AFK Elephants — The Ultimate Gaming NFTs On Web3
AFK Elephants are the world’s first gamified, deflationary NFTs with power-up mechanics, serving as pseudonymous gamer-identity in the web3 space. Each AFK Elephant NFT comes with built-in mechanics to reward gamers and help them build their gaming legacy.
Problems in the current web3 gaming ecosystem
NFTs are beginning to transform blockchain gaming. Blockchain games largely use NFTs to represent ownership of in-game items, reward users, unlock community governance and define the game mechanics. However, there are some key issues:
- To a large extent, web3 games have witnessed exploitative participants who enter the ecosystem primarily for monetary incentives. This is partly due to the tokenization of a majority of in-game assets and the highly speculative nature of early blockchain game economics. This exploitative behaviour has caused asset price spikes which end up being a barrier to adoption for those with genuine interests. This is just an extension of the pay-to-win mechanics in traditional gaming which shifts the outcomes in favour of whales(large spenders) who can spend their way to success. Imagine getting beat in Fortnite just because your opponent has bought a superhero skin that makes them difficult to spot.
- Each blockchain game requires its own NFT for accessing the ecosystem. Economically disadvantaged gamers can not afford to invest in multiple games or pay high blockchain transaction fees making the democratization of play-and-earn challenging, while also locking players into a single game ecosystem. Do you want to play an exciting new game that just launched but don’t have the capital to invest? Too bad. This is a stark difference from the most popular game titles like PUBG Mobile, Free Fire or other web HTML 5 games.
- Gaming NFTs, in their current form, lack an appropriate mechanism for players to build a gaming career and legacy in the web3 space. All the player’s contributions are funnelled into the NFT item without the player’s identity themselves gaining any value. To draw an analogy, this is like during his entire career, Muhammad Ali’s boxing gloves were the only item that had value but his persona remained just like any other player. You might be a great player and own highly valuable game NFTs but ultimately as a web3 gamer, you are unable to build a reputation as athletes do in traditional sports or esports. The lack of player identity and reputation systems makes it difficult to identify the next Ninja or Ronaldo from the world of web3 gaming.
At Zone, we see the promise of a gaming NFT ecosystem that is driven by pure competition, a player’s skill and identity rather than the exploitative behaviour of the ecosystem incentives. We believe a new model of gaming NFTs is necessary, one that does not do away with the core mechanics of what makes games popular and fun to play, but a model that enhances competition and skill-based rewards.
Zone’s core philosophy of PlayFi is built on the battle-tested pro-sports model, where with the increased difficulty of the game comes increased economic opportunities and participation in the game. We have designed, built and visualised utility for the AFK Elephants NFTs as the native NFTs of the Zone PlayFi ecosystem, keeping in mind the core PlayFi philosophy.
AFK Elephants — The gaming NFTs for Zone PlayFi
AFKs as gaming NFTs are designed differently from other gaming NFTs in the current web3 ecosystem. AFK Elephants enable decentralized gamer identity and on-chain reputation systems in order to enhance gaming guild participation and skill-based competition.
The Zone PlayFi protocol will provide access to a wide range of games and gaming categories — ranging from hypercasual, esports, fantasy sports and poker amongst others. As a web3 gamer, holding an AFK means access to a vast web3 gaming ecosystem where you can build your gamer profile across every game you play. You can also become a PlayFi scholar and join gaming guilds to participate in Zone tournaments with huge prize pools! Or who knows, you might be drafted as the next star player based on your game stats in the biggest tournaments hosted around the world!
The Key Benefits of Owning an AFK Elephant:
AFKs as a decentralized web3 gamer identity
•AFK NFTs become your pseudonymous identity on web3 and act as your gamer ID across all games on the Zone PlayFi ecosystem. This is similar to jerseys in traditional sports, where players are known by the numbers they wear on the field. Like traditional sports, all your player stats will be linked and updated directly to your AFK NFT.
AFK #1135 with a number 23 red basketball jersey
•With AFKs acting as gamer IDs, on-chain provenance is unlocked as key details of ownership and player data are embedded in the NFT. In traditional sports, some jersey numbers become extremely valuable as a legendary player uses them. Similarly, players can now trade and hold AFK NFTs which have a rich player history. Who knows, you might win the next ZONE high-stakes tournament and your AFK becomes a unique collectible for your fans.
Msdossary, the 2018 FIFA World Champion with an AFK Elephant NFT
•Players holding an AFK NFT have the ability to showcase them as their profile picture on the Zone platform. Holders can participate in tournaments and other pools with your AFK to have distinct visibility in the community.
AFK holders have a distinct profile page with the ability to showcase their NFTs as PFPs
AFKs as a premium on-chain reputation system in web3 gaming
- AFKs will hold all the player metadata within the NFT. This includes but is not restricted to a history of all gaming activity such as win-loss ratio, individual match data, player performance metrics, etc. As players are not limited to a single game on the Zone platform, the AFK NFT becomes an on-chain player database for web3 gamers and helps gamers build a strong cross-game reputation.
AFK NFTs act as gamer IDs, holding all player and match history
- Anyone can immediately see the player profile and their performance across games on the blockchain. Gamers can now have a verifiable reputation mechanism to build their web 3 gaming career on. AFKs act as a personal trading card featuring all your gaming stats on the blockchain. As you become better at playing games, your AFK NFT will evolve to reflect the change in reputation. The more games you play, the better your skill and the better your skill, the more likely you are to be in future tournament drafts to win large prize pools.
AFKs enable on-chain reputation by tracking your gaming progress
Unlocking secondary market liquidity for gamers
AFK on-chain gamer ID and the subsequent reputation system it enables creates value for secondary market purchases should they wish to leave the ecosystem. Every gamer that plays using an AFK gamer ID will add to the history of the NFT and keep evolving that AFK. This value accrual to the metadata of the NFT becomes tradable in the secondary markets.
- We have already seen the fandom around collectibles and skins in popular AAA games with some items selling for over half a million dollars. Ownership by top-tier players and wins in prestigious tournaments add to the value of such items in the secondary market.
CS:GO skins and items being sold in the marketplace
- Similarly, for example, a high-tier player who has won 3 Zone PlayFi Championships sells their AFK on the secondary market and the buyer goes on to win another championship, lending that AFK NFT 4 championships to its metadata is something that might be extremely valuable in the secondary markets.
AFK Elephants NFTs for sale in the secondary market
Increasing web3 gaming guild participation
AFKs offer free-to-play and play-and-earn opportunities for their holders. Gamers can participate in AFK-exclusive Game Farms on https://zone.game and start earning crypto by playing games. There is no participation fee for playing in AFK Game Farms.
- At their core, web3 gaming guilds allow for secure lending/borrowing of gaming NFTs. With AFKs, holders can lend their NFTs to scholars and earn passive income.
- Scholars can join the guild to borrow AFKs and build their gamer profile, and with improved performance over games become valuable for other lenders who would want to lend their AFKs to better players. Becoming a valuable player with a good track record will also enable players to be scouted by guild managers.
- With players’ performance history embedded in AFKs, guilds can rank players and form teams of top players in multiple gaming categories and compete in Zone PlayFi tournaments with other guilds for massive prize pools.
AFK design and utility
AFK Elephants are NFTs native to the Zone PlayFi protocol and offer key utilities to their holders. Each AFK NFT offers the following utility:
- Access to AFK Game Farms — Game Farms are free-to-play pools on the Zone platform. Any AFK holder can participate in these game farms without a participation fee and compete in tournaments and solo gaming challenges to earn.
- Power-ups in the Zone PlayFi ecosystem — There are several power-ups that AFKs unlock for the players. The power-ups do not offer an edge in gameplay but are peripheral to the games and other features of the Zone platform.
Types of power-ups
- Platform fee nullifier — 0% fees for all games on AFK Game Farms.
- Solo challenge bonus — AFK holders receive a bonus reward when they win solo challenges on Zone.
- Tournament payout bonus — AFK holders receive a bonus when they win Zone gaming tournaments.
- AFK holders as prime members on the Zone Marketplace — Receive exclusive discounts on gift cards, Steam credits, Riot points, game keys, etc.
- AFK special mystery boxes — AFK Elephants holders receive exclusive cross-chain mystery boxes containing ZONE tokens, Zone game passes and other special NFTs as rewards.
- Staking reward multiplier — AFK holders receive boosted staking rewards in certain ZONE pools.
- Rewards airdrop — AFK holders receive randomised rewards through airdrops for holding AFK NFTs.
- On-chain player profiles and pseudonymous identity — AFKs become gamer IDs and AFK holders can set their profile pictures to point to the AFK NFT on the Zone platform.
- Access to exclusive groups — AFK holders have a special community in the Zone ecosystem with an exclusive Discord channel.
- Access pass to exclusive Zone Events — AFK holders get access to incredible Zone events with a chance to meet celebrities and superstar athletes.
- Access to Z-Pad (Zone Launchpad) — Each AFK NFT will give tiered access to investment opportunities in leading web3 projects with the upcoming Z-Pad. Z-pad is Algorand native but allows for cross-chain access.
Rarity and level-ups
The extent of each utility offered by AFK Elephants is defined by its rarity.
The rarity is defined by the rarest trait present in the NFT. For example — even if the AFK Elephant NFT has only one Mythic attribute, it will be considered a Mythical AFK NFT.
The rarity categories are:
- Common
- Uncommon
- Rare
- Super Rare
- Legendary
- Mythical
AFK NFTs are upgradable, allowing users to combine NFTs of the same rarity to upgrade them for a rarer NFT. This way, users continuously level up and acquire rarer and more powerful AFK NFTs. There are 6 NFT levels and they can be upgraded by merging 3 NFTs belonging to an immediately lower category.
Each NFT level is categorised on the basis of the rarity category associated with it. The level categories are defined below.
- Common = Level 1
- Uncommon = Level 2
- Rare = Level 3
- Super Rare = Level 4
- Legendary = Level 5
- Mythical = Level 6
Deflationary mechanics for AFK Elephants NFTs
After upgrading, the base NFTs are burned. This creates deflationary pressure on the NFTs of a given level by taking them out of circulation.
While the higher-level NFT cards are desirable for obvious reasons, the base-level NFT cards also become desirable due to their rarity in the ecosystem and their virgin properties. It will also create a market for these NFTs based on a power-up hierarchy. Thus, this deflationary mechanism ensures that any upgrade creates value for all AFK Elephants NFT holders.
The Future
The Zone PlayFi protocol is designed to be led by community governance. We believe the future of the Zone protocol and AFK Elephants will evolve based on community proposals. As the Zone protocol evolves, so will the AFK Elephants.
We envision AFK Elephants NFTs to be a solution for the fundamental problems in the current web3 gaming industry- on-chain reputation systems and gamer profiles. The AFKs have the ability to expand the concept of gaming NFTs to go beyond in-game elements.
As gamers, there is no better feeling than beating difficult opponents and challenges while levelling up in the community. Bragging rights are an integral part of the gaming and video game subculture. With AFKs gamers are able to show off their hard-earned reputation and skill.
Furthermore, the ability to get immediate value for your accumulated reputation in the marketplace will become increasingly relevant as players level up. AFKs can unlock gamer interests in the same way the creator economy has unlocked creator interests.
For guilds, AFKs would deliver an increased monetization surface area. Gamers are not static entities and have varying interests. With AFKs, guilds would have access to players that play a broad spectrum of games in various gaming categories currently not accessible to these guilds. This broad group of gamers could be integrated into guilds by sharing a portion of economics with the players and other incentives.
Additionally, blockchain technology has the potential to allow interaction across ecosystems by leveraging existing building blocks and open source infrastructure. The Zone protocol is soon becoming multi-chain. We recognize composability with the broader web3 gaming ecosystem as a promising innovation. In the future, AFKs would not necessarily be limited to the Zone protocol but could have utility in other gaming ecosystems as well.
AFK Elephants are new and still evolving. However, the foundational building blocks to enhance and enrich the web3 gaming ecosystem with distinct NFTs are now in place. Let’s unleash the HERD!
