LONDON, UK: Semper Fortis Esports PLC (AQSE: SEMP), the esports company focused on establishing teams and forming brand and technology partnerships, announced the launch of its new blockchain-based play-to-earn gaming division, SMPR Guild.
Play-to-earn model
Play-to-earn is a new category in video gaming that rewards players for winning and completing tasks with game-based tokens which are free to use in-game or convert into cryptocurrency and then into fiat currency.
The company will purchase in-game items (non-fungible tokens known as NFTs) which are the characters, plots of virtual land, and weapons required to play a game and then provide access to these to active game players on a revenue share basis. The players earn game-based token rewards by playing which are then split between the player and the Company.
The initial acquisition costs of the NFTs can range from $10 to $1,000. Therefore, the Company will enable players who do not have the upfront capital required to purchase the NFTs to still be able to participate in games by sharing their earnings with the Company. The revenue split differs game by game and can be impacted by the cost of the NFTs as well as the time and effort spent in the game.
Blockchain technology behind NFTs provides the Company with digital property rights for these in-game assets and allows the ownership of the NFTs to be transferred. There is an entire ecosystem of people who buy, sell, and trade in-game items between each other on open markets.
Play-to-earn is increasingly becoming one of the more popular models employed by game developers and the Company sees this as a growing trend in the global gaming market with the rapid expansion of audiences entering this sector.
According to DappRadar, there are an estimated 1,000 blockchain-based games that have emerged to date which represents a small portion of the over one million individual video games that exist today according to research from GamingShift.
SMPR Guild scholarship program
Several players have already joined the SMPR Guild scholarship program. Scholarships are revenue-sharing programs that allow new players access to NFTs; any resulting in-game rewards are shared between the scholar and the Company. The SMPR Guild is a community of players who regularly play together and collaborate for mutual benefit. SMPR Guild provides its scholars with additional training and mentorship to improve their gaming skills. Within the Company’s scholarship program, scholars are managed by community managers, who are also part of the player community and function as team leaders in managing individual players and recruiting new entries into the scholarship program.
On 18 October 2021, Semper Fortis announced its first play-to-earn hire and became one of the first competitive esports companies to enter the play-to-earn space with a pro esports contract.
The NFTs (assets) owned by the Company will have intrinsic value which may increase or decrease with time. The Company will always have the option to resell these assets in the secondary open market. The Company believes that having a large gamer base through its scholars will allow the Company first access to game launches via developers as the SMPR Guild will provide usership and liquidity in their games. Therefore, part of the Company’s strategy will be to enter promising games at the preliminary stages when the acquisition costs of the NFTs are cheap to minimise risk and benefit from the uplift in value of the NFTs as the popularity of the game increases.
The SMPR Guild is currently active in three games, Axie Infinity (the most popular play-2-earn game globally) Pegaxy and HappyLands (two up-and-coming games with overwhelming usership growth in recent months).
Axie Infinity – SMPR Guild first blockchain-based game
Axie Infinity is a “breed and battle” game inspired by Pokémon. The game was created in early 2018 by Sky Mavis, a Vietnam-based video game development company. It saw its total number of active users increase sixteen-fold from around 60,000 in April 2021 to around 1 million by the end of August 2021. Its NFT marketplace, where all non-fungible in-game items are exchanged, has recently seen rolling trading volumes surpass $1 billion.
The company will continue to search and diversify across new play-to-earn games.
Jassem Osseiran, COO of Semper Fortis Esports, commented: “SMPR Guild with its play-to-earn model, is forging loyalty at the forefront of the evolution of the gaming environment. The potential for substantial growth in the sector is significant; ultimately wherever there is an internet connection and a mobile phone, users will be able to find ways to create income by playing games.”
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