NFT Drop Spotlight: Royal Society of Players
Every so often, the Packrip Media team will spotlight upcoming or recent NFT drops that are interesting, noteworthy, or potentially game-changing.
In our first NFT Drop Spotlight, we’ve chosen the Royal Society of Players (RSOP), a set of 10,000 hand-crafted NFT playing cards that promise to offer its members “unique perks, prizes, and privileges spanning both the metaverse and real-world.”
We spoke with the founder of the RSOP, ZK85, to learn more about it ahead of the drop.
Name: Royal Society of Players
Drop Date & Time: Thursday, July 22, 5PM EST
Mint Price: 0.08 ETH
Website: https://www.royalsocietyofplayers.io/
Discord: https://discord.gg/royalsociety
OpenSea: https://opensea.io/assets/royalsocietyofplayers
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Q: What is the Royal Society of Players?
A: We’re a collection of 10,000 NFTs using the playing card theme as our starting point, aiming to become one of the highest utility NFT projects connecting the Metaverse and the real world.
Q: What makes RSOP unique among all the other 10,000 mint NFT projects out there?
A: For us, we have three layers of differentiation.
The first is fine art. We engaged a gentleman by the name of Oban Jones for the project; he’s one of the most well-renowned playing cards illustrators and artists. We always said that the art had to be exceptional. It's been a source of pride for me that any one of these NFTs would be viewed as something you’d want to frame on your wall, and I think we delivered on that.
The second layer is the way we’re an access key to the Metaverse. We have a number of perks, privileges, and prizes that extend into the digital world that many of us play in.
The third layer is the one that really differentiates us, and that is the opportunity (but not the obligation) to connect with your peers in the real world, and bridge and extend the digital benefits into real-world benefits. We’ve already given out Starbucks and Lyft rewards, and recently announced a series of ticket rewards for major sporting events around the world.
To me, in a “post-COVID” environment, we’re all so used to being in our shells. I love the idea that friendships and relationships that began in the digital world can translate to the physical world. Candidly, I don’t think anyone is really doing that yet.
Q: Where did the idea for RSOP originate?
A: The roots of this idea go back to March of this year. It came from a fairly simple premise. My entry into NFTs was in NBA Top Shot in February, and I was loving the connection and community, but curious how it would translate into the real world to chat about our collections or do a drop together.
The next community I joined was Zed, and I had a similar experience.
Then I joined the Bored Apes and found yet another community. What I started thinking, and what our team started thinking, was how to bridge across these communities. We’re not a replacement for Top Shot, or an Ape, or Zed. But it struck me that there is a lot of overlap in the interests and passions of these communities.
I tinkered with different possibilities, but once we landed on a playing card as an entry card into the club, it just clicked, and everything fell into place after that.
Q: People are increasingly conscious of the team behind NFT projects — can you give readers some background on who you are, and your companies?
A: So I’m the CEO and Partner at a New York-based company called Landmark Ventures. We’ve been in business for 20 years, specializing in business development and strategic events. One of the advantages that I have is a full-time team of 50 people that work with me; within that group, there are 18 full-time event planners and professionals.
We partner and collaborate with many of the largest Fortune 500 brands, and have a roster of athletes and celebrities that we work with. We’ve done 200+ virtual events over the last year or two.
So it’s very natural for us to offer the kinds of opportunities that we’re talking about here, and I think that’s really one of our competitive advantages.
If you think about our premise — giving people real-life opportunities, utility, and benefits as a result of their membership, I don’t know how to do that anonymously, so I’m happy to have a public profile associated with the project that gives our collectors comfort.
The closest model might be Gary Vee and what he’s done with VeeFriends, but we probably fall somewhere between a VeeFriend, a Soho House membership, and an Amex Black Card.
We hope to build something that will be durable and scalable for years to come.
Q: Let’s talk a bit about the values that you’ve talked about with regard to the RSOP. You’ve spoken a number of times about inclusivity being a core value. How are you realizing that?
A: We pride ourselves on diversity, inclusivity, positivity, and philanthropy. I try to exhibit those both personally and professionally and plan to carry those over to the RSOP.
One way to retain equality is that possessing even one card puts you on equal footing with everybody else. There are some gamification benefits to owning more than one, but as long as you own one you’re treated equally.
When you think about race, gender, geography, and interests, we want to reflect our membership and ensure any member from any background feels welcome. We aren’t going to be an old boys’ club or frat house.
We’re a serious group of professionals with a shared interest in NFT’s, but also broader interests that can be shared through membership.
Q: You also spoke about philanthropy. How do you plan to incorporate that?
A: As a small example, earlier this week, I was asking our community about causes that matter to them and making grants to those causes. But more broadly, one thing I built over a decade ago was the Social Innovation Summit, a leading platform discussing altruism and philanthropy. This year we hosted Shaquille O’Neal, Selena Gomez, Paris Hilton, as well as leading corporate figures and investors, talking about diversity and inclusion and the future of work.
I’m well versed in philanthropy and social impact, and the methodologies we will use will be quite novel, some of which will be tied to our gamification.
The hint I’ll give to your readers is that cash is a great starting point; I was raised with the mantra that “if you can’t give money, give time. If you can’t give time, give money, and ideally give both.”
I think that philosophy will illuminate our approach to becoming one of the most altruistic and charitable platforms not just in the NFT world, but beyond.
Q: Some people have started to look at RSOP as some kind of poker project. To what extent is that true?
A: Poker will be reflected in two ways, but they’re somewhat incidental to the bigger picture. One is that an easy perk is regular poker games for our community, including at least one tournament with a $10,000 top prize, but it will be one of many member activities and competitions, like board games, trivia, and card games.
The other connection is that there will be some gamification to reward more deeply invested holders.
We plan to unveil fairly regular “Royal Competitions,” which will be challenges to collect poker hands; three of a kind, or a straight, and so on, and anyone possessing that hand at the time of a snapshot will get an airdrop, or a reward or giveaway.
We will certainly do a lot for holding any one card, so everyone will have plenty of opportunities, but the rarest hand in poker is a Royal Flush, and we certainly have some exciting opportunities for holding a hand like that.
Hopefully, it will bring joy to buying and selling among all of our members.
I would add that although there is a natural “2 through Ace” hierarchy within a deck, we don’t want anyone who might only hold a 2 of diamonds to feel somehow “less than” someone holding an Ace.
So early on, we plan to run more competitions targeting the lower cards, to reward holders of any card, not necessarily just the most valuable ones.
This structure also allows us to keep an eye on any cards that are lagging in value, and if we see that, we can always run a competition around those cards to boost their value, so our collectors can feel like no matter what, their cards are valuable at all times.
Q: You’ve talked about laying out a roadmap that is months or years in the future. What do you see as the biggest risks to being able to deliver on that roadmap?
A: One thing we reflect on a lot is how to keep our engagement appropriate balancing both geography and anonymity. It’s critical that any member can remain anonymous. So we’ll address that in a number of ways, but ultimately we will find ways to include you even if you want to stay anonymous, and the short answer there is keeping things on the blockchain.
At the same time, we will have plenty of benefits, like online poker tournaments or educational virtual events with influential celebrities or business leaders, that make it much easier to stay anonymous if you wish to do so.
In a similar way, we want to find ways to keep members engaged if they are in a country or state that makes it harder to access physical events. My suspicion is that as our membership gains its footing and it's understood how different we are, many members will buy into what we’re building and want to be part of it in every way.
Q: Lastly, can you sum up in one sentence why NFT collectors should mint RSOP?
A: We’re a work of fine art, offering unparalleled benefits both across the Metaverse, as well as in the real world.
The Royal Society of Players drops on Thursday, July 22nd. Their discord can be found here. You can follow them on Twitter @RoyalSocietyOP.
