We’re absolutely loving the growth of NFTs as a new asset class. There’s so much potential here, and what they’ve already delivered is truly amazing. There has never been a way for artists and creators to monetize their content. If the only thing NFTs do is to provide a method for the large scale funding of new and unknown artists, NFTs have made an amazing contribution to society as a whole. 

As a team, we’ve been part of the NFT scene from the beginning. Jen, our COO, is an original Crypto Kitties owner. Jason, our CEO, is active with land in every single metaverse. Steve, our co-owner, is one of the biggest NFT art collectors on the planet. And I’ve been in there since the start, including being part of the group advocating for and improving the ERC-721 standard. 

For all the undeniable benefits of NFTs, they’re not enough to unlock the future we’re trying to create. Ownership and decentralized content creation is not enough. We have to have real utility for the whole digital ecosystem, and that means the Metaverse.

But really, “the Metaverse” is a lie. There will never be just one metaverse. If there’s only one metaverse it is, by definition, centralized – more a dystopia like the Matrix than the decentralized utopia we all imagine (if you want to be part of a centralized metaverse, you could try Facebook’s Metaverse of Work and Surveillance). Instead, there will be an ecosystem of metaverses, each catering to a portion of people, each more or less interconnected to the others. Sometimes these metaverses will cooperate, sometimes they will compete, but that’s really up to you, as participants and community members, and not us as builders.

Genesis Worlds is one of those metaverses, catering to creators who want to be a part of a revolution in gaming and content development, and to game players who can finally be free of centralized, “free to play” (but really “pay for everything”) games from profit-focused developers, publishers, and advertisers. For players, we have an end-to-end play-to-earn economy. For creators, we have a new concept – a “build-to-earn” economy, that enables you to both be a part of building and growing Genesis, and earn GENESIS while you do. 

Genesis Worlds is a game at heart. While each of the Worlds will contain a different gameplay experience, there are some core game mechanics that are common to every World, and connect the different Worlds together. Everyone has an avatar, with level, stats, and an inventory of NFT items. Those stats and items will let players interact with different Worlds in different ways. Beyond your avatar, there are core gameplay systems that every World plugs into, most importantly the player-generated quest system. These quests will take you from World to World, and reward you with new NFTs, crafting materials, experience, and maybe even GENESIS tokens. And you can then level up the NFTs you’ve earned, and sell them on the marketplace to earn GENESIS – a true play-to-earn system. 

When it comes to creators, the possibilities are endless – we know we can’t begin to imagine the creativity that the community will bring. What we do know is that creators and the community are all-important, and we’re focusing the entire Genesis economy here. 40% of all GENESIS tokens are earmaked specifically for content creation. We’re not pretending to know how best to distribute hundreds of millions of dollars to creators. What we’re going to do is set the vision, and then allow the community to govern itself (voting using GENESIS tokens) to decide on best practices for rewarding creators and community members. 

The Worlds of Genesis provide interesting opportunities for existing fan communities or groups of creators. Maybe a group of Bored Ape Yacht Club members decides they’re going all in on Treasure Planet, and they want each parcel of land to be a yacht that can travel around the World. They buy enough World Mining Claims in Treasure Planet to ensure they can set the vision for the World. They put together a pitch for funding from the Genesis Foundation, and then work with the wider community to build the features they need. And that turns a crazy vision into reality. Something like mobile land parcels wouldn’t be possible in a traditional metaverse. It wouldn’t ever happen in a traditional game. And it’s too hard for any one fanbase to pull off on their own. But it really is possible within Genesis Worlds. 

A lot of this is due to the similar-but-different nature of the Worlds. All the similarities mean that the Worlds can rely on shared infrastructure, and lots of basic features just work. But because each World doesn’t physically interact with others, small changes can make big differences between Worlds. Imagine a World with ultra-low gravity where players can fly between floating islands. Or one that’s set entirely underwater. If you ever wanted to be Q, and change the laws of physics, this is your chance. Some Worlds will grow in importance; maybe your World becomes the key marketplace hub for the whole metaverse, or maybe it’s party central with non-stop events and DJ sets from famous artists. 

And this doesn’t even touch on all the DeFi components of Genesis Worlds – we’ll talk about those soon, as well as how Genesis DeFi and Genesis governance go hand in hand.