GameOG enters GameFi, interview with Montgomery Singman, the founder of MU

“The more difficult it is, the more it can inspire me to fight. Of course I can just ‘lie down’, but for me, the rest of my life is somewhat tasteless.”

The chain game featuring “Play-To-Earn” is hitting the traditional game mode and starting a new round of changes.

According to the data, the GameFi track received a total of $4 billion in investment in 2021. In addition to the blockchain field funds, traditional investment institutions such as SoftBank and Sequoia are also listed among the participants.

Furthermore, the emergence of several phenomenal products such as “NBA Top Shot” and “Axie Infinity” has further promoted the chain game market out of the circle and attracted the attention of mainstream society.

However, under the prosperous scenery, a crisis also followed. One is the fraud project under the name of ChainGame, arbitrarily harvesting users, and ruining the reputation of ChainGame.Second, the influx of hot money has fueled the impetuous mentality of the project side, the economic model design is full of loopholes, and the game’s playability and entertainment have fallen off a cliff… All kinds of problems have hindered the further development of the chain game market.

Recently, Odaily Planet Daily had an in-depth conversation with a senior game producer, Montgomery Singman.

Montgomery Singman, a well-known game producer who has been working in the international game industry for 36 years. He has held key positions in first-class game companies such as EA, Sony, Capcom, Atari, Shanda Network, Dreamland, Jinke Culture and so on. He has produced a number of popular titles, including “Madden Soccer”, “Supercross” and “Puzzle Fighter” and so on.

Foreshadowing the great changes that are about to take place in the game industry, Montgomery Singman has resolutely shifted to the chain game ecosystem. His team has developed Miracle Universe Chain (MU for short), an SDK platform dedicated to creating services for metaverse games.

In Montgomery Singman’s view, the business model of traditional games has not changed significantly in the past 20 years, and the response ability is very slow, and it may be replaced by GameFi. “An era of recession (in the traditional gaming industry) is about to begin, so I decided that I must join the new industry of GameFi and figure it out, or I will be doomed to be marginalized one day. I am a bit alarmist to say this now, but I think everyone should see it in 3–5 years.”

Miracle Universe Chain was established in March 2021. The platform is positioned as “an ever-expanding metaverse game service ecosystem”, providing relevant core components required for chain game development, and offering a new chain game metaverse ecological solution for developers and gamers.

At present, MU has launched its first self-developed game, “Miracle”, which is also a rare turn-based strategy game with hero themed battles as the core gameplay in the current chain game market.

The following is an in-depth dialogue record, compiled and summarized by Odaily Planet Daily:

1. First acquaintance with MU

Odaily Planet Daily: Miracle Universe Chain (MU for short) is dedicated to creating an SDK platform serving metaverse games. Since some readers know less about it, I would like you to tell us more about the development of the project?

Montgomery Singman: Miracle Universe Chain was officially launched in March 2021.

Our positioning of the platform is an ever-inclusive and expanding ecosystem of metaverse game services. The vision of the system is to be part of an open metaverse infrastructure, provide relevant core components required for the development of chain games, build the infrastructure required for iterative development of chain games, and provide developers and gamers with brand new chain games Metaverse ecological scheme.

If there is a purpose, then I think “inclusiveness and embracing the mainstream” is the direction Miracle Universe Chain strives for.

We believe “The species that survives will be the one that can best adapt to the ever-changing environment.” Miracle Universe Chain was not created to replace or change other systems, but to embrace the mainstream ecology and integrate into the mainstream trends to better adapt to the colorful multi-chain network world and multi-state game world of the future.

Odaily Planet Daily: As far as I know, the MU team has basically been working in the game field for many years and has made great achievements. Could you tell us about the resumes and background information of the core members of MU?

Montgomery Singman: The founding team members of MU have more than five years of experience in the traditional game industry and blockchain-related fields. At present, the team is mainly distributed in London, Silicon Valley, Argentina and other places. In addition to myself, there are five other core team members, they are:

• CTO Adam B. Lang：Adam has over 30 years of technical experience and expertise in a range of product verticals including games, platforms and software. He has participated in the design and technical platform development of the 3D disc game “Myst”, and served as CTO and software architect for the US-based game company Zona Inc. Adam also served as the China president of CryTek, a world-renowned 3D engine.
• COO Hernan Lopez：Hernan has been focused on the game industry for 15 years. Prior to joining the team, Hernan Lopez was the founder of Epic Llama Games. In the past few years, Hernan Lopez and his team have developed more than 50 games and their works have won several game awards. In addition, Hernan Lopez has been the Vice President of the Argentine Game Development Association since 2016.
• HONG LEE, Chief Design Consultant: HONG LEE is a Hollywood gold filmmaker with more than 20 years of experience in the development, creation and production of large-scale visual films and CGI animated films. He has worked in global film organizations such as Warner Bros. Pictures, DreamWorks Studios, Universal Pictures, etc; In addition, HONG LEE has twice won the honor of the final judge of the Annie Award.
• Daniel Romanovsky, Design Director: Daniel graduated from the ANGEL College of Art in Toronto. He has more than 20 years of experience in the field of visual design and has participated in the development and design of many famous film and game IPs; he has worked for such famous film and television production companies as BBC, HTV Premiere and PassionPictures and is also an excellent visual designer for Electronic Arts and Legendary Pictures.
• Nicolas Kanm Etienne Nemiri, Concept Design Consultant: Nicolas has been in the graphic design field since 2001 and has twenty years of experience in illustration. He has served as the art director of Premier Oriental Pictures and the main illustrator for dozens of projects, including MethodFilm Iron Man, NoFormat, Antefilm, Dragon AgecoLTD.

Odaily Planet Daily: There are many platforms serving chain games in the market. What do you think is the advantage of MU?

Montgomery Singman: Comparing with platforms of the same type, Miracle Universe Chain will start from four innovative dimensions, establish a new inclusive game development and operation model, and practice our vision of inclusive multi-chain game world:

• Achieve scalability and build a multi-chain network that supports complex game forms in performance;
• According to the principle of concise development, realize the development mode of reproducible, iterative and agile development;
• In the form of DAO organization, an ecologically interconnected “chain travel metaverse” will be created.

In addition to the technical aspect, I think another great advantage of Miracle Universe Chain is that we can provide more financial and branding services to the projects on the platform. For example, we can help them connect with financing, planning and designing games, which are all conditions that other platforms currently do not have.

Odaily Planet Daily: What institutions have MU invested in so far, what partners do you have, and how have they helped MU grow? What do they say about MU? Please introduce it in detail.

Montgomery Singman: At present, MU has completed the A round of financing. This round of funding institutions includes Draper Dragon, Dragon Roark, Whitelist Ventures, Waterdrip Capital, and Ti Capital. For the moment, nearly 20 institutions have reached in-depth cooperation with MU, including BMW Capital, Whitelist Ventures, DAO KONDR VC, Pack Capital, Greenhorns Capital, etc.

Among the above partners, the capital has provided a lot of financial support for MU, and the relevant platforms in the industry have brought us more resources and users. They are all indispensable roles in the development process of MU. For them, MU is also a qualified peer.

2. Game OG meets GameFi

Odaily Planet Daily: As far as I know, you have worked for EA, Sony, Capcom, Atari, Shanda, iDreamSky, Jinke Culture and other world-class game companies. Can you give us a detailed introduction of your past career?

Montgomery Singman: Speaking of which, my connection with games should have started at the age of 14, but it was not until the age of 20 that I began to try to independently complete the production and distribution of game products. It was also from then that I officially entered the game field. Today, it has been 36 years.

I have a long working history, but the ten years from 1990 to 2000 are more important for me. During these ten years, I have worked for many companies and gained valuable industry experience:

In 1990, I started working as a senior programmer in SONY in the United States; a year later, I jumped out of SONY and joined EA, and served as the chief engineer; Senior producer of the company; after staying at Capcom for nearly three years, at the end of 1996, I was invited to join Accolade, developed the racing game of the test drive series, and was responsible for the work of executive producer and R&D director; and in 1998 Accolade Acquired by Atari and continued to serve as Director of R&D and VP of Production in San Jose.

Odaily Planet Daily: After 36 years in the game industry, what kind of motivation has supported you in the game field for such a long time?

Montgomery Singman: My love for games stems from my childhood experiences. At that time, 80% of the arcade games in the world were produced in Taiwan, which also gave me a strong interest in games since childhood. At the age of 19, I participated in the “Street Fighter 1” competition and won the championship in Taipei City. At that time, I set an ambition — I must participate in the production of this game in the future. Because of this, I chose computer programming when I filled out the major in the university application, so that I could design a game of my own one day, and I finally got my wish.

For many people, games may just be the spice of life, but for me, games have become my life’s business. I think I am relatively lucky. I have played racing, fighting, sports and other types of games in my life. Maybe many game developers have only done one type in their lifetime.

Odaily Planet Daily: As far as I know, you have participated in planning the popular “Street Fighter’’ series games around the world, and have also created a series of well-received games such as “Madden Soccer”, “Bunny Racing’’, “Puzzle Fighter” and “Supercross”. So in your opinion, what is your most satisfying work?

Montgomery Singman: I think it’s hard to say which works I am most satisfied with. They are all my “children”, and they are equally important in my heart, and they also touched me a lot.

Let me tell you a little experience. In the past, I often needed to enter and exit the United States. When the border inspectors saw my professional “game developer”, they would ask me which games I had designed. The game I always mention is “Madden Soccer” because it’s the most popular game among American men, and basically every time I’m done, they let me pass. Sometimes, they also pulled me to talk about their gaming experience. I think that the games I make can bring good memories to a generation, which is the most rewarding thing for me. This kind of satisfaction is hard to replace.

Odaily Planet Daily: In the field of traditional games, you can say that you are “successful”, why do you have shifted to the chain game ecology now? Where did your connection to the crypto market come from? What was your original intention to enter the GameFi track?

Montgomery Singman: To sum up, there are two reasons that prompted me to enter GameFi: one is to keep up with industry changes, and the other is to challenge myself.

From arcades to PCs, online games, and mobile games, I have witnessed the changes in the game industry time and time again. The biggest feeling is that people must keep up with the development of the times, otherwise they are destined to be eliminated. GameFi is the biggest innovation at the moment.

Last year, during my quarantine in Shanghai, I saw several GameFi projects announce financing almost every day, which had a strong impact on me. At that time, I had a feeling that the business model of traditional games was gradually on the edge and might be replaced by GameFi. If you look closely, you will find that the traditional game industry has not changed much in the past 20 years. They are still using the business methods of the past to deal with today’s market problems, with very slow response capabilities and bloated businesses. On the other hand, GameFi is thriving.

The recession of an era (traditional game industry) is about to begin, so I decided that I must join the new GameFi industry and understand it. Otherwise I will be doomed to be marginalized one day. Of course, when I first entered the venue, I was also at a loss. There were a lot of things I didn’t understand, and I was still learning.

Some people say that I am a moth to the flames, plunged into unfamiliar territory. But I am such a character, the more difficult it is, the more it can inspire me to fight. Of course I can just ‘lie down’, but for me, the rest of my life is somewhat tasteless”.

Odaily Planet Daily: You just said that the decline of the traditional game industry is about to start, isn’t this a bit alarmist?

Montgomery Singman: Indeed, I am a bit alarmist when I say this now, but I think everyone will see it in 3–5 years.

In addition, I would like to explain in particular that the traditional game industry developers and publishers are very different when facing the new era. Publishers need to buy traffic and they need content, in other words, they have nothing, they have no users and no content. Such as app stores, platforms. Slowly they will find that their “oxygen” is sucked away, and the developers will not die, because they use their souls to make games for players, and they will always be needed, but they need to make up some in the game. Financial attributes, to adapt to the times.

However, in the era of decentralization, publishers, who exist as middlemen, are all centralized in their thoughts, like to control, and are destined to be eliminated. Their meals will be eaten by other people, maybe not the people who do chain games, but they must be ones who are engaged in blockchain.

Odaily Planet Daily: With the rise of GameFi, more and more traditional game teams have begun to carry out chain reform. Compared with traditional games, what do you think is the future development prospect of GameFi and P2E models? Are they “innovative” or “gimmicks” or “bubbles”?

Montgomery Singman: Regarding the “chain reform”, I want to roast. In fact, the word is quite unclear. There are many kinds of game actions (links), such as issuing NFT and staking. Is one link linked, or should all links be linked? Does it make sense for all links to be chained?

Of course, at present, the chain reform of traditional games has become a mainstream trend. Chain Games is indeed “innovative” to a certain extent, but at present, the “bubble” on this track is still real. Especially some domestic mobile game developers, they are actually quite impatient, can’t sink their hearts, and even want to change the game to the chain within a month.

I am personally disgusted with this. I don’t think you can understand the blockchain roughly and superficially; just as I don’t think you can understand the game simply and roughly. Games are not the guise of GameFi. GameFi is the result of games and DeFi. GameFi that is not fun is just Dapp.

However, I believe that in the future, with the participation of more and more professional game teams, the chain game and P2E models will gradually move towards a more mature and stable stage.

Odaily Planet Daily: Probably most of the chain game players have a common feeling that the current chain game is less entertaining and not very interactive, but more inclined to economic model design, and some of them are even very obscure and difficult to understand. As a game OG, what do you think about the current market performance of chain games? Where do you think the problem lies and how to solve it?

Montgomery Singman: In the traditional game market, there are many games that have retained users for more than five years, but now many chain games have failed in this regard, and there is no way to keep people for that long. Not many are over even within a month.

In a sense, the game depth of a GameFi project has a lot to do with the stability of its economic model. In addition to the superficial features of simple and rude upgrades and monsters, and quick recovery, the chain game still needs the soul of the game to support the entire ecological operation.

The game’s character setting, world view background, and more in-depth competitive gameplay, such as combat factors, hero characteristics, character history and other elements that affect the sense of game experience, are also very important for the operation of the entire chain game ecosystem; therefore, I It is believed that chain games need to be more “gamified”.

There are many game coins in the chain game that have skyrocketed thousands of times when they are launched, but most of them cannot support their long-term high value. The value of the token on the chain needs to return to the entire circulation chain, which is the game emphasized by many projects. Ecological closed loop. Giving the project a deeper game setting can provide a more complete closed loop of internal resource consumption and circulation. This closed loop is the best way to support the value and circulation scenarios of assets on the chain.

In addition to the economic model, chain games should also improve the gameplay. I also saw that many chain games just made a CG animation and went out to raise millions of dollars, and the final product was anticlimactic and not playable at all. Improving the gameplay is also what we traditional game developers are good at. I have to say that in the game industry, it is impossible to get investment just by doing an animation. Maybe the risk management of chain games can learn from the game industry.

Odaily Planet Daily: Although there are explosive models, in terms of the overall market size, GameFi is still in the minor leagues. In your opinion, what conditions are needed to promote the leap-forward development of the industry?

Montgomery Singman: I think the chain game track still has a lot of room for development and enough market enthusiasm, but to maintain this enthusiasm and realize the leap-forward development of the industry, a large number of high-quality chain game projects need to be born. In order to create a high-quality and stable chain game project, the team itself needs to have a deep understanding of the concept of “blockchain + games”, and at the same time, the team needs to have enthusiasm and feelings for the entire chain game market, not just to get a piece of the cake.

From this point of view, if the chain game track wants to continue to move forward, it needs the admission of more excellent teams in traditional games and the blessing of well-known institutions, and also requires the unremitting efforts of all our practitioners.

After many crash events last year, chain game players will be more cautious in the selection of projects, whether the founding team of the project has sufficient experience and industry influence, whether there is an endorsement by a well-known institution behind the project, and whether the economic system of the project itself is not. Stability, etc. are all factors that users need to consider carefully.

Finally, I would like to say that chain games do not overlap with today’s traditional game audiences. To expand the market scale, there is a long way to go, and every practitioner needs to make efforts and efforts. We must settle down and regard chain games as a long-term career, rather than a short-term way of making money.

3.MU amplifies the value of the GameFi industry

Odaily Planet Daily: Specifically, what services can MU provide to game developers? For a traditional game developer, what are the costs of developing chain games through the Miracle Open developer platform?

Montgomery Singman: Miracle Open can configure a unique, complete and secure account system for gamers. Each player will be assigned a unique decentralized digital identity and wallet. Developers only need one identity to enjoy the entire platform. This can save time and labor costs for traditional developers to a great extent.

MU’s game SDK can make our second and third chain games quickly launched and form a technology platform. In the future, we will also serve these game developers, help them raise funds, and form a financing platform for chain games; if they need, we can also issue them for them, because we have a good cooperative relationship with foreign DAO game unions, forming a platform with A closed-loop chain game distribution platform.

Odaily Planet Daily: MU adopts DAO governance, can you introduce the relevant plans?

Montgomery Singman: Miracle Universe Chain will promote ecological organization and coordination through DAO governance, and promote the development of game ecology through intelligent management methods and token economic incentives, so that game applications can operate, self-governance, Self-evolving without being controlled by a centralized authority.

Miracle Universe Chain provides a series of threshold-free DAO tools: including on-chain voting; crowdfunding in various ways (whitelist, fixed pool, liquidity pool, combined pool, on-chain tasks, investment income, credit score, random numbers, etc., For the quick use of the oracle machine ecosystem.

Miracle Universe Chain hopes to effectively stimulate the enthusiasm and creativity of game participants through on-chain governance of DAOs, fully protect the rights and interests of game participants, and enable every user to participate in the governance of the project and have real voting and decision-making rights.

Odaily Planet Daily: MU adopts a dual-token design: MU and MG. What are the functions and application scenarios of these two tokens? How does MU capture ecological value?

Montgomery Singman: We build an open core value ecological platform that integrates transformation platforms, trading platforms, and game platforms through the “dual-token” system of MU (governance token) and MG (sub-token). Open and transparent rights can be obtained from the application of the ecological platform. We will launch an on-chain governance DAO method in the future to effectively stimulate the enthusiasm and creativity of game participants, fully protect the rights and interests of game participants, so that every user can participate in the governance of the project and have real voting rights and decision-making rights. The DAO can be used in a variety of ways, including on-chain voting; multiple ways of crowdfunding (whitelist, fixed pool, flow pool, combination pool), on-chain tasks, investment income, credit, scoring, random numbers, etc. for quick use in the prophecy machine ecosystem.

We focused on optimizing a relatively mature game economic model. The specific model will be released when the subsequent games are launched. The model will involve instructions on destruction, production reduction, and incentives.

4. New game: Miracle

Odaily Planet Daily: At present, MU has launched a game called “Miracle”, can you introduce the relevant situation of the game?

Montgomery Singman: Miracle Game is the first product on Miracle Universe chain, and it is also a rare turn-based strategy game with hero battles as the core gameplay in the current chain game market. Unlike most mechanics of simply throwing money to upgrade and fight monsters, the development of Miracle Game is inspired by classic games such as Hearthstone, which can give users more room to play their skills in terms of gameplay.

We have incorporated strategic gameplay such as elemental control, multi-hero pre-battle formation, and automatic battles into Miracle Game, instead of a simple “fool-style upgrade”, which allows users to get a more immersive gaming experience. More importantly, users can get token rewards whether they win or lose in battles, and this mechanism allows all users to benefit from it.

Odaily Planet Daily: Compared with other P2E competitors in the market, what are the differentiating advantages and innovations of “Miracle”?

Montgomery Singman: The advantages of Miracle Game are mainly in three aspects:

Firstly, Miracle Game has a strong development team.

Secondly, at present, most chain game products on the market are beginning to have homogenization problems, and the gameplay and user experience of the game itself are weakened; Miracle Game can start from the user experience and add elements to the game and multi-hero formation. mode, this is enough to kill most of the chain games in seconds.

Thirdly, the existing resources and background of Miracle Game are strong, and we will gradually reveal it later. Interested friends can also check it out through our public information. In addition, there are many external institutions and exchanges that are paying close attention to us, and we have also obtained the blessing of many external capitals, with strong financial strength.

Odaily Planet Daily: Next, what development plans do you have?

Montgomery Singman: At present, the Miracle Game team is conducting in-depth cooperation discussions with many leading exchanges around the world, and we will select one of them as the first platform for the Miracle ecological token MU in the near future, which means that the MU token will be available soon. It will officially begin to circulate in the market.

On the other hand, the Miracle Game team is also preparing for the NFT airdrop event. In this round of airdrop, we will send out out-of-print hero cards. Friends who are interested in the airdrop event and the MU token launch can enter our official community in advance.

Discord: https://discord.gg/EnsvSAVZCv.