Individual games create incentives to reward long-term player behavior (see use of tokens in “Dev to Earn”). For example, players are active in the game on a sustained basis, invite friends to play who in turn act on a sustained basis, could qualify for token distributions from the dev running the game.
In some cases, players will naturally progress to becoming creators, and by creating content of value, will receive rewards through the “Create to Earn” program.
Players that acquire NFT-backed rewards through game play may opt to sell/trade or “melt” the reward, generating remuneration for their efforts.
It should be noted that PLAY is considering the potential of a secondary currency. Similar to SLP in the Axie Infinity ecosystem, the secondary currency would be primarily designed as an explicit "player loyalty program." It is premature to have firm conviction on the utility and design of a potential secondary currency, but important to signal that it could provide additional benefits to the long-term growth and health of the overall ecosystem.
Developer teams and studios can apply for”up front” token grants prior to a game’s release, which in turn can be used to fund their internal game mechanics:
Minting NFTs, and creating their own relevant “play to earn” and “create to earn” mechanics with incentives, in each title.
Create branded game currency derived from the $PLAY token to be used to reward players in their specific game
For example, a PvP golf game that qualifies could use the token grant to fund achievement rewards by players and golf leagues; fund loyalty programs, rewarding players for inviting high-quality friends to the game; even fund IP tie-ins with golf themed “merch” by giving the IP holder an advance against future cosmetic sales in the game.
The dev team can also decide, at their discretion, to hold their tokens, to fund investment into the game, by covering engineering costs.
Additionally, PLAY may opt to to provide “backend grants”- these are token issuances to dev teams whose games have met certain performance benchmarks, deemed markers of a valuable ecosystem contribution:
Games with retention metrics in the top decile of the ecosystem.
Games with relatively high ARPDAU/ARPPU in the ecosystem.
Games with highly efficient customer acquisition costs.
Games with high install rates.
Dev teams building software solutions, more broadly, which are then shared with the ecosystem may also qualify for “up front” and “backend” grants. For example:
A dev team building a conversion tool to allow avatar content to be exported from the PLAY ecosystem to third-party ecosystems (e.g. Roblox, Minecraft).
A team working on more efficient “off chain” transaction processing, which reduces “gas fees” system wide.
Market making incentives
Central to the success of the PLAY gaming ecosystem is the use of $PLAY to incentivise long-term investment and behavior by key stakeholders: developers, creators, and players.
The more tokens are held by active participants in the ecosystem- as opposed to passive investors- the higher the probability that the value of the ecosystem will work to everyone’s mutual benefit. To stimulate long-term cooperation, PLAY envisions strategic use of $PLAY, under the theme of “dev to earn, create to earn, play to earn.”
Tokens in the Ecosystem Fund finance initiatives to encourage developer, creator, and player adoption. This can be seen as a type of “marketing budget” for growing the ecosystem with high-quality participants. Examples by type of stakeholder include:
Dev to earn.
Create to earn.
Play to earn.
In each of these cases, PLAY is mindful that it may be appropriate to put a vesting schedule on ecosystem development token issuances. It’s premature to reach a blanket conclusion on whether grants should or should not fall under vesting, let alone design a “one size fits all” vesting strategy for community grants. Rather, it is presumed that vesting schedules can be attached to token grant programs on a case-by-case basis. PLAY plans to carefully monitor token grant issuances, and adjust vesting rules if/when market dynamics indicate they advance the cause of long-term ecosystem building and stability.
Brands, fashion labels, artists- each may bring a community of fans to the ecosystem, interested in purchasing virtual goods related to creator IP. In exchange for incentivizing “high quality” IP to enter the ecosystem, PLAY could provide token grants as an incentive to create a “collection” for sale in games.
In other cases, PLAY may provide “backend” incentives, similar to “dev to earn”, according to benchmarks set by PLAY:
Creators with sales in the top decile of the ecosystem receive bonus grants.
Creators meeting other predetermined criteria set with PLAY, receive bonus grants.