Interview by Dan and Yalta
(Disclaimer: In this article, we use Metaverse with capitalized M to represent the “Metaverse Concept” and metaverse to represent actual metaverse platforms and operators)
Last month, pro League of Legends team Royal Never Give Up (RNG) defended their title against DK at MSI 2022 despite having to replay the entire group stage. Thousands of fans witnessed their uphill battle in the virtual world.
Lantern DAO, a metaverse architect organization from China, teamed up with RNG and built the first-ever official esports arena in a metaverse; it was created in Decentraland and hosted a live stream of the finals.
The esports arena Lantern DAO built for RNG in Decentraland
DAO stands for decentralized autonomous organization, bonded with blockchain algorithms and without centralized leadership. DAOs normally consist of a group of people that share a common idea or goal, mostly artists and blockchain enthusiasts at this point.
In the case of Lantern DAO, this shared goal is “to give people the power to unlock a good life in the Metaverse,“ or more practically, utilizing their expertise as IRL architects and engineers to create better structure and interactive scenarios for the booming virtual worlds, as well as “finding new career opportunities for the surplus architects”.
Lantern DAO is a relatively new organization but already has its fair share of heritage. It was created through the merging of Conflux DAO and Kaozai Construction DAO, two well-known metaverse architectural design teams in China. Countless people have taken their first steps into the Metaverse through Lantern’s educational videos and articles teaching how to create digital assets for the virtual world.
The Metaverse in China is in a very odd spot. While new metaverse startups are still growing rapidly, the governing regulators banned all crypto transactions and mining last year, making monetization very hard for these emerging blockchain businesses.
We had the chance to sit down with Jason, one of the co-founders of Lantern DAO, to have a few words about the metaverse craze in China and the future of the concept.
Also check out Lantern DAO‘s twitter and Jason‘s Twitter.
S: Superpixel
J: Jason
S: Metaverse-related topics are all the rage now, but people may not necessarily have a solid understanding of them. Can you tell us in your own words what the Metaverse is?
J: We imagine the Metaverse to be a virtual universe that exists in parallel to the physical world where all human needs, including work and entertainment, are met. Ideally, we would have an immersive experience with the aid of advanced equipment such as VR glasses and motion-sensing devices, but the technology is not there yet.
Nowadays, many games may use the latest game engines and make exquisite scenes, but there is no way to confirm the rights of game properties. While in metaverse platforms, ownership of each virtual property is generally recorded in an NFT (non-fungible token) coded onto a public blockchain: whether it is a piece of land or a certain amount of money, NFTs provide indisputable proof of ownership.
In the future, I would imagine that we’d use more advanced underlying engines and be able to live in another world truly: in addition to experiencing the most realistic games, we can shop, learn, earn money, and form a complex economic and social system. That might be the final form of the Metaverse.
S: Maybe everyone has heard of the Metaverse at one point, but a metaverse builder is still something very new. Can you give us a brief introduction to Lantern DAO?
J: We are an interest-driven metaverse architectural design and game development organization. "To provide a better life in the Metaverse,” everyone is here for the same goal. Our entire community has about a thousand members, but only forty of them would participate on the business side. After all, we don't have that many clients (laughs). About half of the forty members are architects; the rest are artists, game developers, operations specialists, and even scriptwriters responsible for the story plot. Each member has their strong points.
Meta BBS’s 3D billboard in Decentraland
S: Through what channels do people learn about Lantern DAO? What is the process like if someone wants to join as an architect?
J: We are mostly known through articles and courses posted on our forum and WeChat official account. We started to do metaverse popular science content partly to bring more vitality to our community and partly because there is an oversupply of architects, and we want to create new opportunities for them. China's urbanization rate has reached 63.7%, leading to a saturated real estate and architectural design market, and architects are forced to switch lanes. We want to provide these architects with a platform to showcase themselves and make extra income.
If a new architect wants to join, they will need to provide a portfolio of their past work, and then our architect group will vote internally to decide if they’d qualify. In addition to that, we will send an evangelist to “preach” and see if our core values resonate with them. The evangelist will describe our mission to the candidate, let them know that some work may not be financially rewarding, and see if the applicant still wants to join. If a candidate wants to come and have some fun, we would need to think that over (whether to accept them).
Most people would join Lantern DAO through their online forum
S: You mentioned earlier that the market for architects is reaching a saturation point, and many architects feel significant pressure in the real world. What kind of architects would be more inclined to adapt to the digital environment in this situation?
J: Many of our designers are students who study architecture at well-known institutes such as the College of Architecture and Urban Planning at Tongji University. They are gen-z consumers themselves, relate more easily to virtual reality and idols, and want to participate in web3-related projects. On the other side, we do have some senior architects in their thirties who want to seek a career breakthrough. For example, one of our two chief engineers has seventeen years of design and project management experience in the real estate industry. The other has a full-time job at the famous Lacime Architects.
Personally, I think students would have more advantage over professionals because if you already have a lot of work experience and have been doing architectural design in the real world for a long time, your design may be more constrained. It will be more difficult to explore your entrepreneurship and creativity in the virtual world.
S: Now that we’ve talked about the background of the architects, can you tell us more about your clients?
J: Our clients are primarily web2 companies that have heard about the Metaverse but don't know much about it or big brands that want to extend their influence into the VR/AR sector. We provide services on international platforms like Decentraland, Sandbox, NFT worlds, Cryptovoxels, and Chinese platforms such as China’s first metaverse platform, “Land of Hope,” and LingJing Space.
Our recent projects include the very first Metaverse Fashion Week (MVFW) in Decentraland: our costume designer presented two pieces based on The Classic of Mountains and Seas (also known as Shan Hai Jing, a Chinese classic text and a compilation of mythic geography), which were exhibited at Dragon City, the largest Chinese community in Decentraland. We also collaborated with MetaOasis DAO and Season Studio to design MetaOasis DAO's headquarters in Sandbox, which is a 3x3 lot that’s roughly 80,000 square meters. There is an underground labyrinth, and players need to explore a total of nine areas to save the world tree and bring back the ancient kingdom of Oasis (S: That sounds familiar). Throughout the game, we participated in plot design, urban planning, architectural design, and 3D modeling.
MetaOasis DAO’s HQ in Sandbox
S: Any client you find particularly impressive?
J: Some clients may have constantly changing requirements. We would usually offer three free revisions, but some clients really do not know what they want, and it was tough to nail down to a clear set of requirements. For example, this Bitcoin miner wants to do land trading in the Metaverse. At first, they asked us to build a game on Sandbox to attract traffic but then realized that it might be better to have a place to display their lands and wanted to convert the game into a gallery. This is quite a significant change for us. That being said, it’s pretty understandable that people would experience back and forth like this due to a lack of understanding of the Metaverse, and as long as we can get something done, I am not too bothered.
S: Can you give us an overview of your pricing?
J: The average quote for a single 1x1 lot is between 30,000 to 80,000 RMB (4,500 to 12,000 USD), depending on the client's needs and size. A larger project could cost up to 200,000 RMB (~30,000 USD). Whether they want games, storylines, music, the layers of construction they want, and the complexity level all lead to a different price. After all, we are providing customized services.
Our income is around 500,000 to 600,000 RMB (75,000 to 90,000 USD) per month, which could come from a few small private landowners or a single big brand that wants to do a more complex project.
S: Although the aesthetics of architecture in the Metaverse is similar to the physical world, many designs are not possible in real life. In your opinion, what are the differences between the architectural design of the Metaverse and it in real life?
J: Buildings in the physical world have to conform to all physics laws, but there are hardly any limitations in the Metaverse when it comes to physics. For example, load-bearing walls are no longer needed, and decorative sculptures can float in the air instead of sitting tight on the ground. I assume that as people break through their creative block, there will be more unexpected buildings in the future.
On the other hand, real-life buildings need to accommodate functional needs, such as living rooms, kitchens, restrooms, etc. Still, the buildings in the Metaverse are more used for exhibition and entertainment purposes and hence do not need such functional rooms. In the future, wearables may include functional facilities to enhance the sensorial perception of the human experience, but for now, there’s no toilet in our design.
Finally, there is the flexibility of moving things around. For example, in real life, if I am a tenant, the landlord may prevent me from changing the design of the house without permission. But a tenant in the Metaverse can plan as they like because any construction can be removed or moved elsewhere freely when the lease ends.
S: Sounds like the virtual realm has more opportunities than constraints. Are there any restrictions on doing architectural design in the Metaverse?
J: In fact, most of the limitations are not from the software but the platform itself. For example, Decentraland has a limit of 10k triangles for all the models in the scene, while their software can do 400k or more. That is to say; the end result can only reflect a fraction of the level of detail in the software. This is something that makes it particularly challenging to do architectural design in the Metaverse and something that we architects all need to consider. Designers have to know the tricks to make their work look good with limited resources. This may also be the reason why these mainstream metaverse platforms now still look like Minecraft from a decade ago.
S: How do you help the client attract more traffic?
J: Let's say someone builds a game on a plot of land, and the game attracts a lot of traffic, then people will be more likely to notice the constructions nearby and visit the neighborhood. For example, we made a mining game where players can collect ore to exchange for Decentraland wearables. Since the game itself is free, it attracts many players to come mine, and if you happen to have a piece of land nearby, these players will likely go to your land for a stroll.
S: Several of the projects you mentioned seem to be on the two major platforms, Sandbox and Decentraland. How do they differ, in your opinion?
J: Sandbox may be more focused on their play-to-earn model – they encourage their players to create game assets and profit from them. Decentraland, on the other hand, provides a more comprehensive experience - there are exhibitions, games, and even homeowners building their own houses. That being said, neither platform has enough content, but they are still the most promising platforms at the moment. Oh, and we have more clients in Decentraland. After all, Sandbox is still in the alpha version, and our clients have not yet found a proper way to profit from it.
S: Has the business been hit by the recent bear market and a crackdown on cryptocurrencies?
J: We have so far been unaffected because the Metaverse is still a hot topic in China, and more and more metaverse-type apps are being developed. But some of our clients who are active in the cryptocurrency circle are moderately impacted. For example, we had a client who wanted to do a project on Sandbox, but it was postponed because of the volatility of his cryptos.