AIP-338: The First ApeCoin Sponsored Competitive E-Sports Tournament with Wreck League

TK · September 18, 2023, 11:12pm

PROPOSAL NAME:

The First ApeCoin Sponsored Competitive E-Sports Tournament with Wreck League

PROPOSAL CATEGORY:

Ecosystem Fund Allocation

AUTHOR AND TEAM DESCRIPTION:

This AIP is authored by Taehoon Kim, Co-Founder and CEO of nWay Games, an Animoca Brands subsidiary and the developer of Wreck League.

nWay is a leading San Francisco-based publisher and developer of competitive multiplayer games specializing in creating fast action cross-play games across various platforms. nWay brings a proven track record of delivering AAA quality games on mobile and on console, such as Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid, Power Rangers: Legacy Wars, WWE: Undefeated, Olympic Games Jam and ChronoBlade. nWay is comprised of leading developers and senior executives from Sony, LucasArts, EA, Ubisoft, Capcom, Bandai Namco, Xbox, Warner Bros., Konami, Kabam, Pocket Gems, Zynga, Glu, Jam City and Machine Zone. The nWay team has collectively contributed to over a dozen hits, including Marvel Contest of Champions, the Injustice series, Star Wars: the Force Unleashed, Game of War, and Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery. For more information about nWay, visit www.nway.com.

ABSTRACT:

The objective of this proposal is to raise awareness of $APE among traditional gamers by showcasing $APE as the official currency in a professional competitive esports tournament–the Wreck League ApeCoin Tournament–featuring grand prizes designated in $APE. This will demonstrate $APE’s utility as a gaming currency, while also rewarding thousands of ApeCoin community members who already use their NFT mechs to fight in Wreck League battles.

As many of you know, starting on August 31st, Yuga holders claimed their fight-ready Wreck League mechs as part of the Wreck League Founders Mechs collection. Additionally, Wreck League Season 1 powered by ApeCoin is already onboarding new ApeCoin users, showcasing bold new ways to use $APE by powering the Wreck League Web3 fighting game. The Wreck League Genesis Mint, as an example, brought in over 7,500 new $APE holders and generated over 1.5 million $APE in daily transaction volume.

We are asking the ApeCoin community to approve the organization of the Wreck League ApeCoin Tournament and to allocate grand prizes in the total amount of 50,000 $APE to be distributed among the winners of this first, and certainly not last, competitive esports tournament using $APE as the official tournament awards token.

BENEFIT TO APECOIN ECOSYSTEM:

A Wreck League ApeCoin Tournament will strengthen ties among the ApeCoin community while generating awareness among traditional gamers during this holiday season and ultimately promoting the adoption and demand for $APE by showcasing ApeCoin utility in a competitive gaming tournament.

Developed through the collaboration of nWay and Animoca Brands with the participation of Yuga Labs, Wreck League Season1 is powered by ApeCoin. As members of the ApeCoin community, Yat Siu of Animoca Brands and Taehoon Kim of nWay proactively decided to integrate $APE as the primary currency for the Wreck League Season 1 mints and tournaments utilities. The team introduced pricing in ApeCoin: 150$APE for Wreck League Majestic boxes and 50$APE for Wreck League Booster boxes. The Wreck League Genesis Mint contributed to a daily transaction volume of over 1.5 million $APEs. Moreover, it is worth noting that leading to Wreck League Genesis Mint, an increase of about 7,500 new $APE holders was observed, arguably driven by Wreck League Mint buyers buying $APE for the first time in preparation to mint their Wreck League boxes on the morning of August 17.
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nWay, the developer behind Wreck League, is a reputable game developer founded in 2011 with over 50MM downloads of their traditional fighting games. As recently covered in a sponsored Tiger report, Wreck League is poised to bridge nWay’s existing reach among traditional fighting-game players to Web3 gaming by introducing a set of optional yet powerful Web3 gaming utilities, including but not limited to: 1) Customizing and building unique mech NFTs; 2) Entering PvP Wreck League fighting tournaments and competitions to win on-chain rewards; and 3) Delivering a patented, first-of-its-kind NFT to in-app-store publishing and revenue sharing model for mech NFT owners.

In conclusion, by leveraging Wreck League’s reach to traditional gamers, ApeCoin’s active Wreck League fighters, and the native integration with $APE, the Wreck League ApeCoin Tournament is a unique and timely opportunity to effectively raise awareness to ApeCoin among mainstream gamers audiences, reward existing ApeCoin community members, and ultimately onboard new members to the community this holiday season.

PLATFORMS & TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS:

The Wreck League ApeCoin Tournament will utilize existing Wreck League technology, developed and maintained by nWay. The technological components involved shall include but are not limited to:

WreckLeague.xyz: Wreck League Web3 Garage for storing parts, assembling and disassembling new mech NFTs in WebGL.
nWayPlay.com: Web3 game portal, and gamer account system to bring Mech NFTs over to the game.
nWay Netcode: Roll-back Netcode with cross-play functionality for low latency and fair gameplay across multiple platforms (PC, Mac, mobile)
Wreck League Tournaments and on-chain rewards system
Wreck League ApeCoin Tournament Game Launcher

The proposed Wreck League ApeCoin Tournament is based on a two stage tournament structure: Qualification Stage in a Leaderboard format, and Tournament Finals in the Wreck League brackets competition format as seen recently in the Wreck League Founders Cup.

How to enter the Wreck League ApeCoin Tournament

Own at least one Wreck League mech (including Wreck League Founders Mech)
Starting with the Leaderboard Qualification Battles, mech owners will be able to download and install the Wreck League Game Launcher.
Start fighting against other players in Wreck League ApeCoin Tournament real time PvP qualification battles.

How the tournament is structured
The Wreck League ApeCoin Tournament is constructed from two main stages:

Qualification Stage–a Leaderboard based competition featuring PvP battles among eligible players. Win battles to climb up the Leaderboard. The final Top 150 competitors on the Leaderboard will be Qualified for Awards. The top 32 players on the Leaderboard will qualify for the Wreck League ApeCoin Tournament Finals to compete for the top 3 places and the grand prizes. The rules for the Wreck League ApeCoin Leaderboard Qualifiers will be published in advance of the tournament opening.
Tournament Finals–an invitation only Bracket Competition to determine the final top 3 winners who will receive the Grand Prize Awards. Participation in the Finals, will be open only to players who Qualified in the preliminary Qualification Leaderboard Competition.

How to win the Tournament

Participate in the Wreck League ApeCoin Tournament Qualifiers
Wreck League Leaderboard Qualifiers competition is based on simple rules:

Leaderboard starts on announced Tournament kick-off date/time
Players get points when they win Wreck League battles
Players lose points when they lose Wreck League battles
Players climb the leaderboard by winning more battles and accumulating more points.
Leaderboard closes on announced end date/time.
Final leaderboard positions, winners, and final qualifications to participate in the Wreck League ApeCoin Tournament Finals are determined based on players positions on the tournament’s Qualifiers leaderboard.
Wreck League ApeCoin Tournament Qualifiers Leaderboard Mockup:

2. Finish at the Top 32 positions in the qualifiers leaderboard to receive an invitation to compete for the Grand Prize in the Wreck League ApeCoin Tournament Finals.
3. Compete in the Wreck League ApeCoin Tournament Finals bracket competition.
The Finals will be organized as an eSports event modeled by the successful Wreck League Founders Cup featuring epic fights such as Spencer vs Jonah, Yat vs Clon among other leaders in our community.

Win battles to move up the next level of the bracket competition.
Reach the Final Four for a chance at one of the top prizes.
The winners in each of the final four battles compete in a final fight for the 1st and 2nd places prizes.
The losers in each of the final four battles will compete in a final fight for the 3rd place prize. Previous Wreck League bracket competition results from the Wreck League Founders Cup shown here for demonstration:
|494x276.9973385756318900×506 348 KB

Tournament Rewards Table - 50,000 $APE Total Grand Prize Pool
The top 150 players in the ApeCoin Tournament will win $APE awards according to the following Tournament Rewards Distribution Table:

1st Place Reward: 18,000 $APE (1 winner)
2nd Place Reward: 5,000 $APE (1 winner)
3rd Place Reward: 2,250 $APE (1 winner)
4th - 32nd Place Reward: 650 $APE each (29 winners)
33nd - 150th Place Reward: 50 $APE each (118 winners)

Wreck League ApeCoin Tournament Rewards Table

STEPS TO IMPLEMENT:

The steps to implement the proposal to launch the Wreck League ApeCoin Tournament are:

Proposal review and ApeDAO approval by voting; Wreck League via nWay will work with the ApeDAO community to craft the proposal and support the voting process.
Wreck League and ApeCoin will engage in a contract to organize the joint Wreck League ApeCoin Tournament
nWay shall Create the Tournament Wallet
ApeDAO shall Transfer the approved Tournament Awards amount of 50,000 $APE to the Tournament Wallet.
nWay will begin producing and promoting the Wreck League ApeCoin Tournament.
Determine Qualifiers Tournament Results: At the end of the Qualifiers Tournament nWay will perform an audit to confirm the winners and ensure legitimacy of winners and no rogue play. Upon confirmation of the final Qualifiers Leaderboard results, nWay will invite the players with wallet addresses in the top 32 placements to participate in the Wreck League ApeCoin Finals.
nWay will produce the Wreck League ApeCoin Finals tournament.
At the end of the Finals, nWay will publish the final list of the Wreck League ApeCoin Tournament winners’ wallet addresses to a designated file on-chain–Final Wreck League ApeCoin Final Tournament Winners file.
nWay will Send the Rewards amounts to the wallet addresses of the tournament winners based on the final position associated with each winning wallet address.

Tournament & Rewards Distribution Set Up Diagram:

TIMELINE:

Wreck League ApeCoin Tournament Announcement upon ApeDAO approval by vote.
December 6, 2023: Launch Wreck League ApeCoin Tournament
December 6 - December 10, 2023: Tournament Qualifiers Competition
December 12, 2023: Tournament Finals
By December 16, 2023: Announce tournament final results and winners
By December 19, 2023: Distribute tournament rewards to winners

OVERALL COST:

ApeDAO Costs:
The total cost for the ApeDAO is 50,000 $APE, fully allocated towards Tournament Rewards.

Wreck League, nWay Costs:
For clarification, the following costs are not accrued by the ApeDAO and are not requested for ApeDAO approval. These estimate costs will be covered by nWay to produce and promote the Wreck League ApeCoin Tournament.

nWay Tournament Production and Marketing Cost Breakdown. For clarification, this Production and Marketing Cost breakdown shall be covered by nWay and is not requested for approval by the ApeDAO.

AIP REQUEST SUMMARY

We are asking the ApeCoin community to approve the following requests via an ApeDAO vote:

Approve the organization of the Wreck League ApeCoin Tournament
Approve the use of the ApeCoin Logo, trademarks, and other symbols in connection with the Wreck League ApeCoin Tournament
Allocate 50,000 $APE towards the Wreck League ApeCoin Tournament Rewards to be distributed to the tournament winners as detailed in the Tournament Rewards Table.
Authorize the Steps To Implement as detailed in this proposal including the transfer of the allocated 50,000 $APE Tournament Rewards to the designated Tournament Wallet.

bigbull · September 18, 2023, 11:18pm

50k from a marketing point of view isn’t high, but devs charging 1000 USD an hour seems very high. I have hired devs in China and India and these rates seem out of line with the market.

Also you are likely to have different level and job complexity of the technical team so 1000 USD as a blended average means you are charging much more than this for the technical leads.

FYI I own a few Wreck League NFTs so not against the idea in principal.

0xWebMoss · September 19, 2023, 7:31am

Great idea

Created this AIP in hopes we could get a dedicated ApeCoin Arena, maybe something to consider ApeCoin Arenas 🏟 Gaming & MetaVerse

Look forward to getting Wrecked

mattborchert · September 19, 2023, 10:05am

I’m going to remove this feedback pending clarification.

But, the prize pool doesn’t make sense to me. First place is a multiple higher than it needs to be. Also as SmartApe pointed out in his post below, I don’t see a path to this getting NEW players into the ecosystem. It will just incentivize those already in web 3. I need to understand how this will actually move the needle on brining web 2 gamers into the $APE ecosystem.

Wally · September 19, 2023, 2:17pm

Great idea but I think it’s a little premature.

How many active players do you have at the moment?

TK · September 19, 2023, 3:30pm

Thank you. You are correct and we will make sure to include the accurate cost estimate in our AIP proposal draft. This high level estimate of the event organization cost includes all aspects of holding a professional competition such as custom dev, smart contract, design, event marketing, event support, tournament live ops. We’ll detail our cost break down based on Founder Cup and Mezi’s Mayhem actuals to reflect accurately in this AIP Draft submission.

SmartAPE · September 19, 2023, 3:37pm

Isn’t that what the game was originally supposed to do? You guys already use the $APE token as well as the brand logo. So, how is a $100K from the DAO going to do any better?

I note the “traditional fighting games” qualifier there in that 50MM metrics. So, what are the metrics for this game for which these marketing funds are being requested?

In my opinion, you guys already blew it trying to reach “traditional gamers” when you tried to position the game to attract Web2 gamers, while shielding the Web3 aspects. Then you just ended up using the same Web3 tokenomics cash grab that plague Web3 games in general. The end result? You killed the game.

So, how is a $100K tournament going to turn the tide when in fact you still need to get gamers into and playing the game? A tournament is only going to attract the pre-existing pool churn who already have an edge in playing the game.

That chart looks just like this one:

Why is there such a large range between the 1st and 2nd place?
Why is the 1st place of $75K so high for a $100K cap tournament?

At that rate of $1K per dev hour. How many people does that amount to? Since it’s not part of the ask, it doesn’t matter, really. But I’m just curious as to how many people is planned to be involved in this effort.

Anyway, as this is a grants DAO, I don’t have any particular issues with your AIP proposal. I just wanted to point out some key issues for others to consider while making their decision on whether or not to vote for it - in about two months. As a gamer and game dev, I am more likely than not to vote for any meaningful game grant - especially if it brings the right attention to the DAO. So, having already launched - and died inside of 90D span - I don’t see how pouring a measly $100K into a marketing spend benefits the game or the DAO.

SmartAPE · September 19, 2023, 3:44pm

I doubt that it’s one person. He said “an estimated 50 dev hours”. That doesn’t mean that he’s paying one dev $1,000 per hour. He just means the “dev team” would put in about 50 hrs at a cost of $1K per hour.

mattborchert · September 19, 2023, 4:08pm

Ahh that clarification makes way more sense, if that is indeed how this was being pitched.

SmartAPE · September 19, 2023, 4:22pm

Yeah, TK already somewhat clarified this.

“Thank you. You are correct and we will make sure to include the accurate cost estimate in our AIP proposal draft. This high level estimate of the event organization cost includes all aspects of holding a professional competition such as custom dev, smart contract, design, event marketing, event support, tournament live ops We’ll detail our cost break down based on Founder Cup and Mezi’s Mayhem actuals to reflect accurately in this AIP Draft submission.”

Speaking of metrics and the game’s survival, this post touches all the right points, as well as some of the ones I mentioned above. And he’s still pretty bullish.

pupirka · September 20, 2023, 5:01am

It’s would be very cool
Very good idea

Halina.eth · September 20, 2023, 5:45am

Hey @TK thanks for sharing this AIP Idea! It’s really interesting and I appreciate how 100% of the funds requested would be going back to the community in the form of prize awards.

Would like to echo the points brought up by @mattborchert and @SmartAPE regarding the rationale for the 75,000 APE rewards for the 1st place winner, while total rewards pool is 100,000 APE.

Additionally, I’m curious if you’ve thought of ways to adjust the structure/details of the contest to be more enticing to those who are not already in the ecosystem, and bring in non-web 3 or outside participants? For example (please take this with a large grain of salt as I’m not familiar with the gaming industry), gifting Wreck League NFTs to prominent gaming streamers and challenging them to participate in the tournament + stream it.

Overall, really appreciate the time you took to share this proposal with us!

-Halina.eth

crashapecrypto · September 20, 2023, 8:15am

Great idea from @Halina.eth Maybe part of the budget should really be provided for attracting leading players and streamers from web2 to participate in the game. Cooperation with well-known web2 figures can attract an influx of viewers and interest to the project. These influencers have an established audience and can help bridge the gap between traditional games and the exciting world of web3 games

SmartAPE · September 20, 2023, 4:03pm

I was thinking along the same lines in my missive above. Here are the challenges with this:

Web2 gamers will resist playing a Web3 game; especially one that’s got token-gated NFTs like this one.
As per above, that since the game’s release a few weeks ago, the barrier of entry is already high, and with an already imbalanced metrics of player assets, it’s even more unlikely that any Web2 gamer or influencer would play it.
nWay actually had plans to release a Web2 version, but ended up focusing and leading with the Web3 version, which we can all agree was an absolutely bad idea. So, now there’s only the Web3 version. And even if they release (not sure if they already did) a Web2 version, the damage is already done I think.
You’ve never going to get any Web2 influencer to touch a Web3 game - unless it also caters to Web2. And even so, most of the streamers have much bigger fish to fry. In fact, according to metrics that I ran moments ago, most of the Web3 streamers have already played and featured the game. So, that ship already sailed.

For context, let me segue into my game dev soapbox…

In gaming, you rarely - if ever - get a second shot. It doesn’t matter how great the game is nor how well-funded or how experienced the team is. The end result is a crap-shoot formula that relies entirely on the whims of gamers and trends. e.g. Look at the recently released Baldur’s Gate 3. Not even the devs anticipated that at launch they would be averaging over 800K DAUs. They planned for about 100K. And weeks later, it’s stable at around 200 DAUs. Even Microsoft completely underestimated the game. Meanwhile, on the other end of the spectrum, Immortals of Aveum, another high-profile AAA release came out around the same time, immediately tanked and layoffs ensued thereafter.

That’s how high the stakes are in gaming.

There is no Web2 or Web3 in that equation - other than the fact that most Web3 game devs have decided to go for the get-rich-quick scheme that has plagued the crypto scene since WAGMI (an abject fallacy) was a thing. A lot of Web3 people don’t get the concept of item ownership beyond the need to make money. That’s all there is to that. Meanwhile, in Web2, since the advent of the first MMO games, the concept of item ownership is embedded in the game’s premise, lore and culture. Never outside it because, with Counter-Strike being the exception to the rule, most gamers only care about two core things: a good game & a good game that their friends are playing. And, for the most part, Web3 gaming P2E is basically a glorified ponzi scheme of sorts because for you to win, someone has to fail. And if there are less people failing, you lose the edge that it takes to win. Which is one of the reasons that Axie collapsed - never to recover.

First impression, right out of the gate, is what determines the end result. Sure, there may be other factors that affect this, but hype is no longer enough. And Wreck League had an ample dose of that hype - particularly because it was touting the much-antipicated Web2<—>Web3 cross-over. Then it didn’t happen. Games Beat had an excellent write-up (below) about specifically this. You really should read it to get a good idea of what I am talking about and why it’s no surprise that the game ended up the way that it did.

Animoca’s nWay finds a smart Web3 strategy with ****core mech game Wreck League:

"“Wreck League is a hybrid Web3 and Web2 project,” said Kim. “Our aim is to unite the communities and players, leveraging the creative potential of the Web3 community to continuously enhance the game’s content. With our expertise in competitive fighting games, we are confident in delivering a well-rounded experience that has the potential to truly combine both the Web3 and Web2 gamer communities by creating a symbiotic relationship between the two groups.””

Similarly, Naavik, too had high hopes for the game, and expressed the same concerns and hopes for the Web2/Web3 cross-over.

Wreck League Crashes onto the Web3 Gaming Scene

The varying rarities are a system nWay is clearly looking to capitalize on by providing mints in “blind boxes,” with some ways to modify the odds towards higher rarities. Yet a combination of customization, rarities, and monetization usually creates a conflict around fairness due to a strong pay-to-win incentive that will inevitably exist around rarer NFTs. This is an issue most collectible games have to deal with, but nWay has already laid out its strong esports ambitions. To follow through will require creating a game with a high level of competitive integrity.

Also, I should note that they already have a tournament going on, called Mez’i’s Mayhem running Sept 14-Sept 28. But you wouldn’t know it because the engagement is basically non-existent.

Want to know why Web2 gamers won’t engage in this game no matter the winnings in a tournament? See this comment from a Web3 degen.

wl-01

That - right there - is your first barrier of entry.

When I first decided to make “a game with Web3 elements”, though I was already involved in crypto going all the way back to when the Bitcoin white paper was first released, I knew that there was no way to on-board Web2 gamers given the sentiments surrounding crypto in general. And to do it the other way by on-boarding Web3 to a Web2 game, meant getting into the minds of the gamers who actually care about Web3 games. The fact is that, most don’t. Not really. They only care about one thing and one thing [P2E] only: owning stuff that translates to making money. That - right there - is the Web2/Web3 divide. And to this day, it remains a tough nut to crack. Which is why all the top tier Web3 games in dev, being promoted or coming out within the next few years, are now downplaying that whole Web3 thing. Which is precisely what Wreck League started to do - but fell short of those aspirations for whatever reason.

And given years of industry experience, I already knew all of this; which is why, instead of spending several years and millions of Dollars on a new game, I decided to re-master and re-launch a pre-existing Web2 game that was popular before; and use that as a Trojan horse to do the Web2<–>Web3 experimental merge of sorts. How? By retaining all the Web2 elements while introducing new and non-intrusive Web3 elements. And ofc the experiment could eventually fail, but worse case scenario, the Web2 gamers won’t need to go anywhere because the original game is still there and there are no Web3 elements preventing them from playing the game. You can read my game AIP-318 (please read the whole thread because there are several supplemental updates) which goes up to vote tomorrow.

I have written several articles about this Web3 gaming conundrum. If you have interest in reading my opinions on why Web3 games are failing to engage Web2 gamers, you should peruse them. And there are many other devs and investors saying the same thing - repeatedly.

I personally had high hopes for this Wreck League game because even though eSports is basically dying a slow and painful death, the idea of releasing a Web2/Web3 cross-over casual game isn’t something that has been done before because you’re either releasing a Web2 game or it’s a Web3 game. The merge is a precarious proposition because by their very nature, Web3 games have monetization schemes which simply do not work for Web2 games and gamers. And the [Web3] industry only realized all this just this year, even though some of us devs have been sounding the alarm for months on end. In fact, if you have time, read some of my blogs about this very specific issue.

Anyway, this is just my thesis of why the idea of sponsoring a WL tournament to attract Web2 gamers isn’t going to work. That $100K could very well be spent in marketing and advertising the game to the Web3 gamers in order to get more of those people playing the game because the opportunity to on-board new blood via Web2 gamers is likely insurmountable due to the fact that the game is already imbalanced and front-loaded by early gamers who they aren’t likely to monetize enough to sustain the game’s monthly burn.

At the end of the day, the decision to vote for this AIP depends on whether or not the voters believe that spending $100K to promote the game is worth spending. And if so, how does a $100K benefit the DAO when the game, with an already massive marketing spend, has failed to move the adoption needle.

Issaille · September 20, 2023, 4:10pm

I think it’s really good !

TK · September 20, 2023, 8:11pm

Thanks all for the thoughtful ideas and questions. I’d like to address some of your questions and follow up on some good ideas that were brought up here.

To start, @SmartAPE is not wrong. It is absolutely my team’s job to make Wreck League as successful among mainstream players as our other games. We are building Wreck League with a long term view to ultimately attract our existing fighting game players and bring $APE to the forefront of competitive gaming. Season 1 of Wreck League is only the beginning of a long journey as we described in the Wreck League Day 1 Blog.

However, this proposal is not about how to bring more players to Wreck League - This will always be my team’s job. The purpose of this AIP Idea and proposal to hold a Wreck League ApeCoin Tournament is to expand awareness of using $APE as the currency for professional eSports competitions. The first in many more competitive eSports events to use $APE as the tournament currency of choice.

To follow up on Halina, SmartApe and Matt’s questions and ideas about how to deploy the requested funds and if the requested amount is sufficient in order to make it most effective for raising $APE profile and awareness within the Gaming industry?

Let me share some of the team’s thinking around the Grand Prize, why 100K$APE is the right number and why we purpose to heavy up the awards for the Top winner.

For our community to achieve the main objective of generating more awareness and consideration in the Gaming industry, we need 1) a great game; and 2) an attractive prize to the winners.

With Wreck League as our game and with the proposed ApeCoin Tournament structure and prizing, we have the right ingredients for a competition that my team at nWay will leverage to promote among our mainstream player base and industry connections.

For reference the ongoing grand prize pools in some of the top fighting games tournaments range from $10K-$100K USD.

With that in mind, we do believe the proposed Grand Prize Pool and the reward distribution structure is on point to generate interest and to be considered attractive by competitive eSports gamers.

The short answer, is yes. Enticing those who aren’t already in the ecosystem while also featuring and rewarding the existing community are the north stars for the proposed tournament structure. With the requested allocation of grand prize pool and potential for first prize earning, my team at nWay will leverage our existing marketing channels and connections to raise to ultimately entice new members to the tournament and the ecosystem. Your idea for gifting Wreck League Mechs to prominent gamers while challenging them to win the top reward is a great example of some marketing tactics at our disposal.

Please keep the ideas and suggestions going. We’ll take all of it in to consideration before we submit out AIP proposal.

TK · September 20, 2023, 8:19pm

Yap. That’s part of the plan. But we didn’t want to ask the ApeCoin community to allocate additional funds for marketing this tournament. Instead, with the grand prize allocation and ApeCoin Tournament announced, my team at nWay will leverage our marketing budget, channels and industry connections to maximize awareness in the Gaming industry and entice competitive fighting game players to join the ecosystem and fight for a chance to win the top prize.

mattborchert · September 20, 2023, 8:21pm

These are the largest fighting tournaments in the world, for the most popular fighting games in the world. Do you think that’s a fair comparison? Specifically, how would you justify matching the largest prize pool of all-time, as defined by the list that you posted?

leyota · September 21, 2023, 5:13pm

Let me share some of the team’s thinking around the Grand Prize, why 100K$APE is the right number and why we purpose to heavy up the awards for the Top winner.

I think what was pointed out here is that 1st place disproportionately is taking up a large part of the prize pool to the point that it feels like it’s not really worth it if you don’t place 1st or 2nd.

The reality is, as many others have pointed out already, that the game doesn’t have a very large user base and mostly has a small cult following. I understand the “carrot” incentive to drum up some hype with a big prize pool but the way this is structured, 1st/2nd place is going to be won by some existing player who has deep knowledge of the game. The newer players will get almost nothing.

If you goal is to drum up hype and make sure everyone feels like they got something from the tournament it might make sense to spread the amount a bit more evenly. Of course 1st place should win a lot more, but this proportion seems extremely high. Take more from 1st and give it to 3-32.

BAYC · September 22, 2023, 3:14am

I like the idea but it is far too much money in this market