Hi SA,
This is extensive, and so are all the replies - nice job!
I have to quote IllaDaProducer and what he often says re games and the DAO - “More shots on goal”. This is without doubt one of those instances - if we don’t try how can we ever score that goal!
Tl;dr - watching this closely and wish you all the best SA.
With more than 20 years experience working in the online gaming (MMORPG) industry, this game is a hard NO for me. I wouldn’t consider publishing this game even if it’s 2013.
Imagine how the investors who funded it from start to finish over 14 years - and to a x11.36 ROI - would have felt if the original devs had given up.
There’s a reason that publishers and investors alike pass or take on projects. And you don’t need 20 (!) yrs experience to make a good or bad call. A lot of games (esp Web3) game projects with exceptionally experienced teams and savvy publishers/investors have failed (and continue to do so) spectacularly.
One size never fits all or there would be no hits or misses.
And I am all but certain that, if true that you have 20 (!) yrs of experience in the MMORPG industry, given the number of those games that have been published during that time span, there are failures in that list of games that you were involved in. Do you have a list of those MMORPG games that you have 20 yrs experience in? We can take this to DM so as to avoid going off-topic in this AIP.
I do have a long list of the games that I’ve published over the years 
Some successes and many failures. EverQuest II back in 04 that i would’ve considered a failure, and the ones that i think we did pretty well include Lineage (PC and mobile), Maple Story, Mabinogi, Counter Strike Online, etc. You can look them up online in terms of performances.
You are right that no one needs decades of experience to make any call, but yrs of experiences do help me to look for details and red flags when it comes to picking games for publishing.
You are welcome to DM me if you need any help.
PS. x11.36 ROI over a 14 years old product is not very impressive in the world of MMORPG publishing.
Having been around for so long, I am well aware of all those games. That said, only in a AAA world would a game like EQ II be considered a failure. heh. Also, those titles are by different teams/corps. So, if it’s true that you were involved, then you must be in an Asian parent that sub-licenses games.
Which brings me to the ROI. This was a small indie company by a small group of angel investors that set out to create a WoW clone. They succeeded in doing just that. And for the money spent, 11.36x (in an 6.3x - 10x avg world) is a very good ROI, you must admit. Obviously not the norm for AAA let alone AA investments which tend to cost a lot more and thus require must larger margins and ROI. Also, they never released the game outside of North America, which impacted it’s reach, revenue and ROI. For the amount of money that it was making, way more than it cost to operate, my buying it was a no-brainer.
Regardless, this AIP isn’t about publishing the game. It’s about which token to adopt, and no different from any number of bundling type partnership deals the industry tends to make, for example with audio or video card vendors. Whether or not the AIP fails, the game is still going to get re-released - and with some token or another.
You r right that I’m looking at this from a AAA world perspective since I’ve been involved with AAA products & AAA partners most of the time, hence I consider EQII a flop.
It’s not about either this AIP is trying to adopt Apecoin or publishing the game. Since you are applying for a grant, asking money from the DAO, it’s reasonable to evaluate the product from a business point of view, right?
And by me saying I wouldn’t consider publishing this game, meaning that I don’t think this decade old game will be a success in the future and it won’t benefit Apecoin. That’s just my professional opinion.
If this game is still currently operating, you should provide all the recent (recent 6-12 months) data points to Apecoin Council for review. Data like MAU, login time, paid member / ratio, ARPU etc. It will be useful for us to determine if this game can benefit us by adopting Apecoin.
Apecoin Council should do a proper DD, providing evaluation report & explaining numbers to everyone before voting. That’s fair to everyone, right?
Just a heads up that this isn’t how the council operates. It’s up to the community to do that work, which is the purpose of threads like these. I will say that the level of detail that this particular AIP has far exceeds the vast majority that are submitted.
got it~ let’s do the work together then~
I agree there are tons of detail material submitted here, and so far i haven’t seen anything that would benefit apecoin.
Derek Smart is quite a controversial figure in gamespace. I don’t have clear opinion about it but I remember Battlecruiser 3000 controversies and it was quite nasty. I don’t want to put Derek in the bad light, but I think community should be aware of it. More info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battlecruiser_3000AD
I figured as much, going by your comments.
Actually no - on all counts. Let me explain. You probably didn’t read all the data that I previously provided in the AIP across no less than 8 detailed posts.
This isn’t for the purposes of “adopting ApeCoin”. I already made that clear - so many times. This is about the “promotion & the adoption of ApeCoin” - something that’s sorely lacking due to the fact that no dev outside of the current cluster bubble will touch it.
Neither myself nor the game will have any tangible benefits whether or not ApeCoin is adopted. In fact, ApeCoin - and the community - gain more by this grant than either myself or the game would.
This is a marketing expense. And the only way the DAO can pay for it, is through its grant program which - if you read and remember it - says this:
It’s no different from any grant issued by other tokens and chains, except that those decisions are made through bizdev channels instead of through a voting DAO. And in no less than three of my missives in this thread, I made clear why - unlike others - I opted not to accept grants from chains and tokens.
Grants aren’t “business” decisions. This is what you and others don’t seem to understand. Assuming of course the DAO is actually a bona fide non-prof and not an enterprise that’s conducting business while pretending to be a non-prof. And the latter is patently illegal, regardless of the domicile of the DAO or corp.
My original AIP - if you read it - was more expansive and wasn’t purely about the use of the token. And when, through many discussions it was obviously not going to pass because of the costs, I was very close to pulling it, but was - again - convinced to keep it, but just ask for a grant to use the token in my game.
That you think $500K is of any consequence to a multi-million Dollar game tells me that you either don’t understand any of this or you’re more concerned about the treasury than about the adoption of $APE in a game like this - of which nothing like it actually exists in Web3 - and likely never will given the type and premise of the game, not to mention what it cost to make.
That’s a subjective opinion.
Aside from the fact that you have zero metrics or data to support that opinion. Your opinion is no more valid than mine (or anyone else’s), who has been doing this a lot longer than you and who is in a better position to determine whether or not a game that I am working on will succeed or fail. If all investors and bizdev people were right, there would be no failures. I mean, you actually think EQII was a failure. That should be a sign. A game that was making a lot more than it cost to run, regardless of it’s age (in a decade where the likes of WoW, Runescape, Everquest, Planetside etc. are still a thing) is still a profitable one. Why else would I buy it instead of putting the money into my primary studio?
Once again - the game doesn’t need to succeed or fail for an ApeCoin partnership to be a viable activity. I have lost count of how many such partnerships - by big names even - have crashed and burned. As I type this, for example, being pitched to use TLOS in both of my Web3 games hinged on a partnership between GameStop’s Playr initiative and the Telos Foundation. That partnership was hyped beyond belief over several months. And TLOS jumped about 15% at the news. Though I have a good relationship with GameStop, having done game partnership deals with them over the years, I still opted not to do it because I wasn’t convinced that it was beneficial for my game. Then, last week, it was finally made public that the GameStop/Telos partnership was dead - leaving everyone who signed on - in the lurch. These things happen. And you never know.
For someone who has been around as long as you say - and this is me giving you the benefit of the doubt - you’re either willfully ignoring these trends or you’re being selectively and overly critical of my efforts - for whatever reason. And that’s OK because if stuff like that fazed me, I would have exited the industry decades ago, let alone be around to keep making the games that I want to make and still working for myself and not for some corp that focuses on money rather than creativity.
And there it is. You didn’t read the AIP. If you did, then you’d know the history of the game, see the metrics posted - and know that it’s been offline to the public since I bought it in 2018.
And no - none of those metrics are relevant - let alone useful - for the purposes of a grant. Further, the use of ApeCoin in the game is more beneficial to ApeCoin DAO than to myself or the game - both of which are going to faces a massive backlash by the mere fact that I ended up adding Web3 elements to a re-release of a popular game.
I mean, you’re an OG member of the DAO, and amid all the AIPs - most of which have thus far not yielded any tangible benefits to the DAO - you haven’t posted about any of them; but you picked this one to opine on.
sigh
Against my better judgment, let me just make this as clear as I can be.
In 1989, I embarked on a journey to single-handedly create an all-encompassing video game, a space combat sim.
That journey came to a head in 1996 when my publisher (of one year, who gained the rights after buying my existing publisher) released the game while still in Beta - and without my permission. And until the truth came out that I had nothing to do with that, I was the one who bore the brunt of the attacks.
I took legal action. It was settled out of court in which I was paid for my work and my IP returned to me.
It was later found that the publisher, Take Two, had done that in order to shore up the financials in a bid to go public - which they did in 1997. And in that public filing, my game - a financial success by all accounts - was 14% of their revenue when they went public in 1997. SEC filing (also linked in the AIP).
I later used the money, finished the game - and released it for FREE so that the publisher and its partners couldn’t continue to profit from it.
Almost one year later, another prominent publisher, Interplay, signed a completed and updated version of the game and re-released it as Battlecruiser 3000AD v2.0. It was an additional financial success that has kept me making games.
These two events jump-started my career, and I left the world of IT behind.
That was all 27 (!) years ago. And I have continued making games ever since. I am now 60, and my first foray into computing started around the age of 20 and back when it wasn’t as accessible as it is today.
Fun fact 1: I am one in a very small breed of programmers who still knows how to program in languages such as Forth, Fortran, Lisp, COBOL, and RPG (all flavors). And you can still find my work in most banking and research software (btw including a missile tracking software) where a good portion of my derivative income comes from, and which has allowed me to be truly independent in my field.
Fun fact 2: Unlike many of my friends and peers from back in the day, and even up to now, I have never - ever - worked for any gaming industry corp in any capacity. Ever. I was able to do this by fiercely defending my independence and by making my own road. That first game, Battlecruiser 3000AD, for which I am vilified, derided and made fun of, made this possible.
In print and online, much has been written about that first, game. And that game made me an industry name - and with a lot to show for it because I did something that most had laughed at, claimed couldn’t be done etc. In an industry where gamers recognize very few of the names of the hard-working devs who make their games, I am privileged to be in the great company of game industry legends and pioneers - even after so many have left the industry. Long after I am gone, gamers will remember my name, who I was, and what I stood for. That’s how legacy is built.
Nobody, regardless of their race, color, creed, religion or politics, should be vilified for standing up for themselves, nor pursuing something that they believe in. To try and then fail is no disgrace. And I didn’t fail. And it’s got nothing to do with being controversial. When you’re outspoken and don’t take crap from anyone, it’s easy to be vilified and character assassinated because you’re supposed to just be silent and take it. Even though I don’t have the benefit of anonymity, I am not, never have been - and will never be that guy.
So, if being “controversial” is of any relevance to an AIP that is written and designed to benefit a community that I care about, go ahead, don’t vote for it. That’ll teach me, won’t it?
ps. I have routinely released versions of my older games for free. You can search for them online or from my studio’s website download page links. Eventually, ALL my games will be released for free.
Nice work @SmartAPE , very exciting ! 
Thank you for your answer.
I think it is good you explained it to community.
I personally consider your explanation satisfactory.
Here’s what the apecoin.com website says about $APE: “It will serve as a decentralized protocol layer for community-led initiatives that drive culture forward into the metaverse.”
If anyone can show me a more community-led, culture based, meta verse related, gaming oriented initiative currently active at ApeCoin that has exclusive focus on using $APE as a real use case, leading to broader adoption in a more tangible or scalable way than what I just read above…then I’ll eat my shirt…err, well at least a thread of my shirt, cuz, u know, digestive systems 'n all.
But look, what’s more important than having $APE in use, as a currency, in a trendy meta verse game, that brings people joy?
Every single DAO out there would do well to revisit their core mission, redouble efforts on manifesting it, and cutting out half of everything else to make room. That’s not a criticism on any one or any specific thing, it’s simply some words of wisdom I think the DAO ecosystem would do well to heed.
I support this AIP.
Just a quick update:
We now have the Green light from the legal people about how we can do a token or NFT pre-sale - if we decided to do that - without running afoul of the regulators.
We currently have no plans to issue a crypto token as was previously planned back in 2021 when this project first started. So, for now, we’re sticking to using an established token such as $APE - assuming this AIP passes, and if it goes up to vote within our milestone implementation timeframe (which is fast approaching) - or other established game-centric token that wasn’t already declared a security by regulators.
And certainly no plans - ever - to pre-sell game NFT assets. This game is an MMORPG, not a competitive game in which buying assets ahead of the game’s release gives a player an edge.
As we were planning to distribute through Epic Game Store as well as directly via our CDN with payments handled via our pre-existing Xsolla account/setup, there is now a path forward to also releasing this Web3 enabled version of the game via Steam where it was before. It would require revisions to some backend services as well as to how the game’s NFT assets are handled within the Web3 tab of the in-game marketplace. Getting the game back on Steam would be a very big deal indeed; especially since we have over 200K unique accounts there for the game, and we wouldn’t have to do much work to market the game to them. Here is a recent article about recent developments regarding this. Crypto and NFT Games Are Still Launching on Steam Despite Ongoing Ban.
Hey guys - based on a recent comment taken out of context on Discord, I wanted to clear something up in as few words as possible even though all of this is already addressed in the AIP itself as well as in various comments in this thread. Most Apes don’t like to read a lot of stuff. So here goes.
This funded Web3 project has been in dev since late 2021 when I formed a Web3 startup holding company (Wide Span Ventures) to bring not one, but two, pre-existing (one previously released, the other unreleased) Web2 games to Web3. This was the quickest way to do it given how long it takes to make even half-way decent games, let alone the costs of doing so. Doing this kept my legacy Web2 studio, 3000AD, separate because my entire plan was to build up another studio but specifically for Web3 games. Hence the separate entities.
Alganon was a 100% completed Web2 game when I bought it and put millions into it since 2018 (after I bought it) to present day.
As per #1, I don’t need funding from ApeCoin DAO for my game. I never did - and never asked for that. My original proposal (as explained here, here, here and here) was to seek engagement so that we - in the DAO - could build and be a part of something that was ours in many ways.
The entire premise of my doing this AIP has been discussed over and over and over; so I’m not going down that road again. Put it plainly, I just felt that onboarding a pre-existing Web3 community - even a new one such as this - was the best way to merge the two groups of gamers in a bid to show and prove that it can be done.
Given how long it could take before this AIP goes to vote in the coming months, and considering that we’ve already been running tests with various tokens while entertaining offers from said third-parties, there’s a chance that I would have already made a token decision by the time this AIP goes to vote, thus rendering it moot. And that’s regardless of whether or not it passes. That is the crux of the comment that appeared to be taken out of context on Discord to imply that I was somehow going to pack up my bags and leave as a result. Fact is, unless circumstances force me to do so, I’m not going anywhere. And unlike some people who have breezed through here and left after their AIP failed - even some that passed, my involvement in the ApeCoin DOA is completely separate from my professional aspirations. Aside from that, I am one of the most passionate and loyal people that you could ever come across. I am not a fair-weather personality - and so, I’m likely going to be here even if the DAO falls apart or $APE goes negative. I’ll be around to help with the ensuing cleanup amid the hilarity that’s sure to ensue.
Games are the primary gateway to doing anything tangible in Web3.
So, that’s me setting the record straight.
Hi ApeCoin DAO Community,
After review, this Topic submitted by @SmartAPE is ready for vote under AIP-316. The proposal will be posted on Snapshot at the next weekly release date and time, which is every Thursday at 9PM EST.
The AIP implementation is administered by the Ape Foundation. Implementation may be immaterially or materially altered to optimise for security, usability, to protect APE holders, and otherwise to effect the intent of the AIP. Any material deviations from an AIP, as initially approved, will be disclosed to the APE holder community.
Kind Regards,
This proposal is live for Snapshot vote at Snapshot. The voting period closes next Wednesday at 9PM EST.
The AIP implementation is administered by the Ape Foundation. Implementation may be immaterially or materially altered to optimize for security, usability, to protect APE holders, and otherwise to effect the intent of the AIP. Any material deviations from an AIP, as initially approved, will be disclosed to the APE holder community.
Hi ApeCoin DAO Community,
The voting has closed for this proposal and it has not been accepted.
This Topic will be moved to and remain in the Rejected AIPs subcategory.
