I Know It’s Random, But You Can Trust This
How We Used On-chain Randomness to Provide Transparency to the Sidekick Draw
Hello dear Villains!
The Supervillain Sidekick Draw is over: From March 27 to May 1, 83,102 new Sidekick NFTs came to the world!
Unlike typical NFT collections where rarity proportions are determined by a limited supply of tokens, the Sidekick Draw was an open mint where participants could actually draw Sidekick characters that will be used in the upcoming game, Supervillain Idle RPG.
Despite the large number of NFTs minted, we’ve proven that the mint results follow the gacha probabilities we announced, and all logic and transactions can be tracked on a web dashboard accessible to anyone.
In this article, we’d like to discuss the effort we put into ensuring transparency and increasing accessibility to information — in everything we build.
Probabilities in Games and Trust Issues
Probability plays a significant role in gaming. Not only does it contribute to the enjoyment of games, but it is also a source of frustration and controversy, particularly in free-to-play games that allow item purchases. Players often doubt the accuracy of published probabilities, but verifying the truth requires extensive testing (which can be quite costly).
Isn’t there a less stressful way for that? What if game developers disclosed not only the probabilities but also the underlying logic behind them? And what if this logic is all open source that it is available for verification? And what if all transactions are recorded on a blockchain and are immutable so that anybody could track them? Is this rarely seen in games because it is less fun to do so?
We wanted to demonstrate that this concept works without compromising fun. (Perhaps it’s even more satisfying, as players don’t need to waste energy doubting the results.)
Disclosed Probabilities and Transparent Looting
During the Sidekick Draw, all probabilities and results were processed on-chain, allowing users to access the data directly. Participants could track each step of the minting process in real-time. All transactions and results could be checked via Aptos Explorer or a dashboard provided by Supervillain Labs.
By handling all minting logic and probabilities publicly, we aimed to provide gamers with a clear understanding of how items are generated, enhancing trust in our products.
Key Metrics
Our team conducted thorough testing on both local and testnet environments prior to the Sidekick Draw launch. However, there was uncertainty about what the results would be on the actual Mainnet. For example, the probability of a user pulling a Legendary was set at 0.1%, meaning one Legendary should appear for every 1,000 draws.
Although 2 Legendaries appeared before the first 1,000 were minted, as more trials were conducted, we could see the results converging. This demonstrated that our system was functioning accurately as expected.
These successful outcomes provide us with confidence in the direction we are headed and will enable more innovative efforts based on transparency and trust.
Enriching the Community Through Access to Information
Another aspect of disclosing all information about the Sidekick mint and providing a web dashboard is enhancing access to information.
We think it’s important to bridge the knowledge gap between us and the community, as well as among the users. Ideally, by having an equal level of knowledge and understanding, there will be more room for productive discussions, more energy to build, and thus raise the ecosystem’s health level. That’s why we valued giving everyone equal access to information.
Furthermore, the Sidekicks minted during this event will be used in our forthcoming game, meaning participants will possess valuable assets within the game itself. Knowing how it works and understanding its credibility will eventually contribute to a richer, more engaging gaming experience.
Making the Best of out of the Technology
Achieving transparency is just the beginning, not the ultimate goal, of our Web3 ambitions. It establishes a baseline for how we will harness blockchain technology.
We believe that using blockchain will enhance many aspects of gaming, particularly player sovereignty. We will keep following this belief throughout the journey of building a prosperous gaming ecosystem.
The upcoming new feature, the Sidekick Fusion, is scheduled for update on May 29. The Fusion feature also will follow a predetermined rate table, and all details will be visible on the dashboard. We will cover more on this in the next article.
Stay tuned for updates, and see you again soon!
