Thoughts by GAME Credits & Genesis Worlds CTO Paul Barclay
We’re launching the GENESIS token and Genesis Worlds on the Polygon network. This is because Polygon provides fast block times, high transactions per second, and because it’s a proof of stake network, which means its transactions have a much lower environmental impact than proof of work networks.
Mostly, though, it comes down to the gas fees. A transaction on Polygon is over a thousand times cheaper than the equivalent transaction on Ethereum. Gas fees on Ethereum have made it an impractical network for NFT projects that aren’t just targeted towards rich whales. Part of the reason NFTs are so expensive on Ethereum is because it doesn’t make sense to buy a $10 NFT if the gas to buy it costs you $20.
At this point, Ethereum is really the playground of the rich – people who have no problem dropping tens of thousands of dollars in one transaction. Anyone trying to make a normal transaction ends up shaken down for a massive transaction fee. If you have to use it, you will, but you’d rather go for something cheaper.
This is a big issue with crypto in general – what started off as a grand egalitarian experiment has tended to devolve into a world where what you can do is directly linked to the amount of money you have. Lower-cost networks like Polygon break that issue, removing the artificial gate based on money, and allowing the rest of us to do things previously limited to whales.
Personally, I’ve been using Polygon for over a year now. And I’ve paid just under $1.00 (yes, the decimal point is in the right place) in transaction fees over 300+ transactions. I can make a trade on Quickswap that costs $0.01, when the same trade would cost me $15 on Uniswap. That’s an absolute game changer.
I think we’ll see two kinds of NFT projects in the future. The first NFT project is designed to extract money from whales. It charges $1000+ per NFT, relies on memes, and it has no ongoing utility. In two years, people will have moved on and those NFTs will be impossible to sell.
The second kind is designed to power a broader experience that’s open to everyone. It’s on a layer 2 network like Polygon, and it’s got utility baked in – economics, gameplay, governance, maybe even all three. It’s also priced so anyone can get into it; not just the province of whales and speculators. These are the NFT projects that will have a lasting impact, and be around in ten, fifty, a hundred years from now. That’s exactly what we’re building with Genesis Worlds – a project for everyone with economics, gameplay, and governance built right in.
Over time there will be more of these projects (though still far fewer than the cash grab meme NFTs). The layer 2 NFT projects will have more adoption, and more on-chain interactions for each user. The net effect of this? Gas fees on the level 2 networks will go up. This is just how chains are designed; more usage equals higher fees. But “more” is relative. When Ethereum went through its transaction fees explosion, fees went from 50 cents to $50. On Polygon, with the same explosion, fees go from 0.1 cent to… $0.10. A ten cent transaction fee is affordable for most of the world. It’s 1% of a $10 NFT; that’s 3x cheaper than a $10 credit card transaction.
With this in mind, I don’t think people will get priced out; scaling is keeping up with demand right now. And if demand increases further, there’s lots more capacity coming online with additional sidechains and other even cleverer tech. I think what will happen is something much cooler. We’ll start to see more intricate NFT contracts, where accessibility features are built in, or portions of gameplay appear on chain.
We’ve taken advantage of that with Genesis Worlds (our NFT’s and future Metaverse). Gas costs are low enough that we can add a Quickswap transaction onto the front of a World Stake purchase. This massively opens up purchase ability; you can buy in any major cryptocurrency, and it’ll be automatically converted to GAME to buy the World Stake. To start with, we’ll support purchases in ETH, MATIC, USDC, USDT, and QUICK, and gas costs should still only be a couple of cents. This simply wouldn’t be feasible on mainnet Ethereum, as the gas fees would cost more than the actual purchase.
And I think that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Over the next couple of years, we’ll really start to see what cheap gas can do for innovation in both the NFT and Metaverse spaces.
When we were designing the Genesis Worlds tokenomics, we looked at a lot of different ways to balance the supply of tokens against demand from the market. Most projects set a fixed amount of tokens (100M), and then award themselves 30% of those tokens right out of the gate, and another 20% to investors and advisors. That’s ludicrous on many levels. Firstly, do they really think that their contributions are worth 50% of the total value of a project? If we really take into account how much value the community itself creates, the real number is closer to 5% than 50%. Secondly, this is straight out of the Soviet centrally-planned economy playbook. We’ve got all these amazing free market tools. And we’re arrogant enough to think that we can design a token distribution better than the free market? No, that’s not our way.
But, we’re not your run-of-the-mill crypto-libertarians either (can we upset the far left and the far right in one blog post? We’ll try). Our philosophy couldn’t be further from libertarianism. Instead, we’re focused on group and collective effort, and ways to incentivize that. So you’ll see a lot of initiatives from us that reward community groups for getting involved in Genesis Worlds.
But, back to the token distribution. 100M (roughly 10%) of GENESIS tokens will be distributed to early adopters, through the launch pool, and liquidity mining. The other 90% (roughly) are mined via the World Stakes. We say “roughly” here because we don’t know, and cannot know ahead of time – the exact distribution depends on how many World Stakes the community decides to buy.
The reason we don’t know is because we’re using bonding curves to set World Stake pricing, rather than just assuming we know best and pulling some random fixed price out of our… you get the idea. In a bonding curve, the price of a token depends on the number of tokens that exist. So the 1000th token costs 4x the price of the first token. And, you can sell back the World Stake to the smart contract at any time, for the current price, ensuring a 100% liquid market for every World Stake. This is a fully decentralized approximation of a true supply and demand curve, where the more demand, the higher the price.
So, if demand for World Shares is high, more GENESIS will be emitted. But the increasing price per World Share creates a soft limit, where it’s not economically beneficial to buy a World Share. So even though there’s no hard limits anywhere in the system, there’s still a firm cap on the amount of GENESIS that can be created. We expect around 1Bn to be created via World Shares (over 20+ years – remember, we’re in this for the very, very long term), but that number could in theory be 500M or 2Bn.
Of that expected 1Bn, 40% is directly mined by World Stake owners, 20% is mined to GENESIS owners who participate in Genesis governance (we encourage you to double-dip here, to gain both the World Stake 40% and the governance 20%), and the remaining 40% is mined to the Genesis Foundation, and used to reward content creators, developers, and community members who help build and grow Genesis Worlds.
So in addition to earning GENESIS from your World Stake, you’re also directly supporting the Genesis Worlds development community, and the decentralized governance of Genesis Worlds. From our perspective, this is a great balance of DeFi technology with the needs of a truly decentralized community. For those who’ve read this far, the GENESIS ERC20 token will launch on October 28th, 2021. You can view more about the Genesis project at the Genesis Hub.
Interested in learning more? Want to speak with the team directly? Join us in our GAME Credits Labs Clubhouse club now to see our speaking schedule: GAME Credits Labs Clubhouse
Dear friends and community,
It’s hard to believe October is already here. 2021 has been full of surprises, and we aim to bring you some delightful ones by the end of the year. In September, the team made significant progress toward both the GENESIS ERC-20 token launch, and the World Stakes NFT drop. We continue to improve on our community-building, adding partnerships and social media engagement, and plan to keep experimenting as we grow.
The GENESIS token will launch before our next monthly update. We’ve found the token to be the most frequent topic of community conversations and questions to our team members. In case you missed it, here are some of the articles we published in September doing a deeper dive into the topic:
– Talking Tokenomics and the Genesis Metaverse Project with CEO Jason Cassidy
– The Genesis of GENESIS – DeFi and Liquidity Pools
We expect the Genesis community to swiftly and dramatically expand, with different levels of interest in each area of the project from a variety of groups and individuals. What makes it so great is that Genesis is a community of communities, with interesting ways to engage and inspire everyone – all while being inclusive. As the community grows, we plan to share content and resources to support various perspectives and levels of experience. Simplifying concepts for crypto newcomers is a high priority.
Our team is available to engage, support and answer questions, during scheduled events such as on Clubhouse or Twitter Spaces, and asynchronously through our Discord, Telegram, and other social channels. We love meeting you and learning more about your metaverse dreams. Here are some ways to connect with the GAME Credits team:
– Join us on Telegram for community discussions and contests where you can win $GAME
– Jump into our Tuesday Twitch streams @4pm EDT to watch the team play, get your questions answered and meet members of the community
– Thursday evenings @7pm EDT you’ll find us jumping in Clubhouse rooms with our friends and partners. Follow these accounts to get notified when our team is speaking live! (we will be expanding to Twitter Spaces soon!).
Chris – @crypto-chris
Josh – @jpmorton27
Jason – @karmashark
Steve – @bitbuzz
We are counting down the days until the GENESIS token launch. Expect the announcement soon on all channels. This month we will also begin sharing more content and resources to help the community understand and prepare for the launch of the Genesis World Stakes NFTs, and would appreciate you helping us share the news! As we get closer to Worlds launch we’ll be seeking community input on future Genesis Worlds themes and design elements.
The GAME Credits team is grateful for your feedback, support, suggestions, questions and participation. We believe in building a community where everyone belongs. With your continued support, we know we can create something exceptional together!
We’re launching the GENESIS erc20 token as the DeFi core of the Genesis Worlds metaverse. GENESIS allows you to buy Land in Genesis Worlds, as well as participate in governance of the whole Genesis ecosystem. It’s also the in-game currency of Genesis Worlds, where you can buy and sell in-game items from other players.
Genesis Worlds is designed as a true community-owned project and the GENESIS token is a true fair launch token – every token is earmarked for launch into the community. Importantly, we’re not selling any GENESIS tokens, and no tokens are earmarked for investors, team members, or anyone else. If we want tokens (and we do), we’ll have to buy them in the open market, just like everyone else.
There’s three main ways to get your hands on GENESIS when it launches. First, you can join the GENESIS launch pool, where you can stake GAME to earn GENESIS over time. The longer you stake your GAME, the more GENESIS you’ll earn. The rewards are a fixed pool of 50M GENESIS, with 25M distributed in the first 12 months, and halving every 12 months after that. The amount you’ll earn is relative to your stake, and the total amount staked.
Second, you can buy World Stakes in the World Sale. Holding a World Stake also earns you GENESIS over time. Like the launch pool, the rewards reduce slowly over time. Unlike the launch pool, there is a guaranteed maximum of 10,000 GENESIS earned from each World Share, so it doesn’t matter how many other people buy World Shares. Instead, the price of each World Share is controlled by a bonding curve, which puts a hard limit on the number of World Shares that can be bought. We expect around 1Bn GENESIS to be emitted from World Shares over the next 20 years.
The third way is to use an automated market maker exchange like Quickswap or Uniswap. On Quickswap, you’ll be able to buy and sell GENESIS for any other erc20 token. But you can also earn GENESIS by providing liquidity to one of the incentivized liquidity pools. There is 25M GENESIS set aside for liquidity pool incentives. Each pool will be different, so look for specifics on incentive durations and amounts closer to the launch of those pools.
That’s a lot of ways to get your hands on GENESIS. But you may have noticed that some “normal” methods aren’t on this list. There’s no presale, VIP sale, investor tokens, and no tokens for the Game Credits team, advisors, or partners. We believe in a true fair launch model, so that’s why we’ve declined outside investment, and why we’re not granting our team members and advisors any tokens – we want people who believe in the vision, not people who want to make a quick buck or three.
In the longer term, there’s one more way to get your hands on GENESIS, and it’s the most exciting fair launch plan of all. We call it “Build To Earn”. If you’re a content creator, developer, or community member who participates in the development of Genesis Worlds, you’ll be able to earn GENESIS. This puts the token directly in the hand of creators, rather than in the hands of speculators. We believe content creators and community members are the most important people in the world, and we’re showing that with the sheer size of the Build To Earn pool. Over time, just under half of all GENESIS tokens will be distributed to creators in this way.
Join the mailing list using the button at the bottom of this article. under “Stay up to date.” Now is the time to get in on the ground floor of a paradigm shift in game, technology, and defi development.
If you don’t know what DeFi, Launch Pools, or Liquidity Pools are, read on; we’ve got you covered. Here’s a quick overview of all three concepts:
DeFi:
DeFi, or Decentralized Finance, is the next evolution of financial technology. It replaces centralized middlemen such as banks, stockbrokers, and payment processors with fully decentralized systems, where no other entity can control your money. This has created many new and unique products, including automated matchmaking exchanges, where liquidity pools replace centralized order books, and launch pools, which allow democratic and decentralized delivery of new assets.
Liquidity Pool:
A liquidity pool on an exchange like Uniswap or Quickswap is a pool containing equal values of two erc20 tokens. Users can trade one token for another using the pool, by putting in their token, and receiving the other token.
Liquidity pools are 100% permissionless – anyone can create one, and the market determines the relative prices of the two tokens. They’re also the primary way that truly decentralized projects are traded, which makes them the perfect fit for a decentralized project such as Genesis.
Launch Pool:
A launch pool allows users to stake one erc20 token and receive an amount of a second erc20 token over time. When you’re done with your holding period, you withdraw all your staked tokens, and receive an amount of the launch token relative to your stake.
Some pools require a fixed holding period, others are more flexible. In the Genesis launch pool, users can stake GAME to receive GENESIS. It’s a flexible launch pool, with no fixed end date or limits on the amount of GAME you stake. Instead, the amount of GENESIS earned reduces slowly over time. Users can stake and unstake their GAME at any time, and earn more the longer they stay in the pool.
GENESIS Token Launch & Farming Explained
The first launch of the GENESIS token is a farming pool, where you stake GAME to earn GENESIS. The Game Credits Team chose this method over presales, initial token sales, or launchpads for a few key reasons;
– First, this is the most fair launch we can imagine, and is part of our core philosophy surrounding our community and equal access. Anyone can participate, and there’s little to no advantage of being faster or better connected than anyone else. And there’s no special treatment for anyone, so the price you get is the same price that Mark Cuban, Elon Musk, and Vitalik Buterin get.
– Second, it lets us release GENESIS to the community without selling it. We don’t want anyone to have to risk anything in order to own GENESIS, and the farming pool ensures that. You can join and leave the pool any time you want, with no lockup, and no risk to the GAME you staked.
– Thirdly, it allows people to get into the farming pool after the first few days and still participate in a meaningful way. Most token sales sell out in a few minutes; launchpads often require all the tokens locked ahead of time.
Could we make a ton of money by selling the tokens instead? Yes, of course. But this goes totally against the spirit of a fair token launch. Plus, making money isn’t our goal – distributing GENESIS fairly and building community is most important.
About GENESIS Farming
A farming pool allows you to stake one token (usually an ERC-20 token) for a period of time, and receive another token (also usually an ERC-20 token) when you stop staking. Like most farming pools, the GENESIS pool distributes tokens evenly among all farmers, according to their staked amount. But unlike many farming pools, the GENESIS pool gives you maximum flexibility. It allows you to stake any amount of GAME, and for any amount of time.
How to Farm GENESIS?
To farm a portion of the 50M GENESIS, you need to stake GAME on the farming portal at https://genesis.game/farm. The GENESIS farmed is split evenly between each farmer, according to the amount they stake. The more you stake, and the longer you stake for, the more GENESIS you’ll farm.
What is the Math Behind GENESIS?
Of the roughly 1Bn GENESIS tokens we expect to be mined, 50M are available in the farming pool. The rest are mined via World Stakes (we’ll talk more about that in the future – stay tuned!). Emission of the 50M is governed by a simple formula, where the total amount farmed reduces over time. The net effect is that 25 million GENESIS will be farmed in the first year; 8.3 million in the second year, and so on, according to this chart:
GENESIS Launch Details
GENESIS launch is coming soon! We’ll announce the launch date roughly a week beforehand. In the meantime, it’s time to get prepared by buying your GAME and bridging it over to the Polygon network.
The GENESIS farming pool is on the Polygon network. Polygon is a protocol and a framework for building and connecting Ethereum-compatible blockchain networks. Using the Polygon network gives us ultra-fast block times, and impressively cheap transactions. If you’ve got used to spending $10 to transfer some ETH, or $50 to make a trade on Uniswap, transactions that cost less than $0.01 are going to be a breath of fresh air! If you’re not familiar, here’s a great guide to getting started with Polygon (LINK), and how to make your first $0.0001 transaction.
How to buy GAME in Preparation for the GENESIS Launch
You can buy GAME in a wide variety of currencies at Bittrex, BitBay, Uniswap, and Quickswap. You can buy and stake as much or as little as you want, just remember, the more GAME you stake, the more GENESIS you will earn.
Once you’ve bought your GAME, you can bridge over to Polygon by going to https://wallet.polygon.technology/bridge/ and following the simple instructions there.
Once you’ve done that, you’re ready to go. We’ll open the farming pool for deposits a couple of days before the farming launch date, so there won’t be a rush to get in for the start.
Join the Genesis Worlds mailing list below under “Stay Up To Date” to get the latest information on the launch of the GENESIS farming pool.
Bookmark https://genesis.game/farm & check back often for up-to-date information.
Launching a project at the intersection of gaming, metaverse and DeFi requires careful consideration of how best to simplify messaging and effectively communicate complex concepts with disparate audiences. For many members of the community, their level of engagement with and enthusiasm for a project is heavily influenced by the economics of the project’s token(s). Some of the most frequent questions we get about our Genesis metaverse project are related to the tokenomics. In this interview with CEO Jason Cassidy, we get to the heart of some of these questions.
Jason, we know DeFi is a major component of what we are doing with the metaverse, and part of that is earning GENESIS. What can we expect from this new token and how will the community benefit?
The GENESIS token powers the play-to-earn rewards and DeFi rewards of Genesis – it’s really the heart of the community. So we’ll be releasing the token in a number of ways. First, via a farming pool where community members can stake their GAME to earn GENESIS. Second, via the World Stakes, and Governance rewards, which reward community members who participate in governance and development of Genesis and its worlds. And third, via incentives and rewards for community members who help move the project forward, such as content creators, game developers, and artists. Unlike many projects, GENESIS is a truly fair launch: All tokens will be distributed to community members, with none set aside for presales, investors, or team members.
So what else? What other reasons are you releasing a new ERC20 token? What will we see through this relationship between GAME and GENESIS.
GAME is the key to unlocking the DeFi rewards of GENESIS. Being part of our community has always involved owning GAME, and World stakes and GENESIS farming are no different. Both require GAME ownership in order to receive GENESIS rewards. Besides the benefits to owners of GAME, we can experiment with DeFi innovation and take much bigger risks with a new token, without risking the utility of GAME. If we’re successful (we expect we will be), we get all the benefits, without the added risk. If something goes wrong with GENESIS, GAME is still fine.
Speaking of GAME, some token holders have questioned what’s in store for the future. What would you say to the GAME token holders?
GAME is central to the tokenomics of the entire project. In fact, you should start moving your GAME over onto the Polygon network, so you can be ready to stake your GAME in the GENESIS farming pool launch in early October. Beyond that, the main way to earn GENESIS over time will be to hold World Stakes, which you’ll soon be able to secure with our upcoming NFT launch. The only way to buy those World stakes is with GAME. This should have a massive impact on the demand for GAME, as we anticipate people will be locking up large amounts of GAME for decades. GAME is not going away or being deprioritized.
Can you give an example of how people can earn GENESIS?
Earning GENESIS in the farming pool is easy! When you deposit your GAME into the pool, you’ll start accumulating GENESIS tokens in your account. To collect them, just withdraw your GAME, and the pool will calculate your GENESIS rewards and send them to you too. To reward early adopters, reduce inflation, and ensure that rewards will continue for a long period, the farming pool rewards decrease slowly over time, with the rewards halving over the span of 12 months. The pool handles this calculation, and determines how much GENESIS you should earn.
Earning GENESIS through World Stakes is equally easy, though the math is more complex. Just like the farming pool, you’ll buy a World Stake NFT with GAME. These NFTs are bonded NFTs, so they have two important properties to remember. First, the price of the NFT increases as more people buy more copies of it. This controls the supply of each World Stake. Second, World Stakes are 100% liquid assets – you can sell them back to the contract at any time. When you sell it back, you’ll receive GAME equal to 90% of the current price for the NFT. This could be more (or less) what you paid for it.
Now you own a World Stake, earning GENESIS works much the same way as the farming pool. The longer you hold it, the more you’ll earn, and the rewards decrease over time (but more slowly than the pool rewards – the halving takes 24 months). You can, of course, buy more than one World Stake – you’ll earn the same amount of GENESIS from each one.
And is this something that will be set in stone at launch, or will the community have a say in future DeFi functionality?
Initial contracts will be set up to provide the foundational economics. By nature of smart contracts, they can’t be changed but if it makes sense, can be extended. We really hope community members will engage us with great suggestions and these can become part of what we do in the future. We see this entirely as our project, owned by the community and the team implementing the smart contracts. In addition, we’re holding a pool of GENESIS in reserve that can be used to provide the DeFi and play-to-earn rewards that the community most wants to see.
So people who want to buy the GENESIS token on its own or buy one of the World Stakes NFTs will need to be prepared to purchase them with GAME, correct? At this point, are you able to estimate how much GAME it will take to buy a World Stakes NFT? How does the bonding curve work?
That’s correct. You will need to hold GAME if you want to farm GENESIS or buy one of the World Stakes. (Here are the instructions for getting GAME, if you’re not already holding it.) And you’ll need to deposit your GAME to the Polygon network (you can do that at wallet.matic.network).
World Stakes are bonded NFTs, where the buy and sell prices are calculated using the number of World Stakes that currently exist for that World. Unlike previous bonded NFTs where the 100th token costs 10,000 times the price of the first token, the World Stake bonding curve is incredibly shallow. The price of a World Stake only increases 4x between the first token bought and the 1000th token bought. This shallow curve maintains the price discovery aspect of the bonding curve, and ensures that later adopters aren’t priced out of Worlds. The bonding curve also allows you to sell back your World Stake based on the number of NFTs that exist, giving you instant liquidity.
It really seems like you’ve thought carefully through the complexities. Does this model offer some major benefit to the project stability or sustainability? How can folks compare this with other projects they might be considering joining?
There are different scopes for projects and different means to get there. We care deeply about economics making sense and avoiding pitfalls of other projects. We definitely have a grand vision for a 100 year metaverse, where GENESIS powers an entire metaverse and gaming ecosystem. Where Worlds are like token launches and all the Worlds can benefit from gaming tech collectively while forging a unique vision on their own.
The biggest thing that all these economic decisions are driving towards is a metaverse that’s community-driven, and is around for the long haul. That’s why we aren’t taking VC funding, and why we’re setting up the whole project as not-for-profit. So if you want to really get involved with a project, with a seat at the table, making decisions, then GENESIS is the place for you.
We’re almost out of time, so one last question. GENESIS token will be available on exchanges prior to the World Stakes NFT launch. Why would someone choose to purchase the token Vs. an NFT? From the community perspective, what are the advantages of one over the other?
We want to provide more than one method for acquiring GENESIS, because we have a diverse community. Some people are die-hard NFT collectors, and will want to make sure they have a full set of World Stakes. Some people will want to focus on a specific world, and will buy up lots of World Stakes for that world. But other people prefer dealing with direct fungible tokens rather than NFT’s like our World Stakes, or don’t want to get involved with governance.
And not everyone has the same amount of money. The GENESIS farming pool allows you to stake a single GAME and still earn some GENESIS. But because the World Stakes are NFTs, if they’re in high demand, you may have to lock up thousands of GAME to own one. Even though you’ll get almost all of that back when you sell, the initial buy-in might be too high for some community members. We want to make the token accessible to everyone whether they want to own Worlds or not.
Thanks for taking the time to talk with us, Jason. Any last thoughts?
It was a pleasure. We covered a lot of ground, and this is just the tip of the iceberg. Let’s get back together soon and do some deeper dives into the details of GENESIS farming, World Stakes, and Governance Rewards.
Future parts:
Part 2: GENESIS Farming, plus a breakdown of where the tokens are going
Part 3: World Stakes, plus some hints on Land sales
Part 4: Governance, plus the community funding and DAO/Foundation pieces
Dear friends and community,
August was an important month at GAME Credits, where we continued to engage with and grow our community and made significant progress toward our upcoming Genesis releases. In case you missed it, we shared an insightful interview earlier this month with insider perspectives about the work we’re doing. We are currently on track for three big deliverables by the end of the year.
– Genesis ERC-20 token – This is the token that will power the metaverse economy and govern the entire game. We expect it to be available on decentralized exchanges in about a month.
– Genesis World Stakes NFT sale – We expect the Genesis World NFTs to drop about a month after the token launch. After the initial launch, we’ll be releasing additional world NFTs every few weeks.
– Prototype Genesis Metaverse World – We’re building a prototype metaverse world that will allow the community to explore the world and gather inspiration for future development.
In keeping with tradition and our commitment to transparency on these updates, here’s a look at some of the World Stakes NFT designs we’re polishing up for the drop in Q4.
Last month we collaborated with comic book industry pro Ross A. Campbell on Pokebabes, a new collectible NFT Series. This was an opportunity to experiment with new reward concepts, including personalized artistic rewards directly from the creator. While the first drop of starter Pokebabes is nearly sold out, you can look for more drops by Ross in the coming weeks. These will encompass the original 150 pocket monster inspired Pokebabes. You can see what’s currently available on his creator page and the collector reward structure at the official Pokebabes website.
Our team is working on Genesis branding and marketing and devoting significant brain power to the creative side. We are also interviewing candidates for the Senior Director of Marketing role. There are a number of exceptionally talented candidates in the mix and it’s been exciting to meet with so many professionals who share our enthusiasm for putting people first and strengthening relationships with our community.
Speaking of community, we’ve been expanding our community engagement in a number of ways, including hosting Clubhouse rooms, exploring Twitter Spaces and expanding our outreach to Arabic Twitter and Telegram. We are testing a variety of Telegram contests to distribute $GAME prizes, and we are doing more to promote our weekly streaming sessions. Here are some ways you can connect with our team and community:
– Join us on Telegram for community discussions and contests where you can win $GAME
– Jump into our Tuesday Twitch streams @4pm EDT to watch the team play, get your questions answered and meet members of the community.
– Later this month we’ll be attending the 9th Cutting Edge Games (CGC) conference. Join us on September 23, and 24th and find more details about attending the conference at cgc.one
– Thursday evenings @7pm EDT you’ll find us jumping in Clubhouse rooms with our friends and partners. Follow these accounts to get notified when our team is speaking live!
Chris – @crypto-chris
Josh – @jpmorton27
Jason – @karmashark
Steve – @bitbuzz
We truly appreciate each and every one of you and we are grateful for your support, feedback, and contributions to the growing community. We’ll be closing the year out with our strongest and most outward facing quarter since injecting new life into the GAME Credits brand. It’s a great time to get involved as a community member or creator and stake your claim in the Genesis metaverse helping shape the direction of growth over the next several years. Thanks for collaborating!
The Team @ GAME Credits
By now you’ve probably heard the team at GAME Credits is working on Genesis, a new galaxy-spanning, multicreator metaverse game. We thought you might like to meet some of our team members and learn more about the project directly from them. We’re talking today with Matt Quirk, Head of Innovation, and Paul Barclay, CTO. In this interview transcript, you’ll get early insights about the project and the philosophies influencing this work.
We’ve heard of multiplayer gaming, of course. Help us understand what you mean by ‘multicreator.’ Are you saying the game is going to be built by multiple creators? Are the players also creators? Will you need to be a creator or a gamer to explore Genesis, or will there be open worlds?
Paul: We’re approaching Genesis from a totally different viewpoint from other metaverses and other games. What “multicreator” means is exactly that – many creators coming together to build a shared experience. Not all of these creators will be individuals. We expect indie game studios, contractors, and other creative groups to be heavily involved.
Even when an existing team is tackling a specific feature, the creator community will still be involved in guiding those teams to achieve the overall community vision for the game. And no, you won’t need to be a creator (or pay for anything) to play Genesis. It will be 100% free to play, plus you’ll be able to earn, level up, and sell NFTs, so it’s a true play-to-earn experience.
Matt: We are definitely pushing the boundaries here with both the way software and games have been developed previously, and the philosophy behind it. The process for “multicreator” is more akin to the dynamics of how Linux was developed, with the added benefit of a financial framework whereby one’s efforts can be rewarded, which in turn makes it more like Ethereum’s development approach.
From a philosophical standpoint we see a ton of value in the freedom and excitement around a bunch of people banding together and saying, “We love this game, but how much cooler would it be if we did it this way? Let’s start a new world.” Carrying on the Linux analogy and all of the flavors of Linux that developed over the years, in the same way Genesis seeks to do that with the metaverse, and create this incredible variety and diversity of worlds and games.
A lot of us hoped for and expected a much faster adoption of blockchain technology in traditional online gaming. What do you think has prevented the large game developers from incorporating blockchain in their existing systems? Why is now the right time to build a blockchain-based metaverse game?
Paul: Uncertainty around the legal standing of blockchain projects has been a factor; the US government hasn’t done the gaming industry any favours here. But the biggest blocker is that the benefits to those large developers just aren’t big enough. Where blockchain really comes into its own is empowering communities to create things that are otherwise impossible. That’s going to be the big impact of blockchain gaming over the next ten years, and we’re positioning ourselves to be at the front of that wave.
Matt: In addition to what Paul mentioned, I think there is uncertainty in the economics from a game developer perspective, while users simultaneously want more control of their purchases. The resulting secondary market adds additional complexity to consider where developers must become stewards of secondary market content. It’s delicate for developers, if you sell new content that undermines the value of old content (by reprinting similar content functionally), this can have a backlash. So game developers aren’t lining up to adopt blockchain tech with these risks in mind, making it more challenging to build a gaming blockchain platform.
We think the entire economic model whereby games make money has to be looked at. The lack of blockchain adoption by game developers and the increase in demand for user control creates an opportunity for new or existing game devs to innovate within this space. WAX has had a few good games on the chain, but has mainly been successful with collectibles. Enjin did great in communicating their multiverse capabilities of items shareable across games, but as a platform, still hasn’t taken off in terms of game developer adoption. Genesis is a game and community that tries to innovate by redefining the entire model for doing business, embracing decentralization, and giving users the control they want.
Paul, your past experience in game development at Wizards of the Coast will be a huge benefit to the project. Because this will be community-driven and many decisions will be made through votes by token-holders, what are the unique challenges and opportunities you see when it comes to making a game like this?
Paul: Fundamentally, the game design process is the same for a community developed project as a centralized project. We come up with ideas, identify the best ones, develop them, and test to see if they work well. We’re just doing this on a massive scale, with thousands of people contributing. Guiding that diverse group of people is going to be the biggest challenge. We’ll need to help the community organize into teams, focused on different areas of development, and help the community mediate disagreements.
Governance votes are interesting here. For most things – even critically important things, they won’t be necessary, as there will already be consensus in the community. However, they’re very useful for the community to build support for new ideas. I’m excited to see how the community approaches the design and development of Genesis – I’m expecting some amazing results, and more than a few awesome surprises.
Matt, you’re working on some interesting ways to use smart contracts with the Genesis project. What are some applications of this technology you’d like to see available in early iterations of Genesis?
Matt: Smart contracts are a great way to automate transactions in a decentralized way and set up an economic framework for things to develop and scale. Economics are central to all that we do. As we don’t want to make a mistake, we spend a lot of time on this piece. It will be exciting to get the community involved and start hearing their feedback. We are looking to do a ton of DeFi incentives tied to NFT smart contracts to get people involved early. Without going into all the details, world share ownership will enable many of these DeFi incentives.
NFTs appear to be on a collision course with the metaverse, both in practice, and in the media hype cycle. Where do you see the potential for NFT collectors to get involved in metaverse gaming? Do you expect Genesis to offer the ability to display or use any NFT?
Paul: I think NFT holders are already deeply involved in both metaverses and gaming. It’s a natural next step to blend those two. To really have a strong blend of metaverse, NFTs, and gaming, we’ll need to bring new creators into the space, and encourage those creators to deliver NFTs with real in-game functionality. That will create a new generation of gaming-focused NFT collectors. I don’t get to make the rules for what other NFTs can or can’t be used within Genesis – that’s the community’s job. But I expect that the community will want to allow any NFT to be used in Genesis.
Matt: Personally I’d like to see how NFTs that are attribute based (Cryptopunks, Meebits, etc) or generative will be used as game content and not just collected for their rarity distribution and hype. I think this is also a new opportunity for NFTs. People can take advantage of this incredible gaming ecosystem. We want people to get a bit radical here. We have gone radical with the scale of this universe. In a similar way, how NFTs can be used to express oneself to new heights and dimensions, both in what they can do from a gaming perspective and what they communicate of one’s creativity, vision and viewpoint.
We’ve seen a number of companies jumping into the metaverse space recently, even as some projects have struggled to get off the ground. When you see companies like Facebook announcing metaverse projects, how does that influence the strategy for GAME Credits and Genesis? Will all these metaverses work together? Is there room for so many projects? How do you plan to stand out from the crowd?
Paul: We looked at the whole space in great detail as we were building Genesis, and that’s why we decided to build a metaverse that was also a cohesive game. I think some metaverses will thrive, others will die, and some will be data mined, ad-infested hellholes (looking at you there, Facebook). Lots of companies are building metaverses that hold standalone gaming experiences – Facebook, Roblox, Sandbox, Decentraland, etc.. Even more companies are building standalone games with little to no customization or freedom. And there’s also a growing clutch of blockchain “games” that are really just nicely dressed DeFi farms.
What we’re building, nobody else is doing – a metaverse that’s gaming focused, not for profit, and community created isn’t aiming to compete with other metaverse projects. We’re also looking at a completely different timeframe – we expect Genesis to be thriving in 100 years time. Rather than competing in a market with other metaverses, what we’re doing is moving the goalposts, and saying, “This is what games should be for their players and communities.”
Matt: I think one also has to ask oneself the question as well, “Do I value more consuming what other people have created for me, or do I value the ability to shape my environment, experimentation, and sharing in that process with others?” All of these metaverses are going to give you a certain amount of control to varying degrees. With Facebook, you’ll have an interesting way to connect with people, but within their business model, which often involves trading your data for access to their system. I think with Decentraland and some of the existing blockchain metaverses, you have a really great initial metaverse, but it’s missing the gaming side and fun factor that brings people back.
Final question to help our community get to know you better. What do you do for fun these days?
Paul: This. Guiding Genesis from zero to launch is the most fun I’ve ever had at work, and I’ve worked on a ton of fun stuff for Star Wars, Harry Potter, Transformers, D&D, and Magic: The Gathering. Outside work (that doesn’t feel like work), it’s playing with my kids and seeing how they interact with the world.
Matt: Definitely have the same joys as Paul with watching my four boys grow, learn and play in the world. I am actually stocking up board games for us to play (hopefully they’ll be into them) as they get older. My latest acquisitions are Crokinole, Dune, and awaiting my Frosthaven kickstarter. Otherwise, personally I do my own art (I do oil paintings, sculpture, and learning graffiti and street art right now), mountain biking, frisbee golf (playing for 25 years and still haven’t gotten better), and travelling to places for good coffee.
Dear GAME Credits friends and community,
We appreciate all the feedback and questions we have received since the June update. We hope you’re able to join us for the AMA with our CEO, Jason Cassidy:
Date: Monday, August 2nd, 2021
Time: 1pm Eastern Standard time (EST)
Location: GAME Credits Discord channel
Join us at: https://discord.gg/5pJ5Aa6C
If you can’t make it at that time, you will be able to visit the channel afterward to view the conversation. We have already received a great list of thoughtful and challenging questions and we look forward to responding and continuing the conversation.
In community news, July wrapped up a meme contest in our social channels and a Nova Blitz tournament over the weekend. A huge congrats (and $GAME rewards!) goes to the creators and players in our community. And we have to say, we’re both humbled and honored to laugh with you laughing at us. Here are a few of our favorite memes from the contest.
In Metaverse news, we’ve had the opportunity to share some of our early plans and initial roadmap with a small audience of prospective partner organizations, creators, and collaborators. One piece of the vision that has resonated powerfully with this audience is our strong focus on gaming in this metaverse. We believe our team is uniquely positioned to execute on this vision, based on depth of experience and commitment to both gaming and blockchain technology. As a member of the GAME Credits community, you’ll have access to our vision, ideas, and plans before we publish major announcements and campaigns to the media and general public.
In the spirit of transparency, you can view the work in progress on our community hub at http://hub.gamecredits.org/. This is where we’re drafting our vision, documenting governance principles, and kicking off collaborative project work. The project is currently in Phase 0, which is all about getting set up and launching the core pieces of the ecosystem: Contracts, Community, and World Stakes. Our big launch in the fall will be our World Stake sales – NFTs with contracts providing holders with future access to themed worlds in the metaverse. This smart contract work is the bulk of our engineering work right now.
We have been working with studios and creators to develop the NFTs for our themed worlds. You may have seen a few teasers of worlds. Worlds in design now include themes like Treasure Island, Sports World, Etherium, Bitcoin, Area 51, Area 420, Cat World, and Monster Planet. The NFTs are designed to inspire creativity in the community and attract participants who want to help create and govern each world in the metaverse. We are also working on the first prototype world and hope to launch it for exploration by the end of the year.
Our NFT platform remains a great place for creators to mint NFTs, reward their audience and build a creative legacy on the blockchain. Collectors can still stake GAME on their favorite creators and receive loyalty points to redeem for exclusive content. Our community team is working to recruit and support new creators as they launch collections on the platform. You may notice gradual transitions to our website copy as we shift from eSports to content with relevance for our creator and gamer community.
Within the company, we are building a more formal operational infrastructure to support recruiting and retaining talent. As our team has grown, we have added more US-based team members. We have established US operations with USD payroll and competitive benefits, including company-paid healthcare premiums for US employees and their families. As we grow, we will be recruiting for team members in marketing and communications, engineering, and creative.
The GAME Credits team is excited about our vision for the future. It has been especially motivating to see all the recent news about organizations and teams moving forward with ambitious Metaverse projects. Increasing mainstream discussion and acceptance of this evolution in web3 experience will benefit us all!
With gratitude,
The Team @ GAME Credits
Dear GAME Credits friends and community,
In our June update, we shared with you our driving values – Community, Transparency, Utility, and Flexibility – and our plan to focus on the GAME Credits platform and Metaverse project. I’m proud of the progress our team has made over the past six months and am excited about the road ahead for GAME Credits. Bringing game utility to the Metaverse is a natural fit for our experienced blockchain engineers and our staff of gaming enthusiasts.
Our existing NFT minting platform and marketplace allows for sale and minting of NFTs with metaverse utility. To expand on that functionality, our engineers have been working on additional options, such as bonded NFTs, a new way to bring NFT’s to market while also solving a growing issue in the space – liquidity. As we discover and test creative functionality for smart contracts, we focus on features that provide metaverse utility, not only for our projects but across metaverse solutions. Features like these, as well as usability improvements, will be added to our suite of tools for creators over the next several months. Collectors will begin to notice a smoother browsing and purchasing experience.
One of the first tasks in the GAME Credits Metaverse project, is to develop the founding philosophy and community guidelines that will lead to healthy governance, engaged community, and fun and exciting design and development work. We’ll be sharing this documentation openly and encouraging feedback from the community. We’re committed to supporting a community-driven project by dedicating resources for design and development and staffing for administrative processes and community engagement.
Speaking of community, we are excited to meet new friends and reach creators, collectors, and gamers who are excited to participate in design, development, governance, and creative thinking around game mechanics in the Metaverse. We’re thinking big and seeking diverse talents and perspectives. We will expand outreach to individuals and organizations, recruiting partners to join us in this journey.
One aspect that is definitely a competitive advantage for GAME is our deep Metaverse knowledge. The team is blessed with some of the best minds in the Metaverse space, several who have been active participants with the initial offerings that have come into this sector. This experience, mixed with our deep gaming background has led us to bring forth our own Metaverse, one that challenges the currently held beliefs on what a blockchain-based Metaverse can both look and function like.
Having had the benefit of observing the early incarnations of the Metaverse landscape, we feel confident that our approach, coupled with involvement in existing Metaverse projects puts us in a position to succeed. Good things take time and we are pleased that we did not rush something like this as we plan on it being around for years to come post-launch.
Expect to see more open sharing from our team, including information about how you can get involved. I’ll be hosting an AMA for folks who have questions: about this and anything else under the GAME Credits sun. Details below:
Date: Monday, August 2nd, 2021
Time: 1pm Eastern Standard time (EST)
Location: GAME Credits Discord channel
Join us at: https://discord.gg/5pJ5Aa6C
Enter your question in our GAME Credits Discord #AMA Channel
With Gratitude,
Jason Cassidy
CEO
GAME Credits
