ApeSwap IAO #010 — Gamifi-ing GameFi
I knew someone would do something like this…
When I started to learn about play-to-earn blockchain games a few months ago, I learned that there is an invariable cost to start farming tokens for most of the play-to-earn games out there.
For example, Axie Infinity has an entry cost of around USD$2000+ then. That was the minimal cost of buying a team and starting to play (and earn). I decided it wasn’t my cup of tea and moved on to look for other blockchain games that will occupy some of the free time I had.
I then discovered that there were free-to-play models that I could get in and start converting my time to crypto tokens and hopefully to $BANANA when the time was right. However, free-to-play models gave an unbalanced reward ratio of time vs earned tokens. And thus, I was back to square one.
Next came the discovery of Managers and Scholars, a system where the Manager (who is a game player who owns a significant amount of resources) will sponsor Scholars (folks like me who generally have free time and are looking for ways to convert it to crypto) to farm play-to-earn games and eventually split the earnings between them.
Some GameFi games today incorporate the Manager/Scholar relationship within their games to protect the each other from malicious people who will abuse the partnership since invariably it is ultimately linked to dollars and cents. But there is still one major factor that is missing — how do Managers find Scholars and vice versa?
There are folks scouring Twitter and all modes of communication used in the Crypto space but it’s not efficient enough. Scholars have to DM a huge number of people, asking to be one, without knowing if the person they are sending a message to is a Manager. On the flip side, Managers want experienced Scholars playing their game and start asap to get the tokens rolling in.
This is where 99starz comes in. ApeSwap IAO #010 is primarily a platform where people can form/join guilds for a particular play-to-earn game and collectively collaborate to yield earnings as well as compete against other players.
Let’s take Axie Infinity as an example. As you may know you need to form a team of 3 Axies, which are NFTs, in order to start playing. In the 99starz model above, the Game Masters are the ones who have access to the NFT vaults that contain the NFTs that can be rented by players using the $STZ token.
Team Captains are the equivalent of the Managers in the traditional model, searching and retaining the best players they can find to maximize the team’s performance and results.
As for 99starz, the platform will be fully focused on incentivizing the guild/team with quests and rewards to spur participation and healthy competition. In their whitepaper, they do mention acquiring NFTs used in the supported games to reward users of the platform.
On top of it’s matchmaking capabilities and a means to offer a structure to all users to fit their preferred gaming methods, 99starz has an asset marketplace where holders of supported GameFi NFTs can lend their assets for rewards. Similarly, these assets will be used for gaming purposes and not sitting idly in the wallet. This could be useful for situations where the holder may not have enough assets to form another team — an example would be owning only 2 out of the required 3 Axies in order to start playing.
Personally, out of the above list, I only know Sorare, Axie Infinity, REVV Racing, Crazy Defense Heroes and Gamee. And from this list, I am only playing Crazy Defense Heroes (hey it’s free-to-play and I like tower defense games).
The lure of 99starz is very easy to visualize. As a player myself, it is very easy to onboard any play-to-earn game without a hefty upfront investment. All I need is $STZ to rent some NFTs and try the game out. If I don’t like it, I can switch to another. If it’s for me, I can join a guild and earn from the guild, across teams and from 99starz. Much better than risking it out there in the traditional model where I might just get a bad Manager who might fail to give me my share in the partnership.
As a team captain, the benefit is having an easy access to a pool of experienced players who can help maximize time vs profit. And it’s also easy to help newbies get started by getting them to learn the game first by renting from the asset marketplace and once they are comfortable and proven, adding them into the team.
99starz system will enable players to concentrate on what they do best, playing the game while also giving folks who invest in the game but do not necessarily have the time to play it, benefit from their investment by leasing assets out or managing a group of players.
Brief IAO Rules and Details
ApeSwap has already covered the details of the offering but in brief, here they are again.
Date : December 11th, 5am — 5pm UTC
1Million $STZ offered at $0.50 each for both $BNB & $GNANA (500k $STZ for each)
Upon the end of the IAO, 25% of purchased $STZ will be claimable and the remaining 75% will be vested monthly for 3 months (25% per month)
Summary
As I mentioned above, I am a gamer. And the barriers of entry to many GameFi games out there is just too high, not to mention risky for me. I may be able to drop a few thousand into one game or two but at the same time, it will feel like I’ve locked myself into those games for a substantial period in order to recoup my investment. Or worse still, sell my assets at a loss when the general interest wanes and everyone moves to the next popular game.
I believe 99starz will help soften the impact of the cost of entry to very popular play-to-earn games. This helps to keep the game alive by adding new players constantly and it will also spur game developers to keep adding new features from user feedback.
For GameFi NFT holders and/or folks who have amassed a huge “digital army” in any of 99starz supported games, there is a huge opportunity to sit back and relax and let the asset leasing system or become a guild master and passively earn rewards instead of spending the time to play-to-earn.
All in all, I will be watching 99starz closely. And will finally have a chance to see what’s the hype all about with Axie Infinity — Is it the game that makes people play? Or is it the earned amounts? I didn’t have $2000 to find out then, maybe I can do so now with $STZ.
