Sam Hamilton is a creative director of Decentraland, one of the top 2 metaverses including The Sandbox. On 18th September 2022, Sam participated in a Q&A session titled “The first-ever virtual world owned by its users” during the NFT Show Europe conference in Valencia. The following is a modified transcript of the conversation:
Q: How do you see Decentraland being different from other platforms and metaverses?
The main thing is philosophy, Decentraland’s core values, changing the way the Internet is at the moment. Decentraland tries to give power back to the people whereas other metaverse projects are mostly built to exclusively make money.
Q: Can you describe Decentraland’s Foundation and DAO?
When Decentraland first went to market and started to build the platform we were a company. From the beginning, they wanted to give power to people. However, for such a cutting-edge crypto project, it was very difficult to set up a project around a DAO then due to legal issues. At some point, they created the Foundation, a non-profit organization, and they closed the company.
All the Decentraland’s assets and money was split within the DAO. The DAO is essentially the community: a way of giving a voice to people that use the platform. They can vote on any aspect of the platform, drive the direction of the project and apply for grants. Then the Foundation helps to develop the platform for the next 10-20 years, leads the marketing and is the legal entity dealing with whatever.
Q: How can people from the community get more involved in Decentraland’s DAO?
There are several ways:
Jump in Desktop directly into the game and live the experience: go to a concert, sign up into university or play poker.
Next level: if you are a creator such us a 3D modeler or a NFT artist, you can build an experience inside the game. Decentraland is a user generated platform where you can build whatever you want!
Much higher level: people who build infrastructure for metaverse or game development. For example, 6 months ago Decentraland gave a 250.000€ grant to an experienced VR team in order to explore VR in Decentraland.
Q: Can you tell us about the Creator’s Program?
In the early days, there were a few talented people interested in creating in Decentraland but they had full time jobs. We set up a Creator’s Program where creators build meaningful experiences and get paid. For instance, 3D studios were building for the game. We are continuously looking for new talent to get funded and build for brands in the metaverse.
Q: Can you tell us which brands are into the metaverse?
Everyones wants a metaverse experience at the moment. Our first partnership with a brand was Atari. When other brands saw Atari, it clicked they can be in the metaverse. After that, we have been working with Coca Cola, Christie, top galleries, an explosion in music and sports and also in things I didn’t expect such as governments building their embassies in Decentraland. Decentraland connects brands with the community.
Q: How do you, as a creator yourself, envision the metaverse?
Sam has been in the film and fashion industry for the last 20 years leading creativity. He believes the creative side of the metaverse is what is really important. Working with brands for massive adoptions and inspire new media for storytelling between human beings. We are really at the beginning and we are in the period of decades of innovation coming from us.
Q: About innovation in web3 social, should the Decentraland community create their own social media platform?
I would wait. I am not supposed to talk but since the beginning of our roadmap we have been thinking about social features. We are building a huge ambitious project and we are a small team, still 100 people, in comparison to Meta with 10.000 employees working on their projects.
We want to implement social features without reinventing things that have already worked in previous social media such as interacting with friends and expressing how you feel. Core things in social media will come by late year in Decentraland.
Q: As a creative director, can you describe Decentraland’s value aside from brands and exhibitions?
Real value is social change. We are educating people about web3 philosophy. Decentraland has onboarded thousand of players for the last couple of years. They educate about understanding web3 principles, crypto currencies and decentralization. Decentraland truly believe in stopping the monopolies controlling the internet. The reason why Sam is so passionate about what he is doing is that he doesn’t want his kids to grow up in a world controlled by Facebook.
Q: Do creators need to make a financial investment in order to use Decentraland as a platform?
I think there is no real investment. You must be willing to spend time. There are a lot of opportunities around the community: it is super open and really inclusive. Sam recommends coming, talking to people and connecting. Help each other in the community and someone will give space to show your work. For instance, if you are a video maker, there are game developers who need video makers.
Q: Is the high price of the land a limitation?
LANDs were all sold by 20$ around 5 years go. After the huge mainstream influx, a lot of speculation happened and the prices went up. This makes LAND accessibility limited and it is not the foundation place to change this, it is the community. They can propose to build another city, or isolated experiences and then the Foundation is forced to act in that way.
If you don’t have access to LAND, you can still go to community and there are people who are willing to give up or rent lands. There are also Foundation grants and the Creator’s Program.
Q: What’s your vision of fashion in the metaverse?
People love expressing themselves with their clothing. Sometimes, people don’t have the confidence in the real world to dress particularly and the metaverse gives them a chance.