Top Podcasts

Podcast April 19, 2022

Joe Pokrzywa & Jamie Davies Of Izumi World - AR Metaverse, Geolocation & Token, Plus: $48M Dorsey Tweet, Solana On OpenSea, $20M EToro NFT Fund, And More...

NFT Izumi | Izumi World

Crypto gaming needs a bridge to get the traditional gamers onboard. Izumi World appears to be that bridge. Izumi is the world’s first AR metaverse that is revolutionizing pop culture through NFT gaming. In this episode, CEO Joe Pokrzywa and CMO Jamie Davies tell us what makes the game so compelling, especially to people who come from the gaming space and not necessarily the crypto and NFT space. Coming from a gaming background themselves, the Izumi leadership team understands the need to create a game-first experience without relegating the crypto component into the background. Joe and Jamie rub off on us their excitement over Izumi’s role in putting AR gaming into the spotlight once again after being relatively pushed into the sidelines for too long. We’re going to see the Izumi beta starting Q4 of 2022, so that’s going to be exciting!

Our hot topics for today: Jack Dorsey’s first tweet offered for almost $48 million, eToro launches $20 million NFT fund, and world’s largest NFT marketplace opens its doors to Solana. Stay tuned for more!

—

Watch the episode here

Listen to the podcast here

Joe Pokrzywa & Jamie Davies Of Izumi World – AR Metaverse, Geolocation & Token, Plus: $48M Dorsey Tweet, Solana On OpenSea, $20M EToro NFT Fund, And More…

This is Joe Pokrzywa and Jamie Davies of Izumi World, the first and coolest NFT game that brings AR, metaverse and token economy together.

We are here on the Edge of NFT, the show that is always augmenting your reality with the best in Web3 content. Keep reading.

**NFT curious readers, stay tuned for this episode and find out how Izumi plans to carve out a significant niche within the augmented reality NFT gaming space. **

**Also, what made one of our guests’ first $0.25 purchase not just about the product but the experience. **

Learn how much you can expect to spend if you want the NFT of Jack Dorsey’s first tweet from OpenSea. All this and more on this episode. Enjoy.

—

This episode features CEO Joe Pokrzywa and CMO Jamie Davies of Izumi World, the first AR metaverse that is revolutionizing pop culture through NFT gaming. Joe is an executive with years of experience in the gaming space. He was on the founding team of NRG Esports, taking it from startup to blue-chip industry leader with a valuation of over $200 million at the time of his departure in 2020. He was COO of OpTic Gaming where he ran the most successful franchise in Activision Blizzard’s Call of Duty League before its acquisition by Envy Gaming in 2021.

Joe has a comprehensive business outlook, having also worked as an options trader on Wall Street and a marketing leader for various FinTech companies. Jamie Davies has been a force in marketing for years, leading brand and D2C marketing teams at Samsung, Gatorade, Verizon and Xbox. During his time at Xbox, he led the development of central campaigns for some of gaming’s most iconic franchises, including Halo, Gears of War, and Fable.

**Since 2021, Jamie has led all Rarible Protocol and Rarible DAO marketing initiatives. Izumi World is an NFT-based geolocation pet battle game where players capture and train magical beasts known as Izumi from live track locations in the real world. The Izumi are both friendly and fearsome and possess wondrous magical powers that players can use to battle other players, join world events for PvE and fight in the grand tournament known as the Ildalorian League Cup. **

—

Jamie** and Joe, welcome to the show.**

Thanks for having us. That was a great intro.

Eathan is laying it down for you. It is awesome to have you. We like to start at the beginning. Let’s dive in on it. Tell us about the origin story. How did this project Izumi World come to be?

This project is cool because what you will learn is that a lot of the executives and the Founder, Grant Stanley, are all gamers first. We all love games. Grant has a great story. He is your prototypical gamer. He has logged well over 10,000 hours playing games. He was also one of those geniuses who got in on the crypto curve early and started figuring out things like trading in crypto. For Grant, it was a natural evolution for him to go into the world of blockchain gaming. Specifically, he saw a vision where there was this opportunity around augmented reality when it came to blockchain gaming.

If you look at a lot of the games in the space, there is a lot happening with the web. We all hear about a lot of the innovation that is happening in VR but AR has a bit of a gap. That was an area I know he was very passionate about. He played a lot of Pokémon GO back in the day. He dove in and started developing this game. What has been exciting is the way the executive team here has come together because, in my previous life, I led a lot of games marketing in Halo, Gears of War, and Fable.

I started going down the rabbit hole on crypto and blockchain around 2018. I had that prototypical moment that all of us have when the light bulb goes off around Web3. When I realized everything that Web3 and blockchain were going to bring from an innovation standpoint, I had that moment where I was wired. For the entire night, I could not go to sleep and was searching on the internet. My way in was gaming because I am a gamer.

When I started understanding gamers’ abilities to own assets outside of the traditional gaming ecosystem, they would have real-world market value and could trade them on the blockchain. At that point, I knew I wanted to make my career in crypto gaming. I am bullish on it. Joe and I go way back in the gaming industry. When I met Grant through my connections, it was like this symbiotic thing between Grant, Joe, and myself, where we are all gamers and blockchain guys. We wanted to find a unique, one-of-a-kind game that we could market, bring to the masses, and launch.

We had NFTLA and we were talking about how gaming is such a great entry point for mass adoption of blockchain and NFT technology. Jeff and I have been to BlizzCon before. We had a product at one point in the past that was sold out there. Culture is so relevant to gaming. Anyone that has been to a BlizzCon understands that. You are bringing that perspective to the table, which is exciting. Looking at Izumi World, how does it exactly bring together AR, the metaverse, pop culture, and NFTs? Tell us more.

At its heart, it is a geolocation game. What we are excited about and what we think is going to make it unique is that this is a blockchain game that people are going to be able to go outside to play. What it is doing is to the AR technology, people will go out and they are going to be able to capture Izumi on their phone. When you are capturing Izumi, essentially, what you are doing is you are minting an NFT. Every Izumi is an NFT. When you capture a team of Izumi, then you are going to be able to start battling a turn-based strategy style of gaming. That is going to be the whole progression between AR, NFTs, and then the play-to-earn gaming component because whenever you battle, you are going to be battling for in-game trainer tokens.

Coming from a gaming background, this is too few and far between for the space. The folks that have that background are bringing that to the table feel like they are leaps and bounds ahead of folks that are starting from the world of crypto, blockchain, NFTs, and trying to figure out the gaming side of it in the process. There is something there about that intensive gaming background. You see it with Animoca Brands and other guys who have that rich background. I am curious, Joe, from your perspective bringing that to the table, how does that influence your thinking here?

It is interesting. One thing that I noticed in this space more than anything else is people who have grown from the crypto side. Not necessarily from the gaming end like investors and all these different VCs and other founders coming in are into the crypto side, blockchain, and NFTs. They love it. The flip side of this, from my experience, is gamers do not like crypto in full transparency. I can go and find every influencer that I have worked with within the space or go find any article.

We saw it happen to Ubisoft and how much of a disaster that was. A lot of these gamers are like, “I do not know. I am worried about this.” They see all these bad projects, pyramid schemes, Ponzi schemes, and cash grabs. They look at it from that lens when realistically, that is not what blockchain gaming is. They are looking at all these bad apples and starting to be like, “This is not my thing. I do not like it. It hurts the environment.” They have all these different stigmas attached to them. Coming from that background and me seeing that lens, I go, “How do we change that?” A lot of it is education.

It is educating people on what NFTs are. It is not just your Bored Ape profile picture you see everybody doing. It is essentially ownership on the blockchain and being able to own your assets and do what you want with them. Gamers have not been empowered in a long time. These AAA developers that we have worked with struggle across the board to empower their communities and have games that last a long time. A lot of it is like a blind lens because there is all of this capital and money.

When we were switching gears over to this end and bringing our gaming experience, the first thing I said to a lot of the people in the space that I have been advising, let alone what we are doing on Izumi was, “Switch your scope. Realize that you might be a crypto person that traditional gamers are not.” How are you going to bridge that gap? How are you going to bring the gamers to the masses and bridge that area to them where they are like, “I got this. I get to own it?” It is game first. I care about the game first. I can layer in those crypto-assets and be like, “This makes more sense.”

You are not trying to do this to sell NFTs. You are trying to build a fun game. On top of it, I can own my assets and explore the world of DeFi. That is where our lens adds a lot of value. We see what the bad was in gaming because it is not perfect. There are microtransactions and the free-to-play models that everybody hates. We do not want that to come over to the crypto side. The lens that we bring harbors a lot of value to those that are a little bit more into crypto dive in and understand it from that perspective but might not see the grand picture of what gamers are saying.

If there’s anything marketers love, it’s a unique business model that they can lean into to market because it makes their jobs so much easier. Click To Tweet

It is the idea that form follows function.

Part of what I love about what you are doing is that you are doing stuff in the AR space, which is an exciting place to be. We had SuperWorld as one of our first guests. We were talking about AR. That was one of our first exposures as a show to the incredible potential and the interesting stuff going on there. You are bringing NFT into that. We have seen Pokémon GO, Niantic, and everything that is going on there. Can you talk a little bit more about how you are carving a niche for yourself here as you compare to what is going on with Niantic, for example, or even in NFTs in general, and how there is a niche for NFTs within AR that is interesting?

It is one of the reasons that I was so excited to join this project because if there is anything marketers love, it is a unique business model that we can lean into athe market because it makes our jobs so much easier. What is great about this is we are seeing this. Most of the success that is happening in the Web3 gaming space is coming from Web3 native companies. A lot of the Web2 native companies are still trying to figure things out. There are other reasons for it too. I was talking with someone about this.

Another advantage a lot of these Web3 native gaming companies have is they do not have existing fan bases. They are coming into this from scratch. The people who are adapting their games are Web3 people or people who get it versus having to worry about how an existing fan base is going to react to this Web3 innovation from these Web2 companies. When we look at what is our unique space relative to the Niantics of the world and the other AR activations in the world, for us, we want to be the first and the best AR blockchain play-to-earn game that is going to be in the market.

Talking about AR, we have our forthcoming Living Tree NFT collection, which we have not released or minted yet but we did create some AR prototypes that we showcased at NFTLA. First of all, let’s get some Living Trees in your domain. Please, let’s do that. It is also the incredible fun we and other people had in that experience of, “I could plant a tree in my space. I can look at it, explore it, walk around, navigate and have fun with friends.” It is even the general sense of getting outside and incorporating that with gaming is a fun aspect.

That is the cool part with AR. Before the pandemic hit, there was Pokémon GO. I remember I used to take the train to work because I worked in town in finance. The train would be packed in the morning. Typically, it always was. People go to work in the city but then there was even more. I was curious. I am like, “What is going on?” It is all these people going to these PokéStops downtown. They are going crazy. They want to play this whole AR thing. I am like, “This is crazy.” There are people even more than I have ever seen.

The Millennium Park downtown had tens of thousands of people because they were trying to catch something legendary. I was like, “People are outside and exploring.” For me, that was my moment too. I started playing. My daughter is obsessed with playing AR games. She likes being able to see something that she created and being put into a virtual world. I was like, “This is cool.” That is how the whole thing came about with Izumi. When I first saw it, I was like, “We have been cooped up inside for the last couple of years.”

That technology is so promising because there is so much you can do with it and there is so much untapped potential. What can we do with it? That is what this genesis came to be. We are like, “We can do this and have ownership.” To the part with the Living Trees, that is sweet. You can start building whatever you want inside the space, see it, own it, and show it off to your friends. That is the cool part about all of this. On top of it too, it does not hurt to get some exercise and go outside after we have been staring at screens for the last few years.

It has been crazy, too, to me that the fundamental infrastructure has been there for years. I was playing with little AR games in 2010 where you point your phone at $1, it comes alive, a patriotic song comes on, and all this funny stuff. I was always amazed at how long it has taken for it to come to the point where maybe it is ready for mass-market adoption to bring the mainstream in. I am curious. How are you thinking about that? How are we going to bring folks into the fold so that this thing is mainstream and it is reaching the mass market?

There are going to be a few components to that. First of all, with AR, it is a game you play through your smartphone. With the smartphone penetration, we think that is going to make it very easy. There are going to be a couple of other things as well. If you look at a lot of the play-to-earn games that are out there, there are pretty intimidating on-ramps, especially for people who are not crypto-savvy. There are some free-to-play options, but in a lot of them, you would have to buy some pretty expensive NFTs before you can even start playing the game.

What is going to be compelling about Izumi World is that it is going to be free to start playing. You can go out into the world and start capturing Izumi at no cost. When you capture Izumi, they are going to be NFTs. We are also doing things like fiat on-ramps. If folks are not necessarily fluent in the crypto wallets, they can make an onboard via fiat. Grant and his team on the development are embracing a lot of conventions that are more akin to traditional games from a UI and UX perspective. You do not have to be a crypto native or crypto-savvy to pick up this game and start playing.

To add to that, it is a bridge. You saw this mass influx of gamers coming into this AR marketplace with different games, in particular, Pokémon GO, years ago. The way that we looked at this and saw it was like, “Anybody can play that.” My daughter plays it. On top of that, I am playing that. I know other people that are in their 40s playing. You have this massive base that enjoys playing fun things that allow them to connect with other people.

That is a bridge into this world. There is a lot of success there. AR technology, to your point, has been there for a while. Amazon has one out and that is the coolest thing to figure out how stuff fits in your house. I use that constantly. From a gaming perspective, it is this new or next iteration. It can still be leveled up. We have barely scratched the surface of AR tech. The game is almost hypercasual in a way where you have a mass amount of people that are interested in playing these types of games and going outside and learning.

It makes sense. There is so much synergy there to start bridging that gap. Crypto gaming needs a bridge to get the traditional gamers on board. We see this entire product packaged together. It is free-to-play focused on gameplay. It is getting you outside and connecting with your friends and your neighbor that you did not even know played video games because you never see him. You have been inside for years. This whole genesis came together to start bringing the 2 to 3 billion people that play games every day into this world.

Let’s talk a little bit more specifically about what you have cooking because you are set to launch the Izumi World Trainer Pass NFTs. What is all that about? How can our readers participate?

NFT Izumi | Izumi World

Izumi World: Through AR technology, people will go out to capture Izumi on their phone. When you’re capturing Izumi, essentially what you’re doing is minting an NFT. Every Izumi is an NFT.

We are still nailing down what exactly the distribution for those will be. If they join our Discord and follow us on Twitter, they are going to know as soon as we nail that down. In terms of the Trainer Pass NFTs, that is going to be a reward mechanism for our early supporters. They are going to essentially be a package of assets that come with the purchase of that NFT. They will get exclusive access to our beta when that launches later in 2022. They are going to get an Izumi. It could be of any rarity level, including a potentially legendary rarity, which is going to be the most rare. We have a two-token economy in Izumi World.

We are going to be airdropping 4% of our total token supply of both tokens to all Trainer Pass NFT holders over the next twelve months. There will be investing into it one month at a time or 1/12th of their portion over the next twelve months. There are going to be other benefits too. We are going to be distributing what we call mystery boxes. They are going to be like digital visual airdrops. They might have an Izumi NFT in there and some other in-game assets like bait or potions. They are going to get a new mystery box every single month as well too. That is a high-level overview that is going to be part of the Trainer Pass.

On top of that, the way that we are viewing the Trainer Pass as a whole is these are the core people of our community. We want people to be buying into the idea like, “We are gamers. This is built for gamers.” That is why Jamie and I are doing this. We want these guys to be that focal point on our mouthpiece for what they want. We want to build what they want. This gives them unparalleled access to us. We are going to be doing different community events to talk with them and understand what they are looking for, what they like, and what they hate and adjust the game based on what they think and how they feel.

Whoever sells anyways should be played a HODL.

Q4 of 2022 is when our beta is going to go live.

NFT Izumi | Izumi World