Los Angeles, July 28, 2022 - The Data Economics Company (DECO) and Chris Ryall, Founding Partner of comics publisher Syzygy Publishing, are pleased to announce their new partnership to build games and entertainment experiences on the Lydion® Engine.
Ryall, who also serves as an Executive Producer on Netflix’s “Top 10” series Locke & Key, and is the former Chief Creative Officer of IDW Publishing (2004-2020), is excited to bring his extensive entertainment-industry expertise to this new partnership where he will advance the entertainment and storytelling experiences currently in development with DECO and its broader gaming and entertainment partnerships.
“It’s impossible not to be curious and excited about what the Lydion® Engine can enable for fellow creators and artists,” said Ryall. “This partnership gives me an opportunity to not only help guide that strategy but also create new storytelling experiences.” Ryall is particularly excited about the unique opportunities created by the Lydion® Engine to recognize artists’ creative contributions and increase their value over time, enriching the ways in which audiences connect and interact with them.
The Lydion® Engine, developed by DECO, is an operating system for decentralized applications. It powers secure, private Lydion Data Vaults that enable people and companies to package and productize their data as valuable digital assets called Lydions. With Lydion-based platforms and applications, users can control, utilize, share, transact, and monetize their Lydions over private networks without losing control of the underlying datasets and without requiring cryptocurrencies.
“Digital games have tremendous potential for immersing us in other worlds and letting us experience stories, rather than just hearing or watching them. While games have evolved as storytelling engines over the years, we believe there is still room for games to innovate the method and scope of stories that gamers experience,” said Arka Ray, Managing Director at DECO, who has previously launched several gaming platforms and helped ship hundreds of titles for Microsoft’s Xbox organization.
“Our key thesis at DECO for the creation of Lydion-based games is to build emotional connections between the player and the game, which will enable the value of digital assets within such games to be driven by these connections. Chris’s history of creating connections with audiences through story and art is unparalleled. We are excited to collaborate with him across the experiences we create,” said Ray.
Gamers will also be able to transact Lydions via traditional retail marketplaces including Steam and Amazon, as well as within cryptocurrency networks, including Ethereum—although there will be no requirement to use cryptocurrencies for transactions.
“The Platform will also provide the economic models and incentives for developers to take creative risks and push the boundaries of narrative and gameplay experiences beyond those offered by conventional client-server based games. The goal is to let developers focus on building great games and innovative experiences using these tools, rather than having them worry about the technical or economic details of building decentralized games,” said Ray.
DECO has been making decisive moves in the games and entertainment sector. Already in 2022, DECO has announced three major partnerships in the sector— first with Three Donkeys LLC, founded by the legendary creator/designers of Magic: The Gathering, Richard Garfield and Skaff Elias; second with worldbuilding pioneer David Lipa’s company Incradia; and now with Syzygy Publishing’s Chris Ryall. Tapping into a multi-billion dollar global entertainment industry, DECO’s expansion into this sector diversifies audiences and experiences offered on Lydion-based platforms as well as the reach of the Lydion® Engine.
About DECO and the Lydion® Engine
The Data Economics Company’s mission is to pioneer and propagate the field of Data Economics by leading science and research; developing the mathematical, economic, and software frameworks and toolsets to power implementation; and continuing to advance commercialization of the Lydion® Engine. The Lydion® Engine enables companies and individuals to convert their data into valuable digital assets that can be utilized, shared, and transacted in secure, private data vaults and data economic networks.
About Chris Ryall
Ryall is the co-founder of Syzygy Publishing, a new comic-book venture run by the “Eisner-Award-losing” team of Chris Ryall and Ashley Wood. Ryall is a longtime comic-book writer, editor, and publisher. He is also currently an Executive Producer on Netflix’s Locke & Key, as well as an exhibits and programming consultant at the new Comic-Con Museum in San Diego.