Authors
- Orange Pill Ltd
- DEPT Agency
Summary
Orange Pill Ltd has been developing, in collaboration with Dept Agency, an NFT Marketplace. The NFT Marketplace will be a sophisticated platform which focuses on gaming assets. Merit Circle Limited will transfer the NFT Marketplace software and IP that has been created to the DAO. It is proposed that the ongoing development of the NFT marketplace be undertaken and completed by the Merit Circle DAO. The Merit Circle DAO is focused on the gaming industry, and the blockchain industry specifically. The DAO is therefore in a unique position to launch an NFT and in-game asset Marketplace given the wide range of portfolio projects it has supported. The revenue generated by the NFT Marketplace will further contribute to the long-term viability of the Merit Circle DAO.
Abstract
The world is beginning to see a change and evolution from centralized governance towards a decentralized governance, where everybody has the ability to contribute to the ecosystem and partake in its success. The gaming industry is rapidly moving towards an open and transparent submersive metaverse and play & earn industry. ‘Web3’ is facilitating this by enabling gamers to be actively involved in gaming guilds, have fun and make money.
The wonderful world of web3 allows us to approach gaming in a completely different manner; instead of being limited to in-game assets and economies, both can be translated into real life markets. The economy of a game can now be attached to a digital currency and thereby incentivize parties in a new and exciting way.
The assets of a game can be traded through primary markets (in-game markets or native marketplaces) or through secondary markets (NFT marketplaces or aggregators). Players can grind within a game to acquire an extremely rare asset to then profit, not only in-game, but also in real life by trading the asset on a marketplace. While we see the huge potential here, we’ve also identified various flaws in existing secondary markets.
Current challenges
- Large cut from NFT sales and volume
- Lacking UI/UX
- Minimum customization possibilities
- No possibility to tailor towards NFT launches
- Hard to find certain game assets - limited data filtering
- Current platforms are not tailored to the gaming necessities, but built as a one-stop-shop
- Current platforms mostly act like a conglomerate or corporate and do not listen to their community
- Roadmaps of bigger marketplaces are not developed in collab with their users and is cost/revenue driven
- The users of most larger platforms do not benefit from trading on these platforms
Proposed solution
Building an NFT marketplace for gaming NFTs.
In our marketplace, players will be able to trade assets for all games that have incorporated NFT technology. As well as focusing on gamers, traders and game developers, we’re considering the needs and wishes of all to build one platform that seeks to benefit all.
To quote a recently published article by the Merit Circle DAO;
For the collector
The NFT has been invented to create digital ownership, proof that you are the only one who’s holding the asset. This creates amazing opportunities for lots of industries and, suddenly, these non-replicable assets become valuable. Wherever there’s value, there are traders and collectors. In our marketplace, we aim to support the needs of both parties.
Both will be able to find everything they need to make informed decisions. This includes a detailed oversight of the item itself, the game it’s part of and the collection within the game. What’s more, the item might hold a specific type of functionality within the game that makes it unique and all of this information will be available to the public.
On top of that, we will eventually integrate statistics and tools such as rarity, floor price scanners and many other analytics that help support traders and collectors make the right decision based on previous activity within the collection.
For the creator
In current marketplaces, every collection basically looks the same. The customization of a collection’s page is limited to a simple logo and banner, nothing more than that. As each game is completely unique, wouldn’t it make sense to allow everyone to customize their pages accordingly? Creators should be able to easily create pages that mimic the exact look and feel of their game, not that of our platform.
We aim to support creators throughout the entire process of launching their collection, from the mint all the way through to continuous sales on the marketplace. We find customization important not only on a design level, but also functionality wise. Whenever a game approaches us with a distinctive way of launching its NFTs, we’re all ears and always strive to support them in the best way possible.
Our long list of partners allows us to speak with the creators themselves and learn first-hand what it is that they need. When we can take on certain responsibilities and tasks, we are more than happy to do so. We want developers to focus on improving their games, not to spend unnecessary time and money on development. We will build their native marketplace, rarity tools, data sets and launching portals — everything a successful project needs to start its journey.
For the gamer
The days of selling World of Warcraft accounts on ebay are over. No more sharing passwords of accounts holding your precious assets with the risk of getting scammed. Ownership of accounts, items and any in-game assets can now easily be transferred through marketplaces, both inside and outside of the game. NFT technology makes ownership transferable and we want to create the best experience for gamers.
We are looking at a future where the secondary marketplace will tie into the game itself. Imagine walking around your favorite game, visiting the local town hall and being able to trade your in-game currency for that one shiny object you’ve been dreaming about. You have been grinding hours to acquire these in-game tokens and finally you can purchase the item of your choice. You make the trade and you can then freely use the item in the game.
The person on the other side of this trade might never have played the game before and just purchased the item for financial, art or reputational motivations. This is the trader as indicated above, but it can fit perfectly into the needs of the gamer. The trader will only visit the marketplace in-browser, while the gamer will visit the marketplace in the game or via the creator’s website. There are countless possibilities and the potential is exciting.
More information about this solution can be found here
Timeline
The NFT Marketplace will continue to grow and develop on an ongoing basis. The first version of the platform will be launched in the near future. The Marketplace, initially, will allow users to browse and trade (buying, selling, auctioning and making offers) and creators to display collections in a bespoke manner.
We will enable creators to customize their pages from the get go, in ways different than we have seen today. The Marketplace will also have the ability to highlight certain games.
Motivation
The Merit Circle DAO is in a unique position within the industry. The DAO has dozens of partners eagerly looking for out-of-the-box solutions that can assist in scaling their projects rapidly. These range from simply marketing activities to in-game economic models. One practical aspect of launching a game with in-game assets is electing a marketplace where these items can be easily exchanged. This can take a long time and, ultimately, distracts the creators’ focus on what’s important; the game itself.
The Merit Circle DAO can offer anyone a whitelabel solution for the exchange of in-game assets that simply offer a more complete solution than currently available marketplaces. This Marketplace can be natively in-game or browser-based, simple and steady. This should happen now to seize a decent market share and allow projects to depend on the Merit Circle DAO for this part of their operation.
The creation of thisMarketplace will not only add a significant competitive advantage for the investment vertical of the Merit Circle DAO, it will also generate revenue for the entire DAO and therefore contribute to the longevity of the entire ecosystem.
Budget
- 1,250,000 USDC for the Alpha version.
- Up to 2,500,000 USDC for on-going iterations and newer versions. (In an ideal scenario the DAO should be able to fund this from generated income that originates directly from the marketplace)
- On-going budget paid from generated fees for smaller marketplace iterations and improvements.
Rationale
Beneath, we have compiled a list of questions that might be asked after going through the proposal above.
Why do we need an NFT marketplace?
The Merit Circle DAO invests wisely in solutions across the entire blockchain gaming value chain. Through these investments, the Merit Circle DAO will soon offer a range of solutions from source to end user, thereby anchoring its position in GameFi. The NFT marketplace and in-game plugin solutions gives the Merit Circle DAO a strong position in the industry, slowly creating a moat and making it difficult to copy the DAO in the near future. Simply put, the Merit Circle DAO is turning into a one-stop-shop.
Besides that, the industry is bound to have a better solution than currently available. Gamers want to quickly trade their assets while game developers want to properly display their assets. We want to uplift the entire industry and do this together with our entire community.
Can we build this cheaper?
We can use an oft-quoted maxim to answer this question;
“Fast, Cheap, and Good… pick two. If it’s fast and cheap it won’t be good. If it’s cheap and good, it won’t be fast. If it’s fast and good, it won’t be cheap. Fast, cheap and good … pick two words to live by.”
We are going for fast and good. Naturally, this can be done cheaper or even in-house but we felt like bringing in significant development power by collaborating with Dept Agency to quickly move and realize a marketplace like this in a short time frame is beneficial for DAO.
Why are we paying DEPT agency to built this?
We agreed that the Marketplace should be built in-DAO. We want our own native NFT platform and marketplace to actualize synergies within the Merit Circle DAO. After initially agreeing on a scope for the platform, we, the core team of the DAO, felt that there are two possible paths to take;
- Giving the development contract to Merit Ltd
- Giving the development contract to DEPT Agency
After much thought and deliberation it was agreed that it should be outsourced to Dept Agency. Instead, Merit Circle Core will looks closely with DEPT to make sure the products will be in line with what our partner projects are requesting. After working with various development companies, DEPT has won our trust as a competent team that is easy to work with. They have a lot of manpower they can direct to this project. If the task had been undertaken solely by the Merit Ltd (the core development team) it would likely take longer than a year. The costs of contracting suitable developers, designers etc was disproportionate and would have impacted the growth of the Merit Circle DAO. Furthermore, the time lag would also put the Merit Circle DAO at a significant disadvantage to other marketplace competitors.
The web3 industry is a fast paced growing industry. Time to market is crucial and therefore convinced that this was the right route.
Why has development started before the DAO has approved?
The web3 industry is moving as fast as lightning. Sit idle for a few months and dozens of new marketplaces, protocols and what not have claimed the market share that is right in front of us to capture. Orange Pill Ltd took an executive decision to commence development on the marketplace, because we perceived it as a time sensitive and golden opportunity for the DAO.
The Merit ltd is contracted by the DAO to develop for the DAO. The ltd will front the costs for the DAO and it will bear the full costs if the proposal is not voted in. The costs thusfar for the marketplace are 800,000 USDC (so about ⅔ of what is needed for the Alpha version). The total R&D costs for the marketplace would deplete a significant portion of the ltds budget, needed for on-going development work. The core development Merit ltd has no profit-incentive, but will require budget to stay operational. We hope the DAO recognizes the great infrastructure opportunity for the DAO here and will let us continue the work from the DAOs R&D treasury budget. This should become an infrastructure investment piece that will pay itself back many times over in the long-term. We think R&D is one the best uses for DAO funds in the long-term and therefor one of the most important investments buckets for the DAO. Over time, all R&D costs should be specified in the treasury reports, to get a clearer idea of the returns on R&D as a whole and on the different R&D projects.
Copyright
Copyright and related rights waived via Creative Commons CCO