Nouns X Internet Game: Season 2 w/ gmoney

NounsDAO NounsDAO Proposals
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Dear NounsDAO,

I’m a huge fans of Nouns. A big part of my Solidity education was forking the Nouns contract back when we were at Noun #3. So I’m super thrilled to present an idea that integrates Nouns into what I’ve been working on for 2 years, & can contribute to the Nounish goal of spreading the Nouns meme far & wide.

TLDR: We are Internet Game. We host massive web3 game shows with thousands of players and blue-chip NFT prizes. Our Season 2 is coming up next, hosted by gmoney, and we’d like to re-skin one of the games to feature Nouns, as well as educate our players about Nouns with a video prior to the game.

Before we get into specifics, we’ll share a bit more about who we are and why we’re qualified to propose this…

What is Internet Game??

Internet Game is Squid Game meets NFTs. We create live, interactive game shows that anyone can play at home with hyper-simple, yet dangerously fun mini-games. 60% of buy-ins go to blue-chip NFT prizes, all voted on by the community in Discord.

In March 2022 we launched our Internet Game: Season 1. 8000 players minted $2.2M in NFTs to play. We then purchased $1M+ in NFT prizes as voted on by the players, including Bored Apes, Mutant Apes, Doodles, Azukis, CloneX and many more.

The best way to fully understand how our seasons work is to look at this case study.

Internet Game: Season 2 “Bear Market Battle” launches on September 12th. Season 2 features 6 brand new games taking place between September 12th and 23rd. The entire event is hosted by the infamous gmoney & comedian Leah Lamarr. Gmoney will appear as a full 3D version of his cryptopunk by being rigged up in a high-fidelity motion capture suit, and will then be superimposed on an XR stage (picture a gigantic LED screen & floor) next to Leah.

Season 2 Trailer:

Here’s a preview of what that looks like from the podcast we did with gmoney on the XR stage with him in the co-cap suit:

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The Opportunity: Nouns Game + Video in Season 2

Internet Game Season 2 is made up of 6 mini-games that take place over the course of two weeks. Each game runs for 24 hours.

There is an opportunity to fully brand the third game, currently titled as “The Last Spaceship”, and transform it into “The Last Noun”.

The game itself is similar to an old school Asteroids / Galaga space shooter, but with an original take on how you move around the space. We think the 2D arcade aesthetic is a perfect match for the Nouns art. Both the main character as well as the enemies would be Nouns:

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After the completion of Season 2, “The Last Noun” will exist on the Internet Game Arcade (launching Q1 2023) and used in future tournaments with other Discords, influencers and NFT communities, bringing consistent exposure to the brand to a variety of audiences.

The Video

A video is shown before each of the games featuring gmoney & Leah. If desired, we could include a trailer / explainer / hype video for Nouns in that video. This would need to be provided by Nouns DAO.

Additional opportunities during Season 2:

  • Including Nouns and/or Lil Nouns in our prize pool
  • Skinning the entire Internet Game tournament page during “The Last Noun” game to be Nouns-branded
  • Upon the launch of the game, post a write up on our social platforms (Twitter/Discord) to educate our audience on Nouns DAO and the Nouns mission & mechanics

Our Ask:

ETH Sponsorship: Nouns DAO would contribute 20 ETH to Internet Game Season 2. The sponsorship would be split to further contribute to the prize pool and cover operational expenditures incurred by Internet Game.

Proposed Timeline & Next Steps

  • Engage in discussions to answer any questions derived from this proposal
  • Gain approval to transform “The Last Spaceship” into “The Last Noun”
  • Announce partnership with Nouns DAO for Season 2 including the donation to the prize pool
  • Complete redesign of the tournament page and game and showcase to Nouns DAO for feedback
  • Launch “The Last Noun” Game on September 16th, along with the optional pre-game video

Long-Term Opportunity: Nouns Custom Casual Game

We we would love to continue the relationship and build a fully custom game for Nouns that can live on in perpetuity. The game would be co-created by the DAO and Internet Game to provide a unique experience that allows consumers to connect with the Nouns brand in an interactive way. Casual gaming is a juggernaut of an industry due to its accessibility (ease of learning), low effort requirement, and repeat value (easy to hop in and out of) it provides. We see a Nouns Game as a way to engage the general population in a highly scalable and interactive way all around the world. Details on this longer-term partnership opportunity can be submitted through a separate proposal.

We would love to hear your thoughts on this proposal!

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Nice! Seems fun!

Will you be giving away a Noun this season?

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Sadly not! The prizes are chosen by the community, and they’ve historically always gone for BAYC as the expensive tier prizes near Noun floor level. We have 30 ETH left to deploy for Season 2, voting happening for that right now.

That’s part of why I think this could be great for Nouns – our audience loves NFTs but they gravitate towards the more mainstream collections. Meanwhile Nouns have the most brilliant mechanism for both distribution as well as marketing.

Our players should know more about Nouns.

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Looks really cool, especially for the price. I have some questions that popped in my head as I was reading.

Do you anticipate a similar number of players for this season? When and how do they buy in for this round? Would the video and game just be for 1 of 6 games, or would all the games be nounified and the video play before each game?

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Hey there! Thanks for the questions.

We anticipate fewer players, given the bear market. We’re currently at 4,550 mints. The mint began on Aug 30 and runs through the start of the games on Aug 12th.

This is for the 1 game out of 6 that makes sense to be Nounified. The other 5 are extremely different (plus we just don’t have time to Nounify them all at this point). The video would be before that single game, as we wouldn’t want to show our players the same video 6 times in a row.

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Got it! I appreciate the clarification. I try to comment as much as possible on posts to get them up the ladder to be seen by more people. Hopefully some others will grab on to this. If not, ping me, and maybe we can put you through Nouncil.

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While I think the real opportunity lies in a deeper collaboration that uses games to teach a wide audience about Nouns, I think the 20 ETH price point is sufficiently low to try this first lower stakes experiment.

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This ^

Really like the community Internet Game has built and the way they’re thinking about the future of their platform. Think this is a great way to start a relationship that can probably become much more down the road. Will be voting yes on this.

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Hi @lej thx for writing this proposal draft.

I am a bit sceptic in terms of proliferating nouns, our contribution and the game itself. Maybe you can help me understand it better.

General question:

  1. 60% of the funds made with the mint are used to buy NFT prizes. What happens with the 40% left?
  2. There are currently 4.6k NFTs minted for season 2 and you encourage multiple buys to have more chances at the game. So it seems there is a steep decline in participation. How many players participated during season1?

Proliferating nouns:
If it is a web3 game, with prizes of blue-chip NFTs etc and the tickets itself have to be minted (meaning users know what they are up to), chances are good that they know/heard about nouns already.

  1. How and why does this proliferate nouns?

Nouns contribution:
Assuming that we as a DAO agree on what the video will be all about and that we as a DAO manage to deliver it in time (<7days to go). Personally I would see a video before the action starts like any other commercial.

  1. Do you have any numbers (conversion rate, click through, rebounds etc.) on how impactful this was for previous sponsors/partners?
  2. How are the additional opportunities unlocked which you mention in the video section (nouns prize pool, nounify the page, social media)?

Game:
From my understanding “The Last Noun” will be one of 3 pre-games which will be a single-player game for players to maximise their points before the final games begin. Final games are live streamed, pre games are played by each player individually.

  1. Is this assumption correct?
  2. As the game will be co-created with nouns, under which license will it be released?
  3. Are you creating the game completely in-house or do you involve a third party?
  4. Do you have any examples of previous games?
  5. From what age are players allowed to participate?

FYI for fellow nouners:

  • To receive any price above 600 USD, KYC is required.
  • Tax burden is on the side of the winners - understandably, but can the winners really keep their NFT then, or do they have to sell to cover taxes?
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Wow, thank you for taking such a deep look at what we’re doing! Answers in bold below:

60% of the funds made with the mint are used to buy NFT prizes. What happens with the 40% left?

The 40% goes to paying expenses. Marketing costs, game development, production for the host/video components, just to name a few. Running Internet Game is not cheap by any means.

There are currently 4.6k NFTs minted for season 2 and you encourage multiple buys to have more chances at the game. So it seems there is a steep decline in participation. How many players participated during season1?

There were 8000 tickets sold in Season 1. That decline is completely unsurprising as Season 1 was launched at the height of NFT mania in the bull, and now things are quite different.

If it is a web3 game, with prizes of blue-chip NFTs etc and the tickets itself have to be minted (meaning users know what they are up to), chances are good that they know/heard about nouns already.

Unfortunately not. We have hard data that our players are either not aware or not currently fans of Nouns. We recently opened a Discord channel to allow anyone to submit NFT collections for vote to be included in our prize pool (see here: ) There is an endless scroll of collections there, but Nouns were never included.

I can also speak from personal experience: I’m a big advocate of Nouns. I’ve explained how Nouns works to dozens of people. Most people I mention Nouns to have never heard of it, and the few that have don’t know how Nouns works. My guess is that that Nouns are revered amongst serious NFT enthusiasts & devs/builders, but far less so with the general NFT audience, and virtually unknown to the general public.

How and why does this proliferate nouns?

A video is shown before the game to all players. If we’re able to show a video explaining Nouns or even just a little “teaser trailer”, then all of our players will become more deeply aware of Nouns. On top of that, they will then play a game featuring the the Nouns. Marketing is all about making people see your brand 10,000 times. This will help Nouns get closer to that with a fairly hardcore but more mainstream NFT audience.

Do you have any numbers (conversion rate, click through, rebounds etc.) on how impactful this was for previous sponsors/partners?

This is our first time having sponsors for games.

How are the additional opportunities unlocked which you mention in the video section (nouns prize pool, nounify the page, social media)?

The intention was to tease out if those additional opportunities were wanted in this forum before posting the proposal, but then we saw there was a near 6-day voting period so needed to move quickly.

I would be happy to by-default include a Noun-ification of the dashboard for the day of the game. And you would have to literally pay us NOT to post about this on our socials if it goes through :wink:

As for the prize pool, that would have to be a donation from Nouns, since prize selection is out of our control.

From my understanding “The Last Noun” will be one of 3 pre-games which will be a single-player game for players to maximise their points before the final games begin. Final games are live streamed, pre games are played by each player individually. Is this assumption correct?

The final games are multi-player, but they are not live-streamed by Internet Game. We made all games this season so that they would be fun for our players to stream on Twitch (another great way for the Nouns art to be shown even outside of our players)

As the game will be co-created with Nouns, under which license will it be released?

**Good question! We had not considered this. As of now, the understanding is that underlying game itself is our IP, and Nouns is being applied as a skin to bring attention to Nouns. If you have any thoughts here, we’d love to hear them! Note: Where we’re heading is allowing people to fork our games and create their own versions for the platform, but we’re not there yet. **

Are you creating the game completely in-house or do you involve a third party?

We create everything in-house. We have 4 Unity developers on our team.

Do you have any examples of previous games?

We nuked our codebase from Season 1 to rebuild our platform, so the S1 games are not available anymore. However, you can preview all of them in our Season 1 Case Study:

Note: These were just games I made in Javascript :slight_smile: The Season 2 games are much more advanced now that we have actual game developers and use Unity.

From what age are players allowed to participate?

18

To receive any price above 600 USD, KYC is required. Tax burden is on the side of the winners - understandably, but can the winners really keep their NFT then, or do they have to sell to cover taxes?

Yup! We are legally required have to collect information for anyone receiving a prize over $600. And yes, the burden is on the recipient to report their winnings, as with any other web3 company involving tokens.

Thank you for all the great questions! Happy to answer any more you have.

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