Latest News // 2023-01-16
Dateline: four zero seventy-nine
ProtoReality Games Update on DO119 - BlogPost 7, Status Update
ProtoReality Games // Update // DO119
BlogPost 7
Status Update as at dateline 479
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A Game Studio, building a Mobile video game x Crypto (Web 3.0, Metaverse, Sci Fi MMORPG)
A game first and foremost – with a blockchain layer for the in game economy
Where Storyline is key ––“playable Squid Game” with PvE and PvP other suitable reference point is GTA “lite”
Significant unique backend crypto vaulting solution for user wallets in secure custody
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Hello Citizens!
It has been some time we have been quiet – but we come to uncover and present our Status of the Project.
This update is CEO own words – not Project Voice – and not legal or financial advice.
CONTENTS
-->Market of Calendar Year 2022
-->FTX/SBF/WTF/GTH
-->What we have built
-->Industry messages
-->Direct to community messages
-->Future Product Features
-->Timelines
-->CEO Closing
Market of Calendar Year 2022
What a year.
We started this project in earnest in 2021 as a founding team, and completed raising initial funds by end Jan. Then in February we did full tech team buildouts on both client side and server side.
Our Medium page sets out the technical explanations of developments our amazing team have brought to bear:
https://medium.com/@protorealitygmz
We always remember at PRG that we are a game studio – first and foremost. I said this on numerous interviews, marketing pieces, conferences and in person events. Approx 70 to 80% of our output is the product – the game, the storyline, the environment and the experience. The balance does relate to economics and how that integrates with token ownership, but it a minor aspect, and even the in-company expertise is a minimal % of effort and what we need to achieve.
Regardless, please do remind yourselves of what actually happened in 2022
The list of what we accomplished as PRG in 2022 is here, as revealed in earlier updates:
|
Feb |
TGE |
On time |
|
Mar |
DEX and MVP Raydium Selected |
On time |
|
Apr |
CEX MEXC selected |
On time |
|
May |
NFT Sales and |
On time for key NFTs only, others delayed On time for Alpha |
|
Jun |
Game Themes with early accessors |
On time |
|
Jul |
Beta |
Was delayed until August |
|
Aug |
Consistent client side build NFTs developed (high end style) |
On time On time |
|
Sep |
Back end build focus |
Delayed |
|
Oct |
Back end build focus |
Delayed |
In market terms, for Calendar year 2022, the market environment was as follows:
- Bitcoin prices dropped nearly 65% in 2022, its worst annual performance since its 73% decline in 2018
- Ethereum prices dropped 67.7% in 2022
- Solana prices dropped by 94.2% in 2022
Overall, not great, we are in the “winter” now, even bear markets in technology in general, but let’s remember what actually happened.
Happiness, buzz and contentment continued in the market from January until end of April. In those times, we all thought that the good times could continue to roll. Significant announcements of the below types kept feel good factors:
- A16z bullish report
- DeFi hope
- ETH Merge
- Solana build out – partnership and Solana phone
- Yuga labs raise ($450m! raise)
- Animoca raised $360m
- Other large raises: Circle, Sui, BlockFi
- Games: Mythical Games
- Web3 and Metaverse became significant hype and talking points
And then we had:
- Terra / LUNA
- Celsius
- 3AC
- Voyager
- BlockFi
- Wormhole and Ronin Hacks
- Wintermute Hack
When all was said and done – we went from USDT 2.5b to approx. USD 0.6b of mktcap – down in total 75% across the whole market.
This says nothing of the USDT stablecoin attempted depeg in May – market rattling, and now by end of 2022 – Silvergate bank …
Then, after all of the above, November brought FTX – we shall move to this now …
FTX/SBF/WTF/GTH
Why do we talk about of the above in our update? Because it affected us, all the above were interwinned in the markets, through a web of agreements and company structure diagrams into FTX.
Please see: https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2022-crypto-contagion-from-bitcoin-to-FTX/
FTX : For Traders Exchange
SBF: no need to explain
WTF: What the fuck
GTH: Go to hell
We as humans learn inherently from wins and losses. Wins actually hit less than losses hurt though psychologically. Wins become normal, routine and self reinforcing in times of hope and a bullish crowd think behavior, whereas losses can take infinitely longer to recover form.
A 50% win can be lost and recovered, but a 50% loss is now a 100% upside requirement to get back to even.
As a company we were in direct discussion with FTX on SSO sign in – allowing credentials to be used to easily allow KYC and AML of our userbase. If they have passed a “gold standard” then surely we have an appealing additional technical USP.
We were also in direct discussion on other matters – gladly those did not eventuate. I personally spent a lot of 2022 on how and why allocations were made by their ventures team – and why not blah blah blah…
Regardless. I will say without reservation, that if everything reported and currently being revealed in real time is true, this is clearly the very worst case of corporate misgovernance and misappropriation in history, and anyone would say a big F YOU to the mastermind. To take a real business of an exchange and then destroy it through incredible delusion and world domination greed at a despot dictator level defies belief. I’m shocked as a human, as a business owner, and as a participant in the new world of web3/virtual worlds/metaverse we are trying to bring change to.
You fucked it up for all us Sam in the near term. Well done asshole.
In addition, we lost a material amount of funds in the debacle, as have other projects (StarAtlas) which are also badly affected. We took immediate steps in November and December to counter this impact – these aspects are ongoing. How did we not see this? The world’s “best” investors did not see it either – and they had behind the scenes access – Seqioua, Tiger, Softbank …
However, as stated, we are a game studio first and foremost, and we are building a game that has no forebearance on the market of crypto – we have many multiple revenue lines not based on tokens at all.
(Side note – of all the “saviors” who offered industry assistance during this period to help out innocent parties such as ourselves unfarily impacted by this issue – none have transferred cash to help)
What we have built
We are builders. We have grafted on the product and created a world, with environment, characters, dialogue, activities, communication, multiplayer and visual cutscene entertainment. Power to the creatives!
We have staff in Singapore (HQ), a large presence in Vietnam, Ukraine, Taiwan and the US.
Our art, story, music and general virtual worlds are amazing. We are about ready to launch and we finalise the details of tech integration and QA/QC before final submission.
We have been delayed. FTX impacted us and also the back end development progress was hurt by the incorrect hire in the form of one engineer – which impacted code development for all. We are happy to state now that for the last 3 months we have worked with an amazing group of engineers in Ukraine (working remotely) – that despite the terrible situation they face they are amazing and preparing final step timelines.
We are Solana.
By this, we mean, we are one with Solana. We selected Solana against a myriad of chains, and even now in this moment, aside from the issues on stability last year which are largely resolved, the amazing engineering teams and product developments undertaken by them – Google Cloud block producing validator node to enhance the network at scale for example – still mean they are the most performant chain for our requirements at scale. Why projects select other chains does not fathom for us.
We hope to get closer to Solan directly in 2023. Remember, we are a mobile video game – and they are the only L1 with a phone! The proof of concept of the demand case is and will be seen by all as transformational.
On the back end tech – server side development – with a view to innovation through reinterpretation: we will bring a new method to use. Custom development to host each new onboarded user with: A new automated instantiated and subsequently securely hosted, managed and protected, Solana Based Wallet.
Industry messages
We think it is important to note some new key themes – and these are useful for the all and whole of the stakeholder groups:
§ Hide the hard – ie don’t make the wallet integration 30+ steps. Balance decentralized v centralized for optimal onboarding, UI and UX
§ Tokenomics are not everything – turns out there are 100+ macro variables that determine actual economics, and even though we said this, tokenomics now mean almost nothing if you mean only supply vesting and over what time period. Turns out real world business models will need to interplay in economics designs, and in turn new mechanics of how any tokens get value attribution will be important!
§ Marketing hype – also turns out that even if you spent the multi millions on crazy hype marketing – you saw zero return on it last year – lets go back to product first then marketing
§ App stores will be changing rules – Europe declared Apple anti competitive – outcome: Apple Inc (AAPL.O) is preparing to allow alternative app stores on its iPhones and iPads in the European Union as soon as late next year to comply with a new European competition law it had fought, Bloomberg News
§ We have to accept a stepping stone of web2.5 to get to web3 – to get massive user adoption (1b+ users in web3) and even education about “what” and “safety”/”security” we need simplicity coupled with cooperation of incumbents. We will see a shift from degen/anon/ community king/even discord as the main conduit (it’s really not good enough / fit for purpose)
§ What’s important to the user? We went from P2E to P&E to P2O – but what really is enough to make the 10x jump in both theory and practice?
§ Direct from imagination is here – generative AI on the fly
§ Finally, the tree has been shaken and almost all the bad apples are out. Let’s not let them back in, but let’s also put them out of our mind as we push optimistically to build the real products we should have always been building
§ Lastly: hope for the VC space. Please start to truly go in the VC intentive direction – avoid group think, compete for deals, take real risk in transformative companies, work collaboratively not vulturelike with Founders
Direct to community messages
Please take stock of who we are and what we have built and achieved to date. We are a wildcat studio developing our first game. We are a startup. We have built something amazing with an absolute fraction of the budget that a big game studio would have.
We are happy you shared the vision to be involved in the community of our project in the beginning. We know that, however, you have a multitude of motivational reasons for selecting to be so involved. These range from positive, to positive but can flip at a moments notice, to negative.
We spend our days in slack, in coding editors, in git, in Unity, in C#, in NodeJS etc. We do not spend our days worrying about the many (probably up to 20) contributory factors of community commentary, and nor should you want us to. There are tens of thousands of community members and multiple channels and mostly – updates are all that is required. The most important things there are: product features and timelines, and these are NOT driven by short community individual incentives – we do not operate like that – so take heed and you will not get facetime on those basis. (e.g. “wen”, “wen”)
However, if you want to work with us, offer time/help/connections/other aspects – please do reach out. The community hasn’t done this is in a serious way to date – and this disasspoints us but should also serve to remind you of the place on the priority stack your interfacing is. Direct approaches for personal bases only will receive the “kick”. I personally get messaged hundreds of times per day about personal driven agendas – don’t do that.
Future Product Features
Immediately
§ Post launch, we will incorporate AI generative imagery and text interaction for the NPC (non playable characters
§ Additionally, we will build the “outside in” / “real world window” – the separate portal to allow a realtime view/stream inside the game environment to show what the players are doing and what they are talking about (the social community)
Very Shortly after Launch
Moonshot
We have been discussing crypto at the highest thought levels internally. If metaverse is to really take off, it needs immediate use cases, and demand pull. This, coupled with our hatred of the FTX debacle, but aligned with the "gamification of everything thesis" leads us to this —>
We will build a 3d virtual environment inside our world/game, inside of DO119, that will provide a NASDAQ like trading floor experience (multiplayer/user) to:
§ trade crypto - as an actual exchange
§ provide sport betting capability
§ provide virtual games betting experiences (esports)
§ offer a side room of targetted casino style games (limited to certain attractive ones)
We will apply for regulated status and focus on true specific trading only business models (NOT FTX style). This will initially be a room inside of DO119 - but after scaling and a couple of years it will transistion to a separate entity where we will connect all our future games, but also allow linkages directly from other environments (like competitor games) to join in.
Timelines
Launch is scheduled now as a rolling series of milestones that encompass Apple App Store firstly in the markets of Singapore, Vietnam, Taiwan, Philippines and South Korea. They will occur in two weekly intervals, post Apple approval, starting approximately Feb 10, show casing full single player mode, and then increasing mulitplater mode.
Enabled already and to be included in rolling deployment:
§ Oxygen
§ Quests
§ Game Items (Inventory)
§ Character
§ Wallet
§ Store
§ Chat
CEO Closing
Don’t underestimate the true size of the project completion if you have not done it at least five times in your life. Even still, respect the creative and technical inspiration and perspiration to get something from zero to one. A tiny handful percentage ever actually achieve this.
No one is perfect. We all make mistakes. Both Micro and Macro have changed to be more challenging, but regardless, we continue to build our dream of the future.
Many thanks to the team, and to the two advisors I speak with almost daily – you know who you are. Also to our partners – times may be tough but we repay in spades the collaborative approach taken now in the years to come.