NFT Chat with: Sune Thorsen from So Couch Studios
A chat about their upcoming MMORPG Ember Sword, fair in-game tokenomics and the future of blockchain gaming.
Who are you, whats your background and what are you guys building?
My name is Sune Blindkilde Thorsen, and I’m one of the founders and CMO of So Couch Studios. We’re a developer and publisher of blockchain-enhanced games using tokenization to create better and fairer gameplay experiences for the next generation of gamers. We’re currently working on our flagship title; a free-to-play Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game (MMORPG) for browsers and PC called Ember Sword.
My background is in marketing and business development, and our team covers every aspect of game development, having previously worked on indie and AAA games like Guild Wars, Aquanox, Kaos Wars, Blitzkrieg, and Tank Wars, developed tools used by over 100k game developers, and managed and played professional e-sports, launching the two major successful World of Warcraft teams Nihilum and Ensidia.
What was your motivation to build a MMORPG that uses NFTs for in-game items?
To solve the major frustrations players face when playing MMORPGs and make participation in end-game content truly worthwhile.
Games have always been a big part of our lives, and right from the early days of MMORPGs, we’ve all been captivated by the vast universes these games provided us. This sadly also means we’ve all felt the frustration of never having true ownership of items, which meant we weren’t allowed to freely trade the items we had spent thousands of hours and hundreds of dollars collecting in-game, not to mention being limited by the universes the developers decided to create instead of being active participants in shaping the future of the game world.
While not allowed, players already currently trade billions of dollars worth of in-game items on very insecure “black markets” where scamming and hacking is common practice, and meanwhile game developers are increasingly monetizing through pay-to-win and lootbox gambling mechanics.
That’s what we want to change with Ember Sword!
In Ember Sword, a new collection of scarce NFT cosmetic items, like skins, emotes, and capes are introduced every month, gathered for free through gameplay objectives instead of bought from us — not to mention that players literally own these cosmetics, and they’re thus allowed to sell them to others in-game or outside the game.
Ember Sword paves a new way forward for the games industry and the monetization of Free-to Play games, putting an end to lootboxes and predatory Pay-to-Win monetization through blockchain technology.
It’s the future of Free-to-Play games, and we’re at the forefront of the development.
You mentioned in other interviews, that you want to specifically avoid any pay-to-win mechanics, how did you manage to implement this in Ember Sword?
That’s correct. Because we earn a transaction fee off whenever players trade cosmetics and sell land parcels, we can avoid any heavy pay-to-win monetization.
However, none of that matters if every item lives on the blockchain — because then anyone would be able to simply buy the best items in the game. Therefore, we decided to only tokenize the items that do not make you stronger in the game. This would include cosmetic items and land parcels. The same goes for our in-game purchases and the optional monthly subscription — they make you stand out and give you quality of life improvements, but they don’t make you stronger.
You plan to have a native currency (PIXEL) as an ERC20 and purchasable land and in-game items as NFTs (ERC721s). Why did you guys decide to create PIXEL and how much were you inspired by the mechanics of Decentraland?
We make games for mainstream audiences, which means we will never succeed if we attempt to force players to buy ETH or any other cryptocurrency to acquire land, cosmetics, and in-game purchases.
We have to make the user-experience exactly like in any ordinary game, and that’s why — just like any Free to Play game — we have a premium currency called “PIXEL Tokens”. Players will eventually be able to buy PIXEL Tokens with fiat from us or other players, and the experience will be so seamless that the vast majority of players won’t even know they’re buying an ERC20 token.
We were inspired by games such as Ultimate Online, Runescape, and to a lesser extend Albion Online when designing Ember Sword, but yes, Decentraland’s system of using an ERC20 token as the medium of exchange for NFTs is the right one, and we follow a similar model.
You decided to partner up with OpenSea to build a native in-game marketplace. How will this look like and what is the thought process behind this cooperation?
In terms of UX and UI, it will look just like any other mainstream video game’s in-game auction hours or player marketplace. Behind the scenes, however, we exploring using OpenSea’s infrastructure to manage all the trades instead of building our own system from the ground up.
The idea is that using OpenSea’s infrastructure will not only save us precious development time and resources, but also ensure that we can deploy a battle-tested marketplace very quickly whenever we’re ready.
In your talk at the NFT.NYC conference, you outlined that the general gaming community is not necessarily convinced about “blockchain games” and rather skeptical. What are their main concerns?
Their main concerns are that anything that has to do with blockchain is one big scam. The average mainstream gamer still believes blockchain is only all about Bitcoin, and that any game that implements tokens is 100% pay-to-win.
The good news is that this perception of blockchain technology can and will change over time.
The many unfortunate examples of “ico scams” and purely pay-to-win games have given the technology a bad reputation, but over time, the industry will become better at implementing blockchain technology in ways that make sense, and players will start to notice and enjoy the new possibilities the technology enables. When this happens, perceptions will quickly change.
So far, the actual crypto gaming community is tiny by any standard. How do you plan to onboard gamers with no previous “crypto experience”?
By developing a game that can compete with existing “normal” games, and hiding all blockchain, wallet, and “crypto” aspects of the game behind great UI, UX, and game design.
We don’t target the “crypto gaming community” with Ember Sword, because we know that the biggest task will not be to convince those players, but to attract mainstream gamers.
Luckily, we’ve shipped and marketed many games already, so we have a good grasp on the market and a strong plan on how to promote Ember Sword.
Going beyond Ember Sword, what do you think will be leading business model for game publishers in the blockchain gaming space in the future?
While most NFT cosmetic items in Ember Sword are found for free through participation in Player-vs-Player and Player-vs-Environment objectives, I believe the sale of cosmetic NFTs will be the leading business model for game publishers in the blockchain game space in the future.
That, and the transaction fee developers are able to charge every time an NFT changes hands. This will allow developers, for the first time ever, to monetize the secondary “black markets” for in-game item trading, and it will be a game-changer for the Free-to-Play business model.
So far, we see only a few traditional game studios (e.g. Ubisoft) dabble in the space. Do you think the blockchain-supported games sector will be mainly dominated by new players or do you believe incumbents will catch up?
Blockchain technology currently enables smaller game developers to gain a huge advantage over the titans of our industry who don’t want to give ownership back into the hands of the players because they know they will earn less when players can trade items between each other instead of being forced to buy them from the developer.
But those of us who embrace blockchain technology, will be able to create the game experiences and fair business models players have always been demanding. Players value their digital goods, and they want to be able to trade them. How about we listen to the gamers for once?
To wrap it up: When will players be able to purchase Pixel or Land in Ember Sword? And when will the actual game launch?
We’re close to launching our Private Pre-sale of the PIXEL Token, so if anyone is interested, they can reach out to me at sune@socouch.com for further details. The LAND Auction will take place a few months after the public crowdsale.
The full launch of Ember Sword is scheduled for late 2020 / early 2021, but we’ll have plenty of alpha and beta tests before that, which will allow players to get a taste of Ember Sword.
Thanks Sune & check out: https://embersword.com/
