The GAT-Way of Building — What to expect/ Update
Dear Community,
A lot of new people joined lately but due to our workload we don´t have much time to communicate directly. Also it´s been a while since our last general update. Time to give an insight to our current thoughts and plans:
It has been less than 4 months since we started to publish GAT-Network DApps on BSC mainnet. In this time we have achieved a lot:
- launched Alchemy Toys Game
- launched GAT token
- launched Minted Vodka NFT Market
- conducted successful audits for all DApps
- successful IDO
- CEX listing
- launched Alchemy Arena Game
- installed a deflationary use case for GAT Token
- launched GameAce — a new kind of NFT
- constant improvements and bugfixing
- run challenges and giveaways
- being one of the top projects on BSC
- and more
Also, we have achieved other important milestones, like securing sufficient funds for longterm development and important contacts/ partnerships.
The team has continuously invested hard work into the vision of a “connected NFT gaming and trading ecosystem”. While we will need to readjust our speed and organisation to meet the demands of a growing ecosystem and increasing complexity, our commitment to the vision increases with each achieved milestone!
We did not profit personally so far — the IDO and Game Ace earnings flow 100% into the company and are used for marketing, server costs etc. and long-term development only. All fees or earnings from Special Toys sales flow 100% into Alchemy Toys game treasury or into the liquidity of the Pancake Swap. We also donated 50% of our personal GAT holdings to Liquidity. Which other project acts this way?
Working on the edge of innovation
We have got a lot of feedback about being one of the most efficient and innovative teams in our area. Be aware that “NFT Gaming” or “Blockchain Gaming” is a very new field and has its own very specific dynamics. While blockchains have been around for years, computer games have been around for decades and card games have existed for centuries — “Blockchain Gaming” with its unique qualities is an absolutely new field.
There are not many best-practices we can rely upon. You may point at a project and say it is more successful, of course. Nevertheless, usually those comparisons are short-lived snapshots. There are blockchain games that have literally 100–200x more “playing addresses” than Alchemy Toys and that had 10–20x the amount of NFT transactions on-chain, at least for a few weeks. Then you see them with far less transactions than Alchemy Toys. A shiny rocket is not enough — it may crash just as fast as it flew.
There is simply no data and reliable best-practices out there that serve as examples of how a sustainable blockchain game should look like. In this regard we see ourselves as explorers and somewhat as “mad scientists” — we experiment and try to find a way for a sustainable on-chain gaming experience. This takes time and commitment. We have both.
Organic growth and long-term confidence
We are confident in our:
- technology — we can compete with the best out there
- team — not only the core team, but also our great mods and advisors
- finances — we have secured funding for long-term development
- marketing/partnerships — we work on organic & sustainable ways for long-term promotion
Those of you, who have followed our project since the beginning, know our preference of a slow organic growth. While we are usually fast in development, we think that a long-term success of a sustainable project is more likely with a gradual and mindful growth. This means acceptance of fluctuations and setbacks in the short-term, of course.
Some community members would prefer things to be done differently, because this is an unusual approach in the fast-lived crypto space, where product life-cycles are often measured in days. This is exactly what we try to avoid, though. Our experiment is also a bet against the dominant hit-and-run mentality in the crypto space. For instance:
- we do not focus the short-term GAT market-price — our work does not depend on it
- we do not buy bot users simply to fill our social media channels to “look big”
- we do not try to “make” the market by buying large amounts of our tokens back
- we do not resort to empty shilling / spamming (what some falsely call “marketing”)
- we do not worry too much about fluctuations in user engagement — this is necessary learning material for innovation
- we do not think in days or weeks
If you invested in GAT and are not satisfied at some point — please ask yourself what were the reasons for the investment decision.
Blaming others for unsatisfying investments doesn´t work — especially not in the short term.
Every investor needs to invest responsibly (don´t invest more than you can afford to lose). In order to find out if a project fits the personal investment strategy and understand what to expect before investing own research is crucial (DYOR). For this research we transparently provide plenty of information and our roadmap at our website/social channels. We have never promised anything that we haven´t delivered yet, or that we aren’t working on delivering in a realistic amount of time. Although we make very quick progress, sustainable success takes some time. We would never make promises about the GAT price, since GAT is a token gaining worth from the ecosystem. This means we focus on building the ecosystem. Remember that GAT is not a pump & dump meme coin but an ecosystem token.
In addition, we must not forget that GAT is already up a multiple of times from the pre-sale and IDO prices.
In this context we would like to mention that we don´t focus on more mid-tier cex listings. Because trading volume would dilute too much and that might not be healthy for the GAT price. We focus on our Binance application at the moment and try to update it as good as possible.
Regarding marketing: we have learned that this is something we must take care of. And we have already started that. More will follow once Arena is running stable.
We kindly ask the community to keep all this in mind, when you assess your personal expectations from this project.
What you shouldn’t expect:
“Big News” every day
Our community gives a lot of feedback that we act quickly and make fast progress. We intend to keep it that way. Nevertheless, it´s not realistic to ask for big news and new milestone every other day. Crypto is fast-lived and impatient. But good things take time. News and progress need hard work behind the scenes over weeks and months. Especially in case you have to negotiate with other parties — then you have to adapt to their schedule sometimes…
Execution of all submitted ideas
We are very thankful for your feedback and your brilliant ideas. Please be sure to share them with us on the Discord’s #ideas-channel. We got a lot of inspiration from there in the past months. We also approach key members continuously for feedback. We promise to do our best to review them and evaluate their compatibility with our current objectives, projects and long-term vision.
But please, do not expect too much and do not send us direct messages or tag us at the social channels. We cannot answer them because we need to find some calm to focus on our work in order to make progress.
There are very talented people out there who have fantastic ideas! But if you start building something on your own, you may quickly realise that things are not always “that simple”. We work hard to make the right decisions. Of course, the indicators fluctuate and we can have setbacks along the way — but this is a part of the learning and a necessary ingredient in the innovation process. If game dynamics need to be adjusted we will do that as good as we can.
Please understand that for example we cannot just throw all submitted ideas for Alchemy Arena together — it would simply collapse. Every detail that is changed needs to be weighed against the existing setup which is a lot of effort.
Accepting inappropriate behaviour
Our social channels are moderated very friendly and our Mods take a lot of time to discuss concerns. But what we are no longer going to accept is people who behave rude, claiming things without proof, attack/ insult others, spread FUD, act (passive-)aggressively or violate the channel rules in any other way. Since there is always the possibility that people FUD in order to bring the price down and have a better entry point, we no longer accept it for the sake of the investors. Those people will be excluded. The channels are for product support and similar questions. Feedback and constructive criticism in a friendly tone are welcome of course.
Immediate Reaction to “Indicators”
We love organic learning and growth and we are committed to make this ecosystem fun and sustainable for an exciting long-term on-chain gaming experience. We see it as a part of the process to make errors and to have setbacks. We also see it natural that engagement falls, sometimes due to macro-economic on-chain cycles. In any case we do not see it as a substantial long-term problem, but rather as an opportunity to learn and to adjust our long-term plans, upcoming games and their economics.
We work on a sustainable long-term vision — this fills our workday fully. Please bear with us, if we do not always share impatience or worry related to market swings. Volatility in prices and user engagement is expected and necessary for our process.
Pleasing everyone
It is just not possible to please everyone with one product. This is why there are many blockchains and many games. Of course we aim for a solid user basis. But no matter how hard we try — not everybody will be happy. We hope those will find projects that can satisfy them better.
Of course, you can also expect certain things — for example:
Transparency and Fairness
The team is fully doxed and runs a registered company in Germany. All wallets and token transactions are open for everyone to see. We have never given any promises that we have not kept, or promises we don’t intend to keep.
Friendly Atmosphere and Respect
Someone coined the term “GAT family” and it makes us proud! We have spectacular mods who have played a key role in creating a helpful and friendly atmosphere on our channels. We are committed to keep it this way. However, at the same time we also expect members to behave accordingly. FUD, negativity, hate speech and unhelpful critique is not welcome.
Security
All our DApps are audited by an official third-party (Solidity Finance). Keeping player’s funds and collections safe is our highest priority!
Experience and Efficiency
We have been working together as a software company for more than a decade on dozens of high-profile web development projects. We always kept our Roadmap very ambitioned with “first of its kind” features and delivered in short time frames.
Delivering the Roadmap/ Commitment to the Vision
Unless we are stopped by a force-majeure, we intend to keep working on the vision of the GAT Network, as far as our resources allow it. We only put milestones on our roadmap that will be delivered in realistic time. New milestones are added regularly when the time is right.
We are excited and optimistic!
We are very excited about the road ahead and the possibilities to build great engaging products on our way. Certain adjustments in our speed and work organisation will be necessary to meet the growing demands of a growing ecosystem. Nevertheless, our basic principles have served us as a great foundation and will continue to do so in the future.
Remember that there is always more than what you see on the surface. At the moment we work on many other important tasks besides Alchemy Arena. This is supposed to secure long-term success. Please keep that in mind and have some patience.
For many of our tasks we cannot simply hire people. Be sure that we outsource as much work as possible. But we cannot hire strangers to work on the core of our products. This would be a security risk. Nevertheless, we do work on expanding our available resources. Along the way we maybe meet partners who share our vision and can form a closer partnership for everybody to benefit from.
Next steps
Let’s keep expectations realistic. GAT Network is live for less than 4 months and has achieved a lot so far. We will keep up the hard work but we cannot do magic. Here is what you can expect realistically:
Top priority have the improvements of Alchemy Arena now. We take time here to test and calculate for a great result.
Also we want to explore more possibilities for Game Ace and launch follow up games (please contact us for a colaboration if you are an influencer/ brand/ celebrity). In this context we plan a minting service for game developers to mint their game creations into Game Ace cartridges. Another important topic is the further development of Minted Vodka Marketplace. Minting, auctions and other improvements are planned for this year. Of course we have concepts for new games in the drawer — but before we give any timetables for that the before mentioned topics need to be finished.
Be sure that in all our activities we will have a close eye on use cases for Toys and GAT.
Also partnerships will be a major focus for us since we learned strong partnerships have the most benefit.
Finally, it is very important for us to mention the many people that we have met along the way and that support the project with their time and skills. Thank you so much!
