Telegram has disclosed names of administrators, their phone numbers and IP addresses of channels accused of copyright infringement in compliance with a court order in India in a remarkable illustration of the data the instant messaging platform stores on its users and can be made to disclose by authorities.

The app operator was forced to shared the data after a teacher sued the firm for not doing enough to prevent unauthorised distribution of her course material on the platform. Neetu Singh, the plaintiff teacher, said a number of Telegram channels were re-selling her study materials without permission at discounted prices.

An Indian court earlier had ordered Telegram to adhere to the Indian law and disclose details about those operating such channels.

Telegram unsuccessfully argued that disclosing user information would violate the privacy policy and the laws of Singapore, where it has located its physical servers for storing users data. In response, the Indian court said the copyright owners couldn’t be left “completely remediless against the actual infringers” because Telegram has chosen to locate its servers outside the country.

In an order last week, Justice Prathiba Singh said Telegram had complied with the earlier order and shared the data.

“Let copy of the said data be supplied to Id. Counsel for plaintiffs with the clear direction that neither the plaintiffs nor their counsel shall disclose the said data to any third party, except for the purposes of the present proceedings. To this end, disclosure to the governmental authorities/police is permissible,” said the court (PDF) and first reported by LiveLaw.

A Telegram spokesperson declined to say whether the app operator shared private data.

“Telegram stores very limited or no data on its users. In most cases, we can’t even access any user data without specific entry points, and we believe this was the case here. Consequently, we can’t confirm that any private data has been shared in this instance,” Telegram spokesperson Remi Vaughn told TechCrunch.

India is one of the largest markets for Telegram, which has amassed nearly 150 million users in the South Asian market.

Telegram shares data of users accused of copyright violation following court order by Manish Singh originally published on TechCrunch

https://techcrunch.com/2022/11/29/telegram-shares-data-of-users-accused-of-copyright-violation-following-court-order/

Over the past 11 years, eFounders has refined the startup studio model in Europe. The company has contributed to the launch of more than 30 different startups, including three unicorns — Spendesk, Aircall and Front.

While things seem to be doing well for the startup studio, eFounders is pivoting — sort of. As of today, eFounders is becoming Hexa, a holding company for different startup studios.

You could have seen this change coming as eFounders hasn’t been just eFounders for a while. In addition to its initial studio focused on the future of work, eFounders has already launched two new studios — Logic Founders for fintech startups and 3founders for web3 startups.

Hexa is going to run three different studios — Logic Founders, 3founders and, yes, eFounders. So what is happening with eFounders then?

“I started writing a LinkedIn article saying that it is the last time I’m writing as the founder of eFounders,” eFounders co-founder Thibaud Elzière told me. But he is not going anywhere as the eFounders core team is simply going to work for Hexa now.

Just like with Hexa’s other studios, there is a dedicated eFounders team with a head of studio as well as a core team of product people. Matthieu Vaxelaire is now at the helm of eFounders.

Combined, Hexa companies have hired 3,000 people and have reached a total valuation of $5 billion. And Hexa isn’t going to change its formula going forward. Hexa’s startup studios match an idea with a founding team.

The studio team then provides resources and help to launch a product. After raising some funding, startups gain their independence and the startup studio can move on and focus on new projects.

“We reached a limit when it comes to scalability. It’s a virtuous model but it’s also very much handcrafted work,” Elzière told me. In addition to supporting Hexa’s existing studios, the company wants to launch studios around new verticals, such as climate, education and health.

But it will depend on heads of studio that they meet and end up hiring. Hexa aims to launch two new studios next year.

“It’s a crazy bet for us. We are creating a brand from scratch. And we are doing that because eFounders is a strong brand when it comes to SaaS startups, but also because eFounders was outshining other studios,” Elzière said.

A 30% stake

“What we are doing with Hexa is that we are democratizing team entrepreneurship. We offer an alternative to traditional entrepreneurship” Elzière said. “Like a lot of things in life, when you work as a team, it works better.”

But that doesn’t mean that Hexa and its startup studios are launching new startups for fun. They are taking a significant stake in each new startup.

“We want to launch more startups. But it costs us around €800,000 to launch a company. We can either invest some money ourselves, or we could create a small fund like Y Combinator. Investors could contribute and they would end up on the cap table.”

When Hexa’s startup studios launch a new startup, they try to keep a 30% stake in the company after raising a seed round. With third-party investors, Hexa could lower its stake to something like 25%, and investors would get 5%.

Hexa’s own stake would be split between Hexa and each startup studio. “You would have 5 to 10% that would be allocated to the head of studio and their team,” Elzière said. The bottom line is that Hexa and its partners would still take a 30% stake. Then it would be split between multiple partners.

“That deal might seem a bit unfair,” Elzière said. But he thinks eFounders’ track record speaks for itself. With roughly 3 unicorns out of 30 portfolio companies, entrepreneurs are more likely to create a unicorn with the help of eFounders than without. Essentially, founders can potentially get a smaller portion of a bigger cake.

The life and death of startup studios

But where does Hexa come from exactly? It comes from the hexadecimal numbering system. In particular, hexadecimals are used to represent binary digits (0 and 1) in computing programming. Each hexadecimal character represents a succession of four binary digits.

“For me, it’s the simplest expression of the human-machine interface,” Elzière said. As a bonus, hexadecimal characters are also used by designers for color codes.

He believes that startup studios will work just like startups. Some of them will thrive, others will fail. “Studios will have a certain lifespan. At some point, they’ll run out of steam because the head of studio won’t be there anymore or there won’t be any opportunity left,” Elzière said. As always, we will judge the quality of Hexa’s work by the new startups that emerge from those studios.

eFounders morphs into Hexa, a portfolio company of startup studios by Romain Dillet originally published on TechCrunch

https://techcrunch.com/2022/11/29/efounders-morphs-into-hexa-a-portfolio-company-of-startup-studios/

Gogoro, the Taiwanese company that’s commercializing battery swapping ecosystems for electric scooters, is targeting the Philippines as its next market. The startup said Tuesday it has partnered with Filipino conglomerate Ayala Corporation, telecomms provider Globe and corporate venture builder 917Ventures to launch a B2B battery swapping pilot in Manila in the first quarter of 2023.

917Ventures is a subsidiary of Globe, which is part of Ayala Corporation’s umbrella.

The partnership with heavy hitters in the Filipino ecosystem comes a few days after the Philippines approved the removal of import duties on electric vehicles and their parts for the next five years. The move is part of the Philippines’ Electric Vehicle Industry Development Act, signed into law this year, to promote clean energy innovation. Horace Luke, founder and CEO of Gogoro, told TechCrunch the tariff removal applies to battery charging and swapping equipment, as well, making it the perfect time for Gogoro to introduce its battery swapping stations and Smartscooters into the country.

“The Philippines is trying to electrify, so we’re progressively saying we’re gonna be the first one to really take a leadership position in that and lead the market,” Luke said. “We see a huge opportunity for us to grow the market because there just hasn’t been the mass adoption of two-wheelers yet. And as they adopt, it would be great if it goes towards electrification.”

Eventually, Gogoro wants to bring an open network battery swapping system to the Philippines, one that’s compatible with locally produced electric two-wheelers as well as Gogoro’s own Smartscooters — Gogoro has worked with electric two-wheeler manufacturers in India and China to integrate its own swappable batteries into their scooters for easier market entry, rather than having to also import its own Smartscooters.

The Philippines is a different type of market, though. Two-wheelers have not historically been as popular in the country, as compared to India or China, said Luke. Market adoption is starting to pick up now alongside the increase of delivery and logistics services, hence Gogoro’s strategy of entering the market with a B2B pilot focused on the logistics industry.

Gogoro wouldn’t announce which delivery provider it will initially partner with, but Ayala Corp does have its own dedicated unit, AC Logistics. Luke said by early next year, Gogoro will have sent through several hundreds of its Smartscooters and several hundreds batteries, as well as half a dozen swapping stations, which will be placed throughout Manila for delivery riders to use.

“We’re going to use B2B as the first step to really build what we call the base load,” said Luke. “Base load is basically the minimum amount of users using the network that allows you to actually create a business model that is proven to be workable. Now, given the gas prices in the Philippines, given the amount of logistics rider output everyday, this is an opportunity for us to demonstrate that the business model is viable.”

The pilot will last at least six months before expanding to new B2B partners or even private consumers, said Luke. During that time, Gogoro hopes to gain feedback from the market both on whether two-wheelers can be adopted in the Philippines and on whether battery swapping will take hold alongside two-wheeler adoption. Gogoro will also collect data from vehicles while they’re on the road in order to fine tune its system, said Luke.

“More than 25% of Taiwan’s quick commerce deliveries and almost all of their electric deliveries are powered by Gogoro’s battery-swapping technology, and we see this solution being most beneficial to a densely populated region like Metro Manila, which is also the hub of business districts,” said Patrick Aquino, director of the Department of Energy’s Energy Utilization Management Bureau in the Philippines, in a statement. “The success of this pilot will pave the way for a new sustainable business model in other cities in the country as well. Philippines can learn from Taiwan’s experience.”

Gogoro’s global network includes nearly 11,000 battery swapping stations at over 2,260 locations. The company, which has a market dominance in Taiwan, says it hosts more than 370,000 daily battery swaps with more than 360 million total swaps to date.

The company recently announced a similar B2B partnership with EV-as-a-Service platform Zypp Electric to electrify logistics fleets and last-mile deliveries in India. Gogoro expects to launch a pilot with Zypp in Delhi in December, which will compliment Gogoro’s existing consumer-focused partnership in India with local two-wheeler manufacturer Hero MotoCorp.

Gogoro also recently launched battery swapping stations and Smartscooters in Tel Aviv, and has a presence in China and Indonesia, as well.

Gogoro to pilot battery swapping and Smartscooters in Philippines next year by Rebecca Bellan originally published on TechCrunch

https://techcrunch.com/2022/11/29/gogoro-to-pilot-battery-swapping-and-smartscooters-in-philippines-next-year/

Prismforce, an India-U.S. startup that provides IT and tech services companies with tools to build better talent supply chain, has raised $13.6 million in a Series A round led by Sequoia Capital India.

IT providers spend a large part of their variable costs on hiring skilled employees. But finding those employees from the ever-growing talent market and deploying them effectively to get adequate results is one of the most significant pain points for the industry worldwide.

Prismforce is taking Amazon’s approach to matching the demand for talent with the supply for companies offering IT and tech services, said co-founder and CEO Somnath Chatterjee.

“We are treating this as a supply chain problem, where you have to standardize demand, standardize supply, make the match happen, almost as if you are an e-commerce engine and e-commerce marketplace trying to make a talent marketplace,” he said in an interview with TechCrunch.

After spending 14 years as a partner at McKinsey, Chatterjee founded Prismforce with Mohd Qasim in April 2021. Qasim also worked as a senior engagement manager at McKinsey.

While working at the management consulting firm, both co-founders served several IT providers, which helped them identify the problem that Prismforce aims to solve.

Prismforce’s product catalog includes SkillPrism, which uses AI over a skill inventory management application to automate talent profiling. The startup also offers IntelliPrism for an end-to-end resource management module with AI-driven search and match, OutlookPrism to enable workforce planning and resource forecasting and InsightPrism to offer CXO dashboards.

The Delaware-registered startup, which has a wholly-owned India subsidiary and offices in San Francisco, Mumbai and Bengaluru, is currently on track to amass 10 clients by the end of this year, with the smallest client generating $400 million of revenue while the biggest counterpart making more than $10 billion. Chatterjee did not disclose their names but said half of them have their presence in India, while half of them are U.S.-domiciled companies.

The executive said that he expects the geographical ratio of the startup’s clients shift over time, with 70–80% coming from English-speaking countries, such as the U.S., U.K. and Europe.

Although the primary focus of Prismforce is limited to companies offering IT and tech services, it also targets entities in the enterprise IT domain. The startup also plans to reach professional services firms in the future, including accounting, tax and consulting firms, Chatterjee said.

“It is a lot more pertinent for IT companies because the underlying skills are changing very fast, which is not the case for many of these consulting and professional services companies. But that could be the third horizon we can go to,” he noted.

With the fresh funding from Sequoia Capital India and global angel investors, Prismforce plans to scale up its go-to-market reach, enhance its product suite and grow its talent base from the existing team of over 60 members to a 120–140 group in the next nine to 12 months.

“The technology services industry, with a cumulative market cap of over $4 trillion and a global workforce of over 20 million, is a core pillar of the global digital economy. Despite that, there is no large vertical software vendor serving its varied needs,” said Abhishek Mohan, principal at Sequoia Capital India, in a prepared statement.

“Somnath and Qasim’s vision is to create the defining vertical software company for technology and professional services. Over the past year, this vision has been validated by multiple industry-leading IT providers, which have deployed Prismforce products to great impact.”

Prismforce has raised a total of $15.4 million to date, with $1.8 million infused in a seed funding round a year ago from an undisclosed group of angel investors that included serial entrepreneurs and SaaS founders.

Sequoia India backs Prismforce that helps IT companies build better talent supply chain by Jagmeet Singh originally published on TechCrunch

https://techcrunch.com/2022/11/29/prismforce-funding-sequoia-capital-india/

Yoel Roth said he departed following the botched launch of the upgraded Twitter Blue subscription program after Elon Musk ignored his team’s warnings about the rollout.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/twitters-former-trust-safety-chief-says-he-left-when-system-of-governance-went-away-11669771655?mod=rss_Technology

Despite global headwinds, Southeast Asia’s early stage startups are still going strong, say the founders of Iterative Capital. The Singapore-based venture capital firm, which runs a YC-style accelerator program, announced today it has raised $55 million for its Fund II from LPs like Cendana, K5 Global, Village Global and Goodwater Capital.

Other backers include a group of founders and executives, such Dropbox co-founder Arash Ferdowsi, Bukalapak co-founder and former CEO Achmad Zaky, Andreessen Horowitz general partner Andrew Chen, former YC COO Qasar Younis, former Foursquare CEO David Shim and Airbnb Asia head Kum Hong Siew.

Since launching Iterative’s Fund I in 2021, the firm has backed more than 65 companies in 5 cohorts. Its portfolio companies have raised $163 million in follow-on funding and are worth $1.2 billion in total. Venture firms that have invested in Iterative’s portfolio companies include Insight Partners, Tiger Global, Monk’s Hill, Wavemaker and Hustle Fund.

The new funding will allow Iterative to increase its check sizes to $500,000 and add more programs for founders in different stages, including ones for earlier-stage founders who aren’t ready for an accelerator yet and later-stage founders who have already gained strong traction. With Fund II, Iterative’s plan is have bigger batches of startups of about 30 each. Its goal is to invest in 100-plus companies at more stages, including pre-seed, seed and Series A startups. While Iterative’s first fund did not perform follow-on investments, the firm is now in the position to do so.

Iterative co-founder and general partner Brian Ma said Fund II took just four weeks to raise, because Fund I’s founders performed well. Many of the first fund’s LPs returned and attractive return profiles in Southeast Asia also attracted new LPs.

Startups in Iterative programs have access to its 80+ group of venture partners and visiting partners, who are all previous or current operating founders.

“More concretely, we run weekly office hours, group office hours, speakers and workshops with our visiting partners, have a scaled out fundraise bootcamp program, a built out network to automate white-gloved introductions to investors and 450+ investors engage with our startups at our demo days,” said Ma.

“Some of the most important work actually happens post-cohort, where we help alumni companies deal with negotiating their A’s or B’s, deal with scaling their organizations and help coach them through cofounder issues and other growing pains.”

Some examples of Iterative’s portfolio companies that have recent raised money include Spenmo, which closed a $85 million Series B round led by Tiger Global; travel company GoZayaan, which raised $8 million and acquired FindMyAdventure to expand beyond Pakistan; and proptech startup Propseller, which raised $12 million Series A in August. Meanwhile, another Iterative alum, Sendhelper, was acquired by PropertyGuru in October.

Iterative’s founders remain upbeat about startups in Southeast Asia. Even though there are currently less startups currently exiting there, early-stage investments continue to increase. For example, a report by Google, Temasek and Bain & Co. found that Southeast Asia is “relatively less impacted by global economic trends” and that its real GDP growth is still 4.6% year-over-year. Iterative’s founders also note that Southeast Asia’s digital economy is expected to reach $200 billion this year, while Indonesia’s online spending it expected to hit $130 billion by 2025. Vietnam is an especially promising market, forecasted to more than double its online GMV over the next three years.

Ma said Southeast Asian startups benefit from high potential and reasonable valuations. “With depressed economies and lofty priced companies in the U.S., China, etc., more capital is flowing into more nascent and higher growth regions like Southeast Asia. We believe this is where the best returns will come from in the next 7 to 10 years.”

Iterative launches its second fund for Southeast Asia startups by Catherine Shu originally published on TechCrunch

https://techcrunch.com/2022/11/29/iterative-fund-2/

ICON, a construction tech company that’s raised more than $400 million in funding, has landed a new contract from NASA to develop new systems to build on the moon and Mars.

The $57.2 million contract is a continuation of a previous Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) dual-use contract with the U.S. Air Force, which was partly funded by NASA. This award will support the development of what ICON is calling “Project Olympus,” an ambitious plan to build structures on the moon and Mars using in-situ resources.

“To change the space exploration paradigm from ‘there and back again’ to ‘there to stay,’ we’re going to need robust, resilient, and broadly capable systems that can use the local resources of the Moon and other planetary bodies,” ICON CEO Jason Ballard said in a statement. It’s clear that NASA agrees. Indeed, the agency has explicitly stated that one of the goals of its ambitious Artemis lunar program is to establish a long-term human presence on the moon. But as of yet, NASA has established no clear plans on where those astronauts will stay once they get there.

ICON, which is best-known for its 3D-printed homes, has been working on Project Olympus for some time. The company was awarded the initial SBIR grant from the U.S. Air Force in October 2020 for $14.55 million. This latest funding will keep the project alive for a handful more years at least: the contract runs through 2028.

Under the terms of this contract, ICON will be working with NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, under an agency venture called the “Moon to Mars Planetary Autonomous Construction Technologies” project. The company is planning on working with samples of lunar regolith and bringing its hardware and software into space to help it develop construction approaches that can best function in the cold, low-gravity atmosphere of the moon. Habitats aren’t the only thing on the company’s radar: it’s also eyeing up landing pads and other infrastructure to support sustained lunar exploration.

ICON has seen explosive growth since its founding in late 2017. The company landed a $207 million Series B last August, and closed another $185 million scarcely six months later. Sources told TechCrunch that the latest funding pushed ICON’s valuation close to $2 billion.

Austin-based ICON awarded $57.2 million NASA contract for lunar construction tech by Aria Alamalhodaei originally published on TechCrunch

https://techcrunch.com/2022/11/29/austin-based-icon-awarded-57-2-million-nasa-contract-for-lunar-construction-tech/

One month after Nintendo debuted its first trailer for “The Super Mario Bros. Movie,” the company has revealed yet another trailer—this time giving fans a first look at Princess Peach and Donkey Kong.

In the newest trailer, viewers get to see more of Illumination’s incredible animating skills with Donkey Kong, voiced by Seth Rogen, completely bitch-slapping Mario (Chris Pratt), and Princess Peach, voiced by Anya Taylor-Joy, ripping off a Cheep-Cheeps (pufferfish) from the plumber’s face. We also see Mario Kart get a nod with a quick clip of the legendary Rainbow Road.

And while many fans were disappointed with Pratt’s impression of Mario in the first trailer, he did give us a “let’s-a-go” and a “wahoo!” this time around. So, we’ll give him a break from the mocking for now. Or not.

In a pre-recorded clip that played before the trailer, Rogen pretty much echoed Pratt’s statement from Nintendo’s last video. He said, “I remember looking at Mario Brothers and thinking, if they ever make a movie out of this, I better be in it. I’m happy to say that dream came true.”

“The Super Mario Bros. Movie” is slated to premiere in theaters on April 7, 2023. The film also stars Charlie Day as Luigi, Keegan-Michael Key as Toad, Jack Black as Bowser, Fred Armisen as Cranky Kong, Kevin Michael Richardson as Kamek, and Sebastian Maniscalco as Spike.

Let’s-a-go again with a new ‘The Super Mario Bros. Movie’ trailer by Lauren Forristal originally published on TechCrunch

https://techcrunch.com/2022/11/29/the-super-mario-bros-movie-trailer/

Image Credits: Boris Zhitkov (opens in a new window) / Getty Images

According to a pre-seed report by DocSend, founders took an average of 52 meetings with investors in 2022, compared to 39 last year. At the same time, they are submitting 30% more pitch decks, but VC engagement has fallen 23%.

“Founders may be discouraged in this environment, but they need to remember that they have ‘currency,’ too,” said Russ Heddleston, co-founder and former CEO of DocSend at Dropbox.

DocSend’s report recommends using no more than 50 words per slide. The sections of the deck that address purpose, product and business model are the meat in the sandwich, so founders should spend the most time polishing those points.

“Investors spent the third-highest amount of time reviewing the company purpose slide in pre-seed pitch decks, behind only the business model and product slides,” said Heddleston.

To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3 p.m. PDT, subscribe here.

Oh hey! While we have you here, grab your calendar — we’ve got some things for you to add. For the stargazers among us, we’ll be in Los Angeles doing TC Sessions: Space on December 6. And on April 20, 2023, we’re heading to Boston for our TC Early Stage festival. Come to either. Come to both. Come to neither. We love you all just the same. But we’d prefer to see your faces in person if we can!

Oh, and did you know it’s “Giving Tuesday”? That means it’s time to think about which of your favorite causes deserve some of your time or dollars, if you have some of either to spare. — Christine and Haje

The TechCrunch Top 3

• And the winner is…: Okay, all you fans of taking photos of yourself “in the now,” no matter where you are. Ivan writes that BeReal won “app of the year” for 2022 in Apple’s annual App Store Awards.
• Order up!: Nigerian restaurant tech company Orda gobbled up $3.4 million and is now perfecting its recipe for a cloud-based operating system that helps digitize Africa’s small restaurants. Tage has more.
• M&A actionManish reports that India-based fintech CRED is acquiring CreditVidya, a SaaS startup specializing in underwriting first-time borrowers. He reports that this is CRED’s latest move to expand its infrastructure and product offerings.

Startups and VC

The venture market is in the middle of a downturn, but there are still plenty of emerging fund managers. Seedstars announced today it has launched a platform called Seedstars Capital with Swiss-based investment holding company xMultiplied to help new fund managers around the world launch funds and develop their investment firms. The folks behind the initiative told Catherine that “Seedstars’ mission is to impact people’s lives in emerging markets through technology and entrepreneurship.”

Earlier today, renowned VC Bill Gurley put together a list of the many “red flags” that VCs should have paid closer attention to when funding FTX, suggesting in a tweet that this summary of warning signs might help keep VCs “out of the investor hurt locker” going forward. All good and well, but in her great piece today, Connie wonders if publishing them now is a little like shouting “Fire!” after everyone is already outside the theater, watching its smoldering remains dissolve into the parking lot. Most of the behaviors that Gurley identified today came to a grinding halt when the market abruptly shifted in spring, and by then, the damage was already done.

And we have five more for you. Can you spot the theme of these puns? Send an @Haje on Twitter if you think you know the answer!

• BotlooseLocus raises another $117 million for its warehouse robots, Brian reports.
• Elephant GreenHaje reviews Abby, a sleek one-plant weed farm for your apartment.
• Planes, Trains, and EV TaxisAnnie reports that Kenya’s first EV taxi service NopeaRide shuts down.
• Post/a16zAmanda reports that Twitter alternative Post News gets funding from a16z.
• Should they have left?: As Pipe’s founding team departs, tensions rise over allegations, Mary Ann reports.

Early-stage founders still have currency: Fundraising in times of greater VC scrutiny

According to a pre-seed report by DocSend, founders took an average of 52 meetings with investors in 2022, compared to 39 last year. At the same time, they are submitting 30% more pitch decks, but VC engagement has fallen 23%.

“Founders may be discouraged in this environment, but they need to remember that they have ‘currency,’ too,” said Russ Heddleston, co-founder and former CEO of DocSend at Dropbox.

DocSend’s report recommends using no more than 50 words per slide. The sections of the deck that address purpose, product and business model are the meat in the sandwich, so founders should spend the most time polishing those points.

“Investors spent the third-highest amount of time reviewing the company purpose slide in pre-seed pitch decks, behind only the business model and product slides,” said Heddleston.

Three more from the TC+ team:

• The chain of fools: As BlockFi files for bankruptcy, Jacquelyn wonders, How contagious will FTX’s downfall become?
• Don’t be gentle — it’s a rental: If EVs can work in rental car fleets, writes Tim, they can work anywhere.
• Hitting the brakes: As tech companies seek to limit losses, TC+ boss Alex has a reminder in the Exchange of how far some have to go.

TechCrunch+ is our membership program that helps founders and startup teams get ahead of the pack. You can sign up here. Use code “DC” for a 15% discount on an annual subscription!

Big Tech Inc.

A group of our fine folks are covering Amazon’s AWS re:Invent conference in Las Vegas this week and have already posted a number of AWS announcements and updates. If you’re looking for recommendations, let us steer you toward:

• Frederic’s story on Amazon DataZone, a new data management service that “can help enterprises catalog, discover, share and — most importantly — govern their data.” If you have “Danger Zone” stuck in your head now, you’re welcome.
• Ron’s item on AWS Supply Chain, Amazon’s answer to “supply chain chaos.”
• Paul’s look at the AWS natural language updates to QuickSight Q.
• Brian’s story on the new AWS SimSpace Weaver, which “allows developers to run city-sized simulations at scale in the cloud.”

Here’s a bit of non-AWS news for ya:

• It’s like your own little CoachellaIvan’s story on the Instafest app went viral into the wee hours of this morning. The app lets you create your own music festival lineup from your Spotify faves.
• Just when you thought it was safe to go into the water…: India wants to keep its citizens protected from cryptocurrency, but at the same time is poised to introduce a retail digital currency, called e-rupee, starting in December. It’s intended to lessen the country’s dependency on cash, Manish reports.
• It’s not about the money, money, money: People be shoppin’ after Thanksgiving, and Ingrid writes that Cyber Monday online sales hit a record of $11.3 billion, and not just because prices have gone up with inflation — deep discounts and demand for certain products helped.
• Letting the bird out of the cage: Be careful where you get your COVID-19 news. Natasha L reports that Twitter is no longer enforcing its COVID misleading information policy when it comes to virus posts.
• What about your friends?: Moving over to Mastodon? Don’t worry, Sarah has a look at Movetodon, a new tool that helps you find your Twitter friends over there.

Daily Crunch: Apple announces its 2022 App Store Award winners by Christine Hall originally published on TechCrunch

https://techcrunch.com/2022/11/29/daily-crunch-apple-announces-its-2022-app-store-award-winners/

Richard Garfield is a name familiar to many in the tabletop gaming world, most notably as one of the creators of Magic: The Gathering, the most prominent trading card game out there. But Garfield is dipping his toes into the world of digital and in particular blockchain-adjacent games, and TechCrunch took the opportunity to quiz the veteran gamemaker on the pros and cons of this and other new approaches to gaming.

It should be noted at the outset that unlike the dubious profit-focused gameplay of your Axie Infinity and suchlike, Garfield’s new game, technically a “mode” of Blockchain Brawlers, is not focused on speculation but more of an experiment in distribution of a complete card-based game outside traditional publishing methods.

It should probably also be noted that the game platform is full of the usual NFT and monetization chatter, but the core game itself, a 1v1 bluffing style match, is capable of being played with ordinary playing cards or for that matter numbered pieces of paper. I played a few rounds with him that way and it’s actually quite fun and straightforward (I would like to state for the record that I was in a fair way to win but we had to stop early). A follow-up game unrelated to Garfield’s design and which uses more rarity/stat/token-focused mechanics is underway for a separate release in 2023.

TC: Why is introducing blockchains, tokens and things into game design worth it? When you have consumer fears about things like FTX… I know that they’re very different, but why is the why is the asset worth the risk?

Garfield: There’s some benefits of not being tied to paper, and there’s some benefits of not being digital. In the digital space, the opportunity to sell people games which are digital but ownable has some appeal. In particular, when you sort of contrast what’s evolved in other digital spaces, where there’s so much free to play, which has a lot of negative baggage along with whatever positive it brings to the table.

TC: Of course, FTX can crash and that has nothing to do with, you know, a tracking mechanism for ownership of a card or whatever. But in the minds of consumers, they can be conflated. Is that is that just a consumer education thing? Or is that a branding thing?

Garfield: It’s all the above and more. It’s also a designer and a publisher choice. I think there’s some natural caution in this space, because so much of the design has been in an area which I don’t think is healthy for games, which is trying to conflate it with speculation — which I’ve got a lot of experience with, because this was the environment which Magic: The Gathering began in. And it was very poisonous for the gameplay to have people basically buying just to see their money go up. Because it got in the way of the game as a game.

A lot of the designers and publishers these days are embracing that and saying, ‘join this game now, make a lot of money.’ That’s not healthy for game design, but is not intrinsically a part of players ownership of digital assets anymore. The negative qualities of free to play, for instance, aren’t intrinsically a part of free to play. It’s just there’s some things that are difficult to avoid, because of the way the revenue model works. And players these days, with digital ownership are, it’s natural for them to conflate that with the speculation bubble, in the same way that a player who engages free to play, it’s always going to be a danger for them to think that’s it’s pay to win, or it’s some sort of hustle. But there is some confusion, and some reasons for that confusion.

TC: At the beginning of Magic, I’m curious what kind of blowback you got at the time regarding both the business model and the unanticipated hoarding of valuable cards, taking them out of play. Was there skepticism that this was a valid gaming model, and a valid business model? And do you think that kind of reaction is also happening now?

Garfield: Yes, there was some skepticism. And, and it actually took a lot of effort to get past that. And it was quite divisive inside Wizards of the Coast itself. The problem was that as the prices went up with speculation, everybody drew comparison to the comic book market or Cabbage Patch Kids or whatever people collected, and got really popular, and then always busted.

I wasn’t very educated in that area when when I began, because I didn’t pay much attention to collectibles. But very quickly, I adopted the idea that this speculation was just awful for gameplay, that there was no upside for the players.

We had to really work to bust that cycle – intentionally overprinted, for example, because we had to make it so that it wasn’t appealing to collect. When we finally managed to do that, there were some people at the company that thought we had sunk the product. And some players did, because they saw the value of their collection go down. But the game just blossomed at that point. And in the end, that’s what it was about: it was a game. It became very clear that the people who were playing the game were doing it because they loved the gameplay, not because of any investment.

TC: Do you think that something similar will have to happen now with digital ownership? How do you prove that model out? Because I know that people will people will be skeptical like, ‘how do I know I’m not gonna get the rug pulled out on me once I invest a couple 100 bucks in this game?’

Garfield: You really have to trust your publisher. When you’re doing a tradable object game, the publisher can always mess it up.

Image Credits: Blockchain Brawlers

On the other hand, people don’t buy Settlers of Catan and worry about whether the publisher is going to screw that by making their game weaker; they’ve got the game, and they can play it. And that is, to me, the potential appeal of digital ownership, that is that people don’t necessarily have to rely on the publisher. They only have to rely on the publisher to be fair when they’re in charge of some ongoing environment.

TC: How do we move forward on that ownership piece to a point where people can say, ‘Hey, I paid my 50 bucks, I have that digital copy.’ People will trust Steam for a PC game. But if it gets more complicated with, you know, NFT based instances of cards and things like that.

Garfield: Well, it’s a matter of, if you’re having your game engine being provided by somebody, you’ve got to trust them. That’s the end of the story. Here you have other avenues. Whether those will evolve or not depends on the community, and you know, whether there’s people who are interested enough to pursue that.

I should point out that, with the game that I’ve worked on here, I was very firmly in the board game category, in the sense that the game that’s been provided is something where there’s no distinction between what players own — it’s a completely fair game. Really, it was the only reason I became interested in the project, because the publisher said they backed me on that.

[Note: Players can own different “moves” and cosmetics but the gameplay elements, essentially the numbers 1-8 and some other minor things, are functionally the same for all even though they are treated as NFTs or some other owned digital item. These items may serve different purposes in other modes or games.]

That part of the game is always there for people, like they can play it themselves, or somebody can code a new framework for it. And it’s simple enough that that’s not hard. This really is a very close to a traditional game, in the sense that you buy a box and you can play.

TC: I feel like my readers are going to ask, well, why am I not just buying this game on Steam? Or what is what is really the improvement over a free to play situation where, you know, if there’s 50 cards, I pay $50. And now I’ve got all the cards. What really are the advantages that you see in this approach versus the traditional publishing or a free to play model?

Garfield: Frankly, I think that the advantages have been overstated by a lot of people. And in fact, that’s what’s kept me out of it for so long is that I really didn’t see the advantage over a server based system for a long time. The key thing which got me involved is just how hard it is to get certain games done in the digital space, because of this free to play expectation.

Like there’s a lot of games that, in theory, yeah, you could just put it on Steam, or put it up on iOS and have people download and play it. But you actually can’t do that, because you can’t charge for it. And if you put it up for free, you got to pay for it. And if you start attaching some free to play monetization to it, you’ve got advertisements or, you know, you got to fill a bar, or do cosmetics, or something which may not be of interest to designers or the players.

So the game that’s being done here, for example, it could be done on Steam, or it could be done on iOS. But the games I’ve done in the past, which are in this description have been really hard to get going because of this, because you’ve got to make it free. And then you’ve got to put in ads or something. So I’m being drawn to it in the same way that I really like working with paper publishers, because I can say: ‘here’s a card game,’ and they can print it, put it in a box, sell it to people. And nobody complains about that as a revenue model.

TC: There’s obviously there’s been this huge renaissance of tabletop gaming. Everybody loves it, everybody’s playing with paper, everybody’s playing with cardboard and wood, and it’s great. But then you also have crossover successes, like Gloomhaven, which has a great digital version and paper version. I’m curious how you think it’ll play out over the next few years as analog and digital gaming both become more popular, and continue to cross pollinate one another.

Garfield: That’s a really exciting area. I could talk for a long time on that. I’ve been really interested in that space. I first began to think about it back in, I guess, the late 90s, where I just was struck by how I liked computer games, I like board games. And then I would play whatever, TF [Team Fortress]. I would play some digital shooter or something like that, and then I would play Scrabble.

And I’d think, how are these even in the same space? They’re just such different experiences, and why aren’t there more games sort of that are like the board games I love, but taking advantage of all the things which have to be offered digitally.

So to see more and more examples of that, including, like, Slay the Spire, these games, which have this sensibility really rooted in traditional gameplay, but taking full advantage of what the computer has to offer, and not making you just play twitch games or something like that… It’s a very exciting area, I’m really excited to see where it goes, and happy to contribute anything to it where I can.

Magic creator Richard Garfield on why he put a paper game on the blockchain by Devin Coldewey originally published on TechCrunch

https://techcrunch.com/2022/11/29/magic-creator-richard-garfield-on-why-he-put-a-paper-game-on-the-blockchain/