Final results from the Gods Unchained and CryptoKitties partnership

How the collaboration affected sales and players, and what we’ll do differently next time

Aeoncat (left) and Hypurrion (right)

Last week, we shared our initial results for the CryptoKitties and Gods Unchained collaboration. The partnership tested the feasibility and impact of interoperability: the ability for items to move across experiences.

CryptoKitties is where you can actually experience the new ideas and innovations that blockchain technology empowers. Interoperability is one of the most exciting concepts in the blockchain, and while we may look back on this collaboration as a relatively rudimentary example of it, the results are thrilling.

The CryptoKitties and Gods Unchained communities show off their interoperable cat talisman creations.

This collaboration is an early example of interoperability, but a very promising one. In a space that can be dominated by “us vs. them” mentalities, it shows that cooperation isn’t just possible in the blockchain industry: it’s better for business.

Sale results

The campaign was live from January 10th to 28th, during which:

• 8,544 cat talismans were created for 0.024ETH (~US $3.00) each for a total revenue of ~205ETH (~US$25,600)
• 248 Aeoncats were sold for 0.75 ETH (~US$93.75) each for a total revenue of 186 ETH (~US$23,300)
• 3,992 Tally the Purrocious Cats were bred

The direct revenue tied to cheaper, time-limited sales (i.e. cat talismans) exceeded that of more expensive time-and-supply limited items (i.e. Aeoncats) by about 10%. However, once the event ended and cat talismans could no longer be created, digital scarcity was introduced, and players sold their cat talismans at a floor price 75% higher than the initial asking price.

Player engagement

Both CryptoKitties and Gods Unchained saw increased engagement and new players join their experiences.

• CryptoKitties experienced a 17.5% increase in active users the day the campaign began, and 30% higher player activity during the campaign
• We saw a 30% re-engagement of lapsed CryptoKitties players
• A rush of new users invigorated our Discord community
• Hypurrion was won by Tanimal, a new Gods Unchained player who came to CryptoKitties by way of this partnership

Interesting, three distinct user segments — new players, returning active players, and reactivated lapsed players — exhibited almost identical behaviour tied to Aeoncat. Typically, with a campaign like this one, you would not expect these groups’ behaviour to be so balanced.

Returning active players are players active 30 days before and during the campaign. Reactivated lapsed players are players who were inactive 30 days before the campaign and active during the campaign. New players are players who joined and bought their first CryptoKitty during the campaign.

Lessons and challenges

Interoperability is something that makes blockchain technology exciting, but like the technology itself, there are challenges to be overcome before its potential can be fully realized. We hope to showcase more of this potential next time.

The primary challenge is that programming interoperability on a large scale requires the rules to be written into the smart contract. That means that a card game that was created after CryptoKitties can take your Kitty and forge it into a card with relative ease — in fact, that experience exists in Mythereum. But for CryptoKitties to incorporate a card, assign it genes, and have it breed Kittens would require a new kind of non-fungible token with new smart contract rules.

It’s a hard problem, but it’s one we’re excited to overcome.

Next time…

Next time, we want interoperability to run through all of the facets of a campaign like this one. For instance, if Aeoncat had unlocked another, more exclusive talisman, it would have created even more interoperability, and made Aeoncat more valuable. Unfortunately, we were dealing with small teams moving fast, and it just wasn’t possible this time around.

Overall results

• Both communities grew and reacted positively to the campaign
• Both player bases saw increased engagement
• Both experiences saw meaningful and similar revenue
• Interestingly, the press reach (i.e. “potential eyes”) exceeded that of our Lil BUB partnership

Finally, we have one last anecdotal insight we wanted to share: working with the Gods Unchained team was terrific, and this campaign’s success is a credit to their team’s effort and talent.

Interoperability is one of the blockchain’s most exciting capabilities and one we’ll continue to explore. As always, CryptoKitties is where we test and showcase the emerging innovations in blockchain.

We’d love to know: what kind of collaboration would you like to see from Dapper Labs next?

Let us know in the comments or on Discord!