In every era of technology, the most talented entrepreneurs have taken unsolved and unsolved problems and turned them into businesses.
In the early 2000s, the biggest unsolved problem was social. How do you take a read-only interface and let people write to it, making it interactive and personal? . Suddenly, the question arose of what could be done once everyone had devices that could be used for communications, micropayments, and gaming.
Two new computing technologies are now reaching production scale: AI and cryptography. We’re already seeing some of the world’s most talented entrepreneurs begin to explore what they can unlock with these two technologies of his.
That’s why we’re excited to announce our investment in PLAI Labs, founded by tech veterans Chris DeWolfe and Aber Whitcomb, formerly the founders of both social media platform MySpace and game studio Jam City.
Founded in 2003, MySpace was one of the first social networks to reach millions of users worldwide. Jam City is best known for mobile games like Cookie Jam, Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery and Disney Emoji Blitz. With over 30 million monthly active users and billions of downloads, he is one of the most successful game studios in the industry.
Chris and Aber have been at the forefront of past eras of technology, but now they are focused on the future.
Chris and Aber’s new venture, PLAI Labs, is focused on building next-generation social platforms powered by AI and web3. By sharing our experiences in social media, game design and technology, we are creating a new platform for users to play, talk, fight, trade and adventure together.
Their first entertainment experience is Champions Ascension, a game built on the platform. It is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) in which players port existing non-fungible token (NFT) characters, participate in quests, trade items, and fight. Build a Colosseum, your own custom his dungeon and more. We’re also building an AI protocol platform that helps with everything from user-generated content (UGC) to matchmaking to 2D to 3D asset rendering.
We believe the future of social networks starts with games. The best games have strong communities, engaging core gameplay, and robust meta-progression systems that together define how players interact and interact with each other. Web3 games in particular have an opportunity to focus on using decentralized infrastructure to create the decentralized metaverse of the future and empowering players through asset ownership. Chris, Aber, and their team are one of the fittest to take that chance.
We look forward to continuing to support their team in the future. You can see a preview of what they are building at https://www.champions.io/.
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