what is up everybody and
welcome to a very special
edition of The United
States Department of Nerds
and today I have Dan
Crothers with me from VeVe
collectibles and we're
going to be talking
everything you need to know
about their new Star Wars
NFTs but first we have to
hit that beautiful theme music
You are listening to the USDN on the DFPN.
Thanks for watching!
All right.
What is up, everybody?
Let's give a big United
States Department of Nerds
welcome to Dan from VeVe Collectibles.
Like I said, Dan, how are you doing today?
Very good.
Thanks, Jeff.
Thanks so much for having me on.
Now,
tell everybody where you're at right now.
I'm actually it's actually a
Friday in New Zealand.
So I know it's Thursday for you.
So I can tell you that, you know,
the world doesn't end in the future.
I love it.
Good news travels.
Yes.
So you are the furthest
interview I've ever done now.
So congratulations to that.
Thank you.
I don't think there's
anybody further other than Antarctica.
Hey, maybe someday.
Maybe.
I can hope.
If anybody's in Antarctica
and watching this, hit me up.
Let's talk.
But let's dive into it.
So this year...
you released your Star Wars
NFTs on VeVe collectibles.
Now,
is this the first time you have done
Star Wars collectibles or
have you done them before in the past?
Because I think you've been
around since 2018.
Yeah, that's correct.
We've actually been very
fortunate enough to be
working with Lucasfilm and
the team over at Star Wars
for many years.
So I think this is our third
Star Wars May the 4th month.
Okay.
Yeah,
so we've offered a lot of really cool
collectibles to Star Wars
fans over the years.
So I wasn't very familiar
with NFTs until I was hit
up by your guys.
So I definitely dove into it
just to learn what I could about it.
And then I was like, you know what?
I can't really do this
properly without myself
going and downloading the
app and having a look at it myself.
And it's really dope.
It is one of the coolest things ever.
The blown apart Star Wars helmet.
Yes.
So cool.
Yeah.
So cool.
Yeah, I love that one too.
Yeah,
we put a lot of time and effort into
that.
Our creative director really went in.
I mean,
even I think you can lay that
helmet over the blueprints
and it's an identical replica.
Yeah, so...
I love the fact that it
looks like it's full.
It's a full helmet and then
you touch it and then it
floats itself apart and you
can see all the different
working pieces of the helmet.
It's really cool because you
never really see that
unless you buy the actual helmet.
Even that's just a toy helmet.
It doesn't have all the
mechanisms in it like you
see in the blowout on your collectible.
Yeah,
that's one of the reasons we were
very excited to do it
because I think as far as I'm aware,
I mean, certainly digitally,
this is one of the first
helmets where the interior
has been done to such detail.
It's always been a mystery
what is inside these helmets.
Yeah, it was a really,
really cool opportunity for us to
I mean, even creating the helmets,
like in my virtual showrooms,
I've got all the helmets set up,
but it's great to be able
to see inside one and just
have that detail.
Yeah, I'm not going to BS anybody.
It is extremely detailed,
like the foam pads, the microphone,
the way the eyes look.
And it explains why the
stormtroopers are never
able to hit anything if
that's how the eyes really look.
That's a very good point.
So what was it like for
y'all's team working with
Lucasfilm and Disney to
bring these things to life?
How was that process?
I always give kudos to Disney and Lucas.
These Star Wars collectibles
that we generate,
they might take nine to
twelve months to create.
We go through a lot of
process with them to make
sure everything is accurate.
And from their side,
they are really the brand warriors.
They make sure that
Everything is looking perfect.
It's authentic in the way
that fans would want it to be.
So, yeah,
and then over that nine-month period,
you know,
that's when we're creating the 3-D,
start creating the 3-D
objects themselves.
And then that goes through
multiple different rounds of approvals.
I mean, you know, luckily,
we've been working with
Disney for a very long time
now and Lucasfilm,
so the approvals go through pretty quick.
You know, internally, we are all...
Definitely Star Wars nerds.
So we've got a pretty good
basis to come from.
That's awesome, man.
Y'all have that type of
working relationship with
Disney and Lucas because
there's not a lot of
companies that get that
inside with them to create collectibles.
I mean, there's Hasbro.
And, um, I can't remember who does the, uh,
the black series figures,
if that's Hasbro or not.
So there's very companies
out there that do get any
type of license from them
to do anything like this.
So it's really cool that
y'all kind of have that inside.
Like, Hey guys,
we're thinking about this and they're,
they, you know, they're like, yes,
send us to render.
And we, and they do their thing.
Exactly.
Yeah.
And the great thing about
digital as well is that we
can do so much more.
We can put all of those fine
little intricate details in there.
Whereas if you were to
produce that as a product,
there's a lot more
limitations on cost and all
of that kind of thing.
So it really allows us to
kind of take it to the next level.
And the fact that it's
You can view it in augmented reality.
It allows a different type
of collecting experience.
That's one of the really
cool parts I thought too is
being able to switch it
over to the augmented
reality and it's just
sitting there in your room
with you and you can see it.
To me, that's really cool.
I never thought of NFTs as
something that you could
do that with and that's
something that was new to
me when I was going through
all this and preparing for
this and to talk to you is
I wanted to really like get
immerse it in you know
spend a little money see
what it was all about and I
think it's really dope I
didn't honestly think I
would like oh this is kind
of cool but no it's it's
really freaking cool to be
able to see these things
with your eyes floating in your room
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, it's, you know, when David,
my co-founder and I started the business,
because we're both big collectors,
as you can see from behind,
my business partner,
he's a level nine thousand
collector for those out
there who get the Dragon Ball reference.
And what we really wanted to
do was bring physical
collecting into the digital space.
And we started this before
the word NFT even existed.
And from our perspective,
we are a collectibles business,
but we're just in the digital medium.
And to your point,
when a lot of people hear NFTs,
they think just like a
little JPEG image or something like that.
Because we wanted to
replicate as close as we
can that collecting
experience that fans know
and love in the physical world,
making all the models and
beautiful detailed 3-D
having the augmented reality.
So you could actually have
it in there in your home
and your space and then the
virtual showrooms as well.
I'm loading it up on my
phone so I can kind of show the
Show it, you know,
and to see how it really looks.
If that's okay with you.
Am I allowed to do that?
I'm not sure.
Yeah, absolutely.
Let's see if they can see that.
But that is what it looks like.
And then you just touch it.
And it opens up.
And you get that full 3-D
rendering of the inside of the helmet.
And that is cool.
And you can also do the AR version,
which you won't be able to see the AR.
So I'm not going to do that.
But it's really cool.
And I was one of those guys who was like,
I don't know about this,
but I'm sold on it.
I think it's one of the coolest things.
And y'all don't just do helmets.
You have a whole lineup of
Star Wars currently going on.
and not just collectibles
you also are doing comic
books as well that's
correct yes which as that's
cool in of itself yeah yeah
I mean like like I say you
know we're massive nerds
getting you know getting to
do collectibles and comics
from uh you know all of the
these famous IPs that
people love uh yeah this
has been really really
exciting yeah so y'all have
just real quick marvel
I know you have stuff with Lamborghini.
I've seen James Bond.
I have a whole list that I made.
DC, Disney, Coca-Cola.
And I'm only scratching the
surface of what it is that
y'all actually have in y'alls store.
But that's some of the
bigger ones that I laid eyes on.
And for me,
Star Wars is life when it comes
to collecting.
That's what I collect personally.
I was collecting other things,
but as I got older, I'm like,
I'm a Star Wars guy.
You got to refine your
collecting experience.
You really do.
You start narrowing it down.
Now, Comic Books is another story.
I'm kind of very eclectic
when it comes to that, but...
But Star Wars primarily has
been my big focus.
You see the Pokeball,
that's from my daughter.
She's a big Pokemon person.
Have y'all tried to reach
out to other franchises
like that to try to get
them to buy in with y'all or?
Yeah, I mean, you know,
so since since the two
thousand seventeen when
David and I first started
and I think we've got over two hundred,
two hundred IPs on the
platform at the moment,
like the ones you mentioned,
plus a whole lot more.
And, you know,
we have been in
conversations with with many other
uh many other IPs and and
license holders um you know
because it's still quite a
new space this sort of
digital thing and then um
you know the NFT went
through the you know the
classic technology hype
cycle where everybody was
into it and then nobody was
into it but in the end it's
just it's another type of
technology another way that
people can collect
And so we're always signing
up new licenses every year
to bring onto the platform.
Because ultimately,
we want it to be the place
where people can collect
whatever you like.
And the reality is, if you like Star Wars,
you may like Star Trek,
you may like Marvel.
There's a lot of different
sort of crossover brands
that people collect.
So when y'all brought over,
what was the initial goals
when you brought Star Wars into VeVe?
Like, how did the initial... Like...
your followers and your
platform users take to that?
How did they gravitate
toward it when they were like, oh,
were they like,
I imagine it would have
been a massive excitement
when y'all first announced
Star Wars was coming to VeVe.
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean,
we were very lucky enough to start
our journey on the Disney
side with Marvel.
And then that went really, really well.
And then from there, you know,
we were able to start
introducing some of the
other Disney IPs like Star Wars.
And of course,
if you have a collecting platform,
you know, you have to have Star Wars.
Absolutely.
Yes.
So it's been really, I mean, yeah,
we've done everything from Jabba
um Luke, Darth Vader all the
Stormtroopers lots of
vehicles the X-wing, R2D2
yeah there's lots of um uh
lots of Star Wars
collectibles on the
platform already and the
cool thing is that in the
so you know you were
talking about the AR before
but in the virtual
showrooms you can actually
place all of these 3-D
collectibles you can set up
your own dioramas
I mean, me as a collector,
I find it really, really fun.
And I hope that other
collectors will find that
same sort of view as
digital collecting becomes
more popular in the globe.
Okay.
You kind of answered the
next question I had for you.
It's kind of like,
how do y'all decide which
one of these Star Wars
characters y'all want to bring in next?
Because I mean, for me, I love the droids.
Droids have always been...
like top tier for me,
like K2SO and Andor and, you know,
how do y'all decide?
Cause this, I mean,
there's literally hundreds
of characters for y'all to kind of like,
okay,
How do we scale this to bring,
what are we going to bring in next?
So, yeah, I mean,
it can be at times quite
collaborative with Lucasfilm.
You know,
they will suggest some
collectibles that they may
want to bring in because, you know,
it might align with like
maybe a movie coming out or
like release of Andor or
something like that.
But outside of that, really for us,
it's about just making sure
that we are selecting the
characters that are the
most popular in the Star Wars fandom.
We actually have to be quite
careful because there's stuff that I love,
there's stuff that the
creative director loves.
We've got to remember it's not just for us,
we've got to make sure it's
for everybody.
That would probably be my
problem is I'd be like, oh,
I love this character so much.
I'm that one guy that really
likes that one droid out of everybody.
So I'm like,
I don't know how well this is
going to do because that
was kind of a – it was my novelty thing.
Yeah.
And then basically,
we just sort of started off
with all of the main characters.
And then as we go further
into the franchise,
we start to get to do
things like all these
different stormtroopers and
all these different
elements and cool things
like you know the interior
of of the helmet um so yeah
it's a really fun process
we basically put together a
slate for a year we submit
that through and then we
have you know a bit of a
dialogue back and forth um
and then we basically just
yeah get straight into
production after that so
could we possibly see the
uh clone wars trooper
helmets in the future
that's a huge one for me I
love the different you know
stormtrooper or the clone
wars helmets yeah yeah they
are that that's the um
that's the thing with the
Star Wars franchise like
there is so much stuff out
there um but yeah I'm a
massive fan of clone wars
as well so I would I would
absolutely love that to
come to the platform okay
no that was that was my
novelty question I had I
was like yeah maybe I can
get some clone wars some
three thirty second or
some wolf pack you know
well you and me we've got
well I'll go and put the
case forward hey yeah I
would appreciate it I'd be
all over that one so how do
y'all decide or I don't
know if it's y'all who
decides or if it's kind of
like a um like a team thing
where y'all decide this but
how do y'all decide the
rarity tiers of different um
NFTs,
like I'm only going to produce so
many of these or these or these,
or since it's a really
popular platform like Star Wars,
are you going to produce
more of these or.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, in the beginning,
when it was really just me
and David and a few other
people running the business,
we would actually go
through it ourselves and we would say,
well, this one,
this is the most popular character.
So, for example,
if we were going to do a blind box drop,
we'd be like,
this one is the most popular character.
That's what everybody probably wants.
So we would make that a
common and that would have
higher editions.
And then as we go further
down the rarities,
because there's five
different rarities from
common through to secret rare,
we just start to decide, well,
this particular character,
may not be that well known
or maybe not necessarily as
popular as the other ones.
So we would generally make
that a secret rare.
But nowadays we actually have, you know,
we have a lot of data.
We have data from like six or seven years.
And so we actually run it
through like a process or
an algorithm now that will
spit out what it thinks
based on historical facts
and kind of go from there.
No, that makes sense.
I mean, because I mean,
there's plenty of stuff out
there where you can even
like the Hasbro sells.
Y'all could probably look at to determine,
you know,
how each character did and base
stuff off of that as well.
Exactly.
I don't know if that's how y'all do it,
but I mean, that makes a lot of sense.
No.
Sometimes there are some
arguments internally.
I think there should be a secret rare.
There should be a rare.
That's when your personal
preference does come in.
You're like, you know, yes,
but I imagine those
decisions are some of the
hardest that get made when
it comes to selecting what is what.
Yeah.
So how have y'all been like,
you balance the different
trilogies within this?
I know that's, you know,
people have their taste on
which trilogy is their favorite,
but how do y'all kind of like,
you know,
balance that amongst the fan base.
yeah yeah I mean you know
for us like when we roll
out a new franchise like
this I I generally like to
start from from the
beginning um you know and
that's why it was like four
five six that that's that's
basically where you know
where we started off with
all of the key characters
um and then now we're
starting to as as we as we
have already dropped those
those characters we're now
starting to get into the
other uh the other movies
like um you know this month
we dropped the pod races
I've seen that yeah that was
really cool yeah yeah yeah
and it's just just because
you know podracers as
collectibles they look cool
as you know like they we
we've all got our thoughts
on the movie and some
people love it some people
hate it but I'm a fan of it
so I'm with you man I'm a
fan of it as well it gave
us darth maul I mean come on
Yeah, exactly.
And it's just cool being
able to do the pod races.
They look so amazing in AR,
especially when you blow
them up to like one to one
size and you can drop it in
your driveway or put it on the street.
As a collectible,
they're really cool looking
and they're very well known
throughout the Star Wars community.
I like it.
so where are y'all at now
kind of like in your cycle
of the franchise like are
y'all like at that one two
and three or your uh we do
we do bounce around a
little bit now we've got I
mean a whole lot of other
new stuff coming up on the
slate for next year and
we've got some stuff that's
a that's a little bit left
field as well which which
I'm really excited to I
always like the left field stuff
Can you talk about it or you
got to talk about it too much,
but it's just, it's a,
it's a different unique take on,
on some of the characters.
So, but they look, they look really,
really cool.
So we'll, yeah,
we'll make sure the team
reaches out to you and lets you know when,
when those are dropping.
Perfect, perfect.
Yeah, just some of the other movies.
I mean,
going through each of the movies
that we haven't tackled yet
or choosing key scenes from those movies,
you know,
where people can build up a diorama.
Because like when I was growing up,
you know, I would play,
me and my brother would
play with He-Man and
And back then, you'd have the play set.
You'd get Castle Grace.
The big castle, yeah.
Yeah, I loved that thing.
And then you could buy all
the accessories and buy all
the characters.
So because we have the
virtual showrooms and the VeVe Verse,
You know,
we're now starting to roll out
these sort of diorama based drops.
You know, I've seen some of those.
I've seen the Mos Isley was
really cool in there.
I've seen the pod racing lots.
I was like, oh, come on.
Like, yeah, that's really cool.
And there was other little towns, too,
I think, in there.
I can't remember all of them.
Yeah,
we've done Luke's home when he was
younger, Sandcrawler,
all of those kind of things.
It's really cool to be able
to get all of these
elements from a playset and
then essentially build them all up,
customize them in the way that you want.
Some of them have animation,
some will trigger certain
things when other things
are in the scene.
It's just like a dynamic digital playset.
No, that's really cool.
And I don't think people
have really looked at it that way.
That you can do, like,
it's more than just like, oh,
I have this thing and a
digital thing on here.
But no, you can actually take yours and
build up a whole diorama and
it will actually interact
with each other that's
something totally new and
totally different that I
don't think people have
really thought about that
it's capable of doing that
so that's something y'all
brought something new to
this game so to speak of
the NFT market yeah because
I'm not sure if anybody
else is doing it outside of y'all
no not not as far as I'm
aware um and that and
that's because it is very
challenging you know even
to create the 3-D
collectibles alone I mean
we you know we go through
really the same process
that if you buy like a a
Boba Fett physical statue
we go through exactly the
same process it's all built
in 3D approved
everything except our ours
goes into a digital
platform instead of being
shipped off to you know be
turned into a physical uh a physical item
And if we're talking big bad toy store,
a Boba Fett figure is gonna
cost you a couple of hundred bucks.
That's right.
Versus how much is it in your world?
It depends on the character,
but generally it's cheaper.
I mean,
characters can range from sort of
twenty to eighty dollars.
And yeah,
it all depends how much animation
they come with,
because sometimes we have
like full animation cycles.
Some of them, you know, like even,
you know, lightsaber comes out, glows,
sound, everything.
That's really cool.
yeah yeah so yeah it's doing
collecting in in the
digital medium is actually
very exciting because you
can add all of that extra
stuff yeah I imagine yeah
that adds a whole new
element to it now when
y'all brought Star Wars on
board three years ago how
How did the audience take it?
Because Star Wars fandom is
another level of fandom.
What kind of reactions did
y'all get from the fandom
when y'all brought Star Wars into it?
yeah um overall very
positive I mean um pretty
much all of the Star Wars
drops were back then were
like immediate sellouts you
know like seconds um and
you know where then the
additions would have been
like you know twenty to
thirty thousand additions
So it was very, very well received.
And one of the reasons that
I'm really happy and
excited to talk to somebody
like yourself is I think
it's really cool.
And I think if you're a Star Wars fan,
you've got the movies,
you've got the duvet,
you've got the underwear, the cut,
the poster, the physical.
And now we can add digital to that.
It's definitely a huge new
element to the game of collecting,
especially for Star Wars fans.
Because like I said,
we're a finicky bunch of fans.
We're prickly.
And if we don't like something,
they're going to freaking tell you.
So the fact that y'all got a
lot of great positive feedback,
it says a lot about the
platform and what y'all are doing.
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, we're fans as well,
so we wouldn't want to produce something,
uh, that, that wouldn't be fan oriented,
but in saying that, you know, like,
like you say,
everybody has their own
different opinions on, on this and that.
So some people like it, some people don't.
So I know y'all are leveraging AR,
but what other.
What else can we expect from
y'all in the future when it
comes to y'all's platform?
Especially the metaverse type of stuff.
I'm sure y'all are working
on the next big thing within your
your VeVe verse, so to speak.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
So like I mentioned earlier,
when we first started,
we wanted to try to
replicate that experience
that we have in the
physical world as collectors.
So we started off with a virtual showroom,
which was just a very, very basic room.
uh you know as collectors
you know you showed me your
your shelves before like
it's fun it's fun to be
able to go and set up all
your collectibles and and
be able to look at them so
we started off with a
virtual showroom which was
very very simple um and
then we evolved that into
what is now our VeVe verse
and the VeVe verse is uh very
similar in the sense that
it's it's your own virtual
space you can choose from
different templates whether
like a nice modern house or a
or whatever,
or you can build your own from scratch.
And it just really allows
you to go in there and
fully customize your own
virtual showroom.
I mean,
I would have these shelves behind
me everywhere in the house if I could,
but I have to respect the
fact that my wife lives there as well,
and she may not want that,
or the other residents.
yeah so it's you know it
gives you the freedom to be
able to just create the all
of the the best showroom
you you ever had or not
even a showroom like a
house um and then in
addition to that the the VeVe
verse is fully
collaborative so I can
invite you in we can invite
all our friends in you can
help me get set up and it's
just it's very there's a
lot of community uh aspect
to it as well so um we will
eventually be bringing out branded
showrooms and and uh virtual
spaces as well so it's
gonna be quite exciting
that's that's really cool
no I I like that and I was
as I was looking through
the app I've seen some of
those features that you
were talking about and I'm
looking forward to actually
getting to sit down and
really look at it because I
was at lunch when I was
doing it earlier and I'm
like all right run home eat
lunch take care of the
animals rush back to work
and I'm like okay I got like
10 minutes let me let me hop
on and have a look around
and you know got my my
stormtrooper helmet that I
have because that to me is
still that's so cool yeah
um I'll be a big be careful
it can be quite addictive
oh no I got I got all these
to deal with so I have to
have to budget wisely yes
yeah well the cool thing is
everybody out there budget wisely
Yeah.
Make good decisions.
Yeah.
And the other cool thing in the app is,
you know,
obviously you've got your store
where you can go and buy everything.
You've got your collection
where you can view them all
in 3D and AR.
And then there's also the
secondary marketplace as well.
We have seen that where
people can like resell or trade.
Oh, it was trading the option.
I couldn't remember.
I know it was like a resale thing.
just resell at this stage.
Trade will be on the roadmap.
But yeah,
it's good because sometimes like
in a blind box,
you might get two of the same thing.
And then when you're trying
to get all of them,
so you might just go and
sell one of them on the secondary market.
So yeah,
it's a nice well-rounded ecosystem.
No, that's really cool.
Do y'all have Star Wars
themed spaces planned for the future?
I know you can go in,
you can build the most isolated,
you can build the pod racing scenes.
Do y'all have something
planned for the future
where your virtual space
could be like Star Wars,
like Vader's meditation
chamber or something like that?
Could you see that possibly
come into the platform?
Yeah,
that's where I'd love to head with it,
with these sort of branded
spaces or themed spaces,
or even if it was like a
Star Wars themed showroom, you know,
where we, you know, just like,
let's say your room behind
you was all very Star Wars-esque.
Like that's where I would like to take it.
You know what would be really dope?
Did you watch Rebels?
Yes.
Thrawn's office?
Uh-huh.
That would be cool.
Yeah, let me know.
How he had his collectibles around.
Yes.
Yeah.
That's a good one, actually.
Yeah.
Let me raise that to the powers that be.
I'm full of ideas.
Come on.
I can toss those out all day.
That to me,
like I loved his office and the
way it looked,
the way he had the
different historical pieces
from the different
civilizations that he had
basically conquered throughout his life.
Yeah.
That's what it was.
They didn't say it that way,
but that's what it was.
Yeah.
So that's a great idea.
All right.
I love this.
This is a fun interview.
Thank you for hitting me up
and asking to come out and
talk about this.
It's not often that I get to
talk about this kind of
stuff during the month of Star Wars.
I'm still working on my big
Star Wars show.
which I'm probably going to
end up doing in June
because we're already at
the end of May because May
went by so fast.
It's gone in a blink.
We're almost into June.
We're almost done with the year.
It's crazy.
Yeah,
the last two years have been that way.
It's just my daughter
graduated high school,
just finished her freshman
year of college, and it's like, wait.
Yeah.
Time out.
But so let's ask this.
Why can they look forward to
next in the Star Wars lineup?
I think we discussed it a
little bit earlier.
I know Mandalorian and Grogu
is getting ready to hit the
big screen within the next year.
Yep.
So I imagine y'all have
something spectacularly
huge planned for that.
Well,
I can't say exactly what we have planned.
But what I will say is that
we have a lot more iconic characters,
some of the iconic vehicles.
And these are like...
you know over the years
we've managed to really
improve our the quality of
our collectibles and um you
know some of the the new
vehicles and environments
and dioramas that are
coming out they are just so
realistically details I
mean you know even similar
to the uh to the
stormtrooper helmet where
you get to see the inside
like some of the the
vehicles and other items we
have coming out
Oh, nice.
You get to see everything.
I mean, like, we even,
we had to dive deep with
Lucasfilm to be like, you know,
what does it actually look
like on the inside of this?
Because you normally
wouldn't see it in the
movie or in a physical movie.
So, yeah, they are going to be very,
very detailed.
Yeah,
I wish I could tell you actually what
we have coming, but, you know,
my hands are tied.
Raise your wrist.
I could maybe tell you offline.
Okay, okay.
Sounds good.
But no,
I'm a big fan of the Razorcrest to me.
That was one of the coolest
ships they ever had.
I have it in Lego.
Still in the box because
once I realized that
they're made of plastic and
my cats like to rub their
faces on the edges of Legos
and shoot themselves with the missiles.
I was like, okay,
maybe it's a bad idea to
actually display the Lego.
So they're all mostly in
boxes now because of them.
Yeah.
Yeah, but I agree.
The Razorcrest is amazing.
Yeah,
that's... And when I heard they were
bringing it back for the movie,
or a Razorcrest, I was like, yes,
you got to do that.
They know what the fans love.
Oh, yeah.
They listen.
They read all the backlash.
Trust me,
there's a guy out there reading
articles for them and
passing them the info.
full rooms of people doing it for them.
So what,
what was the inspiration to bring
the helmets to Star Wars
celebration this year for
y'all versus a different year?
Like what was the like the big like,
let's do the helmets?
Yeah, this year round was just,
we really wanted to focus
on the stormtroopers
because we did do the stormtroopers,
I think it was last year.
They're beautifully detailed,
they're animated, you know,
you can tap them and they
fire the blaster.
And what we did is we released, I think,
like,
twenty or twenty five
thousand of them and then
we sold them we sold them
really cheap like ten
dollars because nobody
wants just one one no you
want you want to build a whole army
Yeah, and so that was cool.
So a lot of our fans started
in the virtual spaces and
in AR started building up
these sort of armies of stormtroopers.
And then we were like, well,
there's a lot of other
stormtroopers out there as well.
So we really wanted to
continue to expand on that
stormtrooper army so you
could have all these different types
uh in your army rather than
just you know your your
classic stormtrooper and
then outside of that um you
know just the helmets just
look so cool and they
really are even for me the
you know having having a
helmet display like on the
shelf like they look just
so cool and and so so we
took the helmets off the
models gave them a little
bit more detail because
they just stand alone um
and then so that way now I
can have all my
stormtroopers lined up if I
want to do like an army
but then in my virtual
showroom I can just have
all my you know I think in
my my one now I've got I've
got them all stacked in
like a vertical um that'd
be really cool yeah so with
that we got helmets
Do you plan to blow that
apart further and do, like,
the different armors, the blasters,
the pauldrons, and stuff like that?
Or are you all going to keep
it simple with, like,
we gave you the helmets?
Because it would be kind of
cool if we walked into your showroom,
you had the whole trooper
armor and blasters just, like,
on display without the
actual clone or the stormtrooper in it,
just the armor itself.
Like, oh, look at my armor.
Yeah, no, that's yeah.
Yeah.
You're, you're, you're very smart.
That's that's, that's a great way to again,
celebrate that there's all
of the different components,
even if it's just,
even if it's just a utility belt or the,
you know, having the blaster just,
you know,
on a nice slab or having the
front armor plate like that.
And then you can just have
it set up all over your wall.
Yeah, absolutely.
That'd be really cool.
Have y'all done the... I
didn't see when I was looking around.
Like I said, I didn't get a lot of time,
but do y'all have the
lightsabers like that yet?
Yep, we have.
We've dropped the majority
of the lightsabers.
Okay.
And then you can
obviously... And what a lot
of people have done in
their virtual showrooms is, yeah,
they just line them all up.
Like you can't see it here,
but my Star Wars wall is above me here,
and I've got all my lightsabers
lined up across it.
So yes,
you can do the same thing in the
VeVe verse or in the virtual
showrooms as well.
And they're all interactive.
So when you tap them, the saber comes out,
beautiful sound, everything.
That's really cool.
I think I know what I have
to go in and ground myself next.
Of course, when I went to Disneyland last,
I had to go to the Star
Wars and I ended up just
bringing back so many
lightsabers from there.
They're so cool.
They really are.
Did you do the builders
saber or did you just get
the regular ones?
Yeah, I did the builder one.
That was just the whole experience.
It's just such a,
it's so they really make it
immersive and really just
you're in there and you're doing it.
So even right down to the Kyber crystal.
Exactly.
Yeah.
That was so cool.
Yeah.
I've been able to choose it.
So
How did y'all decide this
year which helmets you were
going to pick versus, like, you know,
just grabbing random helmets?
Or, like,
what made y'all go with the ones
y'all went with this year?
Because I think you got what?
Imperial, a clone.
I can't remember the other
one y'all had in there.
Is it the carbon one?
Yep, the carbon.
Yeah, and then there's the death troopers.
So a lot of these were,
because we were expanding
our stormtrooper collectible range,
really any helmet that we had
on the Stormtrooper collectibles,
we basically took off and used that.
So the decision started more
from the Stormtroopers,
like which Stormtroopers we
wanted to drop.
And then from there,
we selected the helmets.
then we did another um
another helmet range which
which I thought was really
clever for the team to come
up with because we we
dropped the lightsabers
last year uh or maybe a
couple of years ago um uh
we came up with this really
cool idea because in in the
vv app we have a thing
called crafting which is
that if you have one one
collectible and another
collectible you can use
those to craft either
something brand new oh that's really cool
So so if basically if you
own the let's say the
carbon helmet and you also
own a certain lightsaber,
you can craft a new helmet
that basically has the the
the helmet with the
lightsaber sticking through
it or with a huge lightsaber cut.
Yeah.
So that's really cool that
it's actually no shit.
It's interactive.
Yeah,
it's another it gives it just that
digital gives another layer
to to collecting, you know,
where you can take those
two things and and produce
something else.
Can you pull them back apart
and just have the two or
can like once you combine them,
they're combined?
Well,
there's two different ways you can do it.
So one is that you have the
you have collectible A and collectible B,
and then that will produce something new,
which is collectible C or
or it will basically
what we call burn or destroy
the original collectible
A and B and then have C. In that scenario,
it's generally would be
quite a rare or special
because you're having to
sort of sacrifice through
other collectibles.
Gotcha.
Yeah,
so there's a lot of different ways we
can do with the crafting.
So there's some levels to it
and that's really cool that
you don't get that with a lot of
things and just period you
don't can't it's hard to
take a and b and get c you
know with but within this
you can easily do it yeah
and there's also you know
it's like are you gonna be
able to pull them back
apart or not that's so I
mean there's some risk but
there's also that risk is also really
It's fun though.
You know what I'm saying?
Like, it might be like, you know, the,
if you have to burn the,
or destroy the two other collectibles,
you know, maybe it's,
maybe the one you're
creating is there's only
two hundred editions of it or something,
you know?
So, so you're,
you're prepared to make that, that,
that sacrifice.
Exactly.
That, that's really cool.
That, so, with the,
the technical challenges in
creating these 3-D models, like,
I know you said it takes, what,
nine months to create one?
Yeah, yeah, typically, yeah.
How's that fear into that?
You know, when you go,
people are going to look at
these and they're going to
scrutinize every little
detail if it's not correct.
How does this, like...
Like,
I'm pretty sure you have levels of QA
as it goes, quality assurance.
Yeah, absolutely.
And, you know, to be honest,
like our creative director is, you know,
he is always about the nuances.
You know, like I say, you know,
because he's showing me like, he's like,
Dan,
this Stormtrooper helmet is so accurate.
And then he'll overlay the
helmet over the blueprint.
You know, so he is always, you know,
making sure we're really
pushing for that
authenticity and that quality.
And obviously, we're collectors as well.
What we produce,
we want it to look amazing.
I don't want it to look like
it's from Wish.com or something like that,
because we're fans of the IP.
And because it is that digital nature,
that three-D model,
we can get down into lots
of the little details.
Some of the collectibles that we do,
like a Marvel one, for example,
might have a tiny little detail in it.
That'll be from a very
specific comic and a very specific scene.
So there's a lot of sort of
depth and provenance in the
collectibles that we create.
But that's really cool that
you can bring in those
elements and the fans are
going to know what that is.
Your diehards that are
collecting your collectibles,
they know what that reference is to.
And that's really cool.
That was one of the George
Lucas's biggest thing is
details matter within Star Wars.
Even when you watch like the new Andor,
you see slight details of
things in the background.
not just there but to be
there it's there for a
reason and it's going to
affect something later and
I've always thought that
was really cool yeah that
y'all get down into those
types of details and give
it the same love that
George and Dave and all
those guys at Lucas would
be giving it so absolutely
yeah yeah don't give me any
spoils about andor I'm only
halfway through the second
season I'm with you I'm
with you I've been so it's
cool that I have not been
able to dig into it yet so
this weekend I'm digging
into that I need to still
watch the uh the new
animated series as well and
that's the reason why I
have like half a show
written on my big Star Wars
celebration show I do every
year but I haven't finished
it because I haven't
finished watching it yet um
I'm bad I gotta I gotta
step my game up and sit
down and just dig into it
but there's been a lot of
good wrestling on lately so
that's really been eating a
lot of time too right so
So with the, like,
do all your collectibles
within the VeVe verse,
are they all AR compatible?
Like all of them or?
Yeah, everything.
Yeah.
So that's, that's like the very beginning,
you know,
we made that decision to make
the collectibles 3D because there's,
there's so much stuff we
can do with them.
And, you know, like, I mean,
as a collector myself doing
just a 2D image,
like what a typical NFT would be.
That's why we really refer
to ourselves more as
digital collectibles because they are,
even though NFT is one of
the technologies that we have,
so we can only create a
certain amount of them.
But on top of that is obviously, you know,
all of the Unity 3D side,
the 3D assets,
all the interactivity.
We wanted to make sure that
it was always going to be 3D.
This is something that
you'll be able to see
myself and David talk about
four or five years ago,
that the future is going to
be augmented reality.
We're all going to have
augmented reality devices eventually.
Then in that augmented world,
what are you going to see?
You're going to see virtual
objects and virtual items.
I really believe that in the future,
I'll be walking around my house,
hopefully with glasses in
the beginning and then
maybe an AR contact,
and I'll be able to have
all my digital collectibles
everywhere around.
That'd be really cool.
We're starting to see that
with the Meta glasses and
the ones from Oakley.
We're starting to see those things
now be a presence so do I
don't know how much I'll
deal with uh VR now if
somebody has a VR headset
can they still you know
view the uh their VeVe
collectibles in the VR headset
They can, absolutely.
As you download the VeVe Verse app,
you can plug that in with your,
I believe it's with the Oculus.
Okay.
And the experience is amazing.
I mean, like,
I don't know if you've tried.
That's cool.
Another level.
That's another level.
Yeah.
And the immersion is insane.
You know, when you put those goggles on.
Yeah, it's just it's so cool.
So, you know,
so these virtual worlds are like,
you know, with these digital collectibles,
that's really where we see the future,
the future going.
No, it's definitely really cool.
To be fair, it saves you space.
Well, that's the thing.
And, you know, nowadays, you know,
houses are getting smaller.
We've got more and more
stuff and we just can't, you know,
you can,
you actually can't just keep
producing all of this sort
of physical item.
Whereas, you know, you could,
you could have a five story
virtual showroom in the VeVe
verse one level for Star Wars,
one level for Marvel.
And, you know, you know,
your collectibles can be
one-to-one or they could be.
Eighteen inch or twelve inch.
That's really cool.
It's really, it's really cool.
Yeah.
It's really exciting.
So.
I lost my place on my cheat
sheet over here.
So compared to previous years,
is your Star Wars side of
the house still like,
I know y'all were growing
it and it's suspended each year,
but from a dollars and cents perspective,
are y'all still getting the
same sales as y'all have
like in previous years or
has it slowed down?
Yeah.
I mean, I guess the,
like with any new technology,
like NFTs went through that
hype cycle where,
Everyone, my mom, my dog, my grandma,
everyone knew about NFT.
So everyone was on that kind
of hype cycle.
But now, you know, this industry, you know,
we really are still building up.
But I mean, you know, we still sold.
We've done very well this
month with the Star Wars drops.
I think they're like eighty
percent sold out.
That's the month of May right there.
Exactly.
And that's really good considering that,
you know,
there's a lot of other Star Wars
product out there that, you know,
anybody who releases
collectibles has to kind of
compete with each other.
So, yeah,
given that it's sold really well.
For y'all,
y'all really are only just
competing against yourself
in the digital world when
it comes to Star Wars.
Well, I mean, that's,
I would say that is true.
Yes.
But, um, but you know,
really we're selling to collectors and,
you know,
collectors will love the physical,
they'll love the movie,
the re-release movie.
Now they can get the digital.
So it's still that collecting,
collecting dollar overall.
Um, but yeah, we, we just, we just,
our vision is that, you know,
this digital is another new,
exciting way for, for people to collect.
And, you know,
as you've seen that the
three models are beautiful,
you can put them in augmented reality.
Yeah, that's really cool.
And the cool thing is that
you've got your collection
with you all the time.
You're at some Star Wars con event.
You can drop your Stormtrooper army in AR.
So it's cool to be able to
have those collectibles
with you all the time.
We got a comment here.
See,
they're starting to think we need a
more analog future.
Nah, I don't really...
Short of a near apocalyptic event,
I don't see us going back
to an analog type of environment.
Not with...
growing and moving faster
now than it ever has before.
So, but yeah, but in saying that, you know,
look at where they're coming from.
Yeah.
I mean, you know,
I still love my physical collectibles.
I love my digital collectibles.
I, you know,
I think people are always
going to have a preference, you know,
the smell of a comic book to me,
there's nothing that beats
it or the smell of a new book.
Nothing will ever beat that to me.
That to me,
although I do read a lot of
my marvel stuff
electronically on their app
yeah but you can do that
with the VeVe verse too yeah
you should check out the uh
you should check out VeVe
comics comics day and
date um you know yeah we've
just brought on a whole
bunch more um uh publishers
like ablaze humanoid um
twenty four seven comics so
yeah there's there's
thousands of comics on
there and they basically
drop same day as they are
You know what's really cool
about that is I'm an indie comic guy,
but I can't get my shop to
order certain publishers
just simply because I'm the
one guy asking for it.
So that really helps me out
in that there is a place
now where I can go and get
those and read those if I want to.
And if I like it,
I can then order it from
the actual publisher, you know,
because I'm still going to.
like Keenspot not to plug
in shamelessly anybody I
don't get paid by them or
anything but I really like
some a lot of their stories
that they've been doing but
it's hard for me to get my
comic shop to order them
just simply because I'm
that one guy he's like it's
hard for me to justify
ordering just for you I'm
like okay I get it you know
So I ended up having to then
go and order it myself.
And that's okay.
But also sometimes I miss on
stuff and I'm like, well,
if I'd have been able to
read that virtually first,
that would have saved me, you know,
seven dollars in shipping.
So that's really cool that
it's a sister out to the VeVe
out called VeVe comics.
And y'all,
it seemed like y'all have a nice
chunk of publishers on there now,
not just a big two, you know,
with Marvel and DC, but yeah,
you're actually growing and
getting in with the indie comics,
which is, to me,
it puts a lot of new eyes on indie comics,
which, like I said before,
I'm an indie comic guy and
those will always be like
my favorite reads, so.
Yeah, we'll check it out.
Yeah,
we've got lots of really cool stuff
on there.
I think the latest one was,
I think it was Planet Death,
which was the highest Kickstarter comic
released I think that they
raised tons of money which
one was it um I think it
was called planet death
okay I have to check it out
because I that's that's the
kind of thing you know june
twenty-eighth I'm actually
interviewing uh I'm doing a
kickstarter kickoff on the
podcast here for I think
it's an issue three of a comic book
and um I love helping those
guys out I love when they
come on and talk to me
about their stuff because
like you they have that
fire and that passion for
what it is they're doing
and um they're always the
really fun to have on so
and it's cool that you just
brought up Kick starter
because that is a great
avenue for people yeah and
you know this this day and age it's um
Yeah,
it's a lot easier to get comics
created and produced.
Obviously, still quite a lot of work.
But yeah,
that's why we start to see a lot
more indie,
these really successful indie
publishers coming out.
So we're going to divert.
We're going to go back to
our Star Wars drop here.
Appreciate you entertaining
me and talking about some comic books.
I appreciate that.
So did you notice a
different collector
behaviors with this drop,
like more displayed focus
interaction or a greater
demand for a full set completion?
Like I had brought up earlier,
like how cool would it be
if you had the whole armor
that you could display?
Yeah.
I mean,
Within VeVe,
we have a thing called the
Master Collector Program,
and it basically has got
ranks and points and levels.
So if you collect the whole set,
like if you get all of the helmets,
then you might be able to craft,
like let's say we drop four helmets.
If you own all of those,
you might be able to craft
the fifth helmet,
and there might only be a
few hundred of those.
So you've got to complete this quickly.
Okay.
But, you know,
every collector is different.
You know,
some people want to go and they
just want that character.
Like they just want Din
Djarin or they just want the Mandalorian.
And some people want just to
collect everything.
So there's one thing I've
sort of learned or become
much more aware of with VeVe is that,
yeah,
collectors have such a wide breadth
of what they actually like.
I mean,
we have collectors who only collect
a certain mint number.
Like they might only collect eight, eight,
eight.
edition eight eight eight
but they but as they'll
click that with anything so
I know a guy who um who
collects comic book slabs
three point fives right
like he actively seeks out
three point fives as the
grade to buy and I'm like
dude for me it's nine eights or nothing
But that's exactly what I mean.
People just have their own
thing that brings them together.
Everybody has a niche.
And I think y'all have hit
just about all the niches
out there to some degree.
And you have something for everybody.
So that's really cool, too.
It's not just these big IPs.
Y'all have some smaller IPs.
And you have something really...
what y'all have created is
something for everybody to enjoy.
And that's always really
dope when a company can, can do that.
So.
Yeah, no, absolutely.
I mean, that's where we are.
We want to make sure we hit
all the collectors and even like,
you know, we,
we also work with a lot of
artists as well to release,
to release their release, their work.
So, yeah, I mean, it's just overall very,
very exciting.
I seen y'all had some really nice, uh,
some big names within the
comic book world but maybe
not in the the normal world
like some of their covers
and stuff in there that are
released as posters which
is really cool like mark
brooks scotty young I'm a
huge scotty young fan dude
you and me both I love his
art yeah yeah sorry I hate
fairyland fairyland I'm not
familiar with that one it's
one of his books it's it's
um it's really good he did
it with brit bean
Okay, yeah, I'll check that out.
But yeah, whenever I go to Comic-Con,
I'm always just looking for, yeah,
Scotty Young covers.
I've got a friend, he collects,
if Scotty Young does a cover, he owns it.
Yeah, likewise.
His art's so unique.
For people,
if you don't know who we're talking about,
please Google him.
His art is very...
elementary school,
I guess is a good way to say it.
Yeah.
But it's with style.
With style.
Yes.
Very much with style.
And you almost like there's
certain artists out there.
You see their work.
You immediately.
Oh, that's that's a Scotty Young.
Yeah.
He's definitely got a quite
a unique sort of style
that's easily identifiable.
Yeah.
And as you collect more stuff like that,
you recognize
their work.
Like I could just be walking
by and be like, Oh,
that's so-and-so's cover.
That's a so-and-so cover.
And that's a so-and-so cover.
They're like, how do you know?
I'm like, just look at the art.
How do you not know?
Can you tell men?
Like Peach Momoko is one of
my favorite artists.
And there's a lot of people
who try to imitate her style, but they,
they can't do it.
And then there's people like,
I think it's David Mack who
did a daredevil.
He did all the spray paint
and art and stuff you see
on the buildings in Daredevil.
He did those,
and as soon as I seen that
first piece of graffiti, I was like,
that's got to be a David Mack.
And then sure enough, it was a David Mack.
I was like, ah, knew it.
Yeah.
No,
it's great when an artist has got that
very unique, specific style.
Yeah.
Yeah, absolutely.
Absolutely.
I know we're at our allotted hour.
Are you hard pressed for that hour?
I am unfortunately hard pressed.
So we'll have to wrap up.
I always love talking comics
and collectibles.
I do too.
I know you're a busy man being the guys.
We're talking to the
co-founder of VeVe Collectibles,
which is really dope.
I'm so happy he got to come on.
For everybody at home,
tell them where they can find you and VeVe.
Yes.
So, yeah,
if you are interested in
exploring this new digital collecting,
you can just head over to veve.me,
V-E-V-E dot M-E.
And just, yeah,
browse through the collectibles.
We've also got thousands of
comics if you want to read
or if you're a comic fan.
Yeah,
and just explore all the different
brands we've got.
Look at all the beautiful
3-D collectibles.
Try out the AR.
Yes.
It's really cool.
I will...
it it's really cool I I gave
it a shot and I'm a fan I'm
sold on it so thank you
well thanks so much for
having me on today Jeff
really appreciate it
absolutely Dan we
appreciate you coming out
and talking to us today
with that everybody this
show will officially
release on podcast format
next Wednesday and with that
Dan, welcome to the Council of Nerds.
And VeVe Collectibles is USDN-approved.