Gamers as NFTs: The next big thing in crypto and what our company’s strategy is.
We humans are the ultimate NFTs and the tokenization of our digital identites will be one of blockchain technology’s biggest impact on the way we exchange value. The data we create online is an asset and NFTs give us the ability to harness and derive value from our actions.
I’ve been thinking a lot about how I could monetize playing video games for myself and the other 3 billion gamers around the world when a novel concept came to mind; What if you could buy and trade gamers and use them as assets to generate revenue?
I am the co-owner of an E-sports tournament platform called Powerboard.gg which creates video game leaderboards for any video game. A Powerboard is a perpetual video game tournament those champion is determined on a rolling basis depending on who has the highest score.
The Powerboard.gg platform is special because you can create a profile and connect any video game account to it. Your profile page acts as an identity kernel to hold and display your game data to the world. The Powerboard backend is extremely flexible which allows us to integrate any video game with an API. Not only can we support games like Call of Duty and Fortnite, we can also support titles like Chess and Settlers of Catan, giving the platform tremendous scaling upside and appeal to any gamer who wants to join a competition or track their stats.
I want to turn a player’s data into an NFT which can used to unlock value for the billions of gamers around the world. Gaming is global but the ability to generate value from in- game performance has yet to be brought mainstream.
Given the advancement in off chain oracles like chainlink and the synergies between gamers and crypto, it is clear to me that gamer based NFTs with dynamic data will certainly be the next big thing and Powerboard is the best platform to bring this to fruition. In this article, I outline our concept of a revenue generating NFT and explore how this can become a reality with the current infrastructure of Powerboard.
Minting a Gamer NFT on Powerboard
Currently, players who create a Powerboard profile can connect their various gaming accounts. The Powerboard backend verifies the accounts that have been connected and makes calls to the game API to fetch game data. Player data is displayed on their profile which showcases their historical performance across the titles they play.
Once the accounts have been successfully connected to their profile, a player can then mint themselves. The minting process creates an NFT of the player and stores the account names that have been connected to the player’s profile. This data is used as a reference for a Powerboard to call when a player joins a board. No historical performance data will be stored on chain as doing so will be very expensive.
The purpose of a Powerboard NFT is to grant the holder the right to use the game data it generates to enter tournaments and generate value from that performance.
We understand that the titles gamers are playing are constantly changing. The accounts and games minted on a player’s profile may not be around in the next few years and updating a smart contract is incredibly tricky. Our proposal to make sure that a player’s stats and games are always up to date is that we mint each player as an 1155 contract and create a separate ERC 721 token that represents their account for a game and assign that to their minted player profile. This will allow Powerboard NFTs to be incredibly flexible and allow us to support new titles and consoles as they come out.
Now that a player has been minted, they can join a Powerboard to earn rewards or put themselves up for auction.
Functions of a Powerboard
Summary: A Powerboard is a contract that maintains the state of the leaderboard and distributes rewards.
A Powerboard is a perpetual tournament where value is created by being the best player out of a group of your peers. These ongoing tournaments incentivize performance by awarding top players financial rewards in the form of tokens for maintaining their pole position and social rewards in the form of notoriety from viewers and other board participants which could translate into a financial reward in the event someone wants to purchase that player’s Powerboard NFT.
A Powerboard is smart contract that holds player entry fees, maintains and updates a record of the current tournament standings, and creates and distributes rewards of tournament participants. Powerboards are created by the Powerboard company and can be unlocked for a fee by any player. Each Powerboard is tied to a specific game and game mode for each title (EX: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, Domination). A Powerboard gets data by calling the game API and fetching information on the players who are currently on the board. This data is used to determine current rankings and reward distribution to the participants.
Powerboards are perpetual so there is no final win state. Game data is refreshed on a 1 hour interval and the contract updates the Powerboard standings. In order to get first place of a Powerboard, you must have the best score out of all the participants. The “best score” will vary game by game and should be determined by community vote. In order to overtake someone, you must beat their current score. Powerboards reset every 24 hours on a UTC clock and the previous day’s leaders maintain their positions until the board is refreshed. Once a player leaves a Powerboard, the amount of PWR (the reward token) that can be earned changes and that player will no longer generate PWR from that board.
Here’s an example:
Bob and Alice are playing on a Fortnite Powerboard where the best score is determined by the number of kills. Bob has a score of 10 and Alice has a score of 8. Alice gets three kills which brings her score to 11. She overtakes Bob and becomes the leader of the Powerboard. The next day, Alice begins in first place.
I’m also interested in alternative models like basing the best score of the delta between a player’s scores after a refresh. This would create a very interesting form of competition as it incentivizes an increase in performance overtime.
Each Powerboard should have two dynamic win states: The current leader who will receive the majority of the PWR generated and a victor emeritus position which is given to whoever has the highest score of all time on that board and is given a small percentage of the PWR generated until someone overtakes them.
Economic Incentives of a Powerboard
Summary: Players can start or join a Powerboard by paying GG, the governance token. Players earn PWR, the reward token, by maintaining their pole position on a Powerboard which can be used to purchase players.
I have designed a two token system to capture the financial and social value generated from perpetual tournaments. The first token, GG, acts as a governance token which gives the holder the ability to start and join Powerboards. The second token, PWR, is used to purchase players and is disturbed to players based on their rankings on a Powerboard.
GG tokens
Players use GG to join a Powerboard. Players can commit GG to unlock a board in order to make PWR. The more players who commit GG to a board, the bigger the reward in PWR is. GG can also be used as a governance token to vote on what games and modes should be added to the platform.
Each board has an unlock fee denominated in GG which must be paid in order to activate the board. At this current time we have set the fee to 10 GG. This is a fee that is non refundable and paid by whomever wants to start a board. Once the unlock fee has been paid, the board is started and anyone who wants to participate must stake 1 GG to join. This admission fee is refundable if a player choose to exit the board.
The total supply of these tokens is currently set to 100,000,000 and would available for purchase via a crowdsale or a DEX once launched. GG could also be pre swapped for PWR at a rate of 1 GG for 10 PWR. These figures are all subject to change.
PWR tokens
PWR tokens are the reward tokens earned by the Powerboard participants. You can use PWR to buy players which can put on other Powerboards to earn more PWR. PWR can also be sold on an exchange for eth or swapped for another token pair. PWR tokens are also a great way for players to display and flex their skills and can be used by investors to determine the potential return of a player.
The more players that join a board will determine the amount PWR that will be distributed to participants. The rate is determined via a bonding curve starting at a rate of 1.25 PWR/hour and grows and shrinks exponentially based on the number of players who join that board.
PWR that is generated is rewarded at an exponentially decreasing rate to the participants with the top player earning the majority of the PWR generated. By doing this we can incentivize performance and participation from all players by giving them a reward for just joining the tournament.
The total supply of PWR is currently uncapped and determined by the number of participants in the Powerboard ecosystem.
Request for alternative token models
I am open discussing the merits and flaws of this model as well as other models in the comments.
Auction House and Teams
Players who create a Powerboard NFT will be able to put themselves up for sale in the Powerboard auction house. Players will be able to set their price and desired revenue split they want. Players will be purchasable for PWR or ETH which goes directly to the player.
Team owners buy players to form a team. Teams are groups of players divided by the titles that they play. It’s free to set up a team which can have multiple owners who can split the PWR reward generated. Team owners will also be able to buy and sell players that they own at the auction house. The Powerboard company will take a small fee of all transactions that take place within our auction house. Players can be also bought and sold on third party platforms but must be used on the Powerboard platform to generate PWR.
Once a player has accepted the deal terms from a team owner, the money is deposited into their account and their Powerboard NFT is sent to the team. The team owner has the ability to put this player on any Powerboard that they chose and reap the rewards generated by the player’s performance. They can put the player on any board that they have a connected account for but only one board per title. Buyers are also responsible for paying the entry fee for the Powerboards they want to place their players on.
The relationship between buyers and players is delicate and I want the relationship to be fair for all parties involved. Revenue splitting between players and team owners I believe is incredibly important. I want this platform to give every gamer on the planet a shot and being able to make money playing video games. We will set player royalties at 10% as a default and give players the option to adjust as they see fit.
Where are we now?
The centralized version of Powerboard is available for play at Powerboard.gg. We have been experimenting with the features and functions of Powerboard off chain to test data reliability and UX. We are currently looking to partner and join organizations and communities to migrate the Powerboard.gg platform on chain.
Please share this article and give your feedback in the comments. This is a work in progress but I felt that its best to have a dialogue in public.
I believe that gamers are going to be the first people this will impact and my E-sports platform Powerboard.gg is uniquely positioned to make this happen.
If you are interested in joining the Powerboard team or track the progress of this project, join our discord channel here: https://discord.gg/MaUMwYwJkz
