Welcome summoners!

You have found the portal to the background of some of the more prominent members of this community. At long last I was able to score an interview with the ever elusive @Yabapmatt. This extremely busy and hard working member of the Splinterlands team is part of the original duo of founders with @Aggroed and CTO of the Splinterlands organisation.

This will be the final piece released in the Who's Who In the Zoo series. I just wanna thank all those involved, it has been a great experience! So, without further ado, I present a behind the scenes look with @yabapmatt.

Hope you enjoy 😎

Platypus: Welcome Matt! Thanks for your time, I know you are extremely busy. Tell us about yourself, what’s your technological background?

Yabapmatt: I started learning computer programming when I was around 10 years old because I wanted to make my own games and I’ve pretty much been a game developer ever since!

Platypus: How long have you been involved with the HIVE network, were you involved with Steem?

Yabapmatt: I joined Steem in August of 2017, so it has been a bit over 4 years now that I have been involved with this community.

Platypus: What got you involved in creating tools / Dapps on the HIVE network?

Yabapmatt: Back in 2017 I saw similarities in blockchain to when the internet or mobile devices were first becoming popular where there were a lot of tools and services that didn’t exist yet and there was tremendous opportunity in being one of the first to create them.

Platypus: What is your goal with the Splinterlands game?

Yabapmatt: The goal is to make one of the first games that is fully owned and governed by the players.

Platypus: What is your favourite feature of Splinterlands?

Yabapmatt: I would say the card rental market is my favorite feature currently because it really highlights the benefits of digital asset ownership.

Platypus: Are there any tools / features you have in the works that you can share?

Yabapmatt: We have tons of stuff in the works - most of which we have already shared publicly on our weekly town hall calls. I’m most excited for the upcoming SPS governance voting system and land expansion.

Platypus: What are some of the challenges you have faced so far, what are some of the challenges you face in the future?

Yabapmatt: We’ve always faced challenges dealing with scammers and fraud which is just an unfortunate reality in this space, and only gets worse as the product grows. Another area that is challenging is how to prioritize the huge amount of things we want to do and properly allocate/utilize our resources to achieve our goals.

Platypus: What is your favourite splinter and card?

Yabapmatt: I have always liked the Death splinter and my favorite card is definitely Lobstradamus.

Platypus: Any other NFT games you like or have been involved in?

Yabapmatt: I like to try out and support as many other blockchain-based games as I can because even though they are technically our competitors, we’re really all working towards the same goals and the space is so small still that the success of any project benefits all of us.

Platypus: How did you and Aggroed meet, what’s the relationship?

Yabapmatt: We both knew of each other through our involvement in the Steem community and talked online from time to time, and we first met in person in late 2017 when Aggroed happened to be travelling near where I live. We seem to work very well together - he’s typically overly bullish and I’m more conservative so together we end up somewhere in the middle.

Platypus: Any advice for others looking to make tools / dapps on HIVE?

Yabapmatt: My advice would be to be realistic and patient. I find a lot of people greatly underestimate how difficult it is to build a successful product. There are tons of different ideas for things to build and I try to “pass” on the vast majority of them and wait until I find one that is a “slam dunk”, so to speak, to spend my time and energy on.

Platypus: Do you, as in the Splinterlands team, have much bearing on the HIVE network, are you guys active in the decision making?

Yabapmatt: Both Aggroed and I are witnesses and we have a significant stake in the platform and long-standing reputations in the community, so I would say that we likely have some bearing on what happens on the platform, but for the most part Hive works extremely well and does most everything we need to build our apps so we don’t often get involved in decision making.

Platypus: If you could choose one person that has inspired you the most to achieve your goals, who would it be?

Yabapmatt: That would be my old boss who was the founder of the first gaming start-up I worked for.

Platypus: What’s your favourite flavour, scent and colour?

Yabapmatt: I have no idea, lol…no hard questions!

Platypus: Are you a cat or a dog person?

Yabapmatt: I’m not particularly a fan of pets, although I have one of each.

Platypus: Do you have a hobby outside of gaming?

Yabapmatt: Over the past few years it’s been going out to meetups and helping teach people about Bitcoin and blockchain and getting them involved in the space.

Platypus: What’s the best / your favourite story you have heard come out of splinterlands community?

Yabapmatt: I don’t have a specific one, but my favorite stories are the ones in which people were able to achieve a level of financial independence through the game.

Well that's it! Thanks to everyone out there that has read my 7 part series of Who's who in the zoo! I'd planned for a longer series but unfortunately this is where it will end. Big thanks again to everyone who participated and sharing a little bit about themselves and their roles in the community.

• @Platypus-Dundee