Pirate Nation is a fully onchain role-playing game developed by Proof of Play. The game integrates the casual gaming market, Web3 technology and shared ownership into a voxel world of swashbuckling adventure. As a gaming studio and blockchain technology company, Proof of Play developed their own blockchain called Proof of Play Apex to host the gameplay and their own marketplace. We’re interested to see when they eventually bring this ecosystem to mobile and how they leverage the technology for other games in the future.
AT SEA, ONCHAIN
What is a fully onchain game? Onchain games run and store all of their data on the blockchain, eliminating the need for centralized servers. Since the blockchain is public, onchain games are open source and open data by default. This supercharges user-generated content (UGC) as anyone can create new features and add them to the game.
MEET THE TEAM
Amitt Mahajan CEO & Cofounder
Amitt co-founded Proof of Play in 2021. He previously co-created Farmville, which peaked at 84M MAUs. A leader in Web3, he created the NFT marketplace, Rare Bits, in 2018 and contributed to the ERC-1155 standard.
Matt Van Head of Engineering
Matt has held several technical positions, including a software engineer role at Riot Games. He later founded Optic Power, which he grew to 350 employees.
Dith BD & Marketing Lead
Since 2021, Dith has advised many blockchain and Web3 teams on marketing and go-to-market strategies. He also previously worked at Stripe.
Aaron B. Murray Senior Art Director
Adam
Fern Director of Operations
Adam was on the founding team of Cash App and Head of Product at Square Loans. He has long been involved with crypto, leading the integration of Bitcoin payment into ecommerce in 2013.
Aaron has nearly two decades of gaming, VR/AR, and Web3 experience. Before diving into Web3, he created the Guild of Guardians IP at Immutable and worked on high-profile titles at EA and Ubisoft.
Proof of Play raised $33M in a Seed Round led by a16z and Greenoaks in September 2023.
William S. Schmitt Head of Studio
William started his gaming career at EA in 1993 and has since held roles at 3d6 Games, Activision, Disney, and Nifty Games.
AHOY, MATEY!
As an RPG, there’s no shortage of things to do in Pirate Nation. Players can upgrade their pirates, craft in-game items to trade on the marketplace, level up their gear, and battle enemies on the high seas. Adventurers can set sail to visit islands in search of resources and treasures. The Social PVE feature allows players to team up with friends and defeat world bosses in the quest to become the top pirate in this bright, voxel universe.
The Proof of Play team plans to add more features, game modes, quests, and treasures over time. They’ve already integrated two innovative elements: a public roadmap that is updated in real time and a game economy dashboard. The Shipwright Dashboard allows players to assess the current market and position themselves accordingly within the game.
PLAY PIRATE NATION
The Shipwright Dashboard allows players to assess the current market and position themselves accordingly within the game.
SCALY SENTIMENT INDEX (SSI)
Even landlubbers will be impressed with this RPG’s blockchain integration.
GAME SCORE - 3.5
WEB3 SCORE - 4
TEAM & FUNDING - 5
Though Pirate Nation is quite fun and much more advanced than many other blockchain games, it still is a long way from matching up to its Web2 competitors. Their technology is solid, but needs a few updates to reduce friction for players off-chain. With their impressive team and funding, we anticipate many innovative improvements and additions in the near future.
SELLING ON THE HIGH SEAS
FOUNDER’S PIRATE NFTS
Pirate Nation released a free-mint NFT collection, the Founder’s Pirates, in November 2022 with a supply of 9999. They’re now sitting at a whopping 0.75 ETH. Founder’s Pirates are positioned as the premier asset in the Pirate Nation and Proof of Play ecosystems and will carry multiple benefits. They can also be soft staked to earn a multiplier on Proof of Play points.
$PIRATE TOKEN
The $PIRATE token launched on June 13th, following the first season of the Pirate Nation airdrop campaign. The team avoided pre-sale in order
to distribute tokens to community members and players. Out of 26.5% of tokens that were unlocked at TGE, 21.4% were given to the community. In the end, 47% of the total supply will have been distributed to the community. Users can hard stake $PIRATE to receive Proof of Play points and spend tokens on in-game Gems currency from their stake without affecting their staking bonuses.
Search for Treasure on the Proof of Play Marketplace!
PLAY-TO-AIRDROP CAMPAIGNS
Users could accumulate BOOTY points in Season 1 of Pirate Nation’s play-to-airdrop campaign by playing the game, collecting assets, and completing social quests. Season 2 began shortly after the $PIRATE token launch. The team repeated the BOOTY points campaign to enable new token mechanics, deepen the player experience, and grow their daily active user base. Season 3 will begin immediately after Season 2 wraps in mid-November.
Gems are Pirate Nation’s hard currency and can only be purchased with $PIRATE. Gems are mainly used to buy in-game soft currencies, obtain items, and complete quests. The Gem supply decreased from 41M to 38.9M between October 13th and November 11th. During this time frame, overall engagement with the currency was low. On average, 10 players minted 41,422 gems per day and 559 players burned 113,402 gems per day.
SHIPS
Other than pirates, ships are the most important assets in Pirate Nation. Users can buy and sell ships on the Proof of Play marketplace. Level One
51,504: Average number of daily players from October 13th to November 11th ships like Pirate’s Frigates and Pirate’s Galleons recently hovered around 0.0015 ETH. One of the most rare ships - the Rogue’s Galleon - sold for 1.39 ETH four months ago. Only 90 of these ships were created, making them highly sought after by collectors.
CHARTING THE COURSE
NFT & TOKEN GROWTH
June 14, 2024November 7, 2024
The Founder’s Pirate NFTs climbed from around 0.04 ETH in September 2023 to 0.8 - 1.2 ETH during the June 2024 token launch. On token launch day, there was an insane amount of volume and the floor price barely budged. We suspect that some users were dumping their NFTs after receiving their airdrop, while others were scooping those NFTs in equal numbers.
Season 2 of the play-to-airdrop campaign began right before the TGE. During the campaign, the Pirate Nation team kept adding benefits to the NFTs, proving that they would continue delivering value. Notably, they significantly increased the amount of BOOTY points users could get just by holding. This helped the collection soar close to a 3 ETH floor price on June 15, 2024. Since then, they have mostly priced over 1 ETH, which is higher than before the $PIRATE launch. This is a very unusual situation for an NFT post
LIZ BE FRENS
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