GotchiMiner devs going ALL IN (Y/N?)

Proposals by Gotchi Gov'nuhs
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GM gotchigang,

We wanted to share something with all of you that has been on our minds for a while. We have been developing GotchiMiner for almost two years now and have been part of the Aavegotchi community from the very beginning. We fell in love with the ecosystem and its potential, and we have been developing in the shadows for a long time.

Before approaching the community, we wanted to prove ourselves capable of delivering something that really adds significant value to the ecosystem. As a result, we have spent more than 2500 hours developing the current state of GotchiMiner without asking anything to the DAO, self-funding infrastructural cost and small prizes for each stress test. We focused on developing a fun multiplayer game that people could enjoy playing, something that could be a powerful onboarding tool to present to new people. At the same time, the game had to be secured, ensuring a fair fight and that allocating rewards will translate into profits for the best players’ efforts. We also worked on scalability, creating infrastructure that can easily support thousands of concurrent players, in an efficient manner.

Our efforts paid off. The GotchiMiner event showed us that the community is hungry for content and playtime, with more than 2000 hours spent during a single week, with 600+ daily active users. It was a great proof of concept for us, and we are proud of what we have achieved so far.

Now we’re at a crossroads, and it’s a difficult decision to make. If we go all-in on game development for Aavegotchi, we will be leaving behind a field in which we are considered world experts, with 100+ scientific publications and many years of experience delivering cutting-edge products worldwide. But we feel that the potential for Aavegotchi and its ecosystem is immense, and we are willing to take the leap of faith. We believe that with our experience and skills, we can make significant contributions. However, we cannot make this decision alone. We need to know if the community is going to support our effort or not.

If we go all into game development, we will start a gaming studio. To ensure that we can take on all the legal and administrative cost as well as secure our short-term future, we will need to secure funding of about $300k. If the community supports us financially, we will:

  • Develop GotchiMiner to its full potential, adding additional maps, game modes, lickquidators, and more fun features.
  • We will cover the infrastructure costs to run monthly events of GotchiMiner for a year, ensuring a fun way to engage the community.
  • Develop an additional game MVP within a year. We would bring a couple of options to the table, and the DAO could vote on which type of game they would like to see us develop.

We want to present an honest story and be transparent with our intentions. If you think that we can contribute to the ecosystem and the gaming community by going all in, please show your support in the comments. If you have any questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to ask. Thank you all for being part of this amazing community!

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For 300k you will have my support and vote. GotchiMiner was well made. Any chance GotchiCart will be one of the games possibly for game development?

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100% behind you on this. You have proven you can ship a fun game with high quality. $300K would be well spent on this.

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I would support you because you prooved of what you are capable of.

But I think we need a game that is persistent which allow to level up and give a sense of progression to the player. Starting all over from scratch each 30 minutes doesn’t do that in my opinion.

Would you consider to join the force with the crawler team? It’s quite an ambitious project and I’m sure you would be of great help.

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100% support this. Yourself and your team have shown incredible work ethic, honesty and transparency in the Aavegotchi community for the last few years and it really shows in GotchiMiner. I have no doubt 300k would be well spent seeding the formation of your game studio! Very very exciting!

Would you put together a roadmap document prior to SigProp? I think that could be a valuable resource to help the community understand what’s coming up and what features 300k gets them.

And one of the other stiicking points for funding props seems to be pay distribution. Are you guys thinking monthly payments similar to a salary? Or lump sum up front?

One final query, what are your thoughts on potential revenue generation back into the DAO? Is it something you intend to implement? I personally think a great standalone Aavegotchi game is enough (i.e. utility value for asset holders) but also think it will be important to make it clear to the DAO if there will be financial kickbacks.

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I want to see it where you pick a gotchi and get spawned in to a series of minigames, and your score is based on the whole run. Pausing a run in-between rounds should be a thing, for people who only habe 30 min at a time.

And YES, shower this team with funding.

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I think GotchiMiners is a great accomplishment and it’s really fun to play. You personally are one of my fav OGs. I very much feel like we’ve “grown up together” in this community, and I wholeheartedly support your efforts.

However, I can’t criticize others for requesting large sums of money without providing a detailed financial plan (or better yet a comprehensive business plan), and then agree to support giving a friend 300k without the same level of scrutiny. I’m sure you understand this.

As such, while my personal bias is a resounding “yes,” I strongly encourage you to develop a thorough business plan (which should be an initial step in creating a game studio anyway) and present it to the DAO before making such life changing decisions.

In 2019, I embarked on a similar journey. Following my PhD, I left academia to launch a game studio. I applied for and received approximately 60k in federal funding to support the gaming industry (supplemented by 30k of my own savings). I have been stretching that out since my Project’s development began in 2020. For over a year now I have been paying me a monthly salary of merely 100 bucks because my company can’t afford any more. I find it extremely difficult to grow a following for my Play-to-Earn game, especially because blockchain game-developers seem to have a lot of inherent disadvantages (not allowed on steam, not allowed to start a twitter ad campaign, unsure regulation, different in each country, etc.). Existential angst is with me every day. Despite the saying that when you feel like giving up, success is just around the corner, I’ve yet to see any evidence of that. But as scientists, we know that the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. So here is to pushing on!

The reason I share this is not to get sympathy points from the community, or to shill my project, but merely to offer you a realistic perspective on the potential challenges you may face in this field. Success is never a guarantee, regardless of how rewarding this space may appear. Whatever you decide, I wish you the very best of luck!

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Let me start off by saying how much I enjoyed playing gotchi miner. What a joy it was to have what felt like a full game to experience with my gotchis! I love what you’ve built and want to support you guys fully in your adventure.

That being said, there are some things which need clarity. The most important is your business plan. What is your revenue model? A free to play game is awesome to bring exposure to the project and reward asset holders, but I believe you also need a plan on how to generate revenue. $300k burn per year is quite hefty without any repayment plan.

What is your plan on how those revenues are shared? Are you guys building a game studio for the Aavegotchi DAO or planning to expand beyond? If you’re seeking seed funding for your studio then how as a DAO are we going to be repaid on the investment?

I think this initiative is very exciting and a huge step in the right direction for the DAO, but please provide some more information regarding above.

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This is actually an interesting question for the DAO in general and how it feels about indie games built around the protocol, i.e:

Does every game funded by the DAO need to be paid back?

Very curious to hear everyone’s take on this. A recent example where I don’t think this was the case is the DAO electing to pay 195k for the french armiy’s Sandbox game. Not sure if the DAO is expecting anything back from that? I did see a mention about Avatar sales in the prop but couldn’t see a detailed breakdown on what potential revenue could be there?

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In my mind, you all have more than proven yourself capable and deserving of more funding to continue your work! My suggestion would be to focus and hone your pitch around all the ways that asset owners stand to gain from your team’s future work.

I think you also bring light to a challenge that a lot of contributors are dealing with, which is that meaningful contributions take a lot of time and effort, and contributors often need a substantial monetary commitment from the DAO to turn down other sources of steady income in order to continue to be a productive contributor.

I’ll be rooting for y’all!

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The biggest way we gain, is that this is the only thing so far that exemplifies the dream of “The Aarcade”

This is what we wanted, what we needed, and more than we deserved.

If you want more of something, reward it.

By fully funding this effort, we will attract other high quality games, and we need a lot of them to become what we need to be, which is something akin to a web3 Steam where you take your characters from game to game to game or rent them out.

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I don’t see why this should always be the case. I think the ‘pay back’ or ‘burn X asset’ (sort of the same thing) is just one specific lens of looking at things. At the end of the day, creating value for the ecosystem is what matters. If it can do both, then that’s great, of course…

That said, it’s a fair call to say it’s a hefty amount of $, so a fairly detailed plan and milestones, etc, would be valuable to have.

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Thanks a lot for the great feedback so far! Two main points to clarify about our current proposal are: the roadmap and the mechanisms by which the DAO would benefit if this moves forward.

1. ROADMAP
We would like to plan fun events every quarter and achieve significant milestones along the way. Although we don’t want to disclose all the details, we can certainly outline our most relevant targets:

GM roadmap_
GM roadmap_1512×875 254 KB

V1.1 | 2023 Q3
Daark Forest goes live (XP event)
Break the Vaults! Underground Puzzles
Sponsored event
Halloween special event

V1.2 | 2023 Q4
Sponsored event
GotchiMiner Mobile App
Exploring the grid: new mining location (XP event)
GotchiChain Integration
Christmas special event

V1.3 | 2024 Q1
Team fights: 2 vs 2 & 3 vs 3
Sponsored event
Dedicated player journey: played games, stats and achievements
Wearable Effects
Mining Guild Waars! Full integration of guilds into leaderboards
Underground lickquidators! (XP event)

V1.4 | 2024 Q2
Alchemica+GLTR integration
Sponsored event
Challenge rooms (winner-takes-all)
Mining Guild Waars II
PvE cave experience (XP event)

There are multiple moving pieces to achieve these goals, but we believe they are reasonable targets. Besides, we would also like to start the development of a game chosen by the community, which could be done in the following timeframe:

G2 roadmap
G2 roadmap1159×684 87.3 KB

Q3 2023
Discussion of ideas for game#2
Selection of top 2 proposals

Q4 2023
OPTION 1 & OPTION 2 basic demos

Q1 2024
Development of winner selection

Q2 2024
Stress test of Game#2

2. DAO REVENUE
Aavegotchi has a great potential to become a successful market leader as an NFT gaming protocol. However, it currently lacks a large player base. PixelCraft is well aware, and set “player growth” as one of the primary targets of the year. If we want to reach 10k DAU or even 100k DAU, expanding the content offered is key. Besides the exciting development of GotchiGuardians, additional game titles within the ecosystem would increase a lot the value offered to attract new players.

Besides the indirect gains, we would like to suggest a monetization system that could provide direct revenue to the DAO with two layers:

  • Season passes: special events happening every quarter will be free for gotchi owners, but they could require a small fee from players renting a gotchi to try to win rewards. In this way we could encourage owning a gotchi and at the same time ensure some revenue.
  • Challenge rooms (winner-takes-all): players will be able to create a game instance with a custom entry fee, so other players can join to try to win the total reward available. A percentage of the prize could go directly to the DAO

While we are still in the early stages of this exciting new adventure, we are working hard to navigate the legal and financial implications and move forward with confidence. Our team is fully committed to ensuring that the community recognizes the value of our work, and we will continue to involve the DAO in significant decisions and carefully listen to feedback from the community to shape our future developments.

We would like to thank everyone for their participation in this discussion, and we look forward to keeping the momentum going. If you have any questions, suggestions, or doubts, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us. We appreciate your support and look forward to creating a bright future for Aavegotchi together!

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I’m curious what people in general think is the best way to go in general…

  1. Is it a single, really in-depth game that some people can (potentially) get really involved in and it has layers of depth and strategy and teamwork…

Or

More of the casual/fun approach of minigames where players could jump in for 10 mins and play around ?

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I think this should be up to the discretion of the team. I personally believe that game developers need a vast amount of freedom and discretion to decide and change things (even if the changes are drastic), and investors should generally have very little say. This is not because investors are not deserving of this role, but because of the reality that game development is an art that simply seems to become worse as more control and goals are exerted on game designers. I think we should just decide:

  1. Do their past efforts justify a payment?
  2. Do we trust this team?
  3. How much we should pay this team?

Notice I’m not even listing deliverables. Promising things in game development almost never works out well. This is why most games don’t even announce a release date until the product is very close to ready and well tested. Even the scope of a game can be very different from inception to final product.

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In my ideal world, most of the games fit 1, but are also configured with a shorter mode that is compatible with some sort of system that feeds you through all the hardest levels of the best games and tests your overall skill using a specific gotchi in numerous situations.

It doesn’t need to be both, you just need a proper standard for setting it up so your game has a side door that drops you into the correct settings and at the end, sends you off to another game with your data.

A system like this will be a force multiplier and keep games fresh and challenging longer. It also enables newer games to slide right into the ecosystem, as a developer only needs to perfect that 10 minute quick play to show us what they can do, and get real feedback, as their level is inserted into the mix. It also enables there to be a place for quick games that could go between levels, similar to Raging Rabids on Wii…

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Curious what is the opinion of the community in general is regarding the GotchiMiner game itself and it’s potential…

Honestly, I haven’t played it myself, though I’ve heard great things and watched some videos, etc… that said, my gut instinct is to question the potential widespread appeal of a game of this genre.

So, I’m just putting the idea out there… and not meaning to create confusion or anything, but could another option be "We don’t think the GotchiMiner game has the greatest potential possible, but the team has done an awesome job, would you consider offering some other ideas on alternative games you might be able to work on ? "

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Not sure what is stopping you from trying it out, but… I personally lost multiple days to it, lost lots of sleep, and pretty much decided I’d rather play miner than do anything else.

I also tend to despise everyones music, especially on repeat, and this was first game I’ve left the music on and turned up loud, in possibly a decade. Actually, the track with the paradiddle bassline may have pushed a year long earworm out of my head.

YMMV.

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GM frens. An update is due, so let’s go right into it:

  • To start a legitime gaming studio, we had to understand well the financial procedures to convert external funding paid in crypto into fiat. We have been working diligently to gather information about the legal path of the funds by reaching out to several lawyers, tax advisors, and registered crypto-trading companies. Surprisingly, even companies that advertise themselves as “crypto experts” in our country have struggled to answer basic questions, resulting in a significant investment of time and resources.

  • We have independently researched the legal and tax implications and have arrived at a potential solution that seems to align with the taxation schemes of regular companies in our country. In a worst-case scenario, we may face a 25% VAT tax when converting crypto into fiat, accounting for it as part of the company’s turnover. However, there may be an opportunity to reduce that tax to 9% by applying for a special R&D scheme, although this would need to be done after the company is established and subjected to government approval (if applicable).

  • In case of pursuing the opportunity further and receiving 300k $DAI from the DAO, our runaway time would be of 12-14 months (depending on taxes, insurance, and expenses).
    Based on our projections, even if adding several monetization layers such as event passes and challenge rooms, we are still far from being able to support our basic salary costs with our current player base. Even if we account for positive player growth, at this point the uncertainty is too large to have a realistic estimation to rely on.

  • Even if there is a possibility of requesting further financial support from the DAO in the future, this would introduce a huge potential risk in our roadmap.

As a result, we may find ourselves without further funding in the short/mid-term and unable to keep up with financial commitments to maintain our families. While we are incredibly passionate about game development, running out of money and losing our jobs in about a year is a situation we cannot afford. We have carefully evaluated the risks and benefits of this new adventure, and unfortunately, we are unable to find a sustainable way forward that can support this transition. Therefore, we will put this opportunity on hold for now and hope that there is an opening in the future when this adventure becomes feasible.

The emotional rollercoaster of the last weeks has taken a toll on the team, so we will be pausing the development of GotchiMiner for a while. However, we will keep a server cluster running the latest version of the game on our website until the end of the month.

Thank you all for your understanding and kind support.

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A bummer to hear fren. It would have been amazing to see what you guys could have built this year at full steam!

Looking forward to the market and player base improving so we can get those extra miner modes :slight_smile:

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