In this episode of Audio Signals, host Marco Ciappelli and guest Jonathan Shroyer take a deep dive into the world of professional video gaming, discussing its history, the psychology behind it, the economy surrounding it, and its future in the metaverse.
Guest: Jonathan Shroyer, Chief CX Innovation Officer - Arise Virtual Solutions [@AriseVSInc]
On Twitter | https://twitter.com/ChiefCXOfficer
On LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/in/chiefcxofficer/
On TikTok | https://www.tiktok.com/@chiefcxofficer
On YouTube | https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrDIVe8X1P4g2V-mQum3t7g
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Hosts:
Marco Ciappelli, Co-Founder at ITSPmagazine [@ITSPmagazine] and Host of Redefining Society Podcast
On ITSPmagazine | https://www.itspmagazine.com/itspmagazine-podcast-radio-hosts/marco-ciappelli
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Episode Introduction
In this episode of Audio Signals, host Marco Ciappelli and guest Jonathan Shroyer take a deep dive into the world of professional video gaming, discussing its history, the psychology behind it, the economy surrounding it, and its future in the metaverse. From humble beginnings in the 1950s to today's multimillion-dollar sponsorships and massive global audiences, the evolution of video gaming as a sport and entertainment phenomenon is a fascinating topic that is sure to captivate listeners.
Welcome to another episode of Audio Signals where we explore the past, present, and future of professional video gamers. In this episode, we delve into the psychology, economy, and entertainment side of the video gaming industry. Our guest for the day is Jonathan Shroyer, the Chief CX Innovation Officer at Arise, who runs the gaming consulting verticals. As we begin the podcast, we take a stroll down memory lane and look at how video games evolved over the years, beginning from the first multiplayer game in 1958 called "Tennis for Two" to the emergence of consoles like Nintendo, Sega, and PlayStation in the 90s. However, the pivotal point that made video gaming more accessible was the development of the internet and the ability to connect with other players from different parts of the world. As the technology improved, video games went from local competitions to international gaming competitions with millions of people streaming on platforms like Twitch to watch professional gamers compete.
Jonathan explains that gamers want to be the best in the world, and the virtual identity that comes with it is one of the reasons why they play video games. With the advent of the Creator economy, gamers can now monetize their skills by becoming influencers or creators on platforms like Twitch, YouTube, and TikTok. This has turned gaming into an economic phenomenon, with sponsors and fans watching professional gamers play video games in packed arenas. The audience for video gaming is massive, with over 3.5 billion people globally interested in playing video games, and the top 5 to 10% of players spending 70-80% of the video game revenue worldwide.
As we move towards the metaverse, Jonathan explains that the opportunities for gamers and creators to monetize their skills will only increase. The metaverse, which had a valuation of 59 billion in 2021, is projected to be worth 1.6 trillion by 2033, and gaming, blockchain, eSports, and creators will play a significant role in this growth.
The evolution of video games has been remarkable, and technology has played a vital role in its growth. With the rise of the Creator economy, gaming has turned into an economic phenomenon, and the future looks bright for gamers and creators. Stay tuned for more exciting discussions on Audio Signals.
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Please note that this transcript was created using AI technology and may contain inaccuracies or deviations from the original audio file. The transcript is provided for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a substitute for the original recording as errors may exist. At this time we provide it “as it is” and we hope it can be useful for our audience.
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SPEAKERS
Marco Ciappelli, Jonathan Shroyer
Marco Ciappelli 00:00
All right, everybody. Welcome to another episode of audio signals. If you're watching the video, as usual, you already know I'm not alone here. Plus, I don't want to listen to myself. And I don't think anybody wants to listen to me speaking for half an hour, I always try to bring a good guest to do the show. And because it's such a variety of topic, I guess you never know what we're going to talk about. And today, we're going to learn something about video games. But we're going to take a little stroll in memory lane, I will like to, to go back and in time, and then maybe we go all the way to the future, and understanding what it means to be a programmer. I wish somebody told me I couldn't make a career out of that when I was a kid. But it wasn't a thing at the time. But then I see that the first composition was in 1972. So I was actually a kid at the time, but I don't think was that appealing. For me. Anyway, stay tuned. Jonathan Shroyer is with me. And first, we're gonna let him introduce himself. And we'll explain why we're here talking about this topic. And then we're just gonna dive in because I have a ton of questions. So Jonathan, welcome to the show. A little introduction about yourself. Where are
Jonathan Shroyer 01:18
ya? No, no, thank you, Marco. It's Marco. It's awesome to be on the show to be one of your guests and to be with audio signals and itsp. So I'm Jonathan Shroyer, I'm the Chief CX Innovation Officer at arise. And I run the consulting in gaming verticals. I started my own gaming services company called the 15 Labs back in 2019. And then we sold it to arise last year, and I started in early days in my career as with the original Xbox console, I was had the very sexy job of being the Forecast Analyst for the call center back in 2001, for the Xbox Council. And I remember the good old days of I don't know if you remember this Marco, where you get about five or five or six, the Xbox has five or six screens and you land land, connect them with wires in the same apartment, and you'd have a good game day. So it's good times, but thanks. Honored to be here, man.
Marco Ciappelli 02:14
Yeah, I was when I was suggested to have you as a guest. I was like, you know, I think a lot of people here once in a while on the news, maybe about the gaming competition, because it's become a sport is it they call it you know, esport there are arenas, I am kind of witness not exactly that side of the game. But I was actually in Las Vegas, the esport arena, to watch a capture the flag event for the cybersecurity industry during Blackhat a few years ago, and I was blown away by the console and the big screen and the videos just blew my mind. So I'm like, I need to learn a little bit more about this. And can let's start with what I you know, I say 1972. I just did a little research myself and and how it was considered the first competition, I guess I don't even know what they play. But how did we get to these apart from technology?
Jonathan Shroyer 03:20
Well, I think it's super interesting. So the I think the official, the first official competition was 1972. And kind of the winner of that got a year subscription to Rolling Stones. But what a lot of folks don't know is that in the 50s is when like competitive computer games started. So I think like in 1952 was the first one and it it was basically tic tac toe. That was the first kind of competitive computer game. And, and then like the first multiplayer kind of game was kind of 58 and it was called tennis to again it. It's all very localized. It's you know, you know, the internet's not wide. Right? And, and so I think what's interesting is as you kind of get into like the 80s, you start to see the consoles start to go across all of the world, not just not just in Asia, but you know, in Europe, and in America. So you've got Nintendo, you've got Sega then in the 90s, you have PlayStation, you know, late 90s, Xbox and early 2000s. But there is a pivotal point, kind of in the 9697 timeframe, where a lot of the competitions are happening like in the 80s and 90s. We're all Hey, we're all going to go to a room and we're going to compete against each other because we have no way to connect to one another outside of the physical presence where with with 95 and 96 You started to you know, get the 20k 28k 56k Internet connections which allow for you know, non AAA type gaming competitions that you could, you know, have competence with each other. And then when digital in Net hid in the early 2000s, then it became possible for PC games to really start, you know, to network and compete with each other. If you saw it, you know, more prevalently in Asia, and then you know, kind of fast forward of the 20 years of the technology revolution, you see, like, we've gone from, hey, let's have this low, this competition with 1000 players around the world. So hey, in Korea, in Japan, you can fill full stadiums with 50 or 60,000 people to watch people play video games, you have millions of people streaming on Twitch, twitch or watching Twitch now and other places like that. And then so it's really big in Asia, and then you're starting to see it come through and the Americas. And what's what's kind of cool is you see these companies now that are being built up, a buddy of mine, you know, he owns Jin Ji, which is a eSports company out of LA. And they basically recruit these professional gamers, they pay them, they sponsor them, and then they compete for much larger bounties than the Rolling Stones one year subscription.
Marco Ciappelli 06:05
So let's talk about that. Because I think that the connection that you just made there, and the key the pivot point was the connection, the speed, and the fact that the multitude of people could play heavy game. I mean, I'm thinking like, online multiplayer, from World of Warcraft, and so far and competing on race cars, and shooters and all of that. But But you said something that is, I think, is the key of how you transform something from a competition between player to an economic phenomenon where sponsors come in and people enjoy watching this, like helmets, you understand? If you have an idea of how, how did this happen that people even expected that because that for me, I don't know, I don't watch people play video game, I either play it or I don't?
Jonathan Shroyer 07:04
Well, I think it's an interesting maturation. So I think there's there's one pivot point, which was internet or connectivity, which you called out a second pivot point was compute power and graphics, right, which kind of hit kind of later in the 2010s 2015 is where we really got super strong compute and graphic interface. And then you got, you know, when you went to even the stronger internet connections, then you could send more information back and forth, to now we have streaming gaming streaming games. But where it kind of started is in the early 80s, and 90s, kind of the when you're playing a game, you're trying to figure out like, hey, how do I how do I win, like, Super Mario Brothers? You know, whatever the game is, right? How do I win at this game? So you would you would engage in a community, right? And that community in the 90s was ICQ chat or something like that, right? Where these gaming communities are cropping up, because you can all of a sudden talk to a gamer in Germany and Japan and Korea and the UK, US whatever, right. And so gamers love communities, they love to like, hear what other people they love to compete for sure, but they love to hear what other people are doing to see how they can improve their game. And so it's naturally kind of bred in to the culture and the ecosystem of gamers to support and help each other. I mean, one of the most popular platforms for communities today is discord. And that's because it's an easy place for gamers to support, talk to each other and have fun, you know, maybe a little bit of banter. Some people complain about the toxicity, which is which is a real thing. But the what that kind of leads you to think is like oh, okay, well why do people want to watch other people play? Well, what you do is like, you start to watch like, how many people are watching YouTubers tell them how to play games into this millions of people, right? People are making millions of dollars for this. How many people in Korea and Japan and now in the US have multimillion dollar sponsorship agreements? It's largely because innately all of these players want to be the best in the world. It's a virtual identity. Think of it the way that I think about it is everybody wants to be the Michael Jordan have video games. If they're playing video games, they want to be the best, but everyone can't be Michael Jordan because they don't have the physical prowess whatever, right? But they may have the Twitch they may have the critical thinking they may have the communication skills, they may have those types of things, which is all up here, right or, or right here. Like my Twitch is a very slow so I didn't end up being the best professional gamer. Right. But the you know, you know, I think I stopped playing professionally when I got beat by 12 year old. But But yeah, I understand like why people do it. Right. It's because they want to be the best. It's that virtual identity. And then and then you jump tell us and this is a critical piece. I know it's a little bit long, critical piece. The Creator economy really started to take off kind of 2017 2018 and people are like, oh I can create as a gamer. Not only can I play the game, can I be part of a team can I win money and sponsor, but I could be a creator on twitch or other places, right YouTube and whatnot. Tik Tok and I can make money that way too. So I think the Creator economy was the last thing that kind of pushed it over the edge in the US it was already really large and in Asia, but it kind of pushed it over the edge in the US to become a mainstream thing.
Marco Ciappelli 10:21
It's very interesting phenomena because you're connecting with the Creator economy, which then it's what created repeating the word here, but created the the influencer phenomenon, which that's right, you know, it's a list. I'm not gonna talk bad about influenza that talks about fashion or makeup, or, I mean, I, if I pick up the bass, and I want to learn a new song, or pro yoga, or YouTube and see somebody playing it and show me the right I mean, so goes, you up, you apply that to anything you want. It's like, you need to do a chore in the house, you don't know how to fix something to go on YouTube. Right? So at least the video games is entertaining. And I don't see anything different really than watching a Super Bowl just happened a few days ago. I mean, you're now you can watch a very beautiful render universe and maybe understanding or maybe going to virtual reality and Metaverse at the end of this conversation. But I think that the evolution of the bandwidth power, the computer power and the rendering, it's what probably helped the audience to come to Yeah,
Jonathan Shroyer 11:42
yeah, it's accessibility. Right. And that was a key thing it was, it was always kind of there. But the accessibility made it kind of go more mainstream. And I also think when you think about, you've kind of touched on the creative economy a little bit. But when you think about taking the sport that we just want, I don't know if you all watched it, but 100 and 40 million people 1/3 of America watch the Superbowl right. We're more than a billion people play, play games consistently. Throughout the year, every year, I think the total number of gamers globally is three and a half billion, right. So you have this really captive audience that is much larger than any professional sports audience globally. I don't know if it's as big as you know, FIFA and soccer globally. But it's a really big phenomenon when you have that many people interested in video games. And then even if you take just a small subsection of three and a half billion people 10%, you have 350 people three and a 50 million people that are interested and watching other people play because they want to become kind of the best in the world. When you look at video game monetization, what you'll notice is the top five to 10% of players in the world, they spend, you know, 70 to 80% of the video game revenue globally, right? So it's not uncommon to be like, hey, I want to be the best in the world. Because not only do I get this accolade of being the virtual identity of number one, but I get to I get to be an influencer. In some cases, I get to be creator or I get to be an esports player or, in some case, you get to be all three. And then when you think about being all three, then you touch on what you just talked about, which is the metaverse right, which is you know, how are creators and gamers going to further be able to monetize and create their own fortunes inside of the metaverse and there's like just huge opportunities there. Like in 2021, the metaverse had a valuation about 59 billion, I did a post on LinkedIn today about this, my newsletter in in 2013, is projected to be 1.6 trillion. And in a lot of the metaverse is going to be related to gaming to blockchain creators, eSports, and so forth. So it's gonna be an interesting phenomenon to watch over the next decade.
Marco Ciappelli 13:57
It is fascinating and it's just like the evolution of our society and and how technology is allowing us to interact in different ways. And you know, even right now we're talking even if we're on the same coast, but we're not in the same room. Tell me a little bit more about being a pro gamer. So you said there are few other top that makes they make the big percentage of the money.
Jonathan Shroyer 14:24
I mean, they make good money. I mean, I think that like you have professional gamers that are Esports players, like I know a number of them, you know, from Gingy, and other other kind of teams out there and they're starting, it's pretty cool because a lot of the universities are creating like an eSports, either certificate or degree. And they're sponsoring teams and so forth. And then you have corporations and sponsor teams, and you just have eSports companies that sponsor that kind of built, build the team so you can make money by winning. Well, first of all, if you work for an Esports company, you can make a salary right so you'll you're playing and you get up A similar, right? And then you get bonuses based off of how successful are your teams? What trophies do you win? What bounties? Do you win you, you might be a League of Legends competition, and you're on the winning team and you get $2 million $3 million. And then that gets kind of spread across the team and so forth. So there's a component of monetization that you make there. And then depending on how you set up your agreement with eSports, some pro gamers also are allowed to do things on Twitch, and things like that. So ninja, you know, when he was on Twitch, he was making $90 million a year and so forth. And so there's a lot of really popular game, not all programmers make that much money. But you know, there's other popular gamers that also can can kind of monetize that through their audience. So in other words, they're monetizing the audience that follows them, right. And then kind of the third way that you can make money is through sponsorships, which is beyond kind of the kind of b2c it's more of a b2b model. And so depending on how you set your agreements with your, your eSports company, then it'll also depend on like, what sponsorships you can get and how you can monetize and so forth. But, but it's all it's not too different from like, how do people in Hollywood make money? How do actors make money? Yeah, it's not YouTube, it's really an it's really an expansion, in my opinion of the entertainment industry. But it's almost making it like, hey, it's not, not that I think actors and actresses are more of the elite crowd. But it's much harder, I think, to get in on kind of a triple A movie, let's call it that than it is to become an Esports gamer, and get really good at it and have a shot at going to these competitions and making money you may not make 100 million, but you might make 500,000 a year or a million a year. And that's that's really good, you know, for livelihood for somebody, I think, and in some cases, mailing a couple $100,000 a year, but you get to play video games all day. And it I mean, it depending on where you live couple $100,000 A year is great as well.
Marco Ciappelli 16:57
Absolutely. I mean, I think you're talking about the entertainment industry. But a lot of reference of actually comes to me in the sport. I mean, you mentioned Michael Jordan, everybody wants to be that. Not everybody can be but some people make a living by playing in a in a lower league, or you know, I'm thinking soccer, you can play your entire life. In the sea level, you're not going to make you're not going to be the Ronaldo, but you are still making good money for your family, and I retire and all of that. So that's really cool. But so let's use that parallel. Everybody wants to be the good sport. Athlete, everybody wants to be the big band and the best guitar player out there if you want to throw the music in there as well. But it takes some skills, right? So of course, I want to be a great golf player, but I'm not a try. Alright. What does it take to be a good video game player that can really look out and say I could be at the top?
Jonathan Shroyer 18:06
I mean, I think there's a couple things to think about. I mean, a lot of the great pro gamers today, they didn't start playing video games last year, right? They've been, they've been playing since they were nine, they've been playing since they were 10. Right. And now they're 1819 2021 25, whatever the ratio is, right. And so they've been doing this for like a decade for 15 years. And a lot of that time has been unpaid. But they but essentially, they've got a lot of experience on the different genres of gaming. And so like, you're looking at League of Legends, you think world Warcraft, even even if you think of some of the sports games that are eSports now, you know, whether they're like EA Sports to K or you know, Asian, Asian sports companies and so forth. You know, you get these players that they know how to play these games really well. And so the reason I haven't placed one is experienced. So that's the first one. The second is they have enormous twitch. And what that means is they're either hand coordination is super, super fast. So like we're talking about milliseconds fast. So when they see something on the screen in a millisecond they respond. And so somebody that has a really fast eye to hand coordination is like, that's amazing. That's gonna be so long. The third one is like what kind of community and relationships do you build to help you get on the teams? And that's what when I talked earlier about gaming and community, it's really that's it? There's three and a half billion people that play games, but a lot of the gaming companies are a little bit closer knit. So and then a lot of eSports companies in the communities are closer net. So how do you build those relationships with the players with the sponsors and so forth? So building those relationships, I think are super key. And then I think the fourth thing that you have to think about is like What is your motivation for doing this? You know, do you want to be the best in the world? Do you want to make money? Do you want to be an influencer? You have to think about that because I think communication scale As in talking to your fans is a different skill if you're like on Twitch and sponsor versus like, Hey, I just want to play games and we get paid for it and do an amazing job. Well, maybe eSports is for you, and you don't have to worry about your fans, right? So it kind of depends on which of the areas that you really want to focus on.
Marco Ciappelli 20:16
And kind of build your brand persona. Yeah, to extend that, above and beyond just skills, but also to crossing the entertainment. Can I entertain people? Can I can I do content that is sticky? And and become viral? So that's, that's a really good point is you mentioned few different kinds of you talked about sport games, you talk about multiplayer universe and legal legend. Statistically speaking, is it one of few categories that are more popular than other for people to watch? I'm thinking from an entertainment not to play it, but to an audience to watch. I mean,
Jonathan Shroyer 21:00
I think it depends on geography. I mean, I think that obviously, globally, multiplayer games MMO RPG, those types of games are really interesting. Because they're really complex, and they're difficult. And, and so they're not the easiest games to be successful at, then you really have to not do your not only do everything I said, but really think about critical thinking, teamwork and collaboration. Like in order for you to win a League of Legends tournament or World War cap craft, I mean, that's almost synonymous, you know, to winning the NBA championship or, you know, to winning, you know, the NFL or the World Cup, in some cases, depending on the tournament, right? Especially if it's a global tournament, because those are so competitive, and so challenging to win it. So you see a lot of a lot of the sponsorships and the big kind of bounties go to those in Asia and in the US. But you also see like, I mean, FIFA, and FIFA has a huge following globally for esports. And because the physical sport is so popular, then the virtual sport, you know, is really popular. And you think about FIFA, it's not only not only do they do eSports, they have the game sales, but then they have card games, the virtual card games, not physical card games, but virtual card games, as well, which they can which are competitive games online, which they may or may not always do on these on these sports, but they're really competitive. And you can win a lot of money depending on you know, what, what teams you have there. But then there's, I mean, I think there's other games like that people love to watch and see tournaments, like fighting games are really popular, because they're quicker, they're quicker watches than watching in an MO RP tournament. You can sit down for 30 minutes or an hour and you know, who wants to fighting tournament and so forth. But it's amazing to see like the different games that are that are coming out. I mean, I know that I on the sponsorship and on the Twitch, or like Twitch streaming and game streaming and YouTube side. You see a lot of like mobile games, which are coming up Marvel Contest of Champions is a popular one has multimillion two people that play the game every day, and so forth. So you see the number of different places, more Mortal Kombat and things like that. But I think there's Warner Brothers released Harry Potter's Hogwarts legacy recently, which is going gangbusters with growth and lots of so the it's all these different kinds of games, which is interesting. And then I think, kind of finalizing my my answer to your question is then you think that the metaverse and it's going to be even super interesting because people are going to go watch people while they're in the metaverse and
Marco Ciappelli 23:36
I love you in there because I was gonna go right there. I was going to be building to the next step and evolution and I had a lot of conversation about the metaverse, and now it's more about shut GTP. But the metaverse few months ago with you know, everything that you need to talk about that is a marketing is a buzzword, whatever it is, but the truth is that it's probably going to happen. So there's the virtual reality element of it, which it makes me think about the application in music like you know, to their testing that like concert where you're going in the metaverse and you're watching a concert, you're first row, second row, whatever it is, you get in the backstage. I'm thinking exactly when you were explaining you know, the FIFA relationship with the gaming industry. I'm thinking like, you can fill up a never ending stadium for people watching the game, right? Our scenario and I'm thinking like a city like Singapore could have five different stadium there and you just go see one game versus another. I mean, we you could replicate reality. So tell me about the future.
Jonathan Shroyer 24:48
I mean, I think it's going to be interesting because imagine a World Cup where in every country, there's an Esports champion for FIFA. And then that that person Leia represents their country in the virtual world cup in the metaverse where they're, they're playing against each other. Ostensibly, they can see each other, like more in a 3d mode, whether you know, whether it's an avatar, whether it's actual, you know, depending on how technology progresses the actual people, but then you, that's one part of it right, as a player, you could be down on the field, ostensibly playing the game, beyond just the controller, and we're talking 10 years down the road, right, but you can ostensibly be the player that's kicking it to the other player, and you could see it all yourself. But then imagine you're the fan that sitting in the stands, that depending on where your seat is, you could see different angles, but because it doesn't really matter where you were, you're in the metaverse, you could change your seat, you know, for an upgrade fee, or whatever, or maybe not at all, you could change your seat to seat automatically see a different angle of the game that you can't do in physical life, right. And then there's the sponsorship opportunities, you know, they, there's easy ways to charge fees to attend it and all that kind of stuff, in addition to like, go into the stadium to watch these kind of eSports things as well. I think Samsung had a interesting product that they were thinking about immersive experiences. And they were trying to figure out in physical experiences, like, how do you allow fans to see all the different angles of a physical sport? From the television, right? And but it's that same concept, but then you go 10 years ahead in the metaverse, and it's a completely immersive experience that were the things that we aren't even dreaming about today are going to happen in the next 10 to 15 years.
Marco Ciappelli 26:40
And I'm thinking, you know, like when you watch for I don't know if you're a Formula One fan or no, but that there's a camera on the helmet. And so you can see the point of view of the driver, or that's right, like he sees. So I'm thinking like, even in another sport, you could go in the head of the player, like either as a shooter or whatever, you could see the show from the perspective of the players, which is pretty, pretty crazy. I mean, I love to think this kind of sci fi that then you discover is now sci fi so much more and it's become reality, you know, it's
Jonathan Shroyer 27:16
like we take it, I totally agree, we take it to another angle. So you go to this is going to be like a niche angle. But still, I think it's a fun one to think about. So you go to like a virtual sporting event in the metaverse, right? Well, what's outside of a physical sporting event vendors. So then you have all of these vendors outside of the entrance, right to the virtual stadium to sell you stuff, whatever it is, you know, Nike shoes, Adidas, whatever the popular Italian, you know, sports, you know, maker is whatever it is, right? The UK, the German, whatever it is. So you have all these vendors where you can do that. And then you check, then you flock and say, Well, you know, then then maybe they're selling NF T's maybe the way that I purchased it is using cryptocurrency, which is volatile right now. But in 10 or 15 years, it'd be less volatile. And so it's kind of super interesting to think about virtual payments, virtual currency, virtual identity, virtual sports, and kind of pulling them all together. There's just so much opportunity. And that's why it's gonna be one point, you know, $1.6 trillion industry by 2030.
Marco Ciappelli 28:24
Yeah, merchandise is a big thing. And I've been reading about fashion Italian, you mentioned that all over the world that I invest in a lot of money if you have a virtual location in the metaverse or know how premature that is, but that's my opinion. But there's also people buying branded clothing, and it's becoming such a big, big economy. I want to finish with this actually, because I'm always trying to get in the head of the audience and wondering if they're not gamers, but they you know, they think about technology and economy otherwise they wouldn't listen to is who are the company that are investing in the metaverse? I mean, in the in the gaming industry? And then eventually the metaverse because the first thought is sure all the video game company. Sure all the computer and the the peripheral and the hardware and and all of that but is much bigger than that, right?
Jonathan Shroyer 29:24
Yeah, I mean, if you look at the top 50 to 100 VCs globally, they've all got a stake in this, right? They don't all share, like, what their portfolio looks like. But everybody that is investing and thinking about how to get a huge return of investment on the metaverse they may not know what it's gonna look like in 10 or 15 years but they're not going to not be on the wagon, if that makes sense. And so beyond just you know, the the companies that are starting up and in the sporting companies, the gaming companies entertainment company, yet the venture capitalists globally, and all the big private equity firms are also investing in these.
Marco Ciappelli 30:06
That's quite fascinating. So as a as a kid of nine years old now 867 It's, and then that when the mom and dad's like you're wasting your time, they can say, well, I don't know, I may be building my future.
Jonathan Shroyer 30:21
I can't tell you how many parents reach out to me. Because I constantly may not constantly consistently on LinkedIn and on Facebook, because I'm like, Hey, I work in video games. I've been in video games for a long time. I play video games, my brain is not rotten. So this, this idea that like, I mean, obviously, you're playing 20 hours a day as a kid, that's probably too much but but there's there's huge career opportunities in the video game space. And so I mentioned these parents, I give them ideas on how to steer their kids, or grow their kids in the right direction to think about how to make this a career versus just becoming a video game, junkie, or addict or whatever. Good. You have to be careful because it is a little addicting, right? It's fun. And so just like watching too much television can be addictive. Even like running too much. Anything you do too much is addicting, right? Eating too much. So but I think that if you can guide and mentor your children and give them the opportunities, it's going to be super interesting to see what the next generation of careers that come out of, you know, the video game spaces.
Marco Ciappelli 31:27
Yeah, that is definitely another angle for the conversation which is more psychological and you know, the addiction that I mean, the industry that obviously is doing the game so that people come back, I mean that you do that, even when you do a TV show, you know, how am I gonna make them watch the third episode or the fourth episode? It's always been like that. It's gonna be entertaining. It's gonna be interesting. Yeah, and it comes down to education and to looking at things now we fear but try to understand that which is always what I try to do in our in our conversation here. And I think we touched on a lot of different aspects, but I think it gives a pretty good perspective. I mean, perspective on what this industry is and it's fascinating I mean, I could definitely bring it to two other angle but I think for now we're gonna we're gonna stop and go play a game or something.
Jonathan Shroyer 32:24
Sounds good man. Good place to FIFA. Oh, I will not be the US because I won't beat Italy.
Marco Ciappelli 32:32
Italy didn't even qualify. So don't go there. So I don't talk soccer anymore after that. No. Oh, we can go play a Dungeons and Dragons and on a on a board game. Well, Jonathan, great conversation. He didn't disappoint me at all. I think we kept it alive. I hope the audience stayed engaged and share with me any resource that you want to share with the with the audience and and they can find any note for the podcast and maybe way to connect with you. I'm understanding LinkedIn, maybe
Jonathan Shroyer 33:11
that's why I mean, I'm so I'm, I'm on LinkedIn, and Twitter, YouTube and Tiktok. I had the same handle. It's at chief CX officer. I do a lot of my written video game content on LinkedIn. I have a newsletter there as well. In fact, I've just dropped. Like I mentioned earlier, a newsletter about Metaverse, but I frequently talk about video games and eSports in my newsletter, you can reach out to me if you have questions, if you want to chat. I love to talk to people. It's just it's a fun space to be in. I'll never complain being in the video game space.
Marco Ciappelli 33:43
It sounds to me like one of the theme that you wake up in the morning and it doesn't feel like a job and that's a good thing. That's a really good thing. Well, Jonathan, again, thank you so much, everybody listening or watching. Stay tuned for other episodes. And yeah, you'll find everything about Jonathan in the in the show notes on the on the podcast page. And that's it. For now. Stay tuned for another episode of audio signal on ITSPmagazine by Jonathan