Arief Widhiyasa is perhaps best known as a pioneer of game development in Indonesia, having co-founded Agate International, the country’s leading game studio responsible for over 250 titles released in the past 15 years since its inception. These achievements led to the creation of the Indonesian Game Association (AGI), and in 2016, Arief was selected to be on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list for putting his country on the game development map.
But long before making a mark on the global stage, Arief’s journey with games began during his formative years in the small town of Singaraja, Bali. A misunderstood, inquisitive child who was often reprimanded for asking too many questions, he found solace in gaming as a way to understand the world around him and explore life’s different possibilities beyond the boundaries of his hometown.
With a self-made promise to one day share the same experience with other people, Arief has left the comforts and familiarity of web2 game development to create an RPG called Riftstorm under a new studio, now called Confiction Labs. These days, he spends most of his time in one-on-one meetings with the company’s growing roster of ecosystem partners, envisioning Collaborative Entertainment, a new revolution in gaming brought about by emerging technology.
This revolution enables players to form a community and craft their own universe together, evolving as more than just consumers but also creators, builders and investors. Together, they become valued contributors to the games they love as they discover a fresh, meaningful way of interacting with one another through co-creation.
In the following interview, Arief shares his thoughts on Collaborative Entertainment, Riftstorm and blockchain technology, and how video games saved his life.
You co-founded the web2 game development company Agate International before establishing Confiction Labs and entering the web3 space. What made you transition from web2 to web3?
ARIEF: I had been building games for more than 10 years at Agate when web3 started, and I thought that it could usher in the next cycle of the gaming industry. I believe that blockchain and AI are now introducing this next cycle, similar to how mobile devices and the internet gave everyone the ability to play all these games.
Agate is not as big as some of web2’s biggest game companies, like miHoYo or Tencent, which have the extra revenue to spend on experimentation, so we could not easily shift to web3. That’s why I decided to start Confiction, so we could do it on the foundation of web3. Our company has an opportunity to explore gaming with new technology and unlock new experiences for players, and we’re starting with Riftstorm.
“At the end of the day, people just want to play with their friends.
That’s what you do in Riftstorm. You play together, have fun,
and create your own stories.”
Given that Riftstorm is Confiction Labs’ first studio game, how are you approaching its development now compared to previous projects you worked on at Agate?
ARIEF: With Riftstorm, we are building a game that you can always come back to, that’s always installed on your computer, and that you can always play with your friends. That’s the goal and where we want to position ourselves.
If I can put it another way, I want Riftstorm to be everybody’s #2 game. Because everybody will always have their #1 multiplayer game and developers will aim to be #1, but more often than not, most games that hit that mark fall off hard after the hype is gone. A lot of multiplayer games out there are very competitive, and that can be a lot of fun. But if, for example, you’re not yet at the same skill level as your friends, eventually you’ll start feeling that pressure to catch up. It can be stressful and not the best feeling to have when you’re just trying to chill with your friends.
We want Riftstorm to be the game that our players come back to once they want to take a break from their #1 games or if they just want to hang out in a game with their friends. Riftstorm can be the common ground. It will be easy to pick up and there will always be something for everyone. It won’t be as hard as it might be for a new player who’s getting into something like DOTA, where you have to learn a lot of mechanics. They won’t feel forced to perform for their friends because the game is so competitive.
At the end of the day, people just want to play with their friends. That’s what you do in Riftstorm. You play together, have fun, and create your own stories.
“What really appeals to gamers at a high level is not just the functionality,
but the ability to become a valid contributor.”
Riftstorm is also where you’re introducing this new form of gaming called Collaborative Entertainment. How does Collaborative Entertainment differ from other multiplayer games? How does it change the gaming experience?
ARIEF: For me, gaming is something that connects you to the world and gives you another way to interact with people. I’ve always loved RPG and strategy games because they broadened my horizons. I grew up in a very rural city in Bali called Singaraja. I was blessed with high cognitive abilities, but my curiosity often got me in trouble at home and in school. It was very stressful because I also struggled to socialize, and I think I could have ended up being very disturbed as a child if I hadn’t found Nintendo and PlayStation and all the games. They allowed me to experience different realities, and I could become the brave hero or the tough gangster, anything I could think of. Games saved my life. They changed how I saw the world and made me realize that the world is beautiful.
This is why I made a promise to myself that when I grew up, I would create games, so I could help other people have the same kind of experience that I had. What Collaborative Entertainment unlocks is a way to interact with other people through games so that it can be more than pure entertainment but a way of living, where we create fantasy worlds together as a community.
But the biggest difference is it also opens up the possibility for everyone to be a valued contributor or a valued creator. Before Collaborative Entertainment, everyone was just a consumer. I play a game, and I consume. With Collaborative Entertainment, gamers will now have a choice to be an owner, creator, investor, builder or promoter, or engage in any other type of collaboration they want to do.
What really appeals to gamers at a high level is not just the functionality, but the ability to become a valid contributor. Blockchain technology makes it easier to attribute their contributions and their actions. They can buy an NFT to support the game, and the value of that purchase grows with the game’s success. They could receive incentives if Confiction Labs uses an idea they submitted to add to Riftstorm’s lore. Their contribution is logged onchain and everything is transparent. Web3 makes it possible for players to become more than players.
At the core of all the IPs and games you are building is something called FICT Zero. Can you explain to us what FICT Zero is and tell us more about its importance?
ARIEF: To fulfill our vision, we need to build the ecosystem piece by piece. We realized that we can’t do that all on our own. We need to have very strong partners. And we think that the best way to onboard partners is by releasing what we call a Genesis of Genesis asset that has long-term value and also unlocks franchise rights.
The goal for us is to raise awareness and build an initial community of supporters. We have a one-on-one application process, so we get to meet a lot of people, tell them more about us, and explain what Collaborative Entertainment is about.
The current FICT Zero owners come from diverse backgrounds and skill sets. These include Yield Guild Games (YGG) co-founder Gabby Dizon, Mon Protocol co-founders Giulio Xiloyannis and Chris Sirise, and established content creators like yellowpanther and CryptoGorillaYT with hundreds of thousands of followers across X, YouTube, and Twitch. We have investors and angels like Floki, ED3N Ventures, and dingaling. Our holders also include up-and-comers, from web3 builders to artists and content creators, and more.
We designed FICT Zero so that we’re not releasing all of the NFTs at once, to help establish and build the community first. We’ll soon be making an announcement where FICT Zero holders will be able to do something with us and support the ecosystem. The goal for us is to build a flywheel where FICT Zero holders can become any part of it. They could build media, they could contribute to that universe, and they could also build assets.
What are you working on right now, and how do you see Collaborative Entertainment working in the long-term future?
ARIEF: Looking at the next 5-10 years, we want to focus on our first ecosystem, which is the Riftstorm universe. We have a name for it now: Occultical. In the short term, we will focus more on how we are able to share the vision of Collaborative Entertainment and start the flywheel.
We have been tinkering with the idea of Collaborative Entertainment for the last couple of years, and we have a lot of conviction in it. In 20 to 30 years, with the further advancement of technology, I believe games and virtual worlds will be the place where people can experience different kinds of lives. For one week, I could go back to my elementary school days when I played PlayStation games. Another week, I could try living as a policeman guarding a bank. Then maybe next time, I’d want to become a motorcycle racer. It’s a future where people can explore different possibilities, with Collaborative Entertainment helping build these games and worlds. Collaborative Entertainment is so important because it makes that kind of experience possible.
Arief and his team at Confiction Labs have been diligently building Riftstorm for the last two years. You can keep up to date with the latest happenings in Riftstorm and at Confiction Labs through their respective accounts on X, and follow Riftstorm’s Steam page.
To read more about FICT Zero, click here.
To read more about Riftstorm, click here.
To read more about Collaborative Entertainment, click here.
