Transcript of the AMA on December 12th, 2024

On December 12th, our 4th AMA of the year took place, featuring Lebnan Nader, CEO of Stables, Jérémy Coste, Head of Community & Marketing, and Sylvain Willekens, Game Designer. We've compiled this transcript for you to be up-to-date on all the upcoming exciting changes to the Stables platform!

Jeremy:

‍Great, we’re ready to go. Let’s go! Hello everyone, and thank you all for being here for this new AMA. Most of you know Lebnan and Sylvain, but we’ll do a brief introduction anyway. We have some exciting things to share today. We’re going to review the recent updates. If you’ve been following the developments lately, you know about the new game and all the new features. We’ll start the presentation with the past two months and then move on to the 2025 roadmap  to show you what we’re working on. Lebnan, could you reintroduce yourself for those who don’t know you yet?

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Lebnan:

Of course, I’m Lebnan, the CEO of Stables. My background is in video games, lottery, sports betting, and PMU. I know a little bit about both worlds. I’ve been with Stables for about six months now, working with a great team. My goal is to work with the team to transform Stables into the world’s leading fantasy horse racing platform. This involves partnering with various horse racing operators worldwide, not just in France. That’s it in a nutshell.

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Jeremy:

Great, thank you. Sylvain, I’ll let you introduce yourself as well.

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Sylvain:

‍First, thank you all for being here as well. I’m Sylvain, the Game Designer on the project and Product Owner. I’ve primarily worked in gamification before moving into UX and eventually into gaming. Today, I’m the Game Designer on the project, and I’m very happy to be here at this AMA with you all.

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Jeremy:

Great, thank you both. I’ll continue right away with what we have to show you and recap the past few months. On the screen I’m sharing, you can see the first major announcements: the launch of the Play and Earn mode! This is a real milestone for Stables. To summarize, this mode allows you to earn Tez by playing, whether through daily free races with your free Horse or NFT, or by leveling up your horses.

With a free horse, you can earn up to 0.05 Tez per day per registration in a free race. But as you already know, only the first 1,000 registrations in free races are rewarded. With an NFT, it gets even better: you earn a guaranteed 0.10 Tez per day, per registration in a free race, with no registration limit.

Jeremy:

And that's not all: each time your horses level up, you unlock rewards in Tez. The higher the level, the greater the reward. Starting in December, if your balance reaches 3 Tez and your KYC is verified, you'll be able to withdraw your earnings directly to your wallet.

Jeremy:

And that's not all: each time your horses level up, you unlock rewards in Tez. The higher the level, the greater the reward. Starting in December, if your balance reaches 3 Tez and your KYC is verified, you'll be able to withdraw your earnings directly to your wallet!

Jeremy:

Next, let’s move on to our other new feature: the Telegram game, Stables Bot. This free game tests your reflexes and allows you to earn S-Points by playing and by completing quests. You can play every day, and the best players of the week will win amazing rewards, such as NFTs and even more S-Points!

Jeremy:

What we love is that you can also complete quests in the game to maximize your points. By connecting your Telegram account to your Stables account, your S-Points are automatically transferred. These past few months have been significant for Stables, with a real shift towards Play and Earn. Lebnan, do you want to add anything about the Stable Bot game?

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Lebnan:

For the Stables Bot game, the idea was to create something fun that could benefit players with S-Points and other rewards, like NFTs, etc. And most importantly, we had a dual goal: to provide an engaging experience for players while also attracting new users to the platform. This is something we’re starting to see happen gradually, so we’re really happy with the results. Many new people are joining the site every day. That’s a little insight into why we created it.

As for the game itself, we did some research on Telegram and noticed that most games are just tap-tap-tap without any real gameplay. We wanted to create something with an actual game behind it. The gameplay isn’t overly complicated, but we still aimed to make something engaging.

I’m also really excited about something I haven’t shared with the team yet. I recently finalized something with Tezos: the possibility of integrating the Tezos wallet directly into the Telegram game. This would allow us to see each player’s horses. We have big plans for this, Jérémy. I won’t reveal everything right now, but the idea is to let players on Telegram use their NFTs—not just a random horse that transforms into 3D, but their actual NFT horse that transforms into 3D.

When you play with that horse, you’ll earn experience points and S-Points. The S-Points, of course, are for you as a player, but the experience points will be tied to the specific horse you used in the Telegram game. We’re filtering through a lot of ideas right now, but I must emphasize that Telegram was designed to provide S-Points to people who don’t have any yet and want to try out the game. At the same time, it serves as a marketing tool and a user acquisition channel to bring people into Stables.

As for the gameplay, you’re already familiar with it. It’s a horse running, and you need to type numbers in a sequence. I know it’s not very advanced in terms of game design, but remember, it’s Telegram and WebGL. We’re limited by the game size, animations, and loading requirements. It needs a strong connection to work smoothly on Telegram. That’s why we aimed to make it as simple as possible while still keeping it exciting. That’s all from me about Telegram.

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Jeremy:

Thank you. Yes, there are plenty of exciting possibilities with this connection to Web3, as you mentioned. It's true that we’ll be able to do a lot of things. We can even imagine direct links to a horse’s progression through Telegram. There’s so much potential, and we’ll continue developing this aspect.

Sylvain, would you like to tell us a bit more about the game, the platform, and the core Stables gameplay? What have we implemented recently, and why did we make those decisions? That’s also the purpose of this AMA—not just to say, ‘Look, we did this,’ but to explain why we did it. Maybe give a bit of a behind-the-scenes look at the reasoning. Because for every feature we develop, there are a lot of discussions about why we’re doing it and what the benefit is for the player. Could you talk to us about that, particularly about the new profile page that was recently introduced?

Sylvain:

Yes, absolutely. It’s been available for a while now, so I won’t spend too much time on it. That being said, as you mentioned earlier, there’s an important element we can talk about. Now, players have the ability to claim their Tez. This profile dashboard specifically allows users to directly claim the Tez they earned during the Chasing Tezos event, once their KYC is validated.

This is one of the latest features we’ve added to the profile dashboard. Historically, our goal with this feature was to create a kind of control panel for users, enabling them to quickly track all the rewards they’ve earned, as well as the experience points of their horses. At one point, we even envisioned allowing users to filter races by horse from this dashboard. However, we’ll likely approach that functionality differently. The primary purpose of the profile dashboard is to serve as a control panel for tracking earnings. Of course, this is just a first step.

It’s also worth mentioning that this feature was widely requested on Discord. Right now, it focuses on daily earnings—what you see in the black box on the dashboard. In the future, our goal is to expand this profile into something more comprehensive. Specifically, we aim to develop a detailed tracking system for earnings, investments, and rewards, offering a much more advanced and data-driven view than the current daily earnings overview.

Jeremy:

Great, thank you. Let’s talk a bit about the Race History page and all the details you can now see when you click and open this dropdown page.

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Sylvain:

Yes, absolutely. I feel like I’m going to repeat this a lot, but again, this is just the first step. This is something that was already widely requested. Specifically, I’m referring more to the second part of the screen, where you can see your opponents’ strategies and better understand who you’re competing against and what potentially made the difference.

Currently, it’s more of a summary of the race and the characteristics of the horses. That’s why I mentioned earlier that this is just the first step. The goal moving forward—especially with the new algorithm—is for race summaries to include much more detail and data to help users understand what happened during their races.

This is the first step, and at least for now, it has the advantage of providing some information that was missing after the site redesign, information that was available before. We can also discuss this further. Similarly, it was something that users on the platform had been requesting quite a lot: the ability to access more information about the races. Again, it’s something we lost during the site redesign. It was a level of detail we had before but lost at that point. Now, you can see the breakdown of race rewards as well as information on the distance and terrain, which helps you better understand the race and the parameters that influenced it.

Jeremy:

‍Thank you. By the way, let me make a quick note about this. It’s true that we’ve put this feature back in place, but some players haven’t noticed this option yet. You need to go to the platform. I can’t share it here, but you’ll see ‘Race Details’ under the race information banner or on the registration page. All these details are there—you just need to click on that button to display the information panels.

Tell us a bit about why changes were made to the multiple horse registrations, in particular, and the optimizations we’ve implemented

Sylvain:

For me, the most important points on this slide are the first two elements. You’ve likely noticed that our races used to be divided into blocks. We had four six-hour blocks, and races would only start at the end of a block. For example, if you registered for a race at midnight, the block wouldn’t end until 6 a.m., so the race would start at 6 a.m. To make it simpler and faster to chain races together, the first change we implemented was to allow races to start as soon as they are full, rather than waiting until the end of the block. Now, once a race is full, it starts within ten minutes.

The second change, which we initially tested in an experimental phase, then removed, and eventually decided to bring back, was allowing players to register their horse in multiple races at once. This has several benefits. It enables players to multiply their earnings, gain more experience, and level up their horses faster. Most importantly, it has a very positive effect of creating much more interaction within the races.

Jeremy:

So, overall, that’s what we’ve released in the past few weeks and months. You can also refer to the previous AMA, where we discussed the features we had launched back then. Now, let’s talk a bit about the future. Lebnan, tell us more—what’s coming next? Are we going to talk about tokens? Or other things?

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Lebnan:

Let’s start with the tokens, since the slide is focused on that. I’m really happy to share that, technically, we’re 90% ready. Everything related to Web3, smart contracts, etc., was finalized last night. We just have a few pages and screens left to complete on the website, but that’s not a big task. I imagine we can wrap everything up before the end of the year. So, as we mentioned earlier, by the end of the year, the token will be ready.

As we explained in the last AMA, the token is divided into three parts. The first part is Web3, including the smart contract, which is done. The second part is the legal framework, and the third part is the economic logic. The economic logic was initially a bit confusing, but we only have two or three minor tweaks left to make. Other than that, everything is good to go. On the technical side, we’re there. All the challenging aspects have been completed; now, only the easier tasks remain. The team has finished all the screens, and they just need to be integrated into the site for internal testing. So, we’re making good progress.

Yesterday, we had a meeting with the ANJ. We spent about two hours discussing things like the JONUM law, what Stable is doing, and the future of Stable in terms of the token. Honestly, they were very helpful and clarified a few technical and legal details for us. For now, the JONUM law hasn’t been finalized, and we’re not sure when it will be. However, we are prepared to launch our token. We’ve already drafted our legal documentation, so we’re ready from a legal standpoint.

The token will be ready by the end of this year. If we don’t launch it by then, we’ll definitely launch it in early January. Any delay would only be due to internal testing revealing something that needs to be added or adjusted. But overall, everything difficult has been completed. A big thank you to the team who worked so hard on this. We committed to completing this by the end of 2024, and it’s great to see the progress we’ve made, despite some tough weeks.

To sum it up: Mr. Jérémy and dear viewers, the token will be ready by the end of this year. If not, then early January at the latest. Everything—legal, technical, economic logic—is solid and complete. We’ll keep you updated with emails, Discord announcements, and more as we move forward. That’s the update on the token

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Let me take a moment—I’m not sure if this is on the slide or not—but I’d like to take two minutes of your time to talk a bit about strategy. Today, like every company, every game, and every platform, our goal is to grow and keep growing. In our business model, that means acquiring new users—new users who enjoy playing Stables, who will buy NFTs, purchase S-Points, and stay engaged.

There are many ways to achieve this: traditional marketing, initiatives like what we’re doing with Telegram, press releases, and so on. However, we’ve chosen a slightly different marketing approach. Telegram is one of our core advertising pillars, but we have a very strong belief that we can grow significantly through partnerships with other horse racing organizers around the world—what I’ll call PMUs for simplicity. These partnerships are key to our strategy. We’ve been working directly with these operators for a while now. As you know, PMUs exist everywhere: in Italy, Switzerland, South Africa, Canada, and more. We made a list and asked ourselves: what do we want to achieve? We want to engage with organizers worldwide. So far, we’ve connected with PMUs in 21 countries—not by traveling, unfortunately, but through video calls. We’ve conducted market research, forecasts, P&Ls, and analyzed where there are the most horses, where people love horse racing, where gamers are prevalent, where Web3 is thriving, and where fantasy sports are popular.

I’m thrilled to share that we’ve received verbal agreements from three countries and have deals in place with them. No, it’s not Hong Kong, as I see mentioned in the chat, though Hong Kong is on the list—we’ve spoken with the Hong Kong Jockey Club. Out of the three countries, two are in Europe, and one is outside Europe. I can’t disclose their names yet, as the contracts haven’t been signed, but we’ve begun planning, received their API access, and started working on the details. As they say, the devil is in the details, so we’re waiting for the signatures before making an official announcement. These are three very exciting countries that speak three different languages. We’re confident this will allow us to add many more horses to our database and bring in a lot of new users. This will enable us to do even more on the platform. I know Sylvain is eager to add 30,000 new features because players from different countries will join, participate in international competitions, and more.

This is our major growth strategy: securing contracts with PMUs outside France, sitting down with them, and saying, We want X number of your horses. We’ll launch them, and we want their help launching Stables in their countries, bringing players to join and mix with the French players we already have. We expect these three countries to be live on the platform by Q1 or Q2—by June. This will mean three new batches of NFTs, many new players (hopefully), and a huge boost to business development. We’re also optimistic about securing one or two additional partnerships by the end of the year or early next year.

This is the growth axis we’ve focused on intensely to make it happen. Thank you for including this slide, Jérémy. I was very excited to share this, though I can’t mention specific names yet. For me, this is incredibly exciting as it gives Stables a strong international presence. It’s a project expanding into new countries and resonating with people globally. Hopefully, with our dedicated players and new ones, we can become a truly global platform spanning all continents. That’s all from me on Tokens and New Countries. Over to you!

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Jeremy:

Thank you. In any case, this is super exciting for us as well. It’s amazing to be working on this, and it’s going to be so cool. Trust us, it’s going to be awesome. Moving on, Sylvain, can you tell us a bit about what you’re working on from the game design side?

I’m thinking particularly about the algorithm, which I know will excite some people. If you want, you can also talk about achievements and all the topics we’ve been seeing pop up on Discord. Can you share more about what we’re planning to do?

‍Sylvain:

Yes, absolutely. The goal with these slides isn’t necessarily to dive into detail for each feature. Just as there are thick documents for legislation, there are equally extensive documents for each of the topics you see here. But to summarize briefly, as Lebanon just presented, the introduction of the token is a major milestone. The objective, once the token is live, is to enable players to earn Tez based on their in-game actions. That’s one of our key focuses for 2025. I’ll go through them one by one.

We’ve made significant progress on achievements. The goal of achievements is to create new challenges and, more importantly, to introduce new types of rewards. I mentioned this a bit last time, but we’ve always talked about seasons on Stables.

In reality, though, the concept of seasonal content or exclusive content hasn’t been fully implemented yet. The idea is to introduce achievements that provide intrinsic challenges, potentially even leaderboards tied to those achievements, and allow players to earn new types of rewards on Stables. These rewards could include customization options, quality-of-life improvements, or in-game utilities. Without giving too much away, I’ll stop here regarding achievements.

As for the algorithm, the work is ongoing. The goal of the algorithm is to make the game easier to understand while adding a bit more depth to the gameplay. It’s a delicate balance—simplifying things while simultaneously adding complexity—but it’s an interesting challenge. We’ll revisit the algorithm topic later, as I know it’s one of your priorities.

One of the topics that excites me the most, to be honest, is reworking the horses to add more depth, revisiting their attributes, and especially the distribution of those attributes. I saw a question in the chat earlier about why we brought back the reroll mechanic. Don’t worry, I saw your question, and I’ll address it later. I know you’ve gathered a few questions, and this topic is one of them, so I’ll come back to it shortly.

Sylvain:

In terms of our other focuses for next year, one key area is rethinking the concept of competition on Stables. What does competition mean? Currently, what we used to call seasonal races, but now refer to as tournament races, is a format that feels a bit outdated. You’ve pointed this out to us on Discord, and we’ve recognized it ourselves. The issue is that the seasonal leaderboard doesn’t really do justice to the efforts you’ve put in throughout the competition. All the points you’ve accumulated and all the performances you’ve delivered essentially become irrelevant when everything is decided in the final.

We want to bring more value to the leaderboard, diversify ways to win, and give you more ways to showcase your horses. As a result, we’re revisiting the competition format. For now, we’re leaning towards something more enduring, like a championship, rather than something short-lived like tournaments. Once again, I’ll stop here before revealing too much. But one of our main focuses is revamping competitions, the ways to win, and what that means for the platform.

Finally, there’s the social aspect, which encompasses several things. Earlier, I mentioned that achievements will introduce different types of rewards. This naturally ties into profile customizations and the possibility for players to view each other’s profiles. It also includes the ability to start inviting friends to the platform, which we’re grouping under the social category.

These are broad categories, and I’m deliberately not going into detail, but this should give you an overview of our main focuses for 2025. If you have any questions about these, we’ll address them as they come.

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Jeremy:

Thank you. To summarize: achievements, as you’ve understood, are something we’ve already introduced in various seasons, including the current one—don’t forget, there are two achievements to complete right now. Of course, it will be a big improvement when they’re fully integrated into the site, but they already give you additional goals beyond just winning a race.

Then there’s the algorithm, which we’re revisiting to make it easier for players to understand and perhaps a bit more predictable. We’re also looking at improvements to horses, changes to the competition format, and expanding the social aspect of the game, including referral systems, profile customization, and more. Very good, great, thank you.

Now let’s move on to what’s arguably the most interesting part: the Q&A session. You’ve submitted some questions in the dedicated channel throughout the week, and we’ve noted them down.

We’ll start with you, Lebnan, with some general questions about the project. You touched on this earlier, but could you remind us of our marketing strategies to attract new players and increase the project’s visibility?

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Lebnan:

In September, we experimented a bit with marketing on social media. It worked, but not significantly—it really requires a huge budget to make an impact. So, our current marketing plan is focused primarily on bringing in new players.

Our first strategy is centered on Telegram. We’re creating and expanding the Telegram channel and pushing it further to reach new users, with the aim of converting those users into Stables players. This is our primary acquisition strategy, and it’s been working quite well so far. We need to accelerate it and invest more into it, but it’s promising. For us, Telegram is an acquisition channel.

The second strategy, which I believe will be very effective, is marketing through new countries. For example, when we enter a new country, the first thing we do is secure a contract with the horse racing operator there, the local PMU. Then, we develop a communication plan. Partnering with a PMU gives enormous credibility to our project, which is already very credible, of course. We also leverage the channels of our partners, such as the PMU’s social media, press releases, and even advertisements at racetracks. This becomes a significant acquisition channel, as we collaborate with our partners in different countries to attract users and invite them to the platform.

The third strategy, which is not yet fully developed but is in the works, is a referral system on the site. The idea is that you can invite someone to create an account on Stables, and when they do, you receive a reward.

These are our three main focuses for acquiring new users. For me, marketing is all about bringing in new users—this is the core of it.

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Jeremy:

Thank you very much. Could you address a question we received from a player? They mentioned that their horses are no longer racing because they’ve retired or been injured. Is it possible to earn rewards through the offspring of retired horses? What’s our vision on this?

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Lebnan:

I’ll start by saying that I have four horses, and only one of them has raced—just once—and it didn’t win. So, to begin with, I’m not very happy! But on a serious note, the connection with real horses is designed to bring this project closer to real life. Strategically speaking—and this is just my personal opinion—I think the key is to build a stable. Don’t forget, if you race your horse every day, it can earn you a lot of S-Points in the game. Even if your horse stops racing in real life, if you’re a good player and choose the right races, create races, and use the best strategies, you can still make steady gains.

There’s also the fantasy sports aspect. Today, you can sell your horse and buy another one. Think of it like in major fantasy sports leagues—NFL, football, etc. where you build your own team. Sometimes you have a top-performing player you’re very happy with, but other times, you sell that player and get someone else because they might not fit your strategy for an upcoming match.

So today, I encourage everyone to view this as a strategy/fantasy sports game. If your horse can’t race anymore, you can either play more to earn more S-Points on the platform or sell the horse to someone who might be interested in using it to earn S-Points. Otherwise, I don’t think we’ll provide anything extra for horses that can no longer race. The nod to real life that we’ve incorporated into the game is exactly that: when your horse races, you earn S-Points based on its performance.

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Jeremy:

Great, thank you for the response—it’s very clear. Another question, more about the fun aspects of the game: what about the 3D elements, different race styles, watching your race in the game, and possibly even breeding?

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Lebnan:

Breeding is something we’ve discussed a lot. At this stage, we’ve decided that it won’t be implemented in 2024. However, it’s still an open topic—we haven’t ruled it out completely. It remains an option for the future, and I imagine it will become much more interesting once we have more countries on the platform. Picture a horse from country X breeding with a horse from country Y, resulting in a new horse, and so on. It’s something we’re keeping on the table, but for now, it won’t happen by the end of the year, and I can confirm it won’t be in the first couple of months of the new year either. We’re still evaluating this feature, so no final decision has been made yet. Sorry that I can’t provide a more definitive answer on this point.

As for 3D, as I’ve mentioned before, I come from a background in video games, sports and virtual gaming, so this is my domain. We are absolutely going to do it, but right now, it doesn’t work well on web. If you look at other 3D implementations on the web, you’ll notice a lot of lag. It disrupts the experience. Plus, web-based 3D typically relies on pre-rendered animations, so there’s no surprise element. In our game, strategies can play out dynamically—mid-race, at the end, or in the first 200 meters. We need a system capable of handling all these variables, and we’re not convinced the web can deliver the best experience.

So yes, we’ll do it, but it will be for mobile. On mobile, we can use a game engine that allows us to deliver high-quality effects, animations, and an overall smoother experience. It’s something we can’t currently achieve on the web but can implement in a native mobile app. For 3D, this is definitely coming. In fact, before the end of the year, we’ll be holding workshops to review everything we’ve done this year and plan for next year. As it stands, this is the first item on our agenda. So yes, we’re moving forward with it.

Regarding tokenization, Jérémy, I’ve already spoken about it. If you’d like me to repeat anything, I can, but in summary, as we mentioned, the token will be ready by the end of the year. If not, it will launched early January. That’s it for 3D.

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Jeremy:

Let’s shift more towards the gaming side with you, Sylvain. Players are well aware that the level-up feature was removed when the new interface launched in July, if I’m not mistaken. Can you tell us a bit more about the mechanism that will be implemented to bring back control over horse leveling, and consequently, how players can influence the direction they want to take with their horses?

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Sylvain:

Yes, absolutely. I’ll break my response into two parts. There are elements we’re certain about, and others we’re still considering. What’s certain, whether it’s based on our own convictions or your feedback, is that we are committed to giving you back control over allocating your horse’s attribute points. And I’ll clarify right away—this will be done retroactively once the feature becomes available. What this means is that if your horse has earned up to 16 attribute points through level-ups, you’ll be able to redistribute those 16 points manually across the four attributes you’re familiar with.

Now, onto the aspects we’re still reflecting on. For instance, while it’s exciting to give control back over attribute points, could we go even further and make this mechanic more interesting? Let me give just one example to avoid going into too much detail: could it be engaging to introduce thresholds for attribute points that grant specific bonuses? For instance, if an attribute reaches 10 points, it could unlock an additional effect. Take Fougue, for example—if you’ve invested 10 points in Spirit, each time your horse accelerates, all negative effects accumulated on it could be nullified.

These are the types of ideas we’re exploring. While I’m not saying such elements will arrive simultaneously with the return of manual attribute allocation, we’re definitely looking to push the concept further and consider what could make it even more compelling. Of course, this is just one example, and there’s plenty more we could discuss.

This is one of our main focuses for 2025, but I don’t have a specific date to share at the moment.

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Jeremy:

Great, thank you. Next question is about mental—without, of course, revealing the rules of the algorithm. How can players work with the mental aspect? It’s perhaps the hardest element to grasp. Do you have any tips and tricks for managing it effectively?

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Sylvain:

I'll try to explain this simply. First, keep in mind that we’re talking about the current algorithm. Since the algorithm is being reworked, I can assure you that the mental aspect will change to become easier to understand.

Philosophically, what we aimed to replicate with mental was a bit like the story of the hare and the tortoise. If my horse is in the lead, it doesn’t get overconfident; it stays focused and keeps trying to win. If it’s falling behind, it gives everything it’s got to catch up.

Now, what does that mean in terms of the algorithm? In the algorithm that governs your horse races, there’s an implicit rule: the closer your horse gets to last place (10th position at most), the more of a performance bonus it receives. This is the same type of bonus as, for example, the crafted items—I’ve seen the chat discussions about those. Now that we've said this, there’s a second rule: the closer your horse gets to first place, the more of a negative effect is applied to its performance. This is another implicit rule of the algorithm. What mental does is modify these effects. The more points you allocate to mental, the more it increases the performance bonus applied to your horse when it’s close to last place. At the same time, it reduces the negative effect applied to your horse when it’s in the leading positions.

To clarify further: this penalty is stronger when your horse is in first place compared to, say, third place. By investing in mental, you can manage these effects more effectively, giving your horse better resilience in any position. I hope that explanation makes sense. If not, I’m happy to revisit it. I feel like I gave a similar explanation last time, but it seems like it’s clearer now based on the response.

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Jeremy:

Well summarized, thank you very much. In a race, we currently have level-based groups, and by the way, we’ll soon be adding new groups for higher-level horses—probably next week, if everything goes as planned. These will include groups for levels 14, 16, and 17+. So, horses race in groups of about three levels.

Now, my question is: is there any kind of bonus if my horse’s level is lower than the others in the race? Or conversely, is there a penalty for higher-level horses in the same race? Or is there no such mechanic at all?

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Sylvain:

As always, I’ll expand on the question a bit, but to answer it very directly: no, there’s no such bonus or penalty. However, the topic of level brackets is a discussion in its own right. At one point, we asked ourselves this exact question because we didn’t like the idea of segmenting our players too much. We preferred that everyone could compete together. So, we considered the idea of giving lower-level horses temporary, random attribute points to help them compete. But we decided against implementing it, or at least it hasn’t been introduced yet.

That said, the concept of level brackets is one of the main focuses for the New Algorithm. For example, you just mentioned adding a level bracket for 14–16. Personally, I think level brackets with only a two-level gap are clearly not enough. Without providing exact numbers—because I don’t have them—I wouldn’t find it shocking if a level 0 and a level 5 horse could compete in the same race.

What the New Algorithm aims to do is reduce the impact of a single attribute point—or the gap in levels—on race outcomes. Naturally, a higher-level horse should have a better chance of winning, but it shouldn’t be a universal truth. One of the algorithm’s goals is to address what I’d call the level bracket problem. I know I’m extrapolating a bit from the question, but to be honest, I don’t see a better way to answer it.

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Jeremy:

Very good explanation, I think. Let’s talk about breeding, then. This is a question that comes up quite often. Can we say a few words about it?

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Sylvain:

Yes, of course. Earlier, I believe the question was along the lines of whether we’re going to do it, not do it, or if it’s been abandoned. Let me assure you that breeding is definitely a focus in terms of what we’d like to achieve.

Here’s my philosophy behind it: if breeding were to be introduced, I see it as the ultimate optimization feature on the platform. Imagine I have a horse that excels in a specific area—it’s a top performer in that domain. If I breed it with another horse that is also exceptional in that same area, the result would ideally be an even better horse in that domain. I’m simplifying the concept, but you get the idea.

That said, before we dive into optimizing horses through breeding, we first need to make the game more complete and engaging. The goal is to ensure that if these optimization mechanics are ever implemented, they will be relevant and meaningful in a broader, more enriched gameplay context. So, while breeding is an exciting prospect, it’s something we want to approach with care and only after ensuring the game as a whole is ready to support such a feature effectively.

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Jeremy:

Perfect, that’s great! We’ve already discussed the new algorithms. Now, let’s talk about community races, which we launched 3 or 4 months ago. Sometimes they’re very popular, other times less so—it’s a mixed bag. What’s our plan for these community races? How do we want to evolve them?

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Sylvain:

‍ Indeed, this is a topic currently under discussion. As always, things are introduced in stages. Initially, one of the most interesting directions for community races would be to increase the value of creating them. Right now, community races have become almost a routine feature since tickets are refilled every Monday. This has two main effects: 1. Community races don’t feel like a special event—they’re not something rare or exciting and 2. we’re simply adding more races to the platform, increasing the total number of available races.

In the first stage, I think we need to rethink how tickets are earned and how community races are created. For example—and this is just an idea, so don’t take it as a confirmed feature—we could imagine that tickets aren’t refilled on Mondays but are instead randomly lootable in races. The point isn’t the specifics of the idea, but rather the concept of adding value to these tickets.

In the second stage, I believe community races should have their own gameplay, purpose, and rewards. I like the idea of community races becoming a challenge—where I can set the parameters on my terms, with my champion horse, on my chosen terrain. It’s like saying, “Try to beat me under my conditions and let’s see what you’re capable of.” This would make community races much more engaging than they are now.

Another direction could involve maximizing customization. For instance, maybe creating an extremely long race of 400,000 meters could only be possible in community races. I’m not saying that’s exactly what will happen, but the idea is to make community races more interesting by adding unique elements and opportunities for personalization. The goal is to elevate community races into something more dynamic and rewarding, leveraging the ideas I’ve mentioned to make them a standout feature on the platform.

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Jeremy:

Thank you for the update on the gaming side. Lebnan, would you like to talk about the progress we’re making with the projects we’re working on, particularly JONUM? I know you’ve had long meetings with all these entities. Could you tell us more about the Web3 ecosystem and who we’re collaborating with?

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Lebnan:

What’s most important today is that we’re doing everything in full compliance with the law and ensuring everything is on solid ground. Even though we’re signing contracts internationally, we’ve decided to keep everything consolidated in France for now. By default, we have to follow French laws, no matter where we are in the world. That brings us to JONUM, of course. I mentioned this briefly at the beginning of the AMA, but I’ll repeat it for any new players. Yesterday, we had a productive two-hour meeting with the ANJ. They are very familiar with everything happening in the space. Some people there are experts in tech, others in legal matters, projects, and so on. I was pleasantly surprised to see how well they know Stables—they’ve been following us, they understand what we’re doing, and they’re familiar with the details.

We used the opportunity to discuss the token: what we’re building, the technical aspects, the logic, and the economic model behind it. They didn’t raise any alarms and said, Great, we’re following what you’re doing. Why not? If they find anything, they’ll let us know so we can fine-tune it. But for now, it’s essentially a green light.

At the same time, the law isn’t finalized. It was supposed to be ready in December, but with the current political climate and recent events, it’s been delayed. It may come into effect next year, but there’s no certainty yet. For us, if JONUM becomes law, we have a document ready to present if needed. If it doesn’t, we’ve secured a verbal OK from the ANJ. So, we’ll move forward with our plans, which we believe are logical, fair, and legal. They’ve also validated this approach, so even without the law in place, we’ll launch our token while ensuring it fully complies with all existing rules.

Regarding the Web3 ecosystem, to answer your question, I’ll focus on France rather than the international scene. There are a lot of Web3 projects in France, and we’ve been fortunate to connect with almost everyone. We hold meetings every month or six weeks to discuss ideas, strategies, and budgets. I think the ecosystem is picking up again, which is very positive. While the Web3 community in France isn’t huge, it’s great that we’re fostering these connections to support one another.

Looking ahead, as we’ve discussed internally, we’ll start collaborating with other projects. This could include joint initiatives, cross-promotions, or shared rewards. For example, you might play one game and gain access to another, or win something in Stables and use it in another game. These kinds of ideas are in the works. We’ve had conversations with both big and small players in the space, including Sorare, Sandbox, Metafight, Dogami, and others. My overall perspective on Web3 is that it’s gaining momentum again after a slight downturn. People are starting to re-enter the space. For Stables, we’re pushing harder to establish it as a great game that people enjoy playing and investing in while increasingly aligning with Web3 principles.

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Jeremy:

Great, thank you, Lebnan. We’ve gone through all the questions submitted in the various channels. Does anyone in the audience want to take the floor? If so, we’ll pass you the mic so you can ask your questions directly. Don’t hesitate!

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Lebnan:

Someone asked about the Marketplace. Currently, we’re in discussions with OBJKT. They’re working on an SDK that will allow other websites to integrate their marketplace page. Our goal is that when you’re on the Gazette, you can see all the horses, check their details, history, and everything else. If you decide to buy a horse, we want you to be able to do everything directly from our site without being redirected to OBJKT. However, for this to work, we need OBJKT to complete their SDK, which they’re still developing. It’s expected to be ready by the end of this year. Once it’s available, we’ll work on integrating it into our platform.

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Jeremy:

Thank you. Well, I think we’ll wrap up here. Lebnan, would you like to say a final word before we close?

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Lebnan:

I see that we have more and more players joining, and the community is becoming closer. There are so many promising things ahead—international developments, tokenization. Tokenization is going to add incredible value. It’ll bring a lot of fluidity between players and create a lot of motivation. Personally, I’m very happy to be working with this amazing team, with this incredible community, and for Stables. I think we’re on the right track.

What we need is just a little more time and, most importantly, the support of our players. We want our players to share with us, send us questions, send us ideas. Just a few days ago, someone shared an idea, and I was so excited about it—I took it on board. Let’s build together. We have zero ego here. We’re open to everything. We’re here to create an amazing game, something people truly want to engage with and spend time in. I really think we’re heading in the right direction. We want everyone to talk to us, to share their ideas—whether positive or negative, constructive feedback or criticism. What we can promise our users is that we’ll always be, as we are now: transparent, direct, honest, and hard-working. We’re putting in a lot of effort. That’s my little note to end on.

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Jeremy:

Fantastic. Let’s end on those inspiring words. Thank you to everyone who asked questions and participated in this AMA. We’ll continue answering questions in the chat—I believe the chat will stay open even after I close the AMA. Thanks so much. Thank you, everyone!

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