Impossible Finance Research Report #6 – Genopets
More than three years ago, the augmented reality mobile game Pokémon GO broke the world’s most successful mobile games of all time, and was…
More than three years ago, the augmented reality mobile game Pokémon GO broke the world’s most successful mobile games of all time, and was ‘the most downloaded in its first month of release’. To date, this free-to-play game has grossed more than $5 billion in revenue in the span of five years, only surviving off in-game upgrades, special drops and pay-to-enter habitats.
An average player spends around 33 minutes in-game per day, but the value from all the time spent on training Pokémon and leveling up is confined to the game’s economy, directly monopolized by the game developer. Any in-game assets have little to no value outside of the game, and if the server goes down or game is no longer supported, players can lose access to everything they have purchased or earned in the game.
To release locked up value in-game, gamers have found their way out through blockchain-based games. Developers are packing in-game assets into NFTs, where the asset’s ownership and authenticity are verifiable on the blockchain. The NFT has access to a liquid economy, enabling the trading of virtual game assets on the market.
Enter GameFi, a marriage between decentralized finance and blockchain gaming, combining the value of in-game assets (NFTs) and financial markets (DeFi), all on the same platform (Gaming). The term was coined by Andre Cronje of yearn.finance in late 2020, and generates excitement as it enables a multitude of extra financial incentives, allowing gamers to stake tokens or even NFTs, and yield additional sources of income. GameFi is creating a culture of online monetization, where playing and creating in virtual worlds is a viable way to invest, earn and contribute to the economy. This is summarized nicely in this tweet thread, detailing take rates and why this cultural revolution is happening. Users now have more agency over what they can do in terms of monetization when previously, countless hours spent on gaming was merely sunk cost. We’re guessing parents will no longer be nagging their children to stay off video games when a player on one of the most popular blockchain-based games Axie Infinity is raking in $400 per month on average.
It goes without saying that Axie Infinity has been the driving catalyst in the growth of GameFi and its magnitude of influence should not be dismissed. It has enabled other games within the space, as a result of this traction, to have had notable developments when it comes to fundraising. Recent investment highlights include Parallel’s $50 million raise for ‘PlayFi’ development and Merit Circle’s $4.5 million raised to develop guilds.
Even with all this development currently happening, this is still just the tip of the iceberg. GameFi is steadily producing higher-quality games that could potentially rival traditional games. With the edge of being able to monetize gameplay and interact with DeFi products (such as yield farming and governance proposals), it enables users who would typically stray away from financial products the ability to test and learn about these different operations in a gamified way.
Project Overview
Genopets is a Free-to-Play, Play-to-Earn mobile game built on Solana that makes it fun and profitable to live an active lifestyle. The game merges the nurture and evolution of Tamagotchi, the training and battling of Pokemon, and the fitness and social incentives of Strava while rewarding players with crypto for staying active in their daily lives.
Genopets coined the concept of “Move-to-Earn,” combining the best parts of Move-to-Play mechanics proven by the Nintendo Wii, Pokémon GO, and VR, with blockchain’s Play-to-Earn.
By rewarding real-life action with ownership of digital assets, Genopets delivers gameplay with purpose. As a result, Genopets replaces conventional mobile game grinding (senseless screen tapping) by rewarding self-care. This provides players with a meaningful gaming experience, improved physical health, and a lasting sense of accomplishment.
Combining Free-to-Play and Play-to-Earn is a first for NFT Gaming, an innovation made possible by the Genopets Dual Earning Economy. This economic model enables all players to mint a Genopet for free and participate in open NFT marketplaces by buying and selling in-game items. Purchasing Refined Crystal NFTs enhances a Genopet’s evolution and unlocks a variety of unique attributes and skills, increasing its rarity and value in-game.
Project Highlights
Genopets is pioneering a new category of gaming “Move-to-Earn”
Genopets raises an $8.3 million seed round to bridge the physical and digital worlds with Move-to-Earn NFT Gaming. The seed round was co-led by Konvoy Ventures (investor and board observer at Axie Infinity) and Pantera Capital, with participation from Alameda Research, Old Fashion Research, Solana Capital, Xoogler Ventures, Mechanism Capital, Collab+Currency, Spartan Group, Hyper, CMT Digital, Animoca Brands, DeFi Alliance, CMS Holdings, Yield Guild Games and GBV Capital among many others
Notable angel investors from the crypto, gaming, and fitness world also participated, including Prabhakar Reddy (Co-Founder, FalconX), Kevin Lin (Co-Founder, Twitch), John Robinson (President & COO, 100 Thieves), Brian Corrigan (VP and Head of Americas, PUBG Corporation), Keisuke Honda (Professional Japanese footballer) and Melanie Strong, a 19-year veteran executive of Nike
Genopet Genesis Egg NFT — Earlier this month, Genopets Eggs were air dropped to their community and have since been listed on Solanart & FTX.us. Genopets Eggs give their holder a whitelist spot in the Genesis Genopet NFT Drop
“Genopets is a liquid digital asset representation of a gamer’s physical activity in the real world” -Josh Chapman, managing partner at Konvoy Ventures
Investment Thesis
There are some concepts within Genopets that are worthy of highlighting. First, instead of geolocation detection, Genopets leverages Apple Health and Google Fit from your mobile device to track step data. They see an opportunity to expand into direct integrations with wearable devices in the future, but to start, anyone with a phone can play Genopets. As some parts of the world are still stuck in lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we’re seeing the way that Genopets deliver the game be a more attractive option compared to other geolocation-based games that may be restricted due to confined spaces.
There are some concepts within Genopets that are worthy of highlighting. First, instead of geolocation detection, Genopets leverage biotrackers, and wearable devices to track health and step data. As some parts of the world are still stuck in lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we’re seeing the way that Genopets deliver the game be a more attractive option compared to other geolocation-based games that may be restricted due to confined spaces.
Accessibility & Privacy for the Everyday Player
There are some concepts within Genopets that are worthy of highlighting. First, instead of geolocation detection, Genopets leverage biotrackers, and wearable devices to track health and step data. As some parts of the world are still stuck in lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we’re seeing the way that Genopets deliver the game be a more attractive option compared to other geolocation-based games that may be restricted due to confined spaces.
Derived from the foundational Free-to-Play mobile gaming model, Genopets is the first mass-market NFT game targeting an international audience that welcomes both crypto-native and non-crypto players. The Genopets team has designed a sustainable economic model that allows users to play for free and earn, bringing global attention to what is possible at the intersection of NFTs and mobile gaming.
Positive Reinforcement: Exercise-Earn-Play
As with most of the world slowly coming out of the lockdowns that have plagued us for almost 2 years, people are raring to go out and live their lives again. Many have been severely lacking in any form of exercise, sitting in front of computer screens for hours. Now with Genopets, users are able to positively reinforce their gaming habits in the form of exercise, all whilst still being fun and interactive. Again, you can see how this is significant because it gives users their own agency. You can enjoy the game as you would Pokémon GO but the biggest difference here is that there is added incentive to play the game because of the ability to monetise it, whilst experiencing an extremely high-quality game.
What’s more is that even when you don’t have time to move or aren’t able to move anymore because of how sore you’ve gotten from grinding day in, day out, Genopets will also provide opportunities for players to train themselves mentally too. By providing problem-solving strategy games, PvP, and PvE, allows players to enhance their mental dexterity too, creating an all-around experience for the players to engage with their pets.
As such, you can see how Genopets strays away from what a typical game looks like in terms of lifestyle — getting paid, having fun, and all whilst staying active is the trilemma of a game if you would. You can manage to solve two out of the three but you can’t fit them all; that is until you’ve played Genopets.
Fair Gameplay
As with many P2E games we’ve recently seen, most notably Axie infinity, there is a huge barrier to entry when it comes to getting started. In order to wholly interact and participate in the game, players are required to pay hundreds of dollars. For a player living in an American suburb, for example, it may be a small price to pay but for users in less developed countries that few hundred dollars could be the equivalent of a month’s salary. This has led to guilds such as Hooga Gaming to create scholarships, bridging that gap for players from less financially sustainable areas to participate, however, this has subsequently placed an emphasis on earning rather than playing for enjoyment.
For Genopets, this was a great consideration when building the game. Their solution is; create a system that caters to both F2P and P2P. Players first starting the game will be able to mint a Genopet for free. This means that players all have the same starting point, enabling players to grind XP on their Genopet, evolve them and eventually sell it off if they so choose to. Other players on the other hand, who wish to get a head start can buy these evolved Genopets from the market.
This is significant in many instances because it allows casual players to enjoy the game without having to worry about their investments garnering them a decent return, alleviating the feeling of having to play the game as a result of this sizeable investment. However, if players do want to take that next step and invest money into the game, there is an avenue for that as well. By purchasing a Habitat to speed up the evolution of your Genopet, enabling players to earn $KI tokens along with XP, etc. By catering to different types of players, it creates a fair system that rewards players who enjoy the grind of the game, providing a level playing field for players that don’t have that economic freedom of purchasing a strong pet. Therefore, creating a game that is heavily focused on the level of enjoyment a player feels, which is a mark of a great game.
Future Plans
Genopets is still in its infancy but already have a huge vision for the next 5 years that will include regular additions of new features that they plan to be as groundbreaking as their initial ideas. So, there’s a lot to be excited about as they release new features to create an enriching and unique gaming experience for us all. That being said, the evergreen aspects of Genopets are Move-to-Earn, pet customization, PVP battles, with a great emphasis to immensely deepen these areas of the game.
Genopets Team
The team is led by Albert, who has had decades of experience working in both e-commerce and software development along with Benjamin and Jay who have great experience in all things marketing as well as business strategy and UI/UX. The team leading Genopets has an abundance of experience shipping quality products and Genopets is no different. Being gamers themselves, they understand the frustrations that come with games but what’s more impressive is that they have managed to learn from other great games and taken aspects of these games, and have managed to create their own game worthy of the same accolades. From their game design to tokenomics, the attention to detail is unrivaled- where only their demo alone managed to bring in a vibrant discord community.
This platform connects a gamer’s real-world steps with their progression, customization, and value creation in the Genopet universe. This company’s edge in the gaming market is augmented by an incredible leadership team in Albert, Ben, and Jay.
Read more about Genopet’s Philosophy and Tokenomics on their Whitepaper
About Genopets
Genopets is a Free-to-Play, Move-to-Earn NFT game on Solana that makes it fun and profitable to live an active lifestyle. Genopets combines user’s step data from their mobile device and wearables with blockchain Play-to-Earn economics so players can earn crypto for taking action in real life as they explore the Genoverse evolving and battling their Genopet.
Website | Whitepaper | Twitter | Discord | Instagram | Beta
About Impossible Finance
Impossible Finance is a multi-chain incubator, launchpad, and swap platform led by Ex-Binance & DeFi veterans. It offers a robust product-first ecosystem that supports top-tier blockchain projects to targeted user audiences. With extensive support from key leaders in the crypto industry, Impossible Finance simplifies DeFi for users to enjoy fairer investing, cheaper trading and better yields.
Website | Whitepaper | Medium | Twitter | Telegram |
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