How Mino Uses NFTs to Promote Monster Game Dimensionals – GameDaily.biz | We make games for our business GameDaily.biz
In the current Web3 fever, a Pokemon-style browser game with an NFT business model feels like an inevitability. Mino Games’ “first major crypto project”, Dimensionals, is a free-to-play RPG about collecting a deck of “lovable, collectible characters”.
Some of the monsters that players collect (or, in today’s crypto-adjacent parlance – “coin”) will be rare, and they will be tradable, not only for other monsters, but for income. In other words, they are NFTs. Currently, these NFTs are given away via promotional money on social media networks.
Mino recently raised a $15 million investment package led by Standard Crypto. Gaming industry warhorses Bing Gordon and Don Mattrick were also announced as advisors.
A story behind Electronic Arts’ legendary rise, Gordon is currently a partner at Silicon Valley investment house KPCB. Mattrick was also a senior executive at EA, followed by stints as head of Microsoft’s games division and Zynga.
Mino was founded back in 2011. On the back of a seed fund of $2 million, the company launched a series of successful collectible role-playing games for mobile, including MiniMonsters, Cat Game and Dog Game.
The company states that “blockchain technology unlocks a new era for gamers” and that it is “developing immersive worlds where gamers come to create, collect, curate, compete and own”.
Recent Tweets
There is currently no release date for Dimensionals, but the game’s NFTs and in-game assets are already being used to garner interest. Pre-launch promotions – including giveaways and contests – have helped grow social media followers. dimensions Twitter account has 261,000 followers, with recent tweets always attracting more than 100,000 views.
“We have an incredibly active community,” says Mino CEO Sasha MacKinnon. “A lot of that is because we can reward and engage the community in ways we couldn’t before.”
Using NFTs as primarily promotional items appears to be at the heart of Minos’ plan. “So we can run a big event where we give away a limited number of free NFTs,” explains MacKinnon. “There will be a lot more participation and sharing of the special event because people can enter contests to get these valuable, scarce items in the game.”
MacKinnon says the full plan for how NFTs will work in Dimensionals is still being worked out, but one option is that they won’t actually be sold to players. “If we never charge for an NFT, I will not be unhappy. I believe that all the revenue can only happen through traditional free-to-play [business models] or even through merchandising.”
“Gaming’s distribution model is fundamentally changing, and I don’t think everyone has caught on,” he says. “In Web2, you have to spend advertising money with Google or Apple to acquire users. Instead of giving money to these platforms, Web3 allows us to give away really valuable in-game items. So you acquire users directly by giving them value.”
Advance community
He adds: “Instead of advertising through ad networks, we can connect directly with our core fans on social media and reward them with free but rare in-game items. We can build a deep relationship with our community up front without spending 50 percent of our revenue on ads.”
Offering in-game items as promotional fodder is nothing new. But Web3’s much-vaunted ability to reward players financially adds an extra dimension, according to MacKinnon. “Players get a free contest entry to get something that they can immediately use in the game, and that’s valuable because it helps you compete. But it is also something that has literal value. You can go and sell it immediately for thousands, sometimes tens of thousands, of dollars.”
Of course, the company makes money from its own promotional strategy of handing out freebies. Mino Games receives a royalty every time an NFT is sold from one player to another.
MacKinnon says bringing in trailblazers like Gordon and Mattrick is a demonstration that the strategy has legs. “Bing has been at the forefront of every big change in gaming,” he says. “He invented the expansion pack, the in-app purchase, and founded Zynga. Don’s experience at both Xbox and Zynga helped drive platforms and titles forward, and being part of our advisory board helps us stay strategically and profitably focused as we learn of his experiences.
“Having industry legends like Bing and Don as advisors further legitimizes our hold on the gaming space. It guarantees Dimensionals will be a game changer.”
You can find out more about Mino Games and Dimensionals here.
