Is it possible to create a successful M2E project after the sharp rise and even sharper fall of STEPN? Is it possible to build a GameFi project not according to the pyramid principle, where the profit of current players is ensured by the influx from new ones? We decided to look into these and many other questions using the example of the still young, but already slightly recognizable project EZZY Game, interviewing its key figures.
Enjoy reading!
Who are you in the EZZY Game project? How did you get into crypto? Say a few words about yourself and your team.
Chief developer Vipul Babu:
Technical specialist with 10 years of development experience. Experience in cryptocurrency for more than 5 years. I know this area both as a developer, as a tester, and as a consumer. Previously, he led the development teams of CEX and DEX crypto exchanges, included in the top hundred well-known crypto projects. I have excellent skills in organizing the work process, I am focused on results and constant development. The range of specialization is quite wide - it includes data protection, security, frontend, and backend. Co-author of the project idea.
Chief Marketing Officer Lisa Wilson:
My name is Lisa and I have been in the marketing field for over 10 years. She has worked with a variety of projects and companies: from small Instagram pages to running social networks and developing marketing strategies for large brands. I wasn’t interested in the cryptocurrency field until 2019, when I was hired to work in a cryptocurrency project. Well, then I gradually worked on different projects, learned about the specifics of marketing in this area, and last year I received an offer to join the EZZY Game team from a friend of mine. The previous project where I worked “died” due to a sharp drop in KSM (to which the ecosystem was attached), so I agreed :)
Where is the EZZY Game team from? What country?
Lisa:
Personally, I am Ukrainian by nationality, but I have been living in Canada since I was 5 years old. As for the rest of the team, this is a very difficult question. Simply because I don’t even know which of the guys lives where XD. We have a couple of people from Turkey, another 5 people from Ukraine, but 3 of them are now in Poland. There are a couple of guys from Russia, but they have not lived in the country of their citizenship for a long time. The lead developer is Indian by origin, but lives in France. In general, we all live on the Internet, our country is https:// :)
How many developers are on the team (namely, those people who are responsible for the code, application, website)?
Vipul:
We have a Scrum team and a corresponding approach to work. Currently we have 1 techlead team, 1 system analyst, 2 backend developers, 2 frontend developers, 2 mobile developers, 2 QA engineers, 1 devops engineer. In addition, there is a project product manager who determines its further development.
Have you created any other projects besides EZZY Game or is this your first product? Are you planning to create/develop crypto projects in the future?
Vipul:
This is not the first experience for our team in creating crypto projects. Almost with the same staff as now, we worked on one of the well-known exchanges (we will not mention its name), in addition, we have behind us the implementation of crypto exchangers for dex platforms.
Did you write the code for EZZY Game yourself from scratch or did you pick something up from other projects?
Vipul:
I can say that 70% of the code we write is unique. The remaining 30% is the use of well-known libraries and their integration in our project. For example, the release of a crypto-wallet inside the application is a completely unique development, in which special (accumulated by experience) algorithms for countering hacker attacks are used.
Why did you choose the M2E concept? After all, after STEPN and many other projects, she was already fed up with it.
Lisa:
This was the idea of the project founders. They wanted to revive the genre and come to the basics, so that people would really just go and get a reward, and not play all sorts of casinos, farm loot boxes and all that, as in other popular m2e, which turned into some kind of complex and complex services and lost their the original idea.
What is unique about EZZY Game compared to other M2E projects? Why should the user choose EZZY Game and not Walken, STEPN or some other project?
Lisa:
Everything is simple in EZZY Game. There are no dozens of unnecessary mechanics, it’s easy to get started, and receiving and withdrawing tokens is even easier. EZZY Game always meets users halfway in all its principles and features.
While in another project you will be leveling up your character for 3 months, understanding a bunch of mechanics and counting profits in tables, in EZZY Game you will figure it out very quickly and will be able to immediately withdraw your reward.
Each game Sneakers now “live” for 10 days, during which you return all the tokens used to obtain the Sneakers + you get more on top. This is a very convenient mechanic.
Plus, every newcomer can receive trial Sneakers as a gift, which will allow them to receive real tokens. A very nice feature for beginners.
Recently a coin catching game was added to the game. Why did they do this if EZZY Game is an M2E project?
Vipul:
We're committed to making M2E as simple as we can. The addition of the simplest game was a consequence of the fact that we are focused on users around the world, which means that some of the users may experience prolonged rain, others may have snow and -40°C outside the window, and in such bad weather it is completely I don't want to leave the house. In addition, the user may simply get sick. What should he do in such a situation? Losing the opportunity to earn tokens? No, we don't want that! It is for this reason that we came up with a mechanic similar to walking - a P2E game in which everyone can achieve 100% success with minimal effort.
Are there any mechanics planned to be added in the future? If yes, what will they be needed for?
Vipul:
Mechanics for simplifying the application processes, some of which we have already implemented - namely, we added our own wallet with support for EZY, USDT, BNB, exchanges within the application and withdrawals of tokens to any external wallet.
Game mechanics - the creation of tournaments aimed at both those who actively go and those who like to play more.
Mechanics aimed at increasing liquidity on PancakeSwap through users willing to provide liquidity (I’ll tell you a secret, we’re working on adding farming). We have already posted an updated roadmap with all plans on our website.
What will be the most important update of 2023?
Vipul:
2023 has just begun, and we already released two major updates to the app and website in the first quarter. We don't plan to stop there! We have many ideas for implementation: Sneakers as a gift to another user, the development of an affiliate program, the mechanics of EZZY boxes and many others.
Do you plan to increase the Durability of the Sneakers? Or other parameters, such as their price (Amount to receive)?
Vipul:
Durability, like other parameters of Sneakers, is calculated by artificial intelligence using a special algorithm based on many parameters. For example, in the March collection, the Durability of Sneakers is 6 days instead of 10 (ed. note: CryptoPizza News: the interview was conducted before the release of the collection, it has already ended).
Are you planning to change your affiliate program? Perhaps it is worth making sure that the referral also benefits?
Vipul:
Yes, in the next quarter we are planning to modernize the affiliate program, and it will really be aimed at receiving bonuses to those who register using a promotional code. We will tell you more about the new affiliate system later in our news.
The EZY token has been trading around $0.05–$0.06 for a long time. How is such stability achieved?
Lisa:
Competent tokenomics, correct mathematical calculations and sustainable development. I don’t understand tokenomics that deeply - it was developed by other specialists. But in terms of development, I can say that EZZY Game, unlike other projects, is simply not chasing quick hype, pumping up the course and increasing the audience. We are developing gradually even in terms of marketing - we advertise not immediately and everywhere, but evenly and smoothly. First of all, we show people the advantages of our product and gain their trust, and do not “drive” them into a project under the slogans “COME IN NOW AND MAKE A TON OF X’S.”
The liquidity of the EZY token is now just over $100,000, do you plan to increase it in the near future?
Lisa:
Yes, the team is looking into this issue. We have several mechanics in development that will allow us to increase liquidity over time. What are these mechanics? It's a secret for now :)
EZY liquidity is locked until September. What will happen next?
Vipul:
The project does not plan to stop in September - if that's what you're asking. By that time, we plan to release a number of innovations aimed at increasing the liquidity of the token, not only at the expense of our team, but also at the expense of those who will be ready to send their EZY and USDT tokens to the liquidity pool on PancakeSwap, including "Kitah".
We have already received various requests, including for the purchase of a large package of the EZY token, but we purposefully refused because we want to create a decentralized and beneficial tool for the entire community for all players, including “whales.” We expect that our new solution will not only improve liquidity, but also greatly reduce the likelihood of sudden token drawdowns on DEX, thus making the project even more interesting for the community!
Why was the token created on the BNB network? Was it difficult to write smart contracts and develop a Web3 project on BNB Chain?
Vipul:
The BNB network was not chosen by chance. There were several reasons for this - we chose among the largest blockchain networks with support for smart contracts, minimal commissions and the reliability of the smart contracts used. In addition, at the time of the creation of EZZY Game, we already knew how to write a Web3 project associated with NFT tokens and integrated with MetaMask (editor's note CryptoPizza News: after the March update, the MetaMask wallet is no longer needed for the game, all operations are now carried out directly in application). That is why it was not difficult for us to repeat and even improve this experience in the EZZY Game project.
In which markets (countries/regions) is EZZY Game most popular right now? Which ones are you seeing active development in and which ones do you plan to enter in the near future?
Lisa:
Hard to tell. At the starting stage, these were people from Eastern Europe and Asia. Ukraine, Georgia, Türkiye, Kazakhstan, Russian Federation and so on. But at the moment we are also developing a Chinese community, a large-scale influx of English-speaking audiences from around the world. We do not plan to “spot” enter any specific market of a specific country; after all, it is now 2023 - and we are all on the same Internet. So we develop immediately and everywhere :)
Many crypto projects have been experiencing problems with Apple lately due to their complex policies. Are you having difficulties using the App Store?
Vipul:
Let’s not hide it - such cases arose, which is why we were forced to transfer part of the functionality to the Web platform (editor’s note of CryptoPizza News: after the March update, all operations are carried out in the application, working with the EZZY Game website is no longer required), from which then we had to abandon, for example, the applicability of NFTs in Sneakers. For a very long time we have been dealing with the requirements for publishing applications for iOS. The difficulty is that the requirements change and are supplemented quite often, and it seems that there is no limit to perfection - but they again add new things. Many users know that our application has such a function as “Delete account”. So, this function appeared solely due to the requirements of the App Store. Despite our rich experience in interacting with iOS, a successful listing in the AppStore is always a celebration and a micro-victory for our team!
Many GameFi projects try to launch brightly and on a grand scale so that everyone immediately knows about them. You can't tell that from your application. Why did you choose to run a more moderate marketing campaign?
Lisa:
As I said above, we are aimed at stable and long-term development, and not at a quick pump and dump. Moreover, when many people's trust in m2e has been undermined, such a strategy is no longer particularly relevant. Therefore, instead of aggressive marketing, we chose the path of gaining the trust of users.
The past few years have shown that there are interesting GameFi ideas and solutions (such as Axie Infinity, STEPN), but the pricing of their tokens shows the presence of holes and shortcomings in tokenomics. To put it simply: all such projects “live” only as long as there is a stable influx of new users. How did you solve this problem (and did you solve it)?
Vipul:
Let's try to sort everything out in order.
We do not build our project according to the “pyramid” principle. This was our main condition - the motto of our team! The project is built on the basis of game mechanics that allow you to both receive a good reward for walking/running or playing, and in the future use tokens within the application for entertainment and satisfying human needs, such as competitive ones. In addition, the project is aimed at developing a healthy lifestyle throughout the world, because movement is life!
We designed tokenomics not for one year, but for several years in advance, where the goal was not to earn X's from the project's profits, but to create a unique gaming ecosystem.
At the moment, to expand our community, of course, an influx of new users is required, but this dependence will gradually decrease and be built at a certain level of balance between the influx and outflow of players and their activity.
What do you think are the future prospects for the GameFi market and your project in this ecosystem?
Vipul:
Personally, I believe that the GameFi market is almost limitless, because it is based on the human need for games. The appearance of tokens in games is, of course, progress in development, because operations with balances themselves have become more secure and simpler. Our project fits perfectly into the ecosystem of GameFi projects and, I hope, will continue to attract the attention of players, not only current ones, but also attract new users to our community.
What do you think about metaverses? Is this our future or a utopia? Will EZZY Game have a place in the world of metaverses?
Vipul:
Oddly enough, we had experience creating a project with a combination of VR and GameFi - and therefore I have an ambiguous attitude towards this combination. On the one hand, the game processes and mechanics in VR are unique, but on the other hand, they are more complex. You can, of course, dream and immerse yourself in the VR metaverse of EZZY Game and imagine that instead of the current game there could be a VR game with training in different parts of the planet - with the opportunity to walk through the streets of Paris or run through the back streets of Bangkok. But what will happen in reality - only time will tell!
That's all for us. We thank EZZY Game for your time and wish us further development.
