Overview

This document provides detailed explanations of the mission of VisionsDAO and how its products accomplish said mission.

Problem Statement

Web2 games take up a large portion of the gaming market, and while there is a growing number of web3 games being released, building a web3 game is not easy—it's difficult to build on-chain games because the design of incentive mechanisms within Play&Earn games require niche knowledge.

Web2 Game Economies

In 2019 idle games made up 45% of mobile downloads comprising 7.8 billion downloads worldwide. These games have an impact on society, yet they possess a highly extractive revenue model, which taints their potential impact.

In a cutthroat market where players are left last, studios increasingly are forced to create freemium games with quickly vanishing play time and rapidly increasing costs to players.

Game studios control whatever happens to the game and the players' assets, rendering players powerless. Studios have in the past shut down games that players were invested in. Free casual games are largely server based to enforce in-game rules and purchases, thereby when shut down the investment is gone forever. Completely decentralized games have the potential to stay up indefinitely.

Inflationary Risks

Current on-chain games suffer from severe inflationary risks. Incremental games are exponentially inflationary by nature. VisionsDAO aims to use redistribution to solve both of these issues.

Play-to-earn models at large have rewarded by minting new tokens; which leads to higher circulating supplies and lower token prices. This design pattern has been primarily used in the mainstream play-to-earn. Which is frequently large web2 studios' entryway into web3. Without rigorous tokenomics and well thought out reward mechanisms, you create a large decentralized liability for everyone involved.

As a direct response to the unsustainable reward tokens of p2e games, we have seen the emergence of GameFi. GameFi is often centred around taking pre-existing DeFi primitives and wrapping an appealing, game-like interface around them. While this approach leverages the sustainability of proven DeFi standards, it offers little to nothing new in terms of gameplay as seen through an ABI (Application Binary Interface).

Composable games introduce playing mechanics that are capacitated by smart contracts. Players can have gameplay through UI or smart contracts.

VisionsDAO believes in making primitives to build composable games that put gameplay and sustainability first. We observe necessary game features, simulate, iterate, and build them as smart contract modules; leveraging token engineering to create sustainable economies. Allowing game builders to use proven game modules in the making of their games. We create modules with the same precision as used for building complex financial token systems.

A successful case for composability in gaming has been DarkForest. Their game allows UI players and developer players to both find their edges and play through a truly decentralized experience. No server owner or ‘hacker’ is able to get an unfair advantage. Allowing gamers to have a levelled playing field in which the rules are on-chain and everything else goes.

VisionsDAO opens up a whole array of possibilities in web3. Composable games can often be unapproachable for web2 players, and p2e games are often approachable yet economically unfeasible. We hope to be the bridge between composability and approachability by designing modules that allow for modern-day casual games to form completely on-chain, at their core being social, interoperable, and extendible.

Because of the lack of research-based economic building blocks during design and implementation, developers of play-to-earn games are often left patching a sinking ship. They are quickly forced to introduce questionable game mechanics to keep their economies afloat.

It doesn't help that traditional game studio culture keeps games secretive and closed-source. When making an entrance into web3 it leaves studios trying to reinvent economic wheels and failing, all behind closed doors. Often having serious and foreseeable token price collapse. Open-source development and research has been the backbone of sustainable token systems. VisionsDAO aims to apply the same philosophy of open-source research and development for the future of building on-chain games.

VisionsDAO is dedicated to creating modules for common game mechanics and economic challenges in the style of OpenZeppelin, to provide digitally and economically secure contracts for game developers.

Engaging DAO members through Decentralized Games

Protocols and DAOs often lack highly engaging social stimulation that does not rely on beurocracy. Communication between community members typically occurs over Discord, Telegram, and other forums, they are mainly used for the purpose of developing proposals. Legacy DAO interactions can often be left feeling stale, and fall short of pushing culture.

Our mission is to simplify the game development-to-launching process, such that DAOs can launch games with configurations that allow for members to engage beyond traditional DAO interactions while still participating within the culture.

DAOs can create their own games that will further the engagement of their users adding a digital extendible world to their ecosystem.

It is ultimately up to the DAO how they would like to create their gamified experience, tailored best to their culture. Community members would have an enjoyable social hub where belonging becomes prominent by playing and connecting with other members whilst still participating within the realms of their DAOs cultural experience.

This will create an entirely new way to experience DAOs and introduce new community members to web3 by making it easy for them to interact, hack, and start contributing.