TIP-13 Partnership with Strider to create a high fidelity game experience

0xkarel

Summary

TreasureDAO is taking a huge leap forward in realising our vision of the connected metaverse. We're teaming up with Strider and a former lead designer from one of the world's leading MMORPGs to build one of the first bottom-up AAA NFT and web3 game studios.

Approval of this proposal will see the DAO fund up to $1.9M USD over 9-12 months to seed the development of the game (codenamed “Project Bilbo”) up to pre-production and a playable ‘vertical slice’ (a non-optimised, feature complete run-through of the core gameplay leveraging actual game art). From there, self-funding mechanisms will be explored. For Treasure, partnering with teams with AAA gaming experience will catapult us to a new level of web3 gaming and enable the Treasure team to double down on creating the economic engine and infrastructure that powers a leading ecosystem of games.

Powered by MAGIC, Project Bilbo will deliver a world class game designed to attract a mass-market audience into gamefi and the world of Treasure.

Rationale

Prove out that top tier / high fidelity games can thrive on the Treasure ecosystem.
Enable the next wave of web3 game designers with infrastructure and tooling.
Develop a ‘scalable playbook’ to launch top tier games on Treasure (eg. from onboarding, development through to go to market).
Drive the push towards fun and economically viable web3 gaming (both for creators and players).
Drive broader user adoption beyond just ‘crypto natives’ to cross the chasm towards mainstream gamers.
Pioneer player / user ownership and governance models in gaming.
Embed further utility of the MAGIC token in a top tier game driving network effects, royalties through the Treasure Marketplace and share of earnings.
Shift Treasure’s focus back to its core (economic and narrative layer, infrastructure) and partner with experts in respective fields.

Proposal

Approve funding for up to $1.9M USDC over 9-12 months to seed the development of a high fidelity game built on Treasure leveraging the MAGIC token and Treasure infrastructure.

Governance
A Production sub-DAO will be created to deliver the game, representing a decentralised collective of talent groomed by seasoned experts at Strider. Strider will be leveraging their decades of experience at AAA studios to project manage the delivery of the game end-to-end.

TreasureDAO will provide input into the broader game design (eg. interplay with MAGIC, NFTs), community engagement, and key pieces of technology / infrastructure such as the Treasure Marketplace and AMM. Representatives of TreasureDAO will participate in governance of the Production sub-DAO, along with Strider and members of the sub-DAO itself. It is intended for the Treasure community to also participate in game design elements through on and off-chain governance to drive a bottom-up build design. The sub-DAO / Strider will be providing the community monthly updates on status and deliverables, along with more detailed reporting to TreasureDAO.

Funding

The $1.9M USD funding covers the initial 9-12 months, including:

‘standing up’ the Production sub-DAO including all talent to design and deliver the game
Concept design and pre-production
Shipping initial gameplay (‘vertical slice’) to the Treasure community to enable self-funding models.

Funding will be released on a milestone basis:

On long-form signing: Initial funding to cover initial development expenses (7.9%)
Milestone 1: Securing initial core team members (40.7%)
Milestone 2: Concept complete - core game design established and additional pre-production team members hired (17.3%)
Milestone 3: Initial NFT release (17.3%)
Milestone 4: Release of playable ‘vertical slice’ (17.3%).

Funding up to pre-production (‘vertical slice’) constitutes approximately 35-40% of the total funding required to develop and deliver a high quality game (ex marketing costs). It is envisaged that the Production sub-DAO will introduce self-funding models to cover the remaining cost of production beyond the initial capital outlay. This may include but is not limited to:

Royalties from NFT sales on the Treasure Marketplace
In-game purchases or pre-releases (eg. NFTs).

Any capital required beyond the approved amount will be proposed via a TIP.

TreasureDAO will receive 2.5% of royalties on Project Bilbo NFTs sold on the Treasure Marketplace plus a percentage of net income after all operational expenses have been covered.

Next Steps

A non-binding Memorandum of Understanding has been established between TreasureDAO and Strider. Ratification of this TIP would approve the initial funding and allow the process to proceed to long-form agreements and kick-off operations.

Polling Period

The polling process begins now and will end at 10:00 UTC on May 5, 2022. If quorum is reached, a Snapshot vote will be put up shortly thereafter.

markjp

The Stryder team appears capable, but, and this isn't meant to be critical, there are other people with these types of experiences/backgrounds. Why this company and team in particular? What about their vision is appealing? I see the A16z connection so guessing that is part of it?

We provide funding based on a "non-binding" MoU? Am I reading that correctly? Is that typical?

$1.9 million isn't much to develop a game. What proportion of the overall projected budget is that? I don't see the team has any major NFT experience? Could have missed it, but assume Treasure will be providing significant expertise, marketing and other promotion to help the NFT raise. That has significant economic value and should be considered in the negotiation.

I'd like to know more about the Treasure share of "percentage of net income after all operational expenses". Stryder is essentially providing project management, but no initial capital? If that is the case, Treasure should receive a significant share of the net income IMO. That's a big missing number here.

C-c

markjp - I’m very supportive of the proposal but would still like to see answers to all of your questions from the core team. May also be worth sharing your comment in the TIP discussion channel of the discord

Gaarp

markjp Hi. It is actually very challenging to find strong talent in this space, particularly ones that want to build for web3. We have been looking for a whlie now. Many either don't want to make the jump to web3/NFTs (lots of stigma in the traditional gaming industry), or want to do their own thing.

What makes Strider and Andrew in particular different are their values and experiece. He's lived the web2 / traditional gaming life and has seen the otherside. He is fully aligned with and an advocate for community driven, bottom up built gaming. Big picture, Strider want to create a set of production DAOs that bring together the best talent across the world to not only participate in building great games / content, but also share in the ownership of said assets. This is the anti-thesis of the old world where the 'corporate' takes all the value, and the players and workers get nothing. Re experience, their CVs speak for themselves. All have deep experience across respective tecnical areas and very strong networks. They also know intimately how the gaming and content industry works - including how to turbo-charge growth and avoid pitfalls.

The non-binding MOU is very standard. The reason it is non binding for now is that it needs to go through the DAO - ie we are not front running the deployment of funding before we have DAO approval. In practical terms it means if this TIP were to be voted down, we are not contractually obligated to deploy the 1.9m. We did not feel comfortable moving this to long-forms and a binding agreement before DAO approval. TBH this is a unique dynamic to a DAO process. Normally you would not make public a non-binding MOU for that reason; it is non-binding.

As stated in the TIP, $1.9m is for concept and pre-production. The TIP also states that this is likey to be 35-40% of the total cost to game production and release (ex marketing); it is all written above. Details to be discussed on Treasure's role on operations. We will certainly be providing input to the extent it impacts our ecosystem (points of integrating and the like) and governance re the initial funding release. This has been factored into the overall construct which is still being finalised pending this TIP.

We also need to be realistic on what each party is bringing to the table. Strider are bringing experts in the gaming and content field with decades of hands on experience building games from concept to gtm and operations at scale. They have deep networks across relevant areas - devs, marketing, game design, BD, ops, content etc. These are all considerable gaps re gaming for Treasure. If we want to bring the best of gaming to build on our ecosystem, we need to create the right enablers.

We ultimately want to avoid traditional value extraction / rent seeking behaviour seen in typical game dev / big content. Both Strider and Treasure are aligned on this. All parties need to be aligned on incentives that encourage the right behaviours -- that is we all want this game and model to be a huge success - Treasure, Strider and the Production DAO (people building it). While overall % of net revenue are still to be finalised, the design principles are geared towards long-term alignment and enablement of the ProductionDAO to be not only self-sufficient but thrive.

sammy

oops... i accidentally voted against this. But voicing here in comments for my support of the deal. (couldn't figure out how to undo and change my vote in support). The talent in Strider is legit and well positioned to help TreasureDAO in their goal of building and integrating AAA quality games.

One thing I'll point out is that Milestone 4 seems like there could be room for ambiguity here. Typically, delivery of a game milestone is represented with clear objective development milestones, like concept -> alpha -> feature-complete -> beta, etc. It is hard to tell exactly what Strider is on the hook for delivery with Milestone 4... is this just an alpha version or will it be a fully QA'd playable version that has undergone Beta testing? Clarifying that specific milestone can have a significant impact on the quality of the deliverable and ultimately the fun factor. Please consider adding more specificity for Milestone 4.

Gaarp

sammy Fair point. As (if) we move into long-forms, we'll look to get greater clarity on what this means.

Knockerton

Thoughtful proposals like this one for reasonable amounts given the circumstances and scope are a beautiful thing to see. LFG. Love it.

smolsoros

Excited