The Big Whale: You explain that "Cross The Ages" isn't just a video game. Is it?
Sami Chalgou: Yes, it's much more than that, it's a universe, a new world. If I talk about a ring "that will rule them all", you'll immediately understand the reference to Tolkien. If you talk about the Matrix, you're thinking of The Matrix. For Cross The Ages, it's "Prana", i.e. the vibration in the Earth with this question: are Men going to succeed in collaborating together on Earth?
This story takes the form of seven chapters written by a collective of several well-known writers, such as Alain Damasio or Pablo Servigne.
What does this have to do with Web3?
This universe is made up of several bricks and the card game based on NFTs allows players to move around inside.
Why use cards and not something else?
Cards are a niche game, but it's the best use of blockchain.
When did you come up with the idea for this project?
It was just under three years ago, in August 2020. Richard Esteve, the co-founder of Cross The Ages, who was already in the Web3 universe, told me I had to get interested in these subjects.
At the time, I was a complete neophyte, I didn't know this ecosystem at all, I had a few bitcoins, but not much more. I was focused on my historical activity, gaming, without seeing what bridges were possible with Web3 and all that NFTs and cryptos could bring to gaming in terms of links, community creation and new business.
Did you have a very precise idea of what you wanted to do from the start?
Completely. We knew we wanted to do a book, then a game, comics, a TV series, a film... It's a global project.
How did you come up with the idea?
I've been working for nearly twenty years. I first worked in film production for eight years, and I've been working in video games for eleven years now. I've set up a number of studios (Free Agent in particular) which are present in Japan, Thailand, Brazil and England. We've released around sixty games for the Nintendo Switch and Playstation 4 (Sony).
How does Cross The Ages work?
It's a free strategy game that works with cards. The aim, rather like chess or Go, is to beat your opponent in less than 10 minutes. It is available on Android and will be available in a few hours on the App Store. We've already reached 60,000 downloads in just a few days.
How do you earn money?
We provide free cards to play the game. But those who want to go further can buy packs of NFTs cards, which allow you to progress in the Cross The Ages universe.
The sale of these packs of cards has already raised more than €6 million, and all the players who have bought them have seen the value of their cards increase. For some packs with the rarest cards, prices have increased 400-fold. Today, we generate around 500,000 euros in monthly revenue from cards.
How do you explain such price inflation on certain cards?
There are a limited number of packs of cards (18.150) and there's also a 'burn' system for certain cards, which maintains this scarcity.
How do you get players to switch to the paying world?
Everyone can turn their cards into NFTs by paying 1 dollar. What's interesting is that there's a limited number of cards per rarity, which gives you access to special worlds and powers. There are only 20,000 mythic cards, which is the rarest level.
At the moment, we've sold 7 million cards and already 14,000 mythic cards have been minted. Some mythic cards have sold for $70,000 on the secondary market.
Inversely, you can turn your NFTs cards into physical NFC cards. We signed a deal with Cartamundi, which publishes Pokemon or Yu-Gi-Oh cards, among other things. We're only the 7th game they've worked with.
Why did they agree to work with you?
Because for them it's a technological innovation. We're the first game to offer this possibility. You will burn your NFT and recover a unique physical card linked to the blockchain. The aim is to mix all the universes: Web1, Web2 and Web3, hence the name "Cross The Ages".
How are you funded?
To get started, I sold two companies and raised €2 million. Very quickly, we managed to raise funds via the sale of tokens from the game (the CTA token is not yet publicly available and has been sold to private investors, as well as influencers and partners, editor's note)
68 investors took part in the token fundraising. Everyone came in, Animoca Brands, Axie Infinitity... We raised €12 million via tokens.
Have you been approached by big players to buy you out?
Yes of course. When you have this much traction, you inevitably attract a lot of attention. We're currently preparing to raise Series A funding from several major investors. We're more determined than ever to expand.
