The 9Cat Artaverse Experience
Artaverse Hong Kong 2022 has now wrapped up and we were so glad to have been a part of the experience. For those unfamiliar with the event, Artaverse Hong Kong was a showcase of the best art and NFT projects that the Hong Kong scene had to offer. Showcased over an almost 2 week period from June 3rd — June 12th, scores of people came down to the beautiful Central Harbourfront to immerse themselves into the future of blockchain, web3, and of course 9Cat!
For us, the event was a challenge in more ways than one! For starters, we had about 2 and a half weeks to sort out all the details of our stall — from what we were going to showcase, to the design of the stall, merchandise, and even event shirts for our staff!
Luckily for us though, we have a brilliant team ready to face any challenges that come our way! We condensed a few years of stress, phone calls and grey hairs into a short period and as a result churned out an awesome stall with time to spare! Our idea was simple — to create a photo booth opportunity with some of the art from our 9Cat Saga metaverse, give patrons a chance to see the progress we have made, try out our game and get some nice branded merchandise for stopping by.
This idea turned out to be a resounding success. We had one of the most decorated and eye-catching stalls at the event according to the feedback we received from many of our visitors. People enjoyed taking photos by our decorated backdrop and our branded 9Cat caps turned out to be an incredibly popular item. Our hard work paid off, and the smiles and compliments received by our newfound fans blessed our team with immense gratitude, especially given that this was our first major offline event.
The event also presented a perfect chance for our project to reach out to, and build connections with, other high quality NFT gaming projects, some of whom were not established in Hong Kong, but were invited to the event as top-tier guests and would otherwise be difficult to contact. The mantra is simple: Associate yourself with the best to inspire success. Needless to say that meeting people face to face always yields better results in terms of business partnerships than trying to reach out online, and this was exactly our experience at Artaverse Hong Kong 2022.
Unfortunately in the NFT and crypto space, there are a ton of projects that do little to deliver on the promises given to investors, so an offline event showcasing the best around is the perfect melting pot for collaboration. You can prove your dedication and desire to succeed to others by showing what has been completed thus far, explaining your vision and the steps you’re going to take to get there leading to a much higher chance of building partnerships with those people.
There is nobody we know more dead-set on their vision than Wendy Lam, founder and grand empress of the 9Metaverse, so unsurprisingly 9Cat walked away with friends beyond the 9Metaverse — Mission success! We managed to build our network of contacts for potential collaborations and partnerships of which includes Eric Wy Chow (The Fatties NFT Artist), YOLOSPACE, Gigaspace, Delic Club, Neopets Metaverse and many more!
We look forward to working together with our newfound friends to collectively build out our visions in a mutually constructive manner.
One interesting takeaway from the event that we noted was that most Hong Kongers are still relatively new to, or unaware of the NFT and crypto space. We answered many questions from curious locals about the benefit and purpose of NFTs, as well as giving a background on the concept of GameFi, and of course our project. Offline events such as Artaverse Hong Kong are an important bridge connecting web3 and NFT projects such as ours to everyday people and potential investors outside of the general crypto cliques.
Patrons that came from video game backgrounds but had yet to embrace NFTs aired their concerns with us, primarily coming from positions against in-game purchases and overpriced, low quality games coming out of the NFT space. We engaged with them to discuss the benefits of GameFi and how NFTs differ from in-game purchases found in many online games today.
We fundamentally agree with those gamers that the standard for NFT projects needs to be raised in order to compete on a level playing field with non-crypto games. When we showed those users our art designs and what we have planned for the full release of the 9Cat Saga game, they were content that we were serious about improving the quality of games in the space and that they’re looking forward to trying our game when it’s complete. Ultimately, that’s what drives us, our determination to deliver something that is seen as a fun game to play, not just an investment vehicle.
All in all, the event was a great experience for us at 9Cat. We put smiles on the faces of NFT fans, curious locals and excitable kids alike; met and had discussions with loads of amazing people who shared equally grand goals based in web3, and increased public exposure and interest in our project.
We look forward to our next offline event to which we can leave our mark, and until then, more work is waiting for us on the development front. Our next alpha version is set for release on the 22nd June and we are still aiming to stick a release schedule of roughly 2–4 weeks. We thank everybody who continually supports us and those that came down to see us at the event, you amazing people are our motivation to keep striving hard to build the 9Metaverse! See you on Discord 9Catters!
The 9Cat Team
