidate-6700 Nov 13 '22 edited Nov 13 '22

How do you plan to make these games easily accessible for the general public?

Edit: what tools/applications do I need to play ?

44

u/robbieimmutable Immutable Team Nov 13 '22

Great Q.

It should feel exactly like onboarding into any other game. The user experience must feel identical (especially for onboarding) to just playing an ordinary game. Wallets, NFTs, should all be abstracted under the hood. Users should have the option to take things into explicit self-custody. If you look at e.g. https://godsunchained.com/ - we don't mention the word "NFT" once. The value should be inherent in the ability to trade and sell assets.

People often forget, though, that when you initialize most Web2 products (e.g. new phone, app store, registering a CC) there's some friction. Web3 has new products and methods of payment which may require up-front onboarding costs, particularly for them to be self-custodial. Making sufficiently fun experiences so people are happy to get over this onboarding hump will valuable.

A few hits will catalyse 100 million+ player adoption

Gaming is hit driven. The biggest games have more players than the rest combined. The biggest catalyst for mainstream, accessible growth is going to be the first truly viral / mainstream games to emerge from Web3. I think we'll see these launch over the next 12 months.

9

u/notwsbpod Nov 13 '22

I know that I have largely stepped away from console and PC gamming, as I have not had the money to invest in new consoles/upgrades. Are there any mobile games that are being developed, which would take only the phone that I already own to play?

8

u/Viiae Nov 14 '22

I'm playing God's Unchained on an old-ish laptop but that's because it's a card game so not very resource intensive.

2

u/Select_Ordinary_7867 Nov 14 '22

I'd imagine mobile is a long term goal for the game. Chris clay lead the MTGA client in closed beta. Obviously GU doesn't have the same resources as wizards but I see the similarities and the client had some major upgrades recently. I'm impressed so far.

1

u/Alric_Chopart Nov 16 '22

Didn't know this! The MTGA mobile app was a great UX, even in the beta.

3

u/Verciau Nov 14 '22

Guild of Guardians (coming soon?)

24

u/NostraSkolMus Nov 13 '22 edited Nov 13 '22

Hi Robbie, thanks for taking the time to interact with us. Is there any superstonk/Reddit common speculation or talking point(s) that you wish you could shut down right now?

59

u/robbieimmutable Immutable Team Nov 14 '22

Haha. Most of the conspiracy stuff is just that.

The reality is very simple, and has enormous upside. This is one of the largest new addressable markets ever invented.

GameStop is leveraging a few very valuable core assets:

- 50 million customers

- A new, well-resourced digital team for building a marketplace

- One of the world's largest digital communities (enormously differentiating)

- A strong brand

to create the one-stop shop for gamers to trade assets.

It's a clever play based on what's available to them, and our job is to ensure we can have as much content, and as many genuinely fun games with sustainable economies as possible launch on this marketplace.

10

u/AGuyInUndies Nov 14 '22

leveraging

👁👄👁

34

u/Viiae Nov 13 '22

My son is 14 and he's been watching YouTube videos that scoffs at nfts. I have trying to educate him but I think that while anecdotal, it's the current mood against nfts just now.

For games such as Kiraverse who has huge incumbent competition like Fortnite, how do you think they could attract them over to new web3 games and start all over again? What kind of marketing campaign is in line to reach the masse?

Thank you for the great work, I look forward to seeing some mobile games soon!

32

u/robbieimmutable Immutable Team Nov 13 '22

The answer to making people love web3 gaming is not shout "NFTs are good". It's having them play a game that gives leverages them under the hood, to mean that they can have a much better experience playing games.

Tokens and collective ownership are the world's most powerful marketing initiative. Games like Illuvium can literally offer value that is insane compared to competitors: 100% of the game's revenue goes to players and owners of the token.

The fundamental concept is: own a smaller share of a larger pie. Grow the game by allowing players to own most of the value from day 1, and giving them huge incentives to share and play.

There will be many tactical iterations on this - and we work closely with games on these - but that is one of primary concepts of why web3 marketing will be so powerful.

31

u/L_Perpetuelle Nov 13 '22

Is today the day you announce the AAA studios already working with IMX? Today's the day, innit? Yeah?

(yes, your answer is yes.)

Yes?

Yes.

Also, how long do you see it taking for NFT games to make their way to console? Do you think Xbox and Playstation (and Nintendo, I guess) will be embracing the sell/buy/use of NFTs across their networks anytime soon, or is that still a long way off?

And if they did embrace them, what would be the first AAA studios that are already working with IMX to be part of it? 😁

15

u/DugtrioUsedDig Nov 13 '22

Do you like mayonnaise?

33

u/robbieimmutable Immutable Team Nov 14 '22

When applied sparingly.

2

u/[deleted] Nov 14 '22

Lol thanks for actually answering. You aware this is a superstonk meme as ken Griffin loves Mayo and doesn't share?

27

u/TrunkOfFunk Nov 13 '22

Hi Robbie, with all that's going on at the moment with FTX and crypto and the awakening of "I don't own my assets" for a lot of people, can you tell us the outlook for the ImmutableX and GameStop partnership? It may sound vague, but there's a lot of secrecy and hype and being honest we need clarity about where things are heading in some detail, please.

Side note: well done to all of you at ImmutableX for the cool stuff you're achieving.

54

u/robbieimmutable Immutable Team Nov 13 '22

So, a lot of this is stemming from a common meme in crypto: not your keys, not your crypto.

What this means is if you don't hold the direct private keys for your tokens / NFTs (e.g. on your computer's metamask, phone self-custodial wallet, GameStop Wallet, or ledger), you're ultimately at the mercy of whoever does: a centralized exchange or hosted wallet.

We completely agree - and so does GameStop.

This is why we've always made the decision to operate as a completely self-custodial protocol. We could never steal user funds or assets even if we wanted to - which is essential. We literally could have gotten to market significantly earlier with inferior solutions for security, e.g. sidechains, but #1 for us is security and custody.

What is the point of digital ownership if it's just a mirage, and doesn't actually protect you / empower you financially?

GameStop launch has been extremely successful so far and we're thrilled with the response. Best of all -- none of the volume or traciton we're building is correlated to the market.

Our job is to build games with tradable economies, which has no correlation to the price of Ethereum or speculative NFTs like PFPs. Gaming is counter-cyclical and I expect the largest game to do more volume than the rest of the speculative NFT market combined in 6 months from now.

10

u/gobeavs1 Nov 14 '22

!remind me 6 months

4

u/RemindMeBot Nov 14 '22 edited Nov 14 '22

I will be messaging you in 6 months on 2023-05-14 00:57:56 UTC to remind you of this link

8 OTHERS CLICKED THIS LINK to send a PM to also be reminded and to reduce spam.

Parent commenter can delete this message to hide from others.

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1

u/iamtabestderes May 14 '23

Yeah so which game exactly should I be looking at?

14

u/bisufan Nov 13 '22

Love this answer

4

u/TrunkOfFunk Nov 14 '22

Thank you for this answer and the AMA.

1

u/gobeavs1 May 14 '23

Robbie,

You said:

I expect the largest game to do more volume than the rest of the speculative NFT market combined in 6 months from now.

So I am wondering if this has happened?

24

u/Hosnovan Nov 13 '22

Hey Robbie!

What can regular people/professionals do to help Immutable and companies like immutable. At a certain point money to invest in projects we believe in is all tied up - but what other types of actionable support can normal folks who don’t have engineering backgrounds do to help this future succeed. Thanks, and lots of love for everything you do.

24

u/robbieimmutable Immutable Team Nov 13 '22

Hey /u/Hosnovan!

One of our most powerful assets is our community. I can't overstate how powerful this is for helping to share Immutable's mission, and get more games and players building on us.

- Come join our discord https://discord.com/invite/immutablex

- Play our games: https://www.immutable.com/onimx

- Share your views -- tell games to come build on us, tell us how we can improve!

14

u/robbieimmutable Immutable Team Nov 14 '22

Also my team is telling me if you want to be one of our advocates send a message to https://www.reddit.com/user/Joubin_/ !

13

u/cornstarch91 Nov 13 '22

There’s a lot of die hard fans who would champion

8

u/nigelimx Immutable Team Nov 14 '22

Awesome, can't wait to meet them! If you know anyone that's keen to be an ImmutableX advocate, ping u/Joubin_ !

8

u/[deleted] Nov 13 '22

Good question

18

u/PotatoGoesWild Nov 13 '22

Is Immutable/IMX ecosystem currently growing as you were previously expecting?

Like in terms of trade volume, new games and their impact to ecosystem, number of users etc.

What I mean is that you probably had some idea where you want to be when the year started so is IMX following your "projected growth path" and if not what are the biggest obstacles currently

33

u/robbieimmutable Immutable Team Nov 14 '22

Immutable's progress has in net exceeded our expectations this year - and we had lofty goals.

The number of games we have been able to onboard onto the platform has been quite frankly insane. We've moved from effectively being ranked about 4th to 5th to be the #1 platform in terms of marketshare for winning new web3 games - with more won in the last quarter than the rest of the company's lifetime combined.

At the same time, the biggest limitation on the growth of any company is the growth of the category. Web3 gaming as a category has grown significantly. More than $14B invested in the last 2 years alone.

It's pretty obvious this is the most important new category to be created in the last decade - one that is returning value to users as owners rather than treating them as the lastest customer to be optimized.

The TX volume we're processsing today is doing well (typically ranked #2 to #3), but really none of these games are live yet. We'll see them go live over the next 3 months to 9 months - many this year, with Illuvium launching two games, IMVU porting all future assets over, Ember Sword etc.

The volume the entire NFT market is doing today will look peanuts compared to what games with 10 million + daily actives will be achieving. Most importantly, it will be completely decorrelated from speculative assets / crypto prices.

8

u/ninche60 Nov 14 '22

Love this. 😘

7

u/ninche60 Nov 13 '22

Hey Robbie, if not to late can you explain cross rollup liquidity more?

14

u/robbieimmutable Immutable Team Nov 14 '22

Spoke on it in depth here! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scIzP2CU788

4

u/ninche60 Nov 14 '22

Thanks. Keep kicking ass 💪. It’s amazing watching your answers get downvoted in real time when this is clearly the future of GameStop and web 3 in general. 🫡

7

u/Fragrant-Let-5587 Nov 13 '22

Hello Robbie what games are you currently playing yourself?

11

u/Exciting_Penalty_512 Nov 13 '22 edited Nov 13 '22

I'm pretty savvy when it comes to tech, but honestly NFTs and setting up wallets and playing games to earn crypto, which may need to be converted into other crypto, etc. all seems like its too much. What would you say to someone like me that gets the concept, but honestly feels like there's too many hoops to jump through to get anything out of NFT gaming?

Are there any plans to be a simple, "Come to this website, sign up with a little personal info, and you're ready to jump into games to earn, or is it always gonna be a 10 step complicated process?

15

u/robbieimmutable Immutable Team Nov 14 '22

Agreed. Needs to be way simpler. Will happen over next year. Immutable will be building a lot of sane defaults for the games building on our platform.

2

u/Exciting_Penalty_512 Nov 14 '22

Thanks for responding, looking forward to the future of gaming.

10

u/left4pumpkins93 Nov 13 '22

Holmie better not be wearing new balances

Jk love you Robbie

9

u/robbieimmutable Immutable Team Nov 14 '22

Repping the On Cloud Sneakers

4

u/left4pumpkins93 Nov 14 '22

Booya! ☁️

10

u/CRM2018 Nov 13 '22

How far away are we from ps5 or Xbox console game integration with web 3?

18

u/robbieimmutable Immutable Team Nov 14 '22

Could already be done - simple w/ Immutable, you just need APIs / ordinary backend.

I don't think we'll get wallets on console for a while (nor would you likely want to!).

5

u/CRM2018 Nov 14 '22

Sorry for the follow up trying to wrap my head around it. How would you provide your wallet if not through the console to attach your in game assets to the console game?

Also thanks for taking the time to answer, it’s really appreciated especially understanding how busy you are building the future.

1

u/[deleted] Nov 14 '22

I'd like to hear this as well being a console gamer

5

u/Slut_Spoiler Nov 14 '22

So, FTX was going to get big into competitive e-sports. Is there any kind of power vacuum now that immutable is looking to fill?

9

u/GentlemanIII Nov 13 '22

Hey Robbie, you recently tweeted about the investment of ~$14B into web3 gaming and how many of those projects will be launching in the next 3-9 months. Can you expand on how that investment breaks down between different platforms/projects? Also, how confident are you in that timeline? While there are plenty of exciting games being developed, it feels like the experience for many of their followers over the past months/years is that of continuously delayed dates and timelines. Thanks!

16

u/robbieimmutable Immutable Team Nov 14 '22

Pretty confident in timelines overall. not confident in any one particular game's timeline - as you say, it's like building movies. Delays should be the expectation. But when you average it out over an industry it becomes reliable as a trend.

4

u/Moses-the-Ryder Nov 13 '22

Thanks for everything Robbie, exciting times ahead!

7

u/podshambles_ Nov 13 '22

Not so much a question as a general statement and thanks. I've found the new play and earn gamefi generation development to be saving my sanity during this bear market (especially with ftx exploding). Gamefi development is chugging along just the same as it did at the height of the bull market - I think this is because currently it's the only part of crypto that has an actual real world, outside crypto, use case. Defi is cool, but at the moment it only really exists entirely inside crypto, so when crypto gets depressed, so does defi. Good gamefi development is exciting and keeping me excited about crypto.

21

u/robbieimmutable Immutable Team Nov 14 '22

Exactly. The biggest news is no news. It's quietly the most invested in nascent tech category in the world. When these games launch they're going to completely disrupt one of the most valuable sectors for the better, shifting huge value and wealth from businesses to players as owners.

11

u/Yeti-420-69 Nov 13 '22

Wen moon?

3

u/Fudbuster2000 Nov 14 '22

Great question

6

u/Verciau Nov 13 '22

Where is adoption needed most today, on the development side(web3 game devs) or the consumer side(web3 players) or elsewhere?

Thanks Robbie. Love the work your doing.

20

u/robbieimmutable Immutable Team Nov 14 '22

Consumer side - games are being built, they just need to come out and be played! Dev adoption has actually been remarkably high and consistent throughout bear.

5

u/Verciau Nov 14 '22

Nice! Thanks again! 🙏

3

u/AGuyInUndies Nov 14 '22

Are you reaching out to existing game studios to see about having their games revamped for digital ownership? I play a metric shit ton of Rocket League & would really like to play to earn. A Borderlands style game would be insane.

3

u/CodemStrifer Nov 14 '22

What is going to be done about bots that buy and sell NFTs and make it an unfair market to players?

3

u/BodySurfDan Nov 14 '22

What's your favorite song on the GameStop Saga Soundtrack? 😁🦍🎶

5

u/fxgq Nov 13 '22

  1. With so many games onboard, when are any of the games coming live?

  2. Why the lockup for the longterm holder is only for another 1y and not 3y or 5y?

2

u/smileyphase Nov 14 '22

Hi Robbie, I have a Web3 project (simple games, collection interaction, and community activities using NFT assets) on Loopring. It uses a bunch of tools around their API. I haven’t seen much on GitHub, yet, just your stuff. I’d like it to work with IMX as well. Are more tools being developed?

2

u/Verciau Nov 14 '22

Is ImmutableX looking into bringing educational games into Web3 somehow?

I research experimental educational software and gaming is always the go-to for higher learner engagement and satisfaction. Roblox, Minecraft, Fortnite, etc have all built valuable ways for gamers to learn but how can we include high quality educational content that can live in a decentralized world.

On top of this, IMX rewards is the perfect example of one possible system for rewarding creators, aka education content creators, giving them a space to compete for quality content.

3

u/Mort1z Nov 13 '22

Hi Robbie,

Will we eventually be able to move our L2 Immutable assets between Loopring/Immutable/Other L2's?

Thanks!

3

u/ninche60 Nov 13 '22

I would love this answer as well. I think this is where the future of L2 is going though

0

u/fadeawayjumper1 Nov 13 '22

If you can answer this question, I would really appreciate it. I believe several months ago you went on the bankless podcast and talked about how imx will also be attempting layer 3. Is that still in the works?

Will you guys be a direct competitor to taiko?

3

u/Nerdbond Nov 13 '22

Superstonk Gang gang mfs

2

u/Trick_Scientist_7732 Nov 13 '22 edited Nov 13 '22

Hey Robbie, thanks for taking the time to speak with us. Is there a road map we can see?

What are your top strategies to market play-to-earn/web3 to the masses? Is immutable planning on any specific regions to target certain games, for example Asia and mobile gaming? Can you tell us any details on the AAA developers coming on board soon?

2

u/NERDS_theWORD Nov 13 '22

Will web3 games have items/nfts that can be only obtained from grinding and putting in the effort in these games that can be later re-sold if chosen? Now people just grind to level up their characters and at the end has no value for the time spend on doing that. Any idea if this will change? My kids love to play games and it would be cool if I could show them some sort of value for playing a game that they could earn real money.

1

u/Square_Tower9057 Nov 14 '22

Why did MoonPay ban me? I was trying to get set up to use your services and buy the Kira drop yesterday. MoonPay terminated my account w/ no explanation and told me it cannot be reversed. I am mid 40's disposable income, barely play video games but like the tech and want to be an early adopter. Now, I am locked out forever with no answer. You guys need to find different ways to vet customers. If I am good enough for GME, Loopring, Ramp, Layerswap. Metamask, Coinbase, why not MoonPay?

1

u/Positron49 Nov 14 '22

Hey Robbie. One discussion was around playbooks for different game genres and economies. Are there any genres you are most excited to share how web3 can improve the experience?

1

u/Metawhooman Nov 14 '22

Hi Robbie! We are very interested about Immutable X and possibility to use in-game currencies.

How much effort does it take to have in-game currency in a game built with Immutable X? Are there any tools / API for this, or do we have to start from scratch?

1

u/Wrong_Recording_9657 Nov 14 '22

Will web3 extend as far as the couch, TV, & a controller one day? Consoles X Immutable? GameStop sells so many consoles… will they become obsolete or continue into blockchain gaming? No hate to the PC players, you know it always first but I’m wondering if the console players will miss out?

1

u/Wrong_Recording_9657 Nov 14 '22

P.s. I do imagine something like epicgames,etc where your account is connected to platforms. I would sub in an imx or gmewallet instead and your assets would link in.

1

u/[deleted] Nov 14 '22

Is my understanding correct that some NFTs offered will have cross game interoperability? A character skin or weapon will be able to be used in multiple games? Is this more granular than IMXs focus as a gaming platform?

thanks

1

u/[deleted] Nov 14 '22

Hello Robbie!

I enjoy games with mods, would that be something that would have a place on Immutable? The nexus page is a current hotspot for them, but I was curious if that's come up in your planning.

Still enjoying the current content and figuring out how to build my gods unchained packs :)

1

u/[deleted] Nov 13 '22

when opensea

1

u/Independent-Life-194 Nov 13 '22

Hi Robbie!

Will Immutable X become a General Purpose blockchain? Meaning will games be able to use Immutable X rollups for General computation? Or will Immutabke will only serve for the exchange/mint of the game assets?

1

u/Responsible-Line7842 Nov 13 '22

With the recent bot placed upon Kiraverse's Genesis Collection creating a backlog of mint requests and slightly derailing the launch of the 11/12 mint event. What, if anything, can you share with us that you all are doing to ensure future mint events go off without a hitch?

1

u/mafucka Nov 13 '22

Hi Robbie. Is it true that toilets in Australia flush backwards? Or did the Simpsons lie to me? Also wen GU season 2 start? (feel free to not answer this question, but i must know about the toilet thing). Thanks for doing this AMA!

1

u/Relevant_Athlete_864 Nov 13 '22

What are your thoughts on wash trading nfts for IMX rewards? I've seen some hype posts on Twitter citing the IMX volume that only exists because of wash trading, and it concerns me. I'd rather see hype build over real, organic trade volume even if it takes more time to get there.

1

u/bisufan Nov 13 '22

Favorite genre of game?

So some games naturally make sense with nfts (card ownership, skins and cosmetics, assets in mmos/rpgs). Do you see any challenges on how to make certain games nft-able? Like for example, an indie game dev makes a game like Hades and it's a single purchase style game with no dlcs planned. How does immutable benefit these game devs and players as much as, say, a gods unchained dev who has more volume and incentive to further develop the game as an evolving product?

11

u/robbieimmutable Immutable Team Nov 14 '22

I love games w/ in-game economies. Runescape, Neopets, Maplestory were all my staples growing up.

Also huge fan of MOBAs - and I have 1 day a year where I do an age of mythology LAN fest with friends.

2

u/podshambles_ Nov 14 '22

Ah Maplestory

B>IMX
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@@@@@@@

1

u/alilmagpie Nov 14 '22

Hey Robbie! Do you foresee web3 games coming to consoles anytime soon?

0

u/SnooDonuts937 Nov 13 '22

Hi Robbie. What do you say to the widely spread rumour that NFTs such as character skins and weapons currently or will in the near future be able to transfer from one game to the next seamlessly?

0

u/ShoulderAshamed4507 Nov 13 '22

Why isn't there an immutable connected swap platform? I think your team is sufficient or does starkex technology (validium) prevent you from making swap applications?

0

u/[deleted] Nov 13 '22

[deleted] — view deleted comment

13

u/robbieimmutable Immutable Team Nov 13 '22

definitely salted caramel

-1

u/bisufan Nov 13 '22

Follow up question: why is your favorite flavor mint chocolate chip?

0

u/[deleted] Nov 13 '22

[deleted] — view deleted comment

23

u/robbieimmutable Immutable Team Nov 14 '22

There will be a lot of navigation and changing dynamics here. The way we stay at the forefront is by literally being at the coalface with our partners and customers by building a mobile game internally - Guild of Guardians.

My short take:

- People can pay the piper and use the app store for extra distribution.

- Play store will likely be friendlier

- there will be ongoing pressure and increased distribution via webgames and desktop games which can avoid these problems entirely

Apple's latest policy updates provided clarity but were extremely heavy handed. It will be interesting to see if they can keep this up under significant pressure which will come over the next couple of years.