In July, Bored Ape Yacht Club creator Yuga Labs partnered with Improbable — a British company building a network of virtual worlds — to bring to life Yuga’s metaverse project known as ‘Otherside.’
In this episode of The Scoop, Improbable’s Founders CEO Herman Narula and Chief Product Officer Rob Whitehead explain how they believe the metaverse creates value, and why developing entirely new experiences is crucial for success.
According to Narula, nothing 'metaverse' related will be able to retain value without authentic engagement:
“I think what we're always forgetting is it doesn't matter if we're talking about the price of land, the price of an avatar skin, the price of any digital asset; if there's no underlying usage, if there's no underlying people actually doing something because it's fun and fulfilling, none of that can hold value.”
Instead of simply trying to recreate the physical world in digital form, Narula thinks metaverse experiences need to be entirely new:
“Just porting over a PC or console game has almost never worked on mobile. I think metaverse expenses are like that: you've got to develop new stuff.”
For example, “an ad as a billboard is trying to take the real world constraints and apply it to a virtual space,” Whitehead explains, “An ad could be teleporting you to a completely different experience.…”

Episode 96 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block's Frank Chaparro and Improbable's Founders CEO Herman Narula & Chief Product Officer Rob Whitehead.
Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com.
This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Tron
About Tron
TRON is dedicated to accelerating the decentralization of the internet via blockchain technology and decentralized applications (dApps). Founded in September 2017 by H.E. Justin Sun, the TRON network has continued to deliver impressive achievements since MainNet launch in May 2018. July 2018 also marked the ecosystem integration of BitTorrent, a pioneer in decentralized web3 services boasting over 100 million monthly active users. The TRON network completed full decentralization in December 2021 and is now a community-governed DAO. | TRONDAO | Twitter | Discord |