Think Like A Game Designer - Alliestrasza — From Hearthstone Streaming to Web3 Gaming: Building Communities and Crafting New Worlds (#77)

Episode Date: January 2, 2025

Alliestrasza joins us on today’s episode, bringing her extensive experience as a prominent streamer and influencer in the trading card game space. Best known for her long-running success as a Hearthstone content creator, Allie carved out a career in streaming that spanned nearly a decade. Recently, she has expanded her focus to game development, launching the Discord-based RPG Play Alchemy, and is also actively involved in promoting Web3 games like Parallel.In this episode, Allie shares her journey from discovering card games during her final semester of college to becoming one of the most recognizable faces in the TCG streaming world. We discuss what it takes for an influencer grow a community, the discipline required to succeed as a full-time content creator, and the lessons she’s learned in handling criticism as a public figure. Allie’s take on both traditional and Web3 gaming shows how passion, hard work, and adaptability can really pay off. Whether you're interested in streaming, game design, or building communities around shared interests, Allie’s experiences lessons that can be applied to anyone navigating a creative industry.Ah-ha! Justin’s Takeaways* Keys to Community Growth: One of the biggest insights from Allie’s experience is how personal involvement fuels community growth. Whether it was through creating fun community events or simply building relationships with fans, she demonstrated the power of caring about your community. This reinforced something I’ve seen time and time again—when developers or creators become part of the experience as personalities, it transforms the relationship with the audience.* How to Deal with Criticism: Allie’s journey to becoming a streamer wasn’t without obstacles, but what stood out was how she handled feedback—both the good and the bad. When you have a defensive response to criticism, it’s often a sign of insecurity. Allie’s ability to reflect and grow through early struggles mirrors a lesson I’ve written about before. (Check out my article on this here). Criticism, when approached with the right mindset, is one of the most powerful tools for personal and professional growth.* Work Hard Every Day to Achieve Your Goals: Allie earned success by treating her passion like a full-time job. I loved the story of her PowerPoint presentation to her parents, laying out her streaming career as a structured experiment. From day one, she approached streaming with a full-time mentality, putting in the hours to make her dream a reality. This is a huge takeaway for anyone pursuing creative goals. Treating passion projects with the same discipline as a “traditional” job dramatically improves the odds of success, especially when combined with the previous to Ah-Ha bullets. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit justingarydesign.substack.com/subscribe

Hello and welcome to Think Like a Game Designer. I'm your host, Justin Gary. In this podcast, I'll be having conversations with brilliant game designers from across the industry with a goal of finding universal principles that anyone can apply in their creative life. You could find episodes and more at think like a game designer.com. In today's episode, I speak with Ali Straza. Ali is a longtime streamer and influencer in the trading card game space. She started off making a living as a Harstone streamer for many, many years before she's transitioned to both making her own game in play alchemy and starting to promote Web3 games like Parallel. We talk a lot about a ton of really interesting aspects in terms of what it takes to be a successful streamer, in terms of what

it takes to grow a community, in terms of how you can build communities and the upsides and downsides of Web3 gaming. Allie is just one of the most genuine people that I have been able to have on the podcast. We had not met before this, but I had heard great things about her, and she certainly delivered. There's a lot of really great insights, including some personal insights in terms of how you deal with criticism, how you can grow as someone who puts your work out there. Honestly, whether or not you care about TCGs or you care about Web3 at all, there's a lot of great insights in here that will 100% be applicable to you in your creative life. And that's exactly why I made this podcast is to bring a variety of voices in to be able to help everyone

contribute more, create more, grow more, and Allie really delivered here. So without any further ado, here is Ali Strasser. Hello and welcome. I'm here with Ali Estraza. Ali, it's awesome to finally get to chat with you. I'm so happy to be here. I've heard amazing things about you.

And yeah, let's get to it. Yeah, likewise. Likewise. I've been following a lot of your presence online. And, you know, you've kind of, well, in a sense like me, we've made a living from our love of trading card games and being in this space. We took a very different path or slightly different path. So I'd love to just kind of give people a little bit of background on you. How did you kind of get into gaming?

How did you get into this, you know, making it more of a professional path? Like, take me into the way back machine, how we got going. Well, I've been a casual gamer my whole life. But it wasn't until my last semester of college that I got into card games. And so I would consider myself sort of a late bloomer because I wasn't playing card games when I, you're magic and stuff like that when I was 10 years old. So I found them in college with Harstom. And I was introduced to it through my husband now. And the story kind of goes that the first BlizzCon was on, he and his friends, watching it. And I just am kind of that person that doesn't like being in the room and not knowing what's going on. So I downloaded the game and basically just fell in love with it after that and sort of the rest is history. I really, really love dragons. So the lore of, you know, the dragon, Warcraft, Alex Straza, you know, that really piqued my interest. And then slowly but

truly just sort of, you know, wanted to make this whole persona out of it. And as I was graduating college, I started to learn about Twitch and live streaming. Never really wanted to do something that normal. I love entertaining people. And when I, you know, found out about this, you know, possibility of making live streaming a career, I basically, like, made a PowerPoint presentation to my parents and said, look, I'm going to try to be a streamer for six months. And if I see some success, I'll keep going. And if not, then I'll work in marketing and advertising, which is what I studied. And it worked. So, and here I am about nine years later. So almost a decade of content creation for card games. That's the short version there.

All right. Love it. I'm going to unpack a bunch here because there's a few key moments that I love to always just sort of learn more, both more about you and learn more about the kind of like traits and lessons and approaches that tend to give people more chance of success here. and getting into the space. One, PowerPoint presentation for your parents. Walk me, walk me through this one a little bit.

Because, like, I'll give you some time because, like, for me, when I, I mean, I dropped out of law school to, to make a living playing games. And, you know, my parents were not happy, right?

I mean, literally my mom was, like, crying and was trying to do everything in her power to try to convince me to, to go back to law school. But I wasn't, you know, I had no PowerPoint.

I just said, hey, I'm just doing this thing. and that was a tough spot. So maybe I should have had a PowerPoint. Maybe I wouldn't have had so many tears. So talk to me about what the relationship is like with your parents. Like what made you decide?

Like did you, was there like a giant like projection screen? Did you sit them down? Well, I wanted to know what this PowerPoint. Yeah, walk me through this. I must have been in a studious mindset because I was, you know, graduating college. But it basically was printed out articles from I think there was a Forbes article where it was like, you know, people are making a living off of video games now, like one of those early articles. And this was probably, I guess this was 2015, because I graduated in the fall of 2015.

So when I say PowerPoint presentation, it's probably not as crazy as like projector on the screen and like bullet points. But it was a selection. You know. Yeah. It was just a collection of information that was like, hey, this is actually a real thing. People are doing this. And I would say that both my parents are pretty supportive. My mom was maybe a little bit more like, hmm, I don't know. But my dad was actually a professional athlete. So he, you know, had a trajectory that was in a similar vein. It's a tennis player. And so when Mason and I, my husband, kind of presented this idea to him, he was like, sure, you know, go for it. And they were both very supportive. So I was, you know, lucky to kind of have their support.

But it was with a sort of time limit. Like if you can't see some success, then like, you know, you need to go figure something else out. And yeah, that's sort of the, I graduated December of 2015 and my first stream was February 1st, 2016. So I took basically a month to go move out to California, get my rig all set up. And then February 1st hit, 9 to 5, 8. hours a day, 40, you know,

just treated it like a real full-time job. And then eventually got signed to a gaming team. And that one thing led to another, Blizzard discovered my stream. And then, you know, I was able to join competitions that had a lot of visibility. And that's how it started.

Yeah. Yeah, I love this. And so there's a lot of like really key lessons here that I think I want to pull out, right? One is, as you mentioned like this, you know,

you kind of glossed over. But this, oh, I worked for nine to five. I took this as a full-time job. I spent all the hours putting it in. I put in a lot of work to build that. A lot of people don't realize that that's what happens behind the scenes to make this,

you know, to make this come to life. And that's a really critical piece that I think is worth underscoring. And I love that you also built this with a kind of time horizon that says, hey, look, I'm going to try and run this experiment. And if it doesn't work within this time, I have a backup plan and I'm going to do that. And that's exactly how I've approached everything in my life as well, right? I took a year off between college and law school to go play magic professionally.

And that's when I had my most success. and won the world championships and did everything because again, I took it like a nine to five job and then some. And then when I, you know, dropped out of law school, I already had a job lined up. So I knew that I had something there.

When I quit that job to start my company, I did exactly what you did, whereas I got myself at the point it was a year. I had a year of savings and if I can't make it happen after a year, then I'll go back and get another job and do the thing, right? A similar trajectory, I would say there. And I want to point out that,

you know, when I started streaming, there were two viewers or one of my friends, she would put my stream up on as many computers in her office. So I could get me to like five, six viewers. And so I really, you know, started with no help from, you know, another streamer that would host me and stuff like that. It was very humble beginnings of streaming to, you know, three to five people for a couple weeks and then slowly got to 10 viewers to 15. When I hit 40 viewers, it was like, oh my gosh. Like, it was a, it was a big. deal. So, yeah. Yeah. And so what, and, you know, you, you kind of caught this at a key moment, right, when streaming was just starting to get really big too, right? It was, it had, it had, you know, maybe three or four years early in that. I think it really started to take off, right? And so what do you not just, obviously, you know, hard work is, is a big part of it.

But what would you credit that success or growth with? Or how would you potentially just still those principles for somebody who was trying to say, hey, I would like to get to try. I wouldn't mind streaming for a living. Like, that sounds awesome. You know, what, what do you think determines kind of success or likelihood of success here? Yeah, I think it's very different now. And it's funny, you know, you mentioned like I got into streaming pretty early, but at the time, it felt like I was getting into it super late, which obviously now I can see that was not true. But in that time, consistency, I mean, again, it was just every day, nine to five, eventually, you know, and what I did was I posted a

picture of myself playing Harstone on a plane and, you know, tagged Blizzard and did all the things. And that's actually the post that the community manager at the time discovered me. So I was at TwitchCon and Molly, you know, community manager at the time, Harstone came up to me. And she was like, hey, are you, Allie? And so it just one thing sort of led to another. It's consistency, but it's also making sure that you put yourself in as many places as possible to be discovered by the right people. I think nowadays, you know, I don't think that you can just turn on the camera and stream, you know, a crazy amount of hours and necessarily see the same success. The, the discoverability of Twitch is not great and you really need to lean more into short form content,

you know, putting that your videos and short stuff like as many places as possible. I'm a little not, I don't know what the word is, but my faith in just live streaming is gone down just with the times like TikTok and YouTube shorts and that type of stuff is so crucial that you really need to expand your horizons just than turning the camera on at this point. Yeah, I think this is true. It feels like across the board, right? In a sense, not just for streaming, but for game creation and any kind of content creation at all, like it's easier than ever to make the things and it's harder than ever to get like discovered and like get the attention onto things it it is it i think there's it is harder but it's also easier in some capacity like i you know do some research on discoverability

and stuff like that and you know focusing in on um like the content is now less about the individual and it's more about like the subject matter itself so if you are a small creator trying to grow like you really can see success by like focusing in on a niche and just like understanding what that audience wants. And platforms like TikTok, maybe it's changing a little bit, but I do think that the discoverability is some of the best it has ever been because of the short form content. And then that, you know, you take and tell your audience about like your stream and your actual YouTube channel with longer form content. But yeah, it's, we all have to adjust to the changes of social media.

And, you know, with VR and all the AI and all the things that are coming, like, who really knows what's happening next? I guess that's how I feel. Yeah. Yeah. Well, so there's a couple principles that I'll take, maybe I'll reflect back from what I hear from you. And then I'm going to, I'll push back with some other ideas and see what you think.

So, so on the one hand, there's this idea of, like, there are some, there's, there's, there's always going to be some new frontier, right? Of like what the, what the, the, the open space is, right? And where you can most make an impact. So finding a niche game, like maybe there's a new smaller game community and you could be one of the first people streaming it. And it's going to start slow, just like everybody does. But then as that game grows, as that community grows, you're well positioned to grow with

it. And so that's like one opportunity. If it's not, you know, short form content on TikTok, maybe the hot thing right now, but maybe there's another version of that that shows up, you know, whatever the next thing is, the, you know, AI implanted into your brain chip versions. I don't know, whatever it is,

right? So just keeping an eye on the trends on that space. That's kind of, you know, opportunities for people. And of course, you know, just creating good content

and getting good at creating good content for these different formats is a skill that you'll just, you know, continue to work on as you explore. One thing I'll push back on or I don't know if it's a pushback, which is kind of like,

from my experience, um, one of the most important things that I have found is to find a format that you, actually enjoy, right? This podcast, for example, right? Like, I've been doing this now for like five, six years, something like that. And I couldn't even imagine, like, if I were trying to make something like, I don't know,

to me, like trying to do like a, you know, short form little posts is a lot more like painful in a sense. But here, like having a deep dive conversation with somebody else in the industry about cool stuff, about making games and content and all that. Like, I love this stuff. So to me, I would do this even if I, you know, had no revenue from it. In fact, this podcast doesn't really make direct revenue. So I basically do. But it's something I enjoy.

And I think that that makes a big impact because you can stick with something over time, even if it's a crowded format, right? Starting a podcast in 2018 also felt super late. You know, it's already, you know, maybe too saturated. But it's something that I can do and post, you know, a couple, it started off once a month, became every other week. And it just was something I just enjoyed and we grew over time. And that ability to have that slow growth and be okay with that because you enjoy what

you're doing, I feel like is a pretty key recipe for success. Absolutely. I'm super happy you mentioned that. I've always said to people when they've asked me for advice on streaming, like if you're having a good time, your audience can see that you're having a good time. It's so important to actually love what you're doing because that'll keep you going. So I think, you know, even in that case, though, like I think the ideal version is we'll use the podcast, for example, you love this.

This is your type of medium that you feel. fulfilled doing. I think still, you know, if you had an editor or something and took the best clips, like maybe you aren't necessarily in control of making the short form content, but you take your preferred, whether it's making YouTube videos or podcasts, and then you still somehow find a way to, you know, clip up the best moments. And then that is sort of the promotion for the podcast. That's if you're like really trying to get as much growth as possible. but I absolutely agree with you. You have to do what you love and consistency and passion, right?

That's the winning combo. 100%. And then being able to repurpose the same content in multiple channels and multiple ways to reach multiple different audiences is absolutely a path to success. And we do that with this podcast. We have video clips and various other things that I don't make, but I'm glad that they exist. And then we talked about AI. AI is going to get better and better at this sort of.

thing. It already is pretty impressive where you can not, like, not use the AI to generate the core content, but use the AI to create the clips and help bring things apart, you know, create that many faceted approach. I think it makes it, again, easier to create this kind of content than ever. Yeah, I'm definitely someone that maybe this is a little controversial, but when it comes to things like new technology, like AI or blockchain, I'm very much in the camp of let's figure out how to use it ethically, like in the best way, rather than pretending like it's not happening. or it doesn't exist. And so I do think that AI is going to absolutely change the game. I mean, it already has with content creation. And so I'm, yeah, I'm of the opinion. Let's not shun it. Let's figure out the best way to use it. And hopefully that will, you know, give more people an opportunity to create content

because not everybody is an amazing artist or an editor or whatever it may be. So, but there's a fine line, of course. Yeah, yeah, of course. And for anybody that wants a deeper dive into this, I have a podcast with Ethan Mollock, who's one of the top experts on AI. We talked very deeply about that process and like what the goods, the bads, and the ways to approach this. Because I'm like you.

I think that the potential of this technology is amazing. Even what's happening today is amazing. The risks are real. The costs to artists and creators are real, making sure it's done ethically and that we find a way to kind of integrate this into society that doesn't, you know, destroy the things we love, right? If it takes away the things we don't love, like my clipping this into smaller bite-sized chunks and that can be done, fantastic.

But if it's taking away the things of like, you know, actually people's ability to create and make a living from doing things that they enjoy, then that's something we want to pay attention to. But that doesn't mean we should ignore it. And in fact, as a creator, it allows you and empowers you to do so much more if you're using it in the right sort of way. So I agree with you there. I would love to listen to that podcast.

So I'm going to get the episode number after this and listen myself. Yeah, I'll be happy to share it. I think, yeah, I've just, I love, I mean, and I think you similar, I'm getting the vibe similar to me, like, just I geek out on the new technologies, right? Like, we've both gotten involved in, like, web three gaming and we'll talk some about that for sure, but like this idea of like, what does that bring to the table? And even though there's a lot of people who are scared of it or a lot of scammy things or a lot of people that don't like it, in fact, there's a ton of values of the technology and tons of like new frontiers to explore as a designer, as a creator, as a player, is just somebody who just enjoys these things. I think that I've always just had a bias towards like, okay, what's the cool thing and how do we interact with it? I'm right there with you. I think humans and technology have been evolving alongside each other, you know, since the history of time. And, you know, it's not to say that the evolution could go wrong in some ways, but it's like it's up to humanity to sort of decide what happens with the tech, right? So. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And then I've, you know, I've spent some time studying the history of technology. And like every single time,

there's a new revolution in technology, specifically when it comes to, like, communication and, like, our ability to collaborate together, there's always a crisis that comes with it, right? Like, if let's go back to, obviously, the social media crisis is very, people are very, you know, intent on right now and increasing levels of depression and some problems that people have and, you know, kind of people getting isolated into echo chambers. And that's something we're now adapting to. But, like, go back further, right? Television was a TV's going to rot your brain and it's going to have centralized authority,

sending propaganda in commercials. And yes, some of that happened, but also we adapted and we evolved. And the same, and if you go back further, when radio came out, people had the same things. And newspapers and even books, there's records of people who were complaining that when books came out, it would take away our ability to tell stories and connect to each other and have, and we'll lose that part of our skill set. Right. So every single one of these revolutions has challenges.

They're not, they're real challenges. We have to wrestle with them. We have to understand them. But they also come with incredible opportunities. And thus far, humanity's proven unbelievably resilient. at evolving together. And I think gaming is a huge part of that, right? The ability to have online gaming communities,

whether that be directly in an online game like World of Warcraft, where you're actually interacting deeply with other characters in the game, or games like Harstone and, you know, Magic and Soul Forge and all these other games, where it's like where the interactions do happen in the game, but then there's this like community that builds up around it with streamers and Discord channels and everything. Like, we build ourselves this community around things we love

in a way that was like, both impossible, not that many years ago, and now actually can create real economic value and entire careers that nobody could even dreamed. I mean, the idea of you being a professional streamer, you know, even 20 years ago, let alone 30 years ago or more is complete madness. Like, the job didn't exist. So it's kind of cool to see that evolve.

Well said. Amen. Completely. Completely agree. Yeah. Okay. So let's evolve now. So you started off as a Harstone streamer.

You got hooked on the game. You got hooked on the art and the story. You got you started, you ran your experiment. The experiment worked. You started getting discovered. You started getting some sponsorships. What happens next? Because you're not, you know, the Harstone was only one part of the story.

And you've created your own games. You're working with a bunch of other things. So how did this evolve from there? Yeah. I mean, let's see. I pretty much full-time Harstone for, I would say eight and a half years. So it's really only been a recent thing that I've taken a step back from Harstone. And in that time, you know, I did breaks. Like Harston was certainly my main game.

I played TFT. I had a little magic saga, you know, for a while there when MTGA first came out. And yeah, I think the next evolution in my career, I suppose, happened when I did find, you know, Web 3 gaming and blockchain. And so I feel on the subject that we just had about technology, I really care about playing a role in making sure that this technology is going in the right direction for gamers, because I definitely think that there are a lot of people taking advantage of the space. And so I understand that it's a risk to sort of be a person standing up for it.

and that certainly come with its challenges for sure. But that was sort of, yeah, preach. That sort of was a turning point. And I suppose that was in maybe 2021, that I started to get involved with other groups that were promoting certain games and learning about the whole space. And then, yes, that did also lead to making a Discord game.

So the team is small. It's the four of us. It's Mason, my husband, and Joseph and Alex, some of our best friends. And, yeah, we work to make this Discord game, this RPG. And so my role is a little bit more on the lore side of things. I am the head of mysticism. So I was, you know, in charge of sort of, like, coming up with the characters and the world building and all that good stuff. And we are still working on that now.

and it is meant to be sort of a community building tool that anyone can play in Discord, play alchemy. And so, yeah, that's sort of been the journey thus far. And also, you know, now I'm a podcast host of the Parallel League podcast because I've gotten very into casting the tournaments more into the competitive scenes. So, you know, the majority of my career has been content creation and streamer. but I am trying to move a little bit more into hosting and being a sort of personality for Web3 gaming, but of course still streaming and making content as well. So sorry, that was a ramble, but that's... No, no, it's great.

I mean, I love because it gives me tons of fun threads to pull on here, right? So you went from, you know, from streamer for eight plus years to creator of like a game. And that's not an easy jump, right? So what, talk to me about that decision. Like, is it what, how has that gone? Like, it's, you know, you said you've been doing that for about three years now. That's a, you know, it's a decent chunk of time to be investing into making games, which obviously I'm passionate about also.

And so I'm curious, like, what was the motivation behind that? What would you say is the elevator pitch of play alchemy specifically? And, yeah, maybe we'll dig into that process. Yeah. So we found that there was sort of a lack in, community building tools outside of people's main game. Like in my community, we would host like poker nights and stuff like that to sort of have this extra thing to, you know, hang out with your audience or whatever. And so with the concept of

alchemy being a Discord game, it's like embedded right into Discord. So it's already incredibly social, right? And so the concept was also to like sort of show. case an easy path to getting people into Web3 gaming because when people play, I mean, there's no requirement that you need to use any like crypto elements, but we did make a, you know, a custodial wallet on the back end for people that if they wanted to go, you know, export their assets to their wallet, that was possible. And so yeah, it's, it's been, it's been a journey so far. It's been fun. We have, you know, a loyal community and we're still trying to grow it. I was just recently in Manila for a parallel tournament, and we got to meet one of our long-time supporters of Alchemy.

So that was amazing just to see him in person. But we are continually working on making the game skinned for other communities. That's something that we do. And as well as our idol-staking game Cosmic War, where basically there are different territories and you're trying to take everybody down. at each week. And if you do, you earn our token spirit. And, yeah, it's been fun. So, and definitely a cool decision to sort of move into the development process as

opposed to just, you know, playing games myself. Yeah. Yeah, it gives a different perspective on things. And, you know, obviously the skill sets feed into each other, right? Having an audience and being able to broadcast the game, knowing the needs of, of streamers and the opportunities to, you know, fill that. niche is valuable. And then as you learn more about what goes into game development, you get maybe a little bit

more sympathy for the games you might criticize on stream otherwise. Absolutely. Again, I'm more on the world building and the lore, but the tech and the game design, you know, I have witnessed a lot of back and forth. And man, game design is hard. I'll say that. That's something that I've gotten to see now. And so I actually have a little bit more sympathy for, uh,

companies, game devs where, you know, things take time. Yeah, it seems hard, which I'm sure you're very, very aware of. Very, very aware of, yes. In fact, well, but again, that's part of why I have this podcast, right, is to sort of demystify the process, to let people in behind the scenes as to like the challenges that come, right? I mean, Solford Fusion, for example, you know, we're getting into the Web3 space. So, Solvoxusion, you know, we recently launched on Solana in our Web3 elements like you. We had all of the kind of classic hate from Web 2 and our tabletop players, because

It's also a tabletop game that scans into the digital account. And all of the challenges that came from building a new technology to digitally print cars, new technology to run this Web 2 version of the game, new technology to connect everything to Web 3. And every piece had challenges and bugs and hiccups and almost running out of cash and try to manage the community and cater to everybody's interest. And it's an enormous amount of work. It's an enormous amount of challenges and uncertainties as you go through it. And again, like we talked about with streaming, it has to be something you really have a lot of passion about, right?

So you clearly are passionate about the lore building and the world building. You carry. You love that stuff. You're willing to go through the challenge and heartache of working through all of this technical and marketing and every piece of it that comes together to build something that you really can be proud of at the end of the day. Absolutely. So as we get into Web3, I realize we've dropped a few terms here that some of our audience won't understand because we have a lot of tabletop players and Web 2 players.

we talked about, you mentioned, you know, kind of dropping the token and custodial wallets and a couple things that we kind of dropped in. And so I want to talk about Web3 generally. You know, you work closely with the parallels team, which is a TCG that's hosted. It's also on the Salona network, just like SoulForge Fusion. And so we have a lot of overlap there. And I would like to start with like what you viewed as the kind of what brought you to Web 3, what you see as the upside and value premise for the players.

if you want to touch on some of the reasons why people might feel otherwise and address those, you're welcome to. And then we can start to get into the specifics of both what you're doing with parallels and maybe we'll just bounce around on the fun ideas of what the future looks like, too. Sure. Well, I think the big pillar for Web 3 is asset ownership, right? I mean, and forgive me, if I sound like a broken record. I don't know how many people have come on your podcast here and talked about this.

concept, but I'll go through it. You know, when you played magic, uh, when you were a kid and it was, you know, or actually when you play it now, because people play paper magic, but I'm so used to the digital mind. Okay, you buy your packs and you actually own your cards, right? You can sell them, you can trade them, whatever, uh, you want you, you own them, right? But when we made the jump to something like Harstone, you, I have put thousands of dollars into my Harstone account, which I can't even legally sell, because that's against Blizzard's terms of service. And so essentially, I don't really, I guess I own my account, but I can't sell or trade my cards if I wanted to. Not even from region to region, by the way. I will just point that out because that has always

bothered me. Like, I was not able to participate in a European tournament because all my cards were on my North American account. And so the concept is, is, you know, you actually get to own your assets now at this point. And I think that is something that we've lost in time with the changes to digital. And this is blockchain's, you know, solution to sort of get that back. So that's really like the big one. But I think that it goes far beyond that. And, you know, I am not a technical wizard, okay, but I think the concept of interoperability is really important. So being able to like share your assets. And, you know, I am not a technical wizard. But I think, I think the concept of interoperability is really important. So being able to like share your assets from like a game to game or there's a lot of

these concepts that I think that we'll get expanded upon that we don't even know right now because it's still so new. But I think those are the two big pillars of blockchain gaming. And I guess, you know, the argument is made, you know, oh, well, you could have all of this on without blockchain. And I'm like, well, who's doing that? You know what I mean? Like that's sort of my case. Like I don't think Blizzard will do that because it's not really in the best interest for them. They will make more money if people aren't able to trade their cards or sell them.

Right. And so I think that, you know, the move towards blockchain having sort of this systematic, you know, underlying tech. where any of the games can build on top of and sort of share between the chain is the next evolution of gaming. And it definitely comes with the challenges. And I think that because it's the early stages, there are people taking advantage of it. And that really sucks. And I have gone through moments of time where I'm quite disheartened by what I've seen. But I also at the same time have met so many incredible game developers that really think,

do see the vision of the technology and are good people and are working their hardest to, you know, implement it in the best way. But the truth is, is that, you know, making good games takes time. And I think making bad games that are cash grabs or whatever, like what some people have seen so far, that's much easier to do. And so the best games that are getting developed that are using blockchain tech are coming. And there are a few that are out now. and in time there will be more and more. Yeah, yeah, and I'm going to underscore a lot of this because I agree, and I've had this, I'm actually working on a big kind of article about this because I think it's really important

that, you know, the business model that Magic the Gathering innovated and trading card games innovated was, was revolutionary, right? It was the first time ever that you could participate in a gaming ecosystem and that you, as a player, would actually capture the majority of the value, right? I could buy a pack of cards for, you know, $3.99 or whatever it is. And then, you know, open up a Black Lotus from Alpha Magic that's now worth millions of dollars. Like, whizzes the coast or Hasbro, they don't make any extra money off of that new sale. They just sold the initial packs.

They brought the initial things. And the players actually were the ones that benefited. The collectors were the ones that benefited. I paid my way through college winning magic tournaments and playing and traveling around the world doing that. Like the players were able to grow in a way that had never been done before. And then when these things started moving digital, it's really interesting because the very first digital trading card game, Magic Online, did allow you to trade cards.

They did allow you to sit and then they basically, you know, while it still sort of exists, they moved to a Magic Arena and they put all their efforts behind that where you can't sell your cards. You can't trade just like Harstone, just like all these other games where all of a sudden they've just recaptured all the value back. And so you're 100% right.

And we did this research all right. You can, in principle, offer a lot of the things that blockchain offers using private servers, using traditional web two mechanisms. But these big companies are not incentivized to do it. And it's very, very costly. So we internally looked at doing this for Sulfur Fusion without having to use blockchain. And it would have cost us way more money to do, would have been way more regulatory infrastructure, would be much more challenging. Whereas by leveraging the technology that Salon already had, we were able to build a system for players to trade and sell their decks. where we were able to build it in a few months instead of a few years.

And it was like a really, really big difference for developers because so much of the stuff is, you know, open source because the blockchain, you know, all the stuff is there. So much can be built on. You can also leverage and connect to other communities and people that are already there. So as a developer, I've seen this firsthand how much it can accelerate your process and how much you can add that value back to the community. And I think as a small game studio, that's the opportunity that we have to be able to say, hey, look, we're not. We don't have the marketing budget and polish of Blizzard and Harsstone, but what we do have is an open gaming economy and a system that you can come join and we have a great game. And if you're a part of it, we all win together.

And I think that's a really compelling argument for people. Absolutely. Like the salon of blockchain, the tech is already there. You know, why not tap into it, right? That makes a ton of sense to me. But I think the important thing is not forcing people, like especially in the early days, like, if they don't want to interact with the crypto crypto stuff, like, that's okay. You should give them an option to just play it like an absolutely normal game. And then if you want to tap into the ownership

type of stuff, then you have that, right? And I think that's the important thing. And I think, you know, we're going to see so many different games iterate on what the best model looks like. And it's really just going to take some time to figure it out. Yeah, because, you know, I understand the criticism of like play to earn gaming. Like a lot of people, um, don't want that because they think they, it will take the fun out of, um, gaming, right? If you're just concerned about, you know, earning a token and that type of stuff. And so that might be true. And not every game needs to necessarily be played to earn, you know, maybe it's just leaning in towards, um, asset ownership, right?

And like you can't, which is kind of earning because you can sell obviously your cards or whatever it may be. But I've seen a project recently take that structure where it's like you web two all the way through and then you can eventually upgrade your card to be a digital collectible that you can sell. But there isn't necessarily like a huge token earning aspect of the game. And the truth is is that some people are going to want that. like, you know, play to earn games are absolutely massive in Southeast Asia, like Manila,

I was just there. That's huge. And then maybe some people don't want that as well. So I think everyone is going to implement this new tech in various ways. And the truth is, is you'll just opt in, you know, to the games that like the system that they choose, I suppose. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. And I think, you know, this ability of letting people opt in and creating a better, like, smoother onboarding is a big part of what we focus on here.

too, right? So, so forth's fusion, we talk about it being three different pillars. You can play the tabletop game and never touch a computer and enjoy the whole experience as it is. Or you could scan those decks into your digital account and play it as a web two game and never touch the blockchain, never care about the blockchain. Or you can connect to the blockchain and you can now have decks that are tradable as NFTs and earn the tokens and all the things. And so every piece stands on its own, but the same collection, same cards, same core game mechanic crosses over all of them as a way to kind of make this easier for people to come into. But I think the more important thing is I'm keying in on something else that you said, which is like a lot of these

were, you know, it was easier to make not great games that just, you know, kind of promised tokens and had all of these like big pipe dreams and then they didn't work out. Whereas I think only recently have you seen more real game developers who, again, it takes time to make these games. I've been working on Soulboard Fusion for 13 years. We had over four years of development to get this version out. 13. I don't think I knew that. 13 years. Oh my gosh. Wow. Yeah. So the original just to brief backstory, I'm sure a lot of our audience listening already knows this, but the brief backstory is Richard Garfield, you know, Creator Mads Gathering and I met back in 2011 at a Pax Dev conference, and we started talking about what game we wanted to make next.

And it was the original version of SoulForge, which came out before Harstone, designed specifically for mobile, was the very first digital card game that was designed for mobile that launched. We ran it for like five years, and then eventually we had to sunset that. And then as soon as that was over, I really wanted to find a way to bring it back. And it was very acute for me because the, every other game I made was mostly tabletop games, right? Like where, or, or, or, you know, its own downloadable game where once you have it, you own it forever.

And it doesn't matter if I stopped making the game, you own it. But when Soul Forge, the original version of Soul Forge, we shut down the servers, everybody's collection was gone, like the next day. So people who had spent thousands of dollars or thousands of hours or, like, built their whole life and communities around this games as we have, right? You did it with Harstone. I did it with Magic. You know, all of a sudden,

was gone. And it was like heartbreaking, like heartbreaking. Like one of the worst things that's ever happened to me in my whole career. And I was like, well, okay, I never want to see that happen again. And so when I started getting into blockchain and understanding, oh, wait, there's a way to make this actually permanent and live on beyond my company, beyond me, beyond anything that we can do. Like, that was really exciting to me. And so that's part of why we started building soul for trusion the way we did. I love that. That's the, that's the story right there. You know, like, that's the perfect implementation of like learning about the technology, having the background story and like and moving forward with it. I love that. Thanks for, I did know a little bit of the

background, but I didn't know the whole thing there. So I appreciate you telling me that. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's fun to share. It's wild to think about going back. But I think it's like, you know, to key in on another point that you brought up, like, I think there's the, you know, we don't know where the future is going for this. I think TCGs are the perfect analog, right? Because we can tell the story of like, I know what it's like to own and trade and sell a physical trading card game. NFTs and the Web3 ownership community is just like that, right? And there's, you know, with some extra functionality thrown in. Like, but what, you know, that's, that's kind of a classic, you know, taking an analog of

thing we know, bringing it to the new tech world. But, but every new form of tech then brings its own like more native thing, right? So you mentioned the idea of having games be interoperable, or items be interoperable between games, which is, you know, kind of a ready player one world, the metaverse type thing, which does feel pretty. far off right now, but it's pretty exciting and compelling. Or are there other ways that, like, you know, to me, we talked about the challenges of discovery. And I think this idea that you can have a community that already exists, like on salon, like for example, parallels, great game,

great community. And one of the things we did when we started Soul Fort Feition was we airdropped our token to everybody that played parallels and had a certain amount of, you know, their NFTs and their collection. We did the same thing for a bunch of other communities and say, hey, come check us out. And we can actually like give you incentives and like access. I already excited, already engaged community, which is not really a parallel for that, so to speak, in the Web 2 world that I can think of. And so it's a really interesting new way to, like, again, just add value directly to players and use that as a kind of way to onboard and bring new people into a game that might not

otherwise have that audience. Yeah. I am, I'm curious where you think the resistance is the most. and like I have my theories because trading card games are such a perfect use case for this new technology, right? And yeah, I have my thoughts, but I'm curious like where you think the biggest issue, like the blockage for their sort of acceptance of the technology is. Yeah, I think I definitely want to hear your side of this too, but I'll start. I'll start because I think it's, it is a lot of this came down to the fact that the initial entrance into the marketplace were. are by and large bad games and bad actors, right? Not always, but like it was at least one of those two for the first, like a bunch of games

that existed. And if you, and once you're in that world where you see that it's, it's a scam and people lose everything or it's just like the game is not fun, right? Like if you come over and you see that this is a not fun thing that I'm just grinding to try to make cash or other people are pyramid scheming to try to make cash for me, that becomes a very negative experience. and then those stories become the front of mind and that, you know,

that becomes the zeitgeist and people pull away. And you see even companies like that just were like throwing NFTs into their game and made no sense or, you know, people that were, uh, that, you know,

again, just were more profit first, not gameplay first, not community first. And I think that became the, the story and the narrative. And so that I think is what pervaded and it takes work. Again,

I mean, I'm, I'm consciously putting in this work. Like when we announced that we are doing a web three element, we got tons of hate mail we got tons of review bombs on our steam game we got tons of like you know lots of negativity but i put myself out there personally i did spaces i did you know active in our discord i did amas i streamed and i answered everybody's questions directly and again i've been doing this for 25 years right i'm not here to do a rug pull i'm not here to scam anybody right and then richard is on this

as well and he's been doing this for 40 years right like so the ability to be up front and put a different story, face, reality behind this, I think is how we transition. But it takes time. It takes time to change the culture, right? And again, I'm a student of technology going back. Like, the same thing happened when Blizzard started doing subscription models for World of Warcraft. People were like, oh, my God, this is the worst.

You can't just buy a game. You've got to pay. It's a scam. Same thing happened when freemium games came out. And people started having the micro payments, right? Oh, my God, it's a scam. They're just paid to win, blah, blah, blah. And some, again, some cases, yes, but most cases, no.

And in fact, the things that rose to the top gave you a ton of value and a ton of joy and you could play for way less money and then invest more time and money as you saw fit. And I think the same thing is going to be true here. It's just a new technology we're still adapting to. Yeah. Amen. You hit so many points that I absolutely resonate with and agree with. And one of the things that I want to bring up is just the when you have developers or even content creators. I mean, I guess it's tricky, but I was trying to say that, you know, when you put your reputation on the line, like you've been doing this for so long, Richard, for 40 years, you said, like, why, what would be the reason? Or, you know what I mean? Like, if there is a developer or, you know, someone that is putting their face out there, their reputation, doing all of these interviews, hopefully that should be some kind of credibility in that, you know, there are good people. really trying. And the scammers and the bad actors are probably more anonymous, you know, and they're hiding behind and a curtain or whatever it may be. But at the same time, like I,

obviously there have been major creators and, you know, people that are a part of scams and they get away with it. So I think where I've relinquished a little bit, because, you know, I care so much about this industry. And so it's been very easy for me to get quite defensive with, you know, when someone attacks your character and stuff like that for being a part of this, that's been hard. But, you know, recently this past year, I kind of sat back and I was like, you know what? The people that are coming after this technology or they're calling you a scammer, like they think that they're doing the right things. They're good people that don't want to see good people scammed, right? And so having a little bit more of compassion for the naysayers who

don't support it, just like having the framework that they believe that they're doing the right thing, like has made me a little soften a little bit to being so defensive about it. And, you know, in time, you know, my hope is just the people like you and, you know, the best or the good people that are making good games will shine through and it will eventually show in time. But and then the other point was that there's this, there's this YouTube video and I'll have to share it. But it basically, I think the title is like, what went wrong with gaming? And you may have seen it. And it's a really great encapsulation of the greed that got built through the industry with monetization tactics.

And particularly with millennials, like they saw the whole evolution of, some of the things that you mentioned there, like freemium or microtransactions or whatever it may be. And while the truth, you know, some of the technology was good, greed also got built through those new tactics. And I think that the level of trust with gamers in our age group are just very mistrusting of new monetization tactics because of what they saw the industry move towards. And so I think they have some rights and justification to be very, you know, suss of of new, new tactics. So I'm trying to move into the direction of having more compassion and a little less defensiveness for something that I really care about. So that's sort of

been my mentality. Yeah. Well, I think that's a great little, let me linger on this a little bit, because I think this is another thing, right, as a streamer, as a public personality, as someone who's like creating and building things and pushing at the frontier, you get a lot of hate. Like, people, you know, are going to, are going to hate. Right. If you, and I have my own sort of philosophy and how I deal with this and how I've approached this, right? I mean, from my early days when I started working on the Marvel and DC versus system trading card game

and had somebody posting an online forum that I should be killed for this card design that I had done. I was like, okay. It was, it was, it was really weird and I had to like learn how do I react to this? Like, how do I relax that there's someone in the world that thinks I should die because of my card designs?

But how do you deal with it? You know, that is a work in progress. I am continually, you know, learning how to manage that. I would say that, you know, YouTube comments in the beginning in the first five years of my career really got to me, you know, and they get to you when you are actually insecure about something, right? Like if someone makes a comment about you that you're like, I don't, that's dumb. I don't agree with that. You know, it can bounce off of you a little bit. easier. But when the internet can identify what you're insecure on and then they lean into that, that's where things get tricky. But look, I, like I said, I'm in a process of dealing with all of that because, you know, the last year in particular was kind of tough because parallel started to sign web to creators that are very known in the TCG space. And that brought a lot lot of attention. And truly, like, I was kind of the first ambassador to go to my network of TCG creators and say, hey, like, try out this game and participate in this creator

invitational tournament that we're, you know, putting on. And so that definitely directed a lot of hate towards me. And it truly did make me scared and, like, want to run away at certain times and having to like push through that and be okay with being seen is is hard and I think it probably just comes down to and this is applicable I think to every aspect of life is the judgment of others is what's actually important is the judgment of yourself right so if you have the confidence that you are doing the right thing or you're doing something that you believe and it makes it a lot easier to handle other people coming at you. And if you're insecure yourself on it, that's where the voices can really, you know, be detrimental to your mental health and stuff

like that. So I'm still a work in progress handling those things. But as time has gone on, you know, 10 years of Twitch chat, you know, you get thicker skin as it goes. But the tricky one is when it's actually your peers. Like if it's Twitch chat or YouTube comments that are, you know, whatever, you know, I always feel kind of bad because happy people don't usually go and leave terrible comments to people, right? You know, you kind of have the compassion and you feel bad that someone feels the need to do that. But when it's your peers that you've known for years and years that are calling you a grifter or whatever it may be, that's a lot harder.

And that definitely takes its toll for sure. So, you know, it's, you know. Yeah. I appreciate you sharing that. I appreciate the vulnerability. I think it's like a really important for people to hear these things because, you know, it's one, the insight and understanding what it takes to be a public persona in any of these cases and that it's not all, you know, sunshine and roses and likes and follows. It is. And also that, I mean, I think it's a really deep psychological truth that you just drop there, right? That's like this idea that like, you know, anything that's going to, that somebody can say, you, if you are comfortable with yourself and comfortable with your identity in that, in that aspect, they can't hurt you. It rolls off your back, no problem. But when you, when you do have a reaction, when it does hit a nerve, that that's actually an opportunity for you to look inward, right? Because it's say, hey, there's something now with me that I'm not okay. And I actually

just post an article about this like yesterday called urgent revision needed, which talks about a story that happened to me when I was working at Upper Deck and I got one of those nasty emails from a coworker that copied my boss and was like, you know, you mess this up kind of thing. And I just like, tired and wrote my nasty email response. I got so fired up. And then I realized, like, wait a minute, what's happening here? And I was able to kind of tell a better story, like, as you've been doing with your audience, of saying, hey, look, I could be compassionate that anybody that's going to take the time

to write an angry, you know, Twitch post or, you know, YouTube comment or email or whatever, they really care about whatever it is that you're doing, right? And there's probably a lot more pain and suffering going on in their life that you could have compassion for. And then you can take that opportunity to look inward. Okay, wait, is there any truth to this? Is there anything that I don't feel comfortable with? And how do I resolve that for myself? That's like a very powerful way to show up in the world that you've identified on.

And I think everybody can benefit from. And so I try. Anytime I get fired up, my rule is like, if I get emotionally charged in something and somebody's like physical, not in physical danger, then that says more about me than it does about anything going. on in the world. And that gives me an opportunity to reflect. Yeah. And I love the way that you phrased it. It's an opportunity, right, to really look inside yourself and be like, why am I so triggered by this? And the truth is that some people are going to just say mean things and it is what it is. But yeah, cultivating that like inner peace and dealing with emotional triggers, like it is it is absolutely the opportunity for self-growth. Doing that in a public for.

or public space is hard. But, you know, everyone has, it's not just content creators or, you know, people that have platforms. Like, everybody is faced with these issues. And yeah, no, I love the way. I'm really, I will look at that article too. I'm excited to read that as well. Yeah.

Yeah. I think that the value of the ability for you to be able to put yourself out there face criticism and rejection and failure in public is one of the most important skills you can cultivate to achieve your dreams. Like, full stop, right? Like, I teach this. I teach game design through this podcast through my book, through a live course. And it's the number one skill I try to impart people.

Like, you will try things and they are not going to work. And you need to take criticism and feedback and separate your ego from it and look at where you can learn and then be able to grow from that. And if you can do that and you keep working and you can learn and grow from criticism, you could accomplish anything. And if you can't do that, you're always going to hit a wall and you're never going to get outside your comfort zone and you're going to be stuck wherever that discomfort or insecurity lies. Amen.

I think humility is also super important because the truth is, like, we're going to make mistakes. And I sort of had a moment earlier this year where I did have on Twitter a defensive response to something. And the better. avenue or course of action would have just been to be a little like show a little bit more humility and be like, oh, okay, I was kind of wrong in this situation, right? And that was actually sort of a catalyst point of like, you know what? I think that the world is also moving towards authenticity. Like, I don't know if you feel this, but I feel like the traditional kind of Kardashian type celebrity where it's all buttoned up is getting less popular and, you know, people are

really loving, seeing real people on TikTok talking about their struggles and whatever it may be. So I think that, you know, just having the vulnerability and it's scary because when you are vulnerable with the internet, then they can pick up what you're insecure on, right? But I do think it goes a long way because everyone, you know, struggles with these types of things. And if you're just like, hey, like I made a mistake here and I'm going to work and be better and, you know, try to separate my ego from things, as you just said. So yeah, love that. Yeah. Yeah, easier said than done, but definitely a work in progress for all of us and very, you know, important and powerful. And again, that vulnerability and admitting to your mistakes and being open about those experiences and the,

the hardships helps make you more relatable, helps make the message more resonant, right? Like, if you just like, oh, yeah, I'm right all the time. Everything goes great. I'm super awesome. You know, like, okay, cool, thanks. But like, that's not, I can't relate to that. But if you could tell me like, hey, actually, I really struggled here. I really messed up here. We almost went bankrupt here. I had this relationship fill here. I did this. Oh, okay, cool. Now I get it. Now you maybe you've got something that you can teach me that I can relate to because it's not

all sunshine and roses. Exactly. Even with a game developers with making changes to a card, nerfing it or whatever it may be, if the messaging to the community is, hey, we tried this and we made a mistake, I feel like the community is way more like, oh, okay, thanks for letting us know. But if you're just like doubling down like, you know, no, but this is great. It doesn't sit right with the gamers in the community. So, yeah, it's applicable to all facets of life. So I want to use this as a jumping off point because you mentioned this importance of being

able to be vulnerable and, you know, let your audience know when you've messed up. And I think that listening to your community is such a critical part of it, being able to build a good community and build a game. I don't think always agreeing with the community is right. But I do think making sure that they feel hurt. and they understand your reasoning when you're making things happen. How do you think about community building and what best practices do you think make the most sense? And you can use either your streaming community.

You can use, let's say, something like parallels, which has been working to build a community in Web3 and bring other people over. Or you can even use it if you'd like as a advice you'd give to me is building now a new nascent Web3 community for Sulfodd Fusion. Yeah. I mean, I think community is the lifeblood of any game. And I guess I can go over a few examples. So I think that parallel does this well. And I'm going to also use TFT, Team Fight Tactics, as an example with Mort Dog. When it comes from the game side of things, I think having a, having your devs sort of be a personality.

Like, I just think Mort Dog does this so, so well in TFT. Like, you know, he streams himself, but he's very communicative. on Twitter, he'll respond to people. I think having the dev team, not everybody needs to be a public person, but the dev team being on Twitter responding to people, like they're being that personal element is so important, in my opinion. And so I think like parallel with Koji, you know, kind of Fitch, having personalities that interact with the community is really crucial.

So that would definitely be advice that I've seen that has worked really well. And when it comes to a content creator, I mean, I guess you can create community in any way. There's so many different ways to do it. I mean, I recently just watched all three Back to the Futures for the first time. And I did movie nights in my Discord. And there's probably only like 20, 25 people in there. But it was always a meme that I hadn't seen Back to the Future. And so we all watched it together and, you know, gave our input and stuff like that.

I think that live streaming builds a sense of connection that you don't quite get in any other format. Like, you know, your regulars coming to your stream and communicating with them saying, hey, blah, blah, blah. Like, oh, how was your thing that you, you know, told me about, like trying to remember. obviously that falls off if you have 50,000 people watching you. But, you know, it's those types of things that really build a connection to the individual and people keep coming back. And, you know, I'm sure many of you have heard of the thousand true fans, you know, that type of, that's the what you should be going for. But yes, I think there's many different ways to do it. Like I said, that was sort of the logic for building alchemy was giving people a way to interact with each other and have fun beyond just the main game that they're playing or the NFT community that they were in or whatever it may be.

So I think Discord, having a Discord, making sure you're active in there, super important, just a place where people can ask questions. having key figures that are very communicative with the community. And yeah, just creating fun events for people to join into. I think those are those three things that are coming to mind right now. And if I think of any else, I'll let you know. That's great. And I love this like this. Yeah, there's other 1,000 True Fans is the article by Kevin Kelly.

Highly recommend everybody read it if they haven't already. it's a great, great, you know, innovation in the internet world, you can really just, like, build super fans and build a very powerful niche community. The idea that there's that building personal relationships and events and things that don't even necessarily scale to, you know, if I want to have a million viewers or whatever, but it's like those core fans become the seeds for those later things. They're the ones that will tell their friends. They're the ones that will be there all the time and support you when you jump from one

new venture to another. And, you know, so, you know, when I've, you know, went from doing tabletop games to digital games or digital games to the Web3 games or, you know, trying to write a book and teach design, or now I have a new book that I just sent off to the editor that takes the principles of games and apply to them to, like, business and life and, like, how do you use those things there, which is, you know, it's a jump, right? But there, I know that I've, you know, invested in a core group of fans and people who've found value in my work that are willing to come along for the ride and then hopefully we'll

find value in the new thing. And so I think no matter how big your audience gets or how long, you've been doing this. I think it never, you know, not losing sight of that, like, you know, personal touch and fun little events and quirky ways to just kind of be you and do the things that, you know, only you can do because that's just who you are, right? I think it's such a, it's such a key part, whether it be a dev that's in the public forums and your own personality. I think, you know, in a sense, you're, you're not just selling whatever the product is. You're selling, like who you are. Like, whenever you create something, part of you has to be

involved in that to make it feel authentic, to make it resonate with people. And I think that comes through in a lot of your work personally. And one of the reasons I was excited to get to talk to you and in the many great tips you've given here. So thank you. Authenticity is peak right now. And yeah, I think that there are some games in the space that, I mean, I won't name names, but it feels colder. Like I don't see as much interaction or it just it feels like a company behind a thing. and a curtain and the accessibility, you know, the gamers, you know, the community being heard is just so,

so important. So, yeah, I think that's all very important. I love it. All right. Well, I think we're low on time today, although I'm quite confident this will not be the last time we have a conversation like this. But for those that want to follow your stuff and see all the cool things you're doing, what's the best place for them to come find you or find your cool projects and streams, et cetera. Sounds good. My X, are we Twitter? I don't know what we're calling it.

If we're calling it X at this point. Pretty much all of my stuff is at Ali Straza. So A-L-L-L-I-E-S-T-R-A. So that would be my Twitter, my YouTube, my Twitch stream. If you put that into the search functionality, you will definitely find me. And yes, I'm incredibly enthusiastic to come back on and probably talk a little bit more about SoulForge Fusion because I've only just started playing it, doing the campaign and that type of thing. And I just want to say before I'll be on this podcast that I really like it.

There are so many things about the game that are awesome. And I'm looking forward to getting more into it, being more competitive. So I just wanted to throw that in there that I think you've made a really cool game thus far. Well, I appreciate that very much. I'll tell you what, I would love to just do a dedicated, like, episode or interaction or something around SoulForge Fusion. because it means a lot to me, especially with your background and exactly the kind of,

you're exactly the kind of person I'm trying to appeal to with this game. So if we're hitting the target, that's fantastic. And since you're plugging your stuff, I'll plug mine for anybody that wants to. Soul Ford Fusion, free to download.

You can go find it on Steam. S-L-F-R-G-E-F-U-S-I-O-N.com. Also finds all the cool stuff. So here we are all promoting the cool things we're making. But yeah, this is so much fun, Allie. I knew I was going to enjoy this conversation. I absolutely did.

and I can't wait till next time. Thank you for having me on. Bye. Thank you so much for listening. I hope you enjoyed today's podcast. If you want to support the podcast, please rate, comment, and share on your favorite podcast platform,

such as iTunes, Stitcher, or whatever device you're listening on. Listener reviews and shares make a huge difference and help us grow this community and will allow me to bring more amazing guests and insights to you. I've taken the insights from these interviews along with my 20 years of experience in the game industry

and compressed it all into a book with the same title as this podcast. Think Like a Game Designer. In it, I give step-by-step instructions on how to apply the lessons from these great designers and bring your own games to life. If you think you might be interested, you can check out the book at think like a game designer.com

or wherever, find books or sold.