AMA Recap: Bluzelle with Hillrise Group Community
On 20th January, Pavel Bains, CEO/Co-Founder of Bluzelle, was invited to the Hillrise Group Community AMA session on Telegram.
Here’s a quick recap if you missed it!
Q. What was the original purpose and market position of Bluzelle, and why did you change your direction to become so focused on the gaming niche?
Pavel: We started in 2014 as a scrappy company doing dev work in Blockchain. We continued that way for a few years until we figured out what we really wanted to be. Then in 2017, after doing work with the banks in Singapore, we realized that if Blockchain was really going to be big, it needed decentralized storage to complete the stack. So we dove into that.
Seeing in 2021 NFTs growing and projects like Axie showing which game mechanics can work in crypto, I took a deeper look. After all, I come from consumer entertainment.
Seeing that we didn’t have as strong a lead or edge over other storage providers, I saw GameFi as something we could really carve a space in.
Some of the few reasons why are:
1. We have a fast blockchain. ETH gas fees aren’t suitable for the next wave of users.
2. We can provide storage for game assets.
3. As a Cosmos chain, we can target Terra and Cosmos ecosystems and bring games to them.
4. As a Cosmos system, we can aggregate DeFi protocols like Mirror and Anchor into our games.
5. We know how to make great games.
Q. Personally, I feel like the gaming niche is now beginning to become crowded. What is your USP for developers and studios when it comes to your communication as ‘The Blockchain for GameFi?
Pavel: Bluzelle is a blockchain for GameFi with its ability to produce high-quality games, protect players’ NFTs, and leverage DeFi yields with its 10,000 TPS Cosmos-Based Blockchain.
Q. You are actually developing your own game in partnership with an external studio. What was the motivation behind creating this style of card battle game? How much involvement do you have in the development process as it is built externally?
Pavel: Hiring people in the game space is difficult for regular games. Now imagine getting that great talent for crypto games. It’s going to take a VERY long time.
I know how to manage studios and games. To move quickly, I brought on another team to work with.
I’m heavily involved in the product. I’m the Executive Producer and am on it daily.
Card Battle game was chosen because:
(1) Its easy to pick and play by anyone, but also tough to master.
(2) We can produce it quickly and get it to market. We are talking 4–6 months vs. 2+ years of other types of games.
(3) With this type of game, we can quickly tweak and fix it to keep players engaged.
Q. Going on the talent point you have made, what do you think about companies like Animoca Brands with a big part of their strategy being about acquiring studios? Like Pixowl (Sandbox), like Blowfish (Phantom Galaxies).
Do you see a path to collaborate with them? Are they creating a monopoly on gaming and talent?
Pavel: With a warchest like they have, the only way to grow is to acquire studios. Microsoft just bought Activision, and I never thought this would happen.
History has shown you can never get a monopoly on creative talent: Hollywood, Music, etc. Big studios buy smaller ones, but newer studios pop up, and talent keeps coming.
If anything, I’d be worried if I was a big studio buying talent. Eventually, it kills creativity, and then the explosiveness comes from elsewhere.
Look at Hollywood. I think we can all agree that the lack of creativity has been a major problem now for 10+ years.
Q. So you talked about development time being a factor for the genre/design of Denomination. The roadmap for this game stretches out to the end of the year. With that in mind, how do you go about building a player base and making the game engaging throughout the year as you go through from prototype to full release?
Will you be collaborating with any Guilds for this game?
Pavel: Yes, we’ll work with Guilds. I’m currently focused on getting the first demo, trailer, and tokenomics done. With that, I’ll feel we are in a good place to work with Guilds. Doing it too early isn’t going to work.
Our game will always be in development as you keep adding layers and tweaking. The key to engagement is to:
(1) Launch the gameplay walk-through and trailer to bring players into Bluzelle to learn more and follow along.
(2) Launch a playable version in months so people can interact, give feedback, and keep updating it every month.
Q. Can you take us through your BLZ token utility, and has it changed over the years, especially with your change of direction for the project?
Pavel: Currently, we’re reworking these as it relates to the game and the future services on Bluzelle. It’s too early to let out, but we’ll show those pretty soon.
Q. Future DAO and the buyback is interesting to me. What is the structure of the buyback?
Pavel: Those are being worked out, but as we earn transactions fees from the game and sell NFTs, we’ll use those to buy back BLZ to burn or re-distribute to holders.
Q. In the last half of 2021, you released Bluzelle R2, which included, among other things, full mainnet migration for your storage application.
Can you tell us more about this and how much use has this product seen so far?
Pavel: Bluzelle R2 is for redundancy and replication. We found that current storage providers in web 3 weren’t offering replication instantly. It was decentralized but still didn’t guarantee availability.
We fix that. We ran into some problems in terms of how projects were set up. They were already connected to IPFS. So our team did the right thing by going where the customers are. So they’ve been working on an integration with IPFS.
Why is this special? Well projects that are already using IPFS, with one line of code, can connect to Bluzelle and get the replication they need across all our nodes.
This is great for the user and for Bluzelle as we don’t have to spend so much on R&D and more. We put IPFS on steroids.
Q. Where would you like to see Bluzelle in the future? Is the plan for yourself to build more games after Denomination? Or would you like to see other game developers/studios build their own games and use the Bluzelle Blockchain? Or is the focus on both? Curious to understand the long-term vision!
Pavel: Great question.
First is to build our own game to prove out the whole system and drive attention to Bluzelle.
Then have other games use our chain.
We will continue to make games too after the Denomination. We see ourselves being like Epic Games. We produce games (Fortnite) and have people use the engine (Unreal).
Q. So we could say Denomination is like a real showcase of the power and benefits that the Bluzelle Blockchain can bring to the table. Love it!
Pavel: YES!!!!
Q. What are some upcoming developments and milestones you are looking forward to as we continue into 2022?
Pavel: 1. Release of new tokenomics
2. Release of game trailer
3. Upgrade to Cosmos Stargate
4. Release of Denomination Alpha
5. Release of Denomination Beta
About Hillrise Group Community
Hillrise Group comprises both Hillrise Ventures and Hillrise Research, two distinct brands supporting emerging Web3 startups.
About Bluzelle
Bluzelle is a decentralized storage network for the creator economy. Bluzelle delivers high security, unmatched availability, and is censorship-resistant. Whether you are an artist, musician, scientist, publisher, or developer, Bluzelle protects the intellectual property of all creators. You can ensure that when you store your creation on Bluzelle, it will be available, anytime, and always worry-free.
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