On January 26, Ryan Wyatt, head of YouTube games, said on his personal Twitter that he would leave Google's YouTube and join Polygon Studios as CEO in March this year. From then on, he will further develop Polygon Studios' developer ecosystem by focusing on investment, marketing and developer support, and bridge the gap between Web2 and Web3, while contributing to the development of Polygon Studios in the fields of games, entertainment, fashion, news, sports and more. Polygon Studios contributed.
Prior to this, Ryan Wyatt had served as a commentator for seven or eight years in American professional league games, and later switched to the Machinima channel on YouTube that focuses on global games. He is an "old gun" with many years of work experience in games.
Just last week, Ryan Wyatt, as the head of YouTube games, was a guest on the latest episode of Delphi Digital's Metaverse Musings, and together with Delphi Digital co-creator Yan Liberman and partner Piers Kicks discussed blockchain games, Web3 and the creator economy etc. topics were discussed. Among them, Ryan Wyatt explained to the audience the role of blockchain technology and other Big Tech in Web3, as well as the transition from Web2 games to blockchain games and how encryption unlocks the creator economy.
At this time, the announcement of joining Web3 was staggeringly fast, and it also reflected Ryan Wyatt's vision and optimism for Web3, as well as his determination to change traditional games. Previously, Wyatt said, "Most in-game assets are illiquid, and NFT and blockchain will change this by providing an open and transparent market. The game industry will undergo a structural shift in the next five years." In this regard, Rhythm BlockBeats organized and translated the content of the interview as follows:
Piers：Hi everyone, and welcome back to our latest episode on Metaverse Musings. We've had a brief hiatus since our last installment, but couldn't be more excited to start our first episode of the new year with Ryan Wyatt. Ryan Wyatt joins us as the head of YouTube Gaming, Ryan, thanks for coming! Also participating in the discussion was our co-founder Yan Liberman.
Ryan：Thanks for the invite, it's a pleasure to be here and talk about all things gaming.
Piers: Yeah, that would be great. If it's okay, I thought we'd do some introductions first, a little bit of your background for those new friends.
Ryan：Well, the game has been with me for a long time, at the beginning I participated in some competitions, and then I was a commentator for "Major League Gaming" for seven or eight years. In the early days, I mostly ran programming and tournament infrastructure for some games, and later moved to "Machinima" (a youtube channel focused on global gaming), which for those of you who don't know, is like a multi-channel network . Also, MTV, YouTube's early gaming channel, was a lot of fun, and I worked with a lot of different content creators and trying to figure out how to monetize gaming videos. It was really an interesting journey, and then about eight years ago, I ended up at Google, and as the gaming video market got bigger, I got into the gaming vertical there.
Now that it's one of the biggest verticals on YouTube, watched by hundreds of millions of people every day, it's been quite a journey, but it's been fun for me. As a gamer, commentator, streamer on Justin TV and Twitch, and someone who works a 9-5 in the gaming business, I've also seen a lot of people with different industry perspectives do the same. I feel like I did all of that, and it's what emboldened me to be here today and have this conversation.
Piers: That's great! Also can you tell us what drew you to YouTube in the first place and what the process has been like?
Ryan：Yes, that's a good question, and we were funded by Google ventures early on in Machinima. YouTube grew so fast, but at first they didn't really staff the initiative properly until Amazon bought Twitch and Susan (who started Google out of her garage) started being named CEO of YouTube . At this point, YouTube began to realize that a gaming vertical had to be launched, and that it needed to be taken more seriously, even if none of us had vertical expertise yet.
Yan：You've been at Machinima since the very beginning, and for a long tenure, I was wondering what was the most interesting project you worked on there?
Ryan：There are many, but I tend to talk about the one that failed because I learned the most from it. When we first started, we lagged behind our competitors and needed to keep doing a lot of product innovation for game publishers, creators, and audiences. So we launched a standalone YouTube Gaming application that users can download as a mobile app on their phones. Basically, what it does is it shoots relevant gameplay videos that users can build as fast as possible in a friendlier environment because everyone owns autonomy over it.
On the surface, this all sounds great. I personally liked the app when we launched it, but it wasn't as successful as we had hoped. Since it doesn't get much traffic, it's clear that YouTube sends users directly to its website or app every day. So we found ourselves competing not only with Twitch, but with YouTube itself, and for those heavy users on mobile, if you're not a top five app, you're not going to get much traffic. We later ported it back to YouTube, and with some trade-offs, the channel currently has 350 million logged-in users watching gameplay videos every day.
Piers：That's all pretty cool, but I'd like to get your thoughts on Web3. Currently, some of the big tech giants are on the opposite side of this movement, and I'm curious how you see the role of these big platforms in the Web3 era?
Ryan：It's a great question, and at YouTube, we spend a lot of time thinking about it. And the simplest answer, like YouTube is doing in Web3 right now, we are the largest repository of learning and content in the crypto space, in the Web3 space. It also speaks volumes about what YouTube has to offer Web3 in a Web2 world, YouTube will be responsible for getting hundreds of millions of people into and learning from this space. Additionally, we are looking for other ways we can participate in this space.
And recently, we also tried some interesting things. Every year we prepare gifts for our top 1,000+ creators, and this year we partnered with three different artists to send NFTs to creators, and they loved it. So it's key for YouTube to figure out what we can do in the creator economy and keep closing the gap.
Now, some big tech companies have built a strong moat in Web2 and are also gradually watching what is happening in Web3 and how they can participate. And YouTube will also build products around it, and as viewers and creators have more questions about Web3 products, YouTube will step in and take the time to provide solutions. At the same time, I think the best part of Web3 is that it will not be centralized, it will be developed and built by everyone, and this is the most inspiring part of this movement.
Piers：Yes, it is. I also want to know how this has all evolved, and the role and place games play in modern society, what changes will happen to the digital and entertainment environment in the future?
Ryan：For me, I'm amazed at the changes that have occurred in the digital entertainment industry, not to mention that now that everyone is involved in some way, people start talking about what the metaverse is all about. They find not only entertainment and games in it, but also new social identities and communities they love. And games are indeed the number one entertainment form of Generation Z, and the scope of development of game types has become broader and more inclusive.
Yan：You have gradually entered the encryption field, how did you fall into this "rabbit hole"?
Ryan：I'm not very interested in DeFi applications like crypto, and I'm having a hard time getting real interest in cryptocurrencies, and it's kind of a gamble that pops into my head. But where I'm really starting to get interested in NFTs, like applications in a gaming environment, people want to have verifiable digital ownership, which is very important to me. Also, I think some of the smartest people I know are in this field, which is fascinating in itself.
Piers：For blockchain games, what resonates and excites you the most?
Ryan：As a gamer, I like to spend my money on games that I care deeply about and want to be able to get involved with them as early as possible. Imagine I bought a skin that wasn't going to be released on the market again and as the game grew my economy would grow with it and that's what really got me started on this area because you can see People share the same vision and work together to make it happen.
And when I invest money in any game, especially a fairly large one, I want to be able to have some liquidity in that investment. If the game had some liquidity and resale value, I'd probably be willing to invest more even if it was losing money.
Also, what I'm most excited about is that besides Axie Infinity, people have seen a lot of high-quality blockchain games. You may have heard of a great game, Ember Sword, which is really engaging and will really open up the user's vision in a more natural way. And as a Web3 game enthusiast, I will continue to see more examples like this.
Yan：You have a deep understanding of the Web2 gaming space and a big vision for the Web3 side. What elements of things like Web3 gaming do you think will resonate most with traditional Web2 gamers?
Ryan：I think it's also the open market and digital ownership aspect of it, and that's where a lot of people are talking about, even though it's technically possible in Web2, people haven't done it. Plus, it's somewhat like the idea of an open economy, where digital ownership has become almost a standard product feature in the minds of developers.
Yan：Based on your gaming background and what you've seen on the Web2 side, what do you think is missing in the Web3 gaming and NFT scene that can be made up to help accelerate progress to the next level?
Ryan：I think there are currently some Web3 games or some NFT projects that require users to take some work to identify, because they may sell their NFTs just to raise funds, and the game will never go live. Like if a user pays $200 for an NFT to get into a game, but two months later, it's only worth $6, or they can't even own it, I do think we need better security. Whether it is a better UI, or some consumer-oriented wallets or underlying technologies, etc. At the same time, I think people also need to be able to explore and take risks without enough judgment, and these are also things that need to be perfected in blockchain games.
Yan：Do you think that the most successful games of the future will have to avoid encrypted components, people will come in and play, but won't realize that there is an encrypted element?
Ryan：I don't think every game needs to be a crypto based game like Minecraft, for example I want my son to be able to play this game easily without having to worry about learning how to deposit Ethereum into his digital wallet, but just to enjoy the game itself and have fun. And the purpose of many people playing games is more for entertainment. They don’t need to be introduced to economics too much, and they don’t need to spend hours setting up wallets before starting the game.
Next, we still have a long way to go, and we are now developing in this direction. Eventually, these processes will become smoother as the barriers to entry are lowered. At the same time, I also think that this is the fun of our continuous optimization. As this field continues to open to users, suddenly in the future, when people who just come in play blockchain games, they will be regarded as encrypted natives. residents without any violation.
Piers：I'm curious about your stance on DAO, will there be active community governance in large-scale games in the future? Do you think there is a clear path for game users to make meaningful decisions about the future of the game and its economy?
Ryan：For me, I am generally optimistic about something that is innovative and evolving. I think that in the future, in a community where most people may be, if not everyone is a game developer, then how to make decisions will have a corresponding authority hierarchy. People are interested in which products we develop and vote on them.
Piers：How does Web3 affect the creator economy on YouTube and beyond?
Ryan：Indeed, Web3 opens up a lot in the creator economy. Like the Axie Infinity game, where people earn money from SLP or what they're doing and keep introducing them to the community. Now I am also starting to think like an NFT practitioner, is there a way for gamers to participate like traditional artists. Like having them create a skin and put it on the in-game NFT marketplace, just like anyone can create art now and post it on OpenSea for trading, I'd love to see the same for games.
Piers：How do you feel about the regulation of games? At present, we have indeed introduced a currency economy into the game. How should we deal with a series of reporting requirements, distribution, compliance and other issues?
Ryan：As it starts rolling out in various countries, we should look at it from a macro global perspective, which will provide more stability and understanding of the market. It's still in the wild west at the moment, and people don't know how to touch or interact with it. When regulation comes up, the first thing most of these governments need to do is understand it.
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