by Nicola Minichiello / Twitter@colortwits
Spells of Genesis (SoG) is a mobile game combining aspects of Trading Card games with Arcade games, and is being developed to have Bitcoin and blockchain technology as an integral part of its in-game economy and storyline.
EverdreamSoft (EDS) is the Swiss-based game maker behind the project as well as its first title Moonga, which has over 250,000 downloads to date. EDS is not new to Blockchain technology, Moonga has been integrated into the blockchain with Counterparty assets representing trading cards.
SoG has been in the making for a while now and a functioning Beta, available on iOS and Android, is expected by the end of the year. The games launch is dependent on a BitCrystals (BCY) Token Sale, which will allow the company to raise the funds needed to complete the game and bring it to life. Originally the sale was supposed to happen on Koinify but they discontinued their service on May 29, moving on to explore new opportunities. “Koinify will be retiring its current dApp software sale platform and projects,” stated Tom Ding at the time.
The token sale will now be hosted by EDS in partnership with ShapeShift, Brave New Coin reached out to both teams to find out more.
“By popular demand from the community, we understood how important it was for our supporters that we accept multiple cryptocurrencies during the Token Sale. In order to allow this, we have decided to partner with ShapeShift which offers over 40 different altcoins.”
- Shaban Shaame EverdreamSoft CEO and Founder
Shaame explained that the tokens will be offered at a rate of 15,000 BCY per bitcoin. The price will increase every 5 days, a process that has been used in previous token sales for Ethereum, GetGems and Factom. The sale will automatically end when all the BCY are sold or after a 30-day period. 70 million BCY will be available for sale, if any are unsold they will be burned. The burn involves sending BCY to a provably unspendable address, effectively destroying any unsold tokens.
The BitCrystals token sale will be milestone-based, where the funds raised are held in a multisig wallet by third parties. EDS will only get a percentage of the funds if and when development of the game has reached pre-determined stages. There are four milestones in total, the last of which has an estimated completion date of April 2016.
SoG has gained a supportive crowd thanks to the release of several Blockchain-based trading cards dedicated to some of the top crypto projects. Their marketing strategy, aimed at the bitcoin community, seems to have paid off even before the actual game launch, an indication of the attention the game may attract.
Using the blockchain allows for a mathematically provable, publicly-verifiable proof of rarity that simply wasn’t possible before Bitcoin. This should help guarantee the authenticity of cards and games assets within the SoG ecosystem.
“By putting digital game assets directly on the Bitcoin blockchain, Spells of Genesis has initiated a new megatrend. Everyone will be doing this soon.”
- Erik Voorhees, CEO ShapeShift.io
There seems to be a frenzy around buying some of the limited edition cards. The SATOSHICARD is limited to 200 units and only available via flash sales, while the FDCARD is limited to 300 units and was only made available to Folders. The latter is now sold out.
BitCrystals will be used to purchase new card decks and game items, while working as the medium of exchange within the game, and a tradable asset outside of the game. The fact that BitCrystals are a Counterparty asset makes them suitable to be traded by anyone, even if they are not a SoG player.
“Spells of Genesis is breaking new ground with their model of creating scarce digital game assets on the blockchain. We've been excited about this since we learned of it, and it has guided some of our own internal product development. Our support for the crowdsale is partly because we want to see Spells of Genesis succeed, and partly because it helps us test our exchange capabilities in a new way.”
- Voorhees
Shaame elaborated, explaining that EDS wants to take full advantage of a shared economy that only the blockchain allows. “We believe when projects are crowdfunded people who pre-purchased the product should not only get early access or a t-shirt, they should own the fuel of the game economy.”
“Once the game is funded and up and running all the game assets we’ll have for sale will be acquired only with BCY. All our contributors will have a shared ownership of the overall game value by holding BCY, the key to acquire game assets.”
- Shaame
Not only will contributors have a stake in the games value, every time a new card deck is purchased the BCY used will be burned, reducing the total number in circulation. According to the team, this could increase the value of each BCY as more and more assets are purchased and BCY burned.
To drive asset sales the game needs users. Shaame expects the game to quickly achieve 50,000 Monthly Active Users, in the first few months. “Usually the conversion between a free player and a paying one in the game industry is about 5% to 9%.”
Figures from the companys first game, Moonga, show that the Monthly Average Revenue Per Paying User is around 40 USD. If Shaame can attain the lower bound of the industry conversion rate, and his user target of 50,000, the initial estimate for BitCrystals used for in-game items should be around $100,000 USD per month.
“In the long term we aim to become the leading Trading Card/RPG game and reach Puzzle and Dragon which generates around 40 million USD in sales per Month.”
- Shaame
Spells of Genesis is at an early alpha stage at the moment, it is available for a test run at http://www.jasperdamman.nl.
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