Exclusive Interview with DeepLink Protocol CEO: Can Decentralized Cloud Gaming Allow Everyone to Experience the Ultimate "Black Myth: Wukong"?

PANews
2024-08-27 16:22:48
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What is the background of the DeepLink team? How does their decentralized architecture bring new breakthroughs to cloud gaming? Can players and resource contributors benefit from it? With these questions in mind, PANews recently interviewed DeepLink's CEO Yong He to gain more insights into the project and the cloud gaming industry.

Author: Zen, PANews

On August 20, the first domestically produced AAA game "Black Myth: Wukong" was released, quickly taking the headlines on major social media platforms. This wildly popular game, both domestically and internationally, has won the hearts of many players with its stunning visuals. Whether it's the magnificent ancient architecture, the pleasing natural scenery, or the diverse and rich monster bosses, players are treated to a visual feast as they return to the journey of seeking scriptures.

The excellent game graphics are primarily attributed to its use of Unreal Engine 5, which supports NVIDIA's latest panoramic ray tracing and DLSS 3.5 technology. Both static lighting and dynamic effects can achieve cinematic quality. However, beautiful game graphics require sufficient hardware support. According to the configuration requirements and actual test results released for "Black Myth: Wukong," players who wish to balance game quality and smoothness need to use at least a GeForce RTX 40 series GPU.

As a result, while "Black Myth: Wukong" is selling well, it has also driven a significant increase in the search and transaction volume of graphics cards and other related products. The search volume for items like "NVIDIA Black Wukong co-branded graphics card" on Taobao surged by 1379%. In addition to spending a lot of money to upgrade hardware, cloud gaming platforms offer a more cost-effective option for players who want to experience blockbuster games without breaking the bank. For instance, Tencent's START cloud gaming immediately supported "Black Myth: Wukong" upon its launch. The official claim is that players can maintain 64 frames per second even with ray tracing enabled when setting the game to 4K resolution and ultra-high quality. However, due to server support limitations and geographical distance, players in some domestic regions and overseas find it difficult to enjoy high-quality gaming.

Such geographical limitations, along with high costs, scarce game resources, and latency issues, are not uncommon on current cloud gaming platforms, which is also why cloud gaming has not yet been widely accepted by mainstream gamers. With the continuous development of DePIN, the decentralized cloud gaming protocol DeepLink provides a new paradigm for the cloud gaming industry and has begun its "verification journey." Since the launch of its first product in October 2022, DeepLink has spread to over 110 countries, including China, Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, India, and North America, attracting more than 1.4 million users.

In the blockchain industry, the concept of cloud gaming is not often mentioned, primarily because this technology has a high barrier to entry, and its integration with blockchain technology poses significant challenges. So, who is the DeepLink team? How does their decentralized architecture bring new breakthroughs to cloud gaming? Can players and resource contributors benefit from it? With these questions in mind, PANews recently interviewed DeepLink's CEO Yong He to gain more insights into the project and the cloud gaming industry.

Interview with DeepLink Protocol CEO: Can decentralized cloud gaming allow everyone to enjoy the ultimate "Black Myth: Wukong"?

Veterans of the Cloud Gaming Industry Join Forces

Yong He entered the cryptocurrency industry in 2016 and launched the blockchain-driven artificial intelligence computing platform DeepBrain Chain (referred to as DBC) in 2017, which went live on the mainnet after four years of development in 2021. While searching for applications for DeepBrain Chain, he recognized the potential of the decentralized cloud gaming platform DeepLink and established a partnership, personally investing $1 million in the project due to his recognition of its value.

In 2022, after the cryptocurrency market entered a bear phase, Yong He was invited to become the CEO of DeepLink, taking charge of project financing and product development. Earlier this year, DeepLink announced that it had raised $8 million in angel and Series A funding, along with over $5 million from its token public sale, bringing the project's total funding to over $13 million.

"I want to make DeepLink a benchmark project on the DBC AI public chain," Yong He stated. Just as some applications on Ethereum experience explosive growth, their ecosystem can attract various developers. Clearly, the success of DeepLink, which focuses on DePIN + AI technology, will be crucial for the future development of DBC.

The main reason for Yong He's heavy investment in DeepLink is that the core team of the project has over a decade of rich experience in cloud gaming technology. The project’s founder and CTO previously served as the head of the research institute at Shunwang, a cloud gaming solution provider, specializing in technology development, while other members are core technical personnel from companies like Cisco, Intel, NVIDIA, and Huawei.

Achieving B+C Synergy with DePIN + AI

In the cloud gaming field, related companies can typically be divided into two categories: cloud gaming platforms and cloud gaming technology providers. The former directly provides cloud gaming services to players, with mainstream platforms including Tencent Start Cloud, Migu Quick Play, and NVIDIA GeForce Now; the latter focuses on providing underlying technical support for cloud gaming platforms or other third parties, such as WeLink Era, which saw its valuation increase 20 times within a year after creating a cloud gaming version of "Genshin Impact." DeepLink, however, encompasses both, with its two products, DeepLink Software and DeepLink Protocol, addressing different needs.

"DeepLink Protocol is a foundational protocol, while DeepLink Software is a cloud gaming platform developed based on that protocol." Yong He further explained that as an open-source decentralized AI cloud gaming protocol, DeepLink Protocol allows for distributed sharing of GPU computing power, providing decentralized ultra-low latency AI cloud gaming rendering technology, which can be widely applied in cloud internet cafes, cloud esports, and gaming companies.

Interview with DeepLink Protocol CEO: Can decentralized cloud gaming allow everyone to enjoy the ultimate "Black Myth: Wukong"?

He mentioned that a certain internet cafe in South Korea reduced its initial investment from 1.8 million RMB to below 1 million RMB after using the DeepLink protocol, saving a significant amount on machine and equipment costs. Additionally, according to reports, a large esports hotel group in Nanjing has reached a deep cooperation agreement with DeepLink Protocol and DBC this month, aiming to significantly reduce initial investment and operational costs by connecting to DBC's GPU computing power.

Essentially, DeepLink Protocol is an application of DePIN, with its GPU network connecting a large number of GPU miners on the machine supply side, who place GPU machines in IDC centers to provide computing power resources and receive rewards in the form of DLC tokens. Each GPU machine provider is required to stake a certain amount of DLC tokens in advance. If the GPU network becomes unstable, the corresponding tokens will be deducted as a penalty, almost equivalent to a month's income for the miner. This strict penalty mechanism encourages them to maintain the reliability of the servers, further ensuring the stability of their cloud physical facilities.

In terms of AI technology application, DeepLink Protocol primarily uses AI algorithms to enhance the resolution and quality of game graphics, similar to NVIDIA's DLSS technology, further reducing the demand for GPU performance. This allows players to maintain high-quality graphics while alleviating the pressure on GPUs, thus improving game frame rates.

How Does the Decentralized Mechanism Benefit Players?

With the development of communication technology, hardware facilities, and cloud gaming technology, many cloud gaming platforms mentioned above have basically established a foothold, and their product logic of "lowering hardware barriers and breaking scene constraints" has gained recognition from many players.

However, on one hand, there is still a greater demand from players who want to "play high-quality games on low-spec hardware" that needs to be further explored. On the other hand, competition among platforms for the existing market is fierce. It is not easy to carve out a niche in such an environment. In this regard, Yong He analyzed the differences between DeepLink as a decentralized cloud gaming solution and these vendors or platforms in the market.

Since DeepLink does not require the high costs associated with centralized cloud gaming platforms, which need to invest heavily in purchasing a large number of machines and hardware, its operating costs are significantly lower. Therefore, DeepLink can pass on the savings to the player community, meaning players will pay lower costs when experiencing cloud gaming services. According to Yong He, the pricing on the DeepLink platform is particularly low, generally within 30% of the current mainstream prices (approximately $0.1 to $0.2 per hour).

Interview with DeepLink Protocol CEO: Can decentralized cloud gaming allow everyone to enjoy the ultimate "Black Myth: Wukong"?

Moreover, if centralized cloud gaming platforms want to cover more areas, they must build a large number of data centers within their operational scope. However, due to the user base not being large enough, achieving even a break-even point after significant investment is challenging. This is why most gaming platforms can only cover a few countries and regions, and it is also the reason why platforms like Caijigame, Youzu Network, and Glai Cloud Gaming have gradually shut down in recent years. In contrast, DeepLink's distributed blockchain technology allows data centers and GPU server nodes to be spread across various locations, even enabling players with high-end hardware configurations to share their devices with other users. Yong He revealed that among the current 1.4 million users, over 300,000 players have high-end setups and participate in sharing.

Finally, strictly speaking, DeepLink integrates services from both cloud gaming and cloud computing platforms, supporting various devices such as mobile phones, PCs, and Vision Pro. Players are not limited by the resources of the gaming platform and can enjoy a variety of games, including AAA blockchain games. This Web3-friendly service is also a significant feature of DeepLink.

DLC Tokens: User Consumption and Miner Incentives

"The use of tokens is crucial; I believe this is a core factor in whether a project can develop sustainably," Yong He stated. The DLC tokens of DeepLink adopt a deflationary model and can support the formation of a circular economy system. When users pay for cloud gaming services using DLC, DeepLink Protocol will charge a commission of 20-30% on each cloud gaming transaction, settled in DLC, and these portions of tokens will be 100% directly burned. As the number of users increases and consumption time grows, the amount of DLC burned will also multiply. This way, the circulation of DLC in the market can gradually decrease, and the value of the tokens will increase.

On the GPU provider side, as supporters who generate and provide DLC, they can earn token rewards, which are also the core source of income for miners. The total supply of DLC tokens is 2 billion. The higher the value of DLC, the greater the earnings for GPU providers, creating a positive cycle that will attract more miners to join. Additionally, as mentioned earlier, miners must stake a certain amount of DLC when placing GPU servers in IDC centers to ensure long-term stable service. Thus, users and miners are interconnected through tokens, forming a closed-loop economic system.

Interview with DeepLink Protocol CEO: Can decentralized cloud gaming allow everyone to enjoy the ultimate "Black Myth: Wukong"?

Furthermore, DeepLink mining is divided into CPU traffic mining and personal GPU machine mining, with only node owners allowed to participate. The total reward is 12% of the total DLC token supply (1.2 billion tokens), with CPU traffic nodes accounting for 4% and personal GPU nodes for 8%. The total number of nodes is limited to 120,000, with no further issuance. The purchase cost of these nodes essentially acts as a form of staking to ensure system stability. Regarding the sale of nodes, DeepLink has divided them into 10 tiers, with the lowest tier priced at $30 per node, each of which will additionally receive an airdrop of 30,000 DLC.

"Based on the current market price of DLC, 30,000 tokens are worth about $90. Therefore, the selling price of nodes is actually lower than the market price for purchasing tokens." He stated that this is because DeepLink aims to attract more miners to join and improve its ecosystem. "So this is essentially a benefit for node providers."

Decentralization: A New Path for Cloud Gaming

In 2020, cloud gaming became one of the hottest tech concepts as network transmission and other infrastructure matured. Renowned consulting firm NewZoo found through user profiling that players could be segmented into eight categories, each corresponding to the characteristics of cloud gaming, such as cloud players enjoying the shareability of cloud gaming, price-sensitive players appreciating the low barriers to entry, and even hardcore players being interested in the cross-platform experience and convenience of cloud gaming. However, carving out a blue ocean is not easy; currently, cloud gaming users generally have low consumption levels, and most players are not highly interested in cloud gaming, often criticized for being more hype than substance.

Yong He believes that the cloud gaming industry needs to focus on two key factors: one is that costs must be low; if costs are too high, it cannot penetrate the player group that actually has the demand for "operating high-quality games on low-end devices." Only when the consumption cost is sufficiently low can the platform attract gamers. The other factor is that the coverage of IDC is limited; players far from it will have a very poor gaming experience. Google, once a leader in cloud gaming platforms, had to shut down its cloud gaming platform Stadia and shift to focusing on cloud gaming technology solutions due to its overly centralized data center distribution and the high costs of enterprise-grade GPUs. Other large cloud gaming platforms have faced similar challenges to varying degrees.

Interview with DeepLink Protocol CEO: Can decentralized cloud gaming allow everyone to enjoy the ultimate "Black Myth: Wukong"?

In contrast, small and medium-sized cloud gaming companies have achieved good development in recent years, but they cannot pre-invest heavily in GPUs due to the need to balance income and expenditure. The high costs of enterprise-grade GPUs and limited IDC coverage have ultimately led these platforms to exhibit obvious regional characteristics, each occupying a small territory. Yong He stated that this is the inevitable result of centralized cloud gaming platforms; after a certain point in time, their growth will hit a bottleneck.

Therefore, after over a decade of experience in cloud gaming technology development, the DeepLink team chose to apply blockchain technology and its decentralized model to reduce costs and improve efficiency while expanding coverage. Players are no longer limited by physical distance and centralized server bottlenecks, allowing them to enjoy a smoother gaming experience. Moreover, this decentralized architecture also provides more GPU providers with opportunities to participate, forming a new economic model. This not only improves the resource utilization efficiency of the system but also promotes the popularization of cloud gaming, enabling more users with low-spec devices to enjoy high-quality gaming experiences.

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