Path to Sustainability

[peth]

So far, we haven’t talked much about making MetaGame sustainable.
The idea was something like “lets focus on building the platform & creating value, once build out this whole gamified platform & have a lot of content, there will be infinite ways to monetize it ”

Well, I think we’ve come far enough to start having this conversation & taking the first steps towards making our work sustainable.

State of things

At the current rate, we’re minting about ~$30k/month & have pretty much 0 income.
The more we expand, the harder it becomes to make the whole thing sustainable - no shit, captain obvious!

But… There actually are some simple ways we could start making MetaGame sustainable, we just haven’t made an effort with doing that because we planned on fundraising & converting patrons on the idea of MetaGame as a whole - which hasn’t been going great!

Without futher ado, here’s a bunch of ideas

Sustaining existing work

• We could make the newsletter, podcast & metafest sustainable by finding sponsors
• We could start making MyMeta sustainable through “members only” features
• We could think about how any raid or guild that we have going could become more sustainable

Incentivizing patronship

• Fix the patrons leaderboard
• Finalize the perks
• Finalize Usefulness of Seeds, make usecases more easily available & shill them
• Have finalized tokenomics
  • Introducing eg. trailing mints: the higher the prices of Seeds, the less we mint.
• Make patrons signups page with ranked leagues, perks & way to subscribe

Short term

We should also start thinking about what features we want to be available for anyone who stumbles onto the platform & what we’ll want to keep for “members only”
Members only features ideas:

• Search & filter MyMeta profiles. I think it makes sense to limit this to members only not just for the sake of incentivizing people to become members but also so as to not allow non-members to extract value
• Custom backgrounds, custom color scheme?
• Custom role (& skills?) when creating a profile
• Work out the guild join page with tiers, requirements & perks

Mid term

• Same as “add new block” on MyMeta, there should be a way to add new blocks on the dashboard. Eventually, there should be a selection of dApp widgets/microdApps eg. updates from your DAOhaus DAOs, a token swapping widget, NFT minting or whatever…
• Some of these should either be members-only or paying a small fee to MetaGame
• No more than X blocks on your MyMeta Profile & Dashboard for non-players
• If you’re on free version, maybe your blocks gets “infected” with an ad from time to time?
• Push forward the metamerch & things like the raffle eg. Seed together, where people put in Seeds for the chance of more Seeds but a % gets burned or something

Long term:

• Whatever can be bought, there should be a discount on paying with Seeds.
• Most current raids become self-sustainable DAOs or at least clearly contribute towards making MetaGame as a whole sustainable
• New raids are Seeded by MetaGame but mostly crowdfunded or financed independently
  with time, all of these blocks get crowdfunded through “i want to build block x” & people who want them, funding them
• Phase 2 membership, much cheaper than becoming a patron & everybody pays
• With time, all of these “premium” or members-only features should be crowdfunded but still pay a small fee to MG.

Next steps:

• Talk about this some more
• Think up some great perks to come with leagues
• Think up as many income streams & Seed sinks as possible
• Make it a part of the culture to think about this whenever wanting to start a raid.
• Find a champion of sustainability?

Even still…

With all of these great monetization mechanics, it will still all go to shit if we don’t focus on the adoption of MyMeta, bridgebuilding with other DAOs & getting more people on MetaOS.

[FearlessThompson]

This Figma has aged but I do believe it to be super relevant to monetising MG for sustainability purposes, I think potentially a Tokenomic change could do well also - infinity mint (supplyside) without the demand is futile. The token should be of a fixed supply on some form of bonding curve, giving monetary incentives for Liquidity provision etc:

See File Here: https://www.figma.com/file/ZGJu8qMH17LF8gLdnp7ysx/MetaGame---Tokenomics-%26-Treasury?node-id=0%3A1

With that being said like how most new protocols get there start, they vampire attack offering a better financial return for the sum of their assets/tokens/cash etc. Even in regards to fundraising, MG has a tonne of potential, it has to make sure it looks after its participants in regards to Maslow’s Heirachy of Needs. The talent flight witnessed is due to some of these problems but im almost certain many will return once the token has better standing.

The same reason people migrate from across the World to Europe & The USA for a better life, they want to realise their value.

The Figma file is old but as relevant as ever, I spoke to the domain expert Dr. Michael Zargham to clarify, seen here: https://youtu.be/AHaf67W-Xbc

I hope my comments are not seen as an attack, my intention is just to highlight some things which were of all of our concern & I hope these can be utilised to fix MG. As it has a tonne of potential if articulated & executed properly This is not Pixelmon!

[Bagholder_McFomo_III]

One thing I recommend on the tokenomics side is that we consider changing what we consider to be patronage. Particularly, asking that patrons stake their pSeeds for a set period of time. Contracts which do this are widely available and likely wouldn’t require any significant modifications. The upside for us is that we know our patrons won’t suddenly pull their liquidity out, amplifying the effects of any sudden negative price movements.

I’ll also point out that I was beating the drum of earning money fro the DAO over the summer and nobody thought it was anything to worry about back then. Now that we are concerned about it, I’ll repeat what I suggested at the time:

1. Look into low-risk opportunities to use defi to earn a return on the tokens in our treasury. For example, Eth can be deposited into things like Umbria bridge, which is essentially a liquidity pool trading mainnet Eth for Polygon POS Eth. This means no impermanent loss, just fees collected.

2. Examine the merits (as opposed to blurt opinions) of play-to-earn ecosystems and how our DAO can own assets to be played with by our DAO members. For a time, we had a group of players bonding over Valheim and they came together on our server to play. It was like a campfire to gather around and I think if you look at who those players were and what they’ve gone on to do (often together) since then, you’ll agree that there’s a lot of power in the social interactions that come about from playing together. If we can do the same while also generating income for the treasury, I think we can make a much stronger community not just financially, but in terms of social cohesion as well.

3. Incubating products that can pay a tithe back to MetaGame. I don’t mean this in terms of providing VC money to outsiders, but by facilitating conversation amongst existing players about things they’d like to build and providing them a space to do so within MetaGame, and providing bridge-building for them once they reach an advanced state of development. We’ve seen time and time again, members going off to create their own things and needing to step back or step away due to conflicting schedules. Often, those players don’t return at all - or if they do, it’s in a limited capacity. In this way, I think we could keep them in the family, and potentially acquire new players as they bring people in for their own working groups.

[peth]

@Bagholder_McFomo_III

I’ll also point out that I was beating the drum of earning money fro the DAO over the summer and nobody thought it was anything to worry about back then. Now that we are concerned about it, I’ll repeat what I suggested at the time:

Yeah tbh I thought it was way too early & I still think its too early to really make it sustainable but as I’ve realized, people want to know we’re at least thinking about these things & making steps. Earning $100/month much better than 0, and 0 with plans much better than 0 while saying “eeh, we’ll think about monetization later”.
Of course its obvious that it would be so, but I thought we’d be able to raise enough money from purely intrinsically motivated people without having to worry about this already. Nope.

@Bagholder_McFomo_III

Look into low-risk opportunities to use defi to earn a return on the tokens in our treasury. For example, Eth can be deposited into things like Umbria bridge, which is essentially a liquidity pool trading mainnet Eth for Polygon POS Eth. This means no impermanent loss, just fees collected.

We don’t really have any assets that are meant to be idle besides GTC & PAN… We could do this with the Seed Fund DAO tho. Hopefully some patrons will be interested in digging into or sharing what they’re gaining yield on so that Seed Fund can do that too.

@Bagholder_McFomo_III

Examine the merits (as opposed to blurt opinions) of play-to-earn ecosystems and how our DAO can own assets to be played with by our DAO members. For a time, we had a group of players bonding over Valheim and they came together on our server to play. It was like a campfire to gather around and I think if you look at who those players were and what they’ve gone on to do (often together) since then, you’ll agree that there’s a lot of power in the social interactions that come about from playing together. If we can do the same while also generating income for the treasury, I think we can make a much stronger community not just financially, but in terms of social cohesion as well.

I think this feeds back into changing patronage & “access to the community”.
We definitely could be having more people play p2e games together, or regular games, but also in general pushing for more cool events & workshops…

@Bagholder_McFomo_III

Incubating products that can pay a tithe back to MetaGame. I don’t mean this in terms of providing VC money to outsiders, but by facilitating conversation amongst existing players about things they’d like to build and providing them a space to do so within MetaGame, and providing bridge-building for them once they reach an advanced state of development. We’ve seen time and time again, members going off to create their own things and needing to step back or step away due to conflicting schedules. Often, those players don’t return at all - or if they do, it’s in a limited capacity. In this way, I think we could keep them in the family, and potentially acquire new players as they bring people in for their own working groups.

I like this idea but I’m not sure we’re providing enough value yet. Long term, I think even internal projects like MyMeta or MetaRadio should be spinning out into their own DAOs & sending some % of their token back to MetaGame but we’re just not there yet. We can barely support core efforts, let alone other teams…

Another idea that’s related to this is other protocol integrations into MyMeta & the dashboard. Eg. if someone wants to integrate their protocol as a micro dapp into a “new block” on the dashboard, they should be paying a fee.

Besides this, I put in a lot of thought into things that we really could be doing today to start making at least parts of MetaGame sustainable & updated top post.

[HBesso31]

@peth

• We could make the newsletter, podcast & metafest sustainable by finding sponsors

Uniswap provides sponsorship for podcasts. Said by Bankless.

@peth

• If you’re on free version, maybe your blocks gets “infected” with an ad from time to time?

I like this.

@peth

• Search & filter MyMeta profiles. I think it makes sense to limit this to members only not just for the sake of incentivizing people to become members but also so as to not allow non-members to extract value

Def.

@peth

• Make it a part of the culture to think about this whenever wanting to start a raid.

The HAIER model gives up to three months of funding to compelling projects. During these three months, the project’s team need to find a paying customer for surviving. It’s like planting a seed. One provides the initial water, but if the plant doesn’t provide fruits/leaves after X time, you just take it out and plant another one.

@peth

I like this idea but I’m not sure we’re providing enough value yet. Long term, I think even internal projects like MyMeta or MetaRadio should be spinning out into their own DAOs & sending some % of their token back to MetaGame but we’re just not there yet. We can barely support core efforts, let alone other teams…

This thought is because there is a lack of business-making players within the raids/guilds. You said before “think about how any raid or guild that we have going could become more sustainable”

Raids should be able to sustain themselves by offering services to other communities too:
Think like this:
Shilling. Should not be about twitting. Should be about marketing/selling ideas, products, spaces.
Recruiting. Should not be about bringing in people to MG. But about matching people to the most suitable project. This is a service that many DAOs need. And many are currently paying for.

It is not because we do not having enough value to offer. We have it. We do not have the proper number of people/profiles in each raid/guild to deliver it. We are trying to make too many things instead of focusing on releasing the things that are low-hanging fruits as a team.

I am grateful for the community in MG. Learning takes a while. I am working on making the Recruiting sub-guild a sustainable effort with the goal that the model can work out as an example.

[luxumbra]

@peth

We don’t really have any assets that are meant to be idle besides GTC & PAN

Are they meant to be idle though? Weren’t they airdropped to be used in the ecosystem? Maybe we could use some of that to buy some GIV and talk to them about setting up a GIV/SEED pool or put some of that PAN to use in Gitcoin (not our grant obvs). If they’re meant to be used for governance, are we partaking in that? Aside from the obvious good feels about supporting other projects, it would increase the chances of reciprocal support from other projects and open ourselves up for any potential airdrops.

I very much like the idea of what @Bagholder_McFomo_III was saying about low risk (no IL) defi.

We definitely could be having more people play p2e games together, or regular games, but also in general pushing for more cool events & workshops…

Like what @HBesso31 came up with, a web3 guild in ESO. I’d love to raid with MetaGamers in ESO and hoped that Valheim was still a thing when I picked up my new computer as I couldn’t play it last year. I can’t organise shit but music nights, more social gatherings. The sunday fundays were popular and provided a much needed bit of light at the end of a long week of trying to fix the worlds problems.

We could make the newsletter, podcast & metafest sustainable by finding sponsors

Good idea. Shouldn’t be too hard to get some neighbouring projects & frens to help pilot it, maybe with some mates rates on the airtime.

If you’re on free version, maybe your blocks gets “infected” with an ad from time to time?

I like this idea too. I also like the idea of having some features restricted on the free version and we could have tiers of access which would be token gated by NFTs that folks need to buy to gain access. Perhaps each NFT purchase buys back seed & offsets some carbon at the same time?

• Tier 1 (Free version): Basic player profile with all the essential info, customisable header image, shows your first 5 DAO memberships and n NFTs. No add new block, fixed layout on the profile & dashboard and maybe 1 ad on the page - or go web2 and have sponsored full takeovers.
• Tier 2 (DAO Dancer): No ads, search & filter, customisable layout enabled, header image. max 2 new blocks, all DAOs & 10 NFTs in your gallery.
• Tier 3 (Beast mode): - all DAO memberships, maybe DAO token balances displayed, custom backgrounds, option to use NFTs for customising your experience across your profile & dashboard - Have your fave NFT as your background image or maybe your avatar and if supported by the NFT, it’s colour scheme provide the theme data for ChakraUI. Show DAO proposals in your dashboard.
• Tier 4: Beast mode but custom themed for your DAO

These could also be added to the patron perks.

[tommy]

@luxumbra

Are they meant to be idle though? Weren’t they airdropped to be used in the ecosystem? Maybe we could use some of that to buy some GIV and talk to them about setting up a GIV/SEED pool or put some of that PAN to use in Gitcoin (not our grant obvs). If they’re meant to be used for governance, are we partaking in that? Aside from the obvious good feels about supporting other projects, it would increase the chances of reciprocal support from other projects and open ourselves up for any potential airdrops.

I definitely agree with this. Be great to use them in all these ways.

[HBesso31]

Added my proposal on this here: Recruiting Service as one Path to Sustainability

[peth]

I like the idea, just seems a bit early to think we can offer recruiting as a service when we’re failing to recruit even for ourselves. Maybe after we fill at least a few of the missing roles?
Long term, I think this is a great idea & feeds right into needing to be a member or a project with a service pack to access MyMeta search & other features/perks which may include posting your search in our newsletter etc.
We’ll also be funneling people to different projects through the /guilds page & the onboarding game, we should also have a role board once we’re “finished” with the questing system…
Having these systems in place will also allow us to do this in scaleable way rather than just having people manually offer this service, in which case the majority of $ would need to go to those people, not MetaGame.
Also, maybe I’m completely wrong here because I don’t fully understand the part with Parcel.