The Vehicle to Bring Mainstream Gamer Adoption to Crypto Has Arrived- Introducing ‘Heroes Of Mavia’
Ever Since the emergence of the crypto game Axie Infinity after its parabolic rise in 2021 the development and investor hunt for the next big game has accelerated.
With an estimated 3.24 billion gamers in the world, according to the latest figures by Statista, the hunger for developers to build in this new frontier of play to earn blockchain gaming has boomed.
Playability and Gamer Retention Will Win The Race
Playability and the dopamine hit it delivers will be the overwhelming characteristic that will propel a game to the front of the queue. The question a developer team should be asking itself over and over is this:
‘Is the gameplay loop addictive, does it incentivise and motivate players to keep returning to this gameplay loop over and over again?’
One of the most successful game genres over the last 2 decades, in terms of playability and player retention has been chosen and developed by Skrice Studios in their game ‘Heroes of Mavia’.
Heroes of Mavia
Heroes of Mavia is an online multiplayer strategy game where players use their army and base to battle other players and compete for real crypto currency in a play-to-earn fashion. The game is set on a fantasy island called Mavia where the player is a commander of his base.
The objective of the game is to build your base by gaining resources in the game via attacking other people’s bases. The main resources in the game are Gold, Oil and Ruby.
Players can purchase, rent or partner with landowners to acquire or build a base in the game.
Following Its Forefathers From An Illustrious Past
Much of my gaming youth was spent playing ‘Base building’ strategy games. The history of this game genre goes back to titles released in the 90s such as ‘Settlers’, ‘Age of Empires’, ‘Command and Conquer’ up to its most recent and comparable title ‘Clash of Clans’.
Here are some Clash of Clans metrics to digest:
- Clash of Clans generated $722 million revenue in 2019, a 27 percent increase year-on-year and its first increase since 2014
- In 2016, Clash of Clans had an estimated 55 million active players. Supercell has not updated figures since
· Between 2014 and 2019 Clash of Clans revenue was $6.4 Billion
It took six months, from the original concept, for Supercell to release Clash of Clans on IOS. Three months after launch, it was already the highest grossing game in the United States, and in 2013 it was the most profitable game worldwide.
The scale of the task to deliver a game with a gameplay and graphical model of Heroes of Mavia contrasts with the mammoth task of developing and delivering an all-encompassing game such as the AAA title Star Atlas. For Mavia, the development more achievable and the time horizon to deliver the game is much more digestible for an investor with your thesis being realised much earlier.
Game Features To Raise The Bar
With players battling against each other, wouldn’t it be great to share live streams of these battles and offer the ability to record and replay these epic clashes? Heroes of Mavia offers this feature and also offers players the opportunity to wager their in-game currency against another player in a winner takes all format.
Taking this feature up a further level you will be able to team up with a playing partner and take part in 2 v 2 battles for agreed monetary wagers.
These live streams and forever recorded battle replays offer great marketing potential for influencers and gamers to share content on social media platforms such as You Tube and Twitch.
The game will include leader boards and most likely stage tournaments for players. I’m very bullish as I see the high likelihood of this game gaining network effect thanks to the format creating great coverage of the game especially in a competitive way.
Early footage has been released of the in-game asset marketplace which looks slick and user friendly. It takes just one tap of a button from gameplay to access the marketplace. Great news if you are in the midst of a fierce battle!
A statement on Skrice’s website:
‘All of our game content is designed and developed from scratch, from conceptual designs to 3D character modelling and animations’
Any concerns of lack of originality or effort into building all items in the game can happily be dispelled with this clear signal of intent.
Growing The User Base
The game will be released on Desktop, IOS and Android. This is great news as it gives access to a wider market of gamers to onboard.
Third party API integration will be available for companies to add content to the games ecosystem. Offering the opportunity for 3rd parties to add value to Heroes of Mavia can only bolster growth of the game and its ecosystem as a whole.
The Hallowed Land
There are 3 different types of NFT available to buy:
1. Land — build bases on
2. Heroes — used to attack other players (initial 8,000 available)
3. Statutes — boost base stats
A target supply of 100,000 land plots has been quoted by the team. These will be released over time and I will go through the economics of the land model later.
The first wave Land sales will consist of the following:
· 4,000 plots already purchased by Top gaming Guilds and influencers
· 2,000 plots to be whitelisted for the community
· 1,000 plots to be sold in a public sale
Land Types:
· Tropical common 0.3 ETH (70% of supply)
· Tropical Rare 0.6 ETH (20% of supply)
· Tropical Legendary 0.9 ETH (10% of supply)
No land plot will give any attack or defence advantage in terms of gameplay.
The differences in Land will be cosmetic, locations (legendary being on the beach front for example) and an increased luck factor (the chances of finding valuable resources hidden on your land) on higher valued land.
Each land plot is unique in location and design. One cool feature is your land can be showcased on Opensea marketplace with a snapshot of your built base as the image!
A strong foundation of a player base at game launch is assured thanks to the teams decision to sell land to the top Gaming Guilds in their Presale.
Land Soft Staking
A gas free form of ‘Soft’ staking can be accessed with purchased land. A snapshot of the wallet holding the land can be taken rather than you transferring your asset with gas to the platform. If you have not sold your land at the end of the staking period you will receive your rewards.
The first 4,000 plots sold already have committed to staking. A Good sign for early Land value retention.
DAO To Govern On Key Decisions
The supply level of Land is an extremely important metric in the game ecosystem and the team have openly discussed their strategy on this aspect.
A finite figure of 100,000 plots has been given at this stage to give a level of security to initial Land owners.
Following the launch of the Mavia token a second wave of land will be released to buy. By delaying more sales until after this event, the economic value generated from this and future sales will enter into the Mavia ecosystem, as these plots would be purchased in Mavia token rather than Etheruem.
Keeping Land prices stable and ideally increasing is the priority of the Skrice team. They will be gauging demand before announcing future sales.
If the game userbase grows and the demand for more arrives, they want to have flexibility to not stifle or limit the growth of the game. To solve this problem fairly they will give the decision of when and how many more plots to create to the community via a vote through the DAO.
The Mavia community will have the final say on what is the best decision for everyone.
The ‘Dream Team’ Of Investors And Partners.
Imagine lining up a dream team of your favourite sports players from multiple clubs in one team.
Heroes of Mavia have managed to do just this with their investors and partners!
Check out the Dream team:
· Delphi Digital — They have fewer plays in Crypto gaming but when they invest they invest in the best
· Alameda Research- Led by Crypto heavyweight Sam Bankman Fried
· Animoca Brands — The Number 1 investors in this space.
· BitKraft — Blue chip
· Binance Labs- Blue chip
· Yield Guild Games — Largest game Guild in the crypto gaming space
The best investment partners an investor could wish for.
A Pivotal Moment For The P2E Sector Can Be Delivered By A Sustainable Economy Model
Play to Earn as a concept is at a pivotal moment in its life span. The early success of Axie Infinity in having a level of sustainability for people to earn in a multi-faceted way has been the catalyst for new projects to emerge in numbers. Although Axie has progressed very well they have had problems with balancing their economic model with inflation issues involving their game currency token SLP.
Gaming projects have 2 absolute critical areas to achieve longevity and success:
1. Addictive and fun gameplay (discussed earlier)
2. A sustainable economic model that maintains, grows, and shares rewards in a healthy way to all participants
A statement on Skrice studio’s website shows how seriously they take their approach to point 2:
‘Our games use economic models which we process and test using hundreds of simulations, ensuring the resilience and balance of all sectors of the ecosystem’
Let’s discuss the economy.
The economy will be a dual token model (Similar to Axie infinity’s 2 token system AXS and SLP)
1. Mavia token (fixed supply)– Utilities to include Governance rights, currency used to buy and sell NFTs and staking rewards)
2. Ruby token (supply fluctuates) — (in game reward token, used in-game to upgrade NFTs, can be deposited and withdrawn from the game to be traded on exchanges)
The key to Heroes of Mavia’s economy succeeding will be to control inflation of Ruby and create demand for Ruby token purchasing on exchanges.
Limiting the amount of Ruby being minted and incentivising the demand to buy it is the best method. The model aims to have a situation where the demand for Ruby exceeds the amount available in game thus making people purchase it on exchanges.
There are multiple use cases for using Ruby in game:
· Purchasing Oil and Gold
· Upgrading Bases, Heroes, Statutes
· Speeding up processes
There have been so many lacklustre attempts by current games to create a basic economy, but it seems that the team at Heroes of Mavia are making this an absolute priority. If they deliver on this it could be a game changer for the play-to-earn sector!
The Biggest Signal of Long-Term Intent And Confidence From The Team
An astonishing disclosure from the team on their recent AMA was on the subject of their vesting periods. When asked a question on vesting duration the team announced they have a 6 year vesting period on their allocation and there VCs have 4 year vesting periods.
The Teams commitment to the growth of the game for users and investors is solidified further when you check out the tokenomics for the Mavia token. 60% of the token distribution is allocated to the game community (Ecosystem fund, Staking rewards and play-to-earn).
What a sign of a team with the greatest conviction in their work and the sign of true conviction from their ‘Dream team’ of partners and investors.
Dev Team Working and Visible
Skrice was formed through the acquisition and merging of an art studio as well as a game development studio based in Hanoi.
The Skyrice team are all openly visible on the Mavia game website and also on their studio website.
They consist of 60 full time people working on the project — with it nearer to 80 if you include part-time workers.
They have already engaged in 2 AMAs and have a highly active community in Discord, Telegram and Twitter.
Excitement and great anticipation is the sentiment in the community. There seems to be a strong presence of real gamers which is positive for the actual product use and adoption.
On a recent visit to the Discord community I came across a live broadcast on the voice channel being led by the founder Yvan Feusi (aka Aiven). This Q and A session ended up lasting for hours! The dev team shared their screen as they worked through the economic model, character design and the game 3D art amongst other things. Some great insightful information on the project was shared in the most open and visible way.
No stronger Case On A Game delivering
Its very hard not to get over excited about the prospects of Heroes of Mavia. Trying to separate emotions from investment decisions can be a challenge even more so when faced by a game you want to play and may get addicted to!
The Crypto industry has been looking for a vehicle for mainstream user adoption and a game such as Heroes of Mavia has that potential.
If the team delivers the gameplay when this game is launched in Q2 2022, to add to everything else they have done so well so far, this game is destined for the big time.
I see a future of epic battles being live streamed to the masses!
Heroes of Mavia socials:
