Bored Ape Creator Yuga Labs’ ‘Otherside’ Strategy

Other metaverse gaming environments, which are frequently mocked for being lifeless and barren, are not like Yuga Labs’ Otherside Second Trip playtest, which was conducted late last month.

I dropped into a lobby filled with thousands—literally thousands—of other players, all running around, leaping, and flying through the air. And they were all talking at the same time.

It was impressive but also overwhelming. Even though everyone had a robotic tribal design and the lobby was simply ornamented, which may have reduced technological load, The Second Trip had 7,200 different participants, according to Yuga. My MacBook Pro’s two-year-old browser performed nicely.

Yuga Labs Chief Creative Officer Michael Figge said, “I think it’s really hard for people to understand when you turn on any other type of experience that’s dubbed as the ‘metaverse,’ and there’s not that dense of an experience, there’s not that many people in it. That’s not what you find with Otherside.”

For a game with (at the time) over 22,000 virtual land owners eager to see what they had invested in, it was the first playtest of its kind in several months and was scheduled in a small area of the final Otherside game world. As Otherside develops and tests a live product, Figge suggested continuing at that pace.

He asked, “How do we build in public and maintain that density. Even scale that density up even further, so that more and more people find this as a thing that they want to come and be in?”

A “Trip”

With $1.25 billion in trading volume to date, according to CryptoSlam, and a massive NFT land drop last year, Yuga Labs is trying to scale Otherside into a rich online environment with Bored Ape-themed storytelling, social gameplay challenges, and NFT avatars of all kinds roaming the land.

It’s uncommon for AAA games to build in public and show NFT holders a work in progress. The Yuga demo appeared to be considerably more recent than “early access” and beta testing. The technology is more advanced than the substance.

We leapt through a portal into a forest with “magic blobs” to gather and present to enormous, laser-shooting toads after being introduced in the Second Trip lobby. More than the lobby arena, it was reminiscent of the Bored Ape Yacht Club universe.

Yuga separated the competitors into four teams, each of which was led by a Web3 celebrity, such as Snoop Dogg’s son Cordell “Champ Medici” Broadus or Bryce “Brycent” Johnson. Voice communication was used by team leaders to encourage their members to gather the most orbs and feed them to the toads. After thousands of players raced to get the orbs, the winning squad was given a special “winged helmet” wearing NFT.

large social gathering. However, it dragged on for too long and turned into a boring fetch quest. Some gamers commented in the chat feed that it was “boring” or “this is dumb” after 20+ minutes of repetition.

If this is the Otherside, it stinks very nasty, one player commented.

Public building

Even if it’s not Otherside, the preview builds interest.

Players’ views were divided, although some loved the socially competitive orb gathering routine, according to Figge and Yuga Chief Gaming Officer Spencer Tucker, who spoke to Decrypt after the event. Different players hold different views. Setting expectations is challenging when the gameplay is restricted.

This idea, which we are developing and testing together, is what I believe is crucial to remember and to keep the community grounded, Tucker added. This was jointly developed by the Otherside community, Bored Ape Yacht Club, Yuga, and the players.

The player attitude and technical input are measured by these tests, according to Tucker. Yuga believes it to be iterative.

“Just tuning the guitar?” stated Figge. “We’re determining what works in this new medium,”

Trips ought to rise shortly. The first two Trips were described by Figge as “large-scale, theatrical experiences” and “own beasts.”With a more regular testing schedule, Yuga aims to “allow for a lot more visits” and “come back to the same idea, but it grows and grows and grows over time,” he added.

“We need a model that opens us up every few weeks to figure out what features people need,” continued Figge. “There will be a rotation there.”

Before the end of the year, he said, Yuga Labs might allow other builders access to the world, allowing users to build things on Otherdeed land plots to supplement Yuga’s labor.

The fact that someone else may be creating on the Otherside while we are all asleep in December, according to Figge, is a success. They have all the tools necessary to establish their community, activations, and experiences.

Yours and ours

Next, what? The last word in Otherside? According to Tucker and Figge, Yuga’s official content may coexist online with the contributions of tens of thousands of players and digital property owners.

League of Legends and Dota 2 were influenced by the Warcraft III mod Defense of the Ancients, claims Figge. Web3 gives other programmers access to Yuga’s building blocks while enhancing the world of the original game and helping them.

Figge continued, “You can really inspire a creative economy that can provide really, really interesting experiences. That model is distinctive.

It is uncertain how these potentially antagonistic components may coexist, though. The 40 million user-generated games on Roblox feature a simple UI. Although Decentraland provides basic infrastructure, hubs, and partner events, the region is populated by brands and independent producers.

Tucker compared Yuga to the Expanded Universe and Star Wars. Even though it’s all official Lucasfilm and Disney material, it provides a foundation for debating the differences between “canon” and other universes, “what if,” etc.

Tucker answered, “I guess that’s kind of up to us to decide.”

However, Tucker noted that this kind of activity already takes place in the Web3 community, particularly in and around the Bored Ape Yacht Club—”what we might describe as layer-2s to our layer-1,” he said, referring to NFT holders’ derivative content created using Yuga Labs’ “layer-1” name and artwork.

Who’s there?

Another urgent question is how or if Otherside will become a game for the general public. Given that Otherside NFT deeds are close to $2,500 and Bored Ape NFT values are $92,000, the majority of players would be excluded from a completely exclusive experience.

Presently, Yuga Labs is concentrating on its NFT investors who funded its Web3 vision. To draw in more users, Yuga would prefer that individuals invite their friends or give their login information.

According to Figge, the Otherdeed property owners’ plus-one Second Trip tickets allowed NFT holders to “be the gateway” for bringing friends into the ecosystem. Players could use the Delegate Cash function in Yuga’s most current standalone Dookey Dash online game to allow another wallet to participate without the NFT.

We believe that’s where the truly sticky kinds of behaviors will emerge, and scale will unleash, said Tucker.

Yuga Labs learned new things through Dookey Dash. In addition to the Sewer Pass NFTs generating $110 million in trade activity and the winner flipping an NFT prize for $1.63 million in ETH, the endless runner-style game dominated Crypto Twitter for weeks.

It whirred. Even Dookey Dash’s detractors kept the cryptocurrency and gaming discussion going, whether it was because of its crude humor or the rising NFT access ticket costs. In future games, Tucker claimed that Yuga aims to “create that virality of experience” and “[crowdsource] growth to some extent.”

Because its focus is on NFT collectors, Yuga is not trying to hide its Web3 aspects or keep Web3 users as a small portion of its player base. According to Figge, Yuga’s games will be fun and might alter “the perception of what a digital collectible can be.”

You really do forget that you’re dealing with NFTs when playing Dookey Dash and Otherside, which is one of our favorite features, he added. Simply said, “You just think you’re having fun.”

Content Source: decrypt.co

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