NFTs are creating ‘a dramatic change from the tradition of video gaming’: Polygon advisor

Jonathan Glick, Polygon Studios Advisor and Ball Metaverse Research Co-Founder, and Shreyansh Singh, Polygon Studios Head, join Yahoo Finance Live to explain how blockchain technology and NFTs are transforming the video gaming industry.

Video transcript

[MUSIC PLAYING]

ZACK GUZMAN: Welcome back to Yahoo Finance Live. In Crypto Corner today, we are digging into the intense battle for attracting developers. When it comes to NFTs, of course non-fungible tokens have really exploded here in 2021. Each network is trying to attract talent to build on their own network.

We've seen that with Solana, Avalanche, Ethereum, obviously catching a lot of the early attention here through OpenSea, the platform that a lot of people have turned to build NFTs. But now Polygon Studios, really stepping up their game as well, offering $100 million to game developers to come over and build on them.

And for more on that push, happy to bring on two people from Polygon Studios here. We got Jonathan Glick, Polygon Studios Advisor and Ball Metaverse Research Co-Founder, as well as Shreyansh Singh, Polygon Studios Head, here with us too. And Shreyansh, I'll start with you. Because we're talking about what's going on here. It is interesting to see kind of the effort in attracting developers because it's so early on in NFTs. But talk to me about what you've seen in the early efforts to kind of get Polygon Studios out there.

SHREYANSH SINGH: So Polygon is actually-- Polygon is the blockchain. Polygon Studios as the NFT and gaming arm of Polugon. So we launched this effort sometime in August.

So the plan was to-- because the industry was definitely looking towards the NFT and gaming space, that was popping up. And everyone-- all the brands and all the major game developers are looking at the space. So this is a more consolidated approach towards this so we can focus majorly on crypto.

Because [INAUDIBLE] space is the largest piece. And although we currently will meet all the major of the three gaming products were already on Polygon. And then the brands came in and everything, so they needed that sort of support, like hand-holding, how other regulations work to get started. So that sort of hand-holding, that's the Polygon story has shifted.

ZACK GUZMAN: Yeah, and Jonathan, I mean, we've seen a lot of people kind of focus in on this space. You're a former SVP of product and tech at "The New York Times." You've obviously been working on a lot of the technology behind some of this for a while. Talk to me about what you've seen, I guess, in terms of people trying to wrap their heads around what it means and how to build it correctly.

JONATHAN GLICK: Right. Well, when we talk about blockchain games or web gaming, there's a really important breakthrough that is being enabled by these technologies. And that is the ability of players to actually own the assets that they have within these games. This is a dramatic change from the tradition of video gaming, where if you bought a skin, for example, or a gun, or something, depending on the game, that would be fundamentally embedded in and owned by the developer. It would be owned by the company.

But in the context of the blockchain, because users are sovereign, you can actually take an asset from one place and move it to another. So you could, for example, play in a game, develop some special asset or win that asset, and then take it to OpenSea and sell it. We call this phenomenon Play to Earn. And it's a radical departure from the tradition of video games while being consistent with exactly what players want.

- And then, sir, I want to ask you how much-- you know, I'll address this to Shreyansh, if I can-- how crowded is the NFT space right now? Because we even saw recently, Toys R US just announced that they are getting into the digital asset market as well.

Have we reached its sort of peak is it saturated? Or is there still so much room to run. For example, in the fashion world, I know you partnered with Dolce and Gabbana as well. Are there many more opportunities that just haven't been touched on yet?

SHREYANSH SINGH: Yeah, definitely, I think this is just the start. Like, the brands have started, now the game developers definitely are deep diving into the space. And pretty much, we'll see-- in the coming years, we'll see a chief NFT office in all the major Web2 mega corps as well. So everyone will be implementing NFTs somehow-- in supply chain, in different various departments of finance, it will be a very [INAUDIBLE].

So in the end, some-- yeah, so what I'm saying, like, and NFTs will be like the Trojan horse for Web2.

ZACK GUZMAN: I mean, it's clearly brought a lot of interest into the space. And we've seen that with Facebook, or maybe I should say Meta now. And Jonathan, I mean, you also work on the advisory team for the Roundhill Ball Metaverse ETF.

That's the one that actually has the ticker, Meta. I don't know if Facebook was mad about that one. You guys beat them to the punch.

But obviously, the idea of the Metaverse even comes from another man who's been joining the Polygon Studios team there, in Matthew Ball. I mean, talk to me about kind of the intensity in terms of all these companies. In the ETF I was looking at, it's interesting to see in video, we were talking with them earlier this week about their big push. Even heard Disney CEO, Bob Chapek, talking about their push into the Metaverse potentially.

I mean, what's it going to take to actually get it done in the way that people are showing it? Because I can't even get my iCloud to pair with a new phone and get the messages working. So it seems like we've got a long ways to go.

JONATHAN GLICK: We do have a long ways to go. The technology is-- it's difficult. It's nascent. And in many cases, we haven't really established what the primary use cases are going to be. So, you know, when people ask us how far out is the Metaverse, you know, I think a 10-year horizon is logical.

Or to put it in sort of internet terms, imagine we're standing in, you know, approximately 1995 looking ahead to the 2005 breakthrough that would be all of the social networks, all of the new mobile phone technologies, and all of the world that would be created around those things. 10 years is a realistic-- a realistic time frame.

ZACK GUZMAN: That is comforting to hear. Because, you know, we keep hearing about oh, it's coming, it's coming. But 10 years, all right, that means we got some time to get used to it and catch up to what we're hearing. But appreciate you guys coming on here. Jonathan Glick, Polygon Studios Advisor. And Shreyansh Singh, Polygon Studios Head. Thanks again for the time, gentlemen. Want to have you back when we get closer to the promised land. Thanks again.