1. Project Introduction
The game background of Space Nation is a vast space world — the Telikos galaxy. Embark on a journey of survival, exploration, and war in the depths of the universe. As a spaceship captain, traverse dangerous environments, interact with various species, and uncover the secrets of ancient space ruins. From resource collection to interstellar combat, from political alliances to cultural exploration, every choice is challenging and every decision has far-reaching consequences. Using the latest virtual reality and augmented reality technologies, the game provides an unprecedented immersive experience.
Space Nation focuses on building complex and sustainable gaming economies on Web3 rails, integrating P4F (Play for Fun) and P2E elements to make it attractive to both a large number of Web2 gamers and select Web3 users.
Recently, Space Nation and OKX jointly launched a co-branded spaceship in celebration of Space Nation’s anniversary. The spaceship released is the Bering X-pathfinder Edition, a Space Nation limited-edition exploration ship. Its appearance has significant OKX design elements, and it also has a unique exploration gameplay in the game.
Keywords: 3A masterpiece; space science fiction; POC model; team strength; AI
2. Game Ecosystem
Of course, holding game-related NFTs allows you to enter the game without an activation code. Here we also sort out the game asset sales and operation and maintenance:
Space Nation's NFTs are divided into two categories: one is equity NFTs, including Genesis NFTs and PFPs; the other is game props NFTs, including various warships and ships, some of which have not yet been made public:
Note: The marked floor price is valid until May 15, 2024
Equity NFT
Genesis NFT — Alpha Gate
● Airdrops, white orders and $OIK rewards for various assets
● Right of first refusal
● Priority participation
● Privileges for online and offline private events
Total: 515; 55 retained by the team
Mint Price: Free Mint
Floor price: 4 ETH
Collaboration — Space Nation: Ape Odyssey NFT
● 1 Prime Navigator PFP
● Special achievement mechanism + $OIK distribution benefits
● T1/T2/T3 Miner NFT Whitelist
● More benefits in the future
Total quantity: 300
Mint price: 0.3 ETH or equivalent $APE
Floor price: 0.17 ETH
Note: This cooperation NFT has already airdropped Genesis PFP and obtained the mining ship white order. If the monkey NFT holders complete all of them, in just less than 2 months, it has stabilized more than 10X, so the potential value of NFT itself is higher.
PFP — The Prime Navigator
● Governance token $OIK airdrop
● Logistikos gain — can get more ecosystem rewards
● Closed beta and early access to future game releases
● Various privileges and community customization functions in the ecosystem
Total: 3056, 300 airdrops belong to $APE Launchpad
Mint price: White ticket 0.3 ETH, public sale 0.4 ETH
Floor price: 0.78 ETH
Props NFT
At present, there are more than ten ships in the ship selection interface, which are divided into warships, mining ships, and exploration ships. Each ship has different characteristics, attack power, and operation feel. Every player who joins the game will get a T0 ship for free.
T0: The Gray Fox is not usually used, can carry few weapons, and is replaced by T1
T1: The spaceship executor has the most balanced values, can carry three weapons, and has good speed, agility, and attack power. It has more advantages when competing for resources.
T2: The Humpback Whale is more powerful than T1, but it has difficulty turning and poor agility, putting it at a disadvantage when grabbing resources.
T3: The spaceship Fasser is widely used simply because it can carry four weapons. Although it has the largest mass and the slowest movement, its steering does not rely on the spaceship itself but on the turret, which greatly increases its flexibility. It also has the widest attack range and can carry exclusive high-powered weapons.
Currently, only T0-T2 combat ships are being tested.
Spaceships are divided into 7 levels from T0 to T6. Most of the spaceships in the game will be built by players who collect minerals, materials and blueprints in the game, or buy minerals, materials and blueprints from other players. The project party will only sell a small number of special spaceships at a low price in a very restrained manner. Spaceships of T4 and above can only be built by players and guilds in the game to ensure that the game balance is not affected.
Based on the above logic, the equipment NFTs currently released by the game include:
紫船 — Enforcer Founder Edition Spaceship
● Limited edition T1 spacecraft, stands out from its peers with superior firepower
● Owning an EFEP guarantees access to beta testing, providing exclusive early access and the opportunity to accumulate OIK through the achievements system.
Total: 1155
Mint price: White ticket 0.02 ETH; Public sale 0.03 ETH
Floor price: 0.275 ETH
The gameplay revolves around the following three types of spaceship equipment, and uses the roles of manufacturers and arms dealers to complete the logic loop of mining-production-consumption:
Mining Ship
This type of mining is different from other mining. You need to use a high-burst mining ship and deal high damage to the ore to have a chance to get dropped items. Mining drops dark rock, meteorites, tritium, and argon if you are lucky. Miners can sell them at the auction house in exchange for CHR.
Total quantity: T1 level 900 / T2 level 600 / T3 level 300, currently T1 released
CosmocraftV Mining Ship 900
Cosmocraft contains tickets for T2 and T3 mining ships, but they cannot be used yet.
Mint Price: 100U
Floor price: T1: 0.5 ETH / T2: 0.9 ETH / T3: 1.4 ETH / CosmocraftV: 0.9 ETH
Combat Ship
Completing main and side quests, fighting bosses, and selling equipment; engaging in PVP and participating in guild wars/championsships require higher investment and strategic choices.
● Brave: Improve efficiency, quickly adjust course, and improve maneuverability
● Killer: Standard design. High speed and flexibility make the fighter jet have strong space combat capability.
● Executor: A space technology company born in the Oikos galaxy
Generation method: Players create in-game, and there are currently 3 T2 ships.
Current total: 405
Floor price: 151.8 IMX
Exploration Ship:
By exchanging the information they gained while exploring the known and unknown boundaries of space, drawing treasure maps and selling them to guilds or others in exchange for rewards.
Progress: Not yet public, coming soon
3. Token Economy and POC Model
Token Structure — —CHR and OIK
The economic model in the white paper looks complicated, but its core consists of three items:
NFTs: In-game and out-of-game assets that can be pledged for appreciation and used to improve game efficiency.
CHR: In-game token
From the supply side, there is unlimited issuance, and blockchain will be considered in the future; using time series and Fisher formula, the output of tokens is controlled in stages in order to achieve a dynamic balance in token output.
(Note: M is the average amount of money in circulation in a given period of time; V is the velocity of money circulation; P is the price level or weighted average of various commodity prices; T is the transaction volume of various commodities)
From the demand side, CHR consumption scenarios include training, production, purchasing in-game items, transaction fees, buyback activities, etc., which are relatively compatible with the game mechanism.
OIK: Governance token, total amount is 1 billion, unlocked in 10 years, clear TGE.
The main uses are: participating in ecological governance, obtaining airdrop qualifications, which can be directly used to purchase officially issued NFTs. There will also be incentives (airdrops) and staking gameplay. The current good NFT situation will also increase OIK's expectations.
From the structural point of view:
Games: 50%
Core team: 16%
Seed round: 12.6%
Ecology: 5%
Marketing: 5%
Private sales: 4.4%
Consultant: 4%
Public sale: 3%
Behind the POC Model — —Addictive Operation
As we all know, blockchain games once fell into the quagmire of a death spiral, causing many people to keep a close eye on the economic model every time a new game is released, attempting to judge the life cycle of the game from aspects such as distribution, distribution, and landing possibility. However, in fact, it is often found that "the ideal is perfect, but the reality is very skinny". However, from another perspective, can the long-term operation of the game really only depend on the landing of the economic model? Will the game no longer be able to proceed after the retreat of speculators?
Therefore, I would like to introduce Nir Eyal’s "addiction" model based on product logic, and use gamification thinking to interpret it to explore the desirability of the POC model proposed by Space Nation.
What is Space Nation’s POC model?
POC stands for Proof of Contribution. Space Nation plans to distribute 50% of $OIK to all game contributors, that is, everyone who participates in the game, through Gameplay over a period of 10 years.
【It is a complex, reliable, and fair system to measure players' contributions to the game. In this system, players' assets, identities, souvenirs, activity, labor, interaction, combat power, and luck will be taken into account and comprehensive Contribution Points will be calculated. Players will be allocated $OIK in the Gameplay Airdrop Pool every week based on the points. 】
In the entire Space Nation game ecosystem, the POC mechanism has become the main way to obtain $OIK. It can be said that variable incentives are given by measuring the user's actions, inputs, and outputs. We use the following model to do a detailed breakdown.
Bring this mode into the game and translate it:
Trigger: It can be seen that the player accepts the hint and becomes motivated to play the game.
Action: can be thought of as the player's gameplay process in the game.
Rewards: can be seen as a reward mechanism, which is a reward for players to achieve their goals. The rewards here must be variable.
Investment: Investment occurs when players are willing to provide their personal data and a certain amount of capital, and pay their time, energy and money.
For Space Nation, it was like a duck in water in the triggering stage 1: strong team strength, strong financing background, years of game preparation, 3A testing experience, these labels as external triggers can easily pry users into the action stage. Especially for the rendering of epic battles and the participation of Hollywood directors, how can it not attract science fiction fans to join.
In the second stage of action, users need to consider two aspects: one is the goal, the other is the ability.
The goal is to allow users to participate in the game with a definite goal.
Ability is what enables users to control the game, which, to simplify it, is the difficulty design.
Breaking it down, the first thing is to guide users in determining their goals, and setting game goals ultimately comes down to layering and dividing the game goals.
It determines what players should pursue, what challenges they face, and what difficulties they need to overcome. A good game goal allows players to immediately understand their mission. Is it to defeat the team, defeat the "Boss", or to sell equipment, or to get to the top of the guild? Space Nation Online is committed to building a space virtual society. In this society, players will choose different ways of playing according to their preferences, such as miners, fighters, pirates, explorers, mercenaries, manufacturers, arms dealers, and rulers. If the player pursues stability, he can go the miner route. If he has stronger thinking ability, he can be an explorer who sells information. If he can accept risks and excitement, he can play the fighter mode, or he can join a mature guild system to achieve greater benefits.
Later, "ability" involves the control of the "difficulty" of the game. Perhaps for the "science fiction", "combat", and "3A" themes, some users may worry that they can't "hold" it. Here we introduce Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's flow model (game difficulty-emotion model). When the player's ability and skills are higher than the challenge given by the game, the player will feel bored; and when the player's ability and skills are lower than the challenge given by the game, the player will fall into anxiety. Therefore, Space Nation provides a step-by-step challenge and goal setting. Thanks to the POC system and the active tasks and achievement systems that accompany each cycle, users are guided to thoroughly understand the game from the shallow to the deep.
Just like losing weight and memorizing words, the end point is to lose a certain amount of weight or memorize a certain number of words. It may seem daunting at first glance, but breaking it down into tangible, short-step, and refined data will make players think it is "feasible" and make them "dare" to act.
It can be said that Space Nation divides the paths very clearly, and users can choose the target direction according to their own situation and finally disassemble the goal.
Third, many Web3 games actually fail in the "reward pool" setting. In the early stage, they attract a large number of "gold-digging" users to empty the reward pool, which greatly tests the operation and maintenance rhythm of the game operation team. Therefore, the initial mechanism design is very important.
If we explore the essence, Web2 games actually also have "POC", such as the seven-day/twenty-one-day tasks for novices, chat bubbles with special effects and badges after completing tasks, contribution value progress bar incentives within the guild/community, etc. These are actually used as rewards for completing goals, or as reward designs that connect the past and the future or thread the needle in the long term.
So how does Space Nation do it? As a team that has been deeply involved in Web2 games for many years, we have long understood the achievements. The system has an achievements system, and completing achievements can enjoy bonuses from the achievements part in each cycle. This is a very clear fixed reward.
Looking at the Web3 gold farming incentives, since the output of OIK is clear and the distribution can be completed in a controllable manner in the cycle, the token price is also relatively controllable and stable. Considering the actual incentives received by players, according to the calculation rules mentioned in the official medium:
OIK Reward = (Individual Season Score / All Players Score) * OIK Distribution
Personal season score = completed active points / target active points (0.1 completed achievements + 3.25* held achievements) * achievement bonus
Each player completes the corresponding active tasks according to their own goals (abilities) in each cycle, and OIK is distributed according to the season score and the overall performance of the player group throughout the season. Players can be sure that they can get OIK, but the amount may be a surprise and they cannot set expectations. Predictable rewards give players a sense of purpose, while rewards beyond expectations make players addicted and obsessed.
In order to get incentives, players will definitely adjust their "investment" strategies. They will measure their inputs and evaluate their outputs to determine their position in the entire system. Different production-consumption strategies can be derived, and even forums and other external spirals of the game can be derived based on the strategies. Whether the economic cycle in the Space Nation game can be balanced in the end remains to be seen. But logically speaking, Space Nation may be able to run this model.
4. Financing & Team
Form a team
Space Nation is composed of a team that has been deeply involved in MMORPG games for many years. The team member information is clear and public. It has more than 90 game development and operation personnel with rich experience in Web2, and has strong narrative power. The core team members are introduced below:
Jerome Wu: Co-founder and CEO, the first product manager of World of Warcraft in China, worked for World of Warcraft for 10 years, served more than 100 million Warcraft users, and also participated in well-known games such as StarCraft II and Hearthstone. He was the COO of Sky Games, the vice president of Baidu Games, and the president of 360 Games. With more than 20 years of experience in the game industry, he is bound to bring the game genes and resources accumulated in Web2 into Web3 game production.
Roland Emmerich: Co-founder and co-creator, a well-known Hollywood director, his representative works include "Independence Day", "The Day After Tomorrow", and "2012". He is well-known for his disaster films. Of course, in the direction of space series such as "Noah's Ark", "Universal Soldier", and "Stargate", the public is also aware of his ability to produce content on science fiction space themes, which also coincides with the narrative background of Space Nation.
Tony Tang: Co-founder and Game Director, with more than 17 years of experience in the game industry. Proficient in the MMORPG genre, involved in the product strategy and release of Warframe, and served as Senior Vice President and Head of R&D at Leyou Technology.
Marco Weber: Co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer. As a well-known producer and entrepreneur, he co-founded Vrenetic with Roland Emmerich. He is the producer of Igby Goes Down and The Thirteenth Floor. He also launched the next-generation mobile social media platform Vresh. He has certain experience in content production and social networking.
investor
The project cost up to 50 million yuan, and the specific financing amount was not announced. It received investments from Immutable, Foresight Ventures, Lighthouse Capital, SevenX Ventures, HashKey Capital, Arcane Group, Initiate Capital, JDAC Capital, Assembly Partners and Cristian Manea.
5. Route conditions
According to the latest official white paper, the roadmap is:
May 2023 Release the game white paper
Alpha Gate will be launched in August 2023
Alpha Test I will be launched in August 2023
Alpha Test II will be launched in September 2023
Alpha Test III will be launched in December 2023
Prime Navigator Release March 2024
Closed Beta I will be launched in April 2024
Closed Beta II will be launched in June 2024
Soft Launch in the summer of 2024
Summarize
From the perspective of the game ecosystem, Space Nation has done an excellent job in maintaining NFT assets, with many assets increasing by 2-10 times, which will make people look forward to the release of NFTs such as exploration ships. In terms of game playability, as a 3A game that has been brewing for more than 3 years, it is comparable to Web2 masterpieces in map making, modeling processing and scene rendering.
From the perspective of the economic system, this research report also spends a lot of time discussing the POC model within the game. It can be seen that the Space Nation team has made great efforts to control and attempt the economic cycle, and has given more consideration to expectation management, incentive control, and investment stratification in guiding user participation.
From the perspective of the game production cycle, Space Nation has entered the late stage, but for players, the exploration of the entire game map and mechanism is still in the early stages. They can ambush platform activities and join in interstellar exploration.
References:
Whitepaper: https://spacenation.online/whitepaper/
A picture to understand Space Nation's asset structure and gold farming logic: https://x.com/leslie_bit/status/1770628035416567915
Space Nation game experience report: https://www.coinonpro.com/news/toutiao/276955.html
Addiction: Four major product logics that make users develop usage habits: https://book.douban.com/subject/27030507/
