Will "pay to airdrop" become the new standard?
GC ALPHA 23
Disclaimer: None of this information should be taken as financial advice. DYOR + I will hold some of the assets that are spoken of in this newsletter.
(P2A) EVENTS & SOCIALFI
FLASH EVENTS
This week doesn’t have many major events to talk about in-depth, so here’s an expanded list of what's currently happening and what's coming up:
Cambria is launching S1, the Early Alpha, on Nov 15
If you want to participate, you need a Battle Pass or a charter holder's sponsorship (see Discord)
Lumiterra CBT#2 is launching today (postponed due to excessive server load)
New: monsters, maps, game features, and ways to earn
Hatchlings is launching early access on PC and mobile on Nov 13
You can pre-register on the game’s website
King of Destiny’s Journey to Olympus Season 2 is coming on November 19
Note: your VIP level is permanent, so it carries over to this event
Sipher’s open beta is now live
This version comes with a bunch of new updates, including an in-game marketplace
ByBit is launching its Crypto Ark-Ade on Nov 11 (today)
6 chains and 9 protocols are participating with a $360K prize pool
Shrapnel is hosting a SHRAPPY Holidays event from Nov 18 - 25
Ragnarok: Monster World’s regular season is launching on Nov 14
FarcadeAI added an email signup page (prioritized for early access)
Pirate Nation’s S3 is coming, the season will start right after S2 concludes
MARKET TALK
“PAY TO AIRDROP” CONTINUED…
We touched on the idea of “Pay to Airdrop” a little while ago. Infinigods employs this model for their Journey to Olympus campaign, so let’s reflect on what happened:
Firstly, Grail wrote a great piece on the event, here are some of the highlights:
To earn GOD during the event the player is required to become at least VIP level 1, this costs you $50
The effects of using this approach are notable, as 66,000 players participated, however, only 680 qualified for the reward pool (~1%)
This leads to giving value to players, who provide value (revenue in this case) to your game. And so, works amazingly in diminishing the # of bots, multi-accounters, and farmers
I am surprised at the turnout of players, as you’d assume this would lead to less participation, maybe sybils don’t read…
Grail invested $14K, which unlocked him ~600,000 of unlocked GOD
This means he spent ~$0,023 per token. And considering Infinigods raised at an $80M FDV in its last round, he would make a 4x on TGE (theoretically)
Ghost (#2) earned 320K GOD tokens with ~$3K spent, putting him at an even better cost-basis of $0,009 per token
Important to add to this as well, is that it will be fully unlocked at TGE, different from participants in the strategic round which have vesting
Lastly, he also added a bunch of tips to maximize your rewards for $ spent
If you haven’t started yet, and you want to play in S2, you do have to consider a few things:
The rewards are not based on leaderboard position, but total score, this means they’re more skewed towards whales and dolphins
Considering the VIP level carries over, the competition for the rewards pool will likely increase in S2, as more paying players will enter
You have to take into account that Infinipass and God holders receive P2W benefits, which provide them an edge in the competition
Plus, the next season will include crypto-payments, meaning the # of paying players + spend per paying player will likely increase
Overall, I think the rewards for S2 will shrink (more paying players), however, I think you can still get great value for your spend in S2 (at least 2-3x based on an $80M FDV at TGE)
QUALIFYING USERS
To continue on the topic of incentive design, I also want to discuss a (potential) shift that’s happening: provenance-fist
What does this mean? Wallet and player history will become more important factors in qualifying users regarding rewards and incentives
Here are some recent examples:
Today the Game: using programmatic WL for the Mythic Seeds collection
Under 20% of minters sold post-mint, 10% bought more, and 50% have been planted (staked)
Hypothesis: distributing WLs to users with “good” wallets and Discord history leads to a healthier holder base, which is beneficial for maintaining floor price
Infinigods: rewarding bagholders in the Valhalla campaign
Starting the trend of providing value to NFT holders, i.e. rewarding your loyalty to Web3 gaming
Project O: providing WL for specific NFT holders (a list of 100) + rewarding long-term holders
Remember the “Are you a worthy collector” score I talked about last week?
Pixels: building a Pixel-player reputation system tool that other Dapps can integrate
E.g. other (farming) games can incentivize players with at least 50+ hours in Pixels, as they have shown to like this genre. Targeting can go much deeper
In Web2 player-targeting is very granular, in Web3 studios are still using the “spray and pray” approach
I.e. in Web2 studios have much greater insights into the data when it comes to who they should target to download their game
Considering on-chain data, a.k.a. wallets have such a large surface area, like seeing someone’s purchase history across a variety of apps, applications described above just mark the tip of the iceberg
ON THE RISE
Kam, the founder of Fableborne, teases that something big is coming…
Dreamrunner is a new multiplayer ARPG for PC, by the makers of KOTE
Love today's article. Exceptionally well written!
So much insights 0.0 <3