Imperium Empires AMA #1 — Project Overview with Leo Tan, CMO (Recap)
On 12/16/2021 at 10:00 p.m. (PST), an AMA session was held on Avalaunch with special guest Leo Tan, CMO, Imperium Empires. Below we present to you an excerpt from AMA with questions and answers.
Dave Donnenfeld | Avalaunch
Hello and welcome to another riveting discussion on the Avalaunch Telegram. Today, we have an outstanding guest in Leo, one of the co-founders of Imperium Empires. We at Avalaunch are particularly excited about the prospects of AAA gamefi on the Avalanche chain so let’s get started but before I do…how are you doing?
Leo | Imperium
Hi everyone! Glad to be here — I’m pretty excited to get this ball rolling!
Dave Donnenfeld | Avalaunch
To kickstart the introductions, can you please tell us about your role and briefly touch on your previous experiences prior to joining the blockchain-gaming industry?
Leo | Imperium
Definitely! I’m the CMO & Co-Founder of Imperium Empires, but my previous roles were actually spearheading disruptive technology initiatives as a Product Manager; It all started with my stint with Uber as a Brand Ambassador in South East Asia during their first expansion in the region.
Seeing how this simple idea of “summoning” a vehicle on your command changed the way people move from point A to B sparked my love affair with disruptive technology — from providing last-mile transit solutions to blockchain-based authentication platforms; this life-long thirst for innovation keeps pushing me to go for what’s next, and with blockchain. and the metaverse taking over the space — Imperium Empires is really a no brainer!
Dave Donnenfeld | Avalaunch
Yeah the Metaverse has gotten some mention recently 😄
Let’s segue into #2 then — Since the public rebrand announcement of Facebook to Meta, the metaverse became an exciting topic, one that is set out to provide the pillars for the transition between the real world to the blockchain industry. Can you tell us more about the Imperium Empires — what it is, and how it fits in this rapidly expanding ecosystem?
Leo | Imperium
Imperium Empires is the world’s first AAA GameFi 2.0 space metaverse. When the world learned about the possibilities of blockchain gaming, NFT assets took the world by storm by introducing true in-game asset ownership — it opened doors to publishers and enthusiasts alike to have their own piece of the metaverse.
With Imperium Empires, we believe that the pioneer projects who help catapult this phenomenon have only opened doors for projects like us to realize the learnings from their journey and breathe life into what’s next — GameFi 2.0. By having deflationary tokenomics via NFT burns in PvP battles and seamlessly integrating DeFi with Gaming, we are able to unify two very different emerging categories in the blockchain space and provide an avenue to onboard more than 3 billion+ gamers worldwide.
More importantly, we’re putting a strong emphasis on the social experience of playing games through guild based-gameplay; allowing us to pave way for the new era of a social gaming experience on the blockchain.
Dave Donnenfeld | Avalaunch
Excellent. Thank you for that. “true in-game asset ownership” The potency of this can not be overstated. This is the transference of wealth that is going to change a bit of everything. Deflationary is going to matter in the years to come for sure but you need to onboard users first so….
By building the world’s first AAA GameFi 2.0 project, which challenges or market needs does Imperium Empire aim to address?
Leo | Imperium
We see four major problems in most blockchain games that Imperium Empires will address:
A. Low-quality graphics and limited gameplay — simply put, there’s no fun playing them;
B. Hyperinflationary and unsustainable tokenomics — no NFT burn mechanisms, and play-to-earn rewards drain fast as the number of players grows;
C. Lack of deep DeFi integration — most GameFi projects fail to live up to their promises of the “Fi” part, with limited DeFi use except for simple staking; and
D. Lack of guild-based gameplay that bonds guild members together and make gaming into a social experience.
Dave Donnenfeld | Avalaunch
As I understand, Imperium’s vision is to bring together key aspects of the blockchain under one umbrella term known as the Imperium metaverse. One that is able to integrate gaming with DeFi and NFTs. Can you give us a high-level overview of how this flow-model is going to be achieved?
Leo | Imperium
The recent rise of GameFi play-to-earn (P2E) games has catapulted DeFi integration into gaming through a gamified interface of DeFi. One reason why DeFi hasnt been able to reach non-crypto natives is because of the learning curve — it is often difficult for a layman to understand concepts like TVL, liquidity mining and yield farming. Therefore Imperium aims to become be a gamified hub of all major DeFi protocols on AVAX, bringing the benefits of DeFi to 3 billion+ gamers over the world. — through our gamified interface, DeFi is seamlessly integrated, so players no longer need to grind through the difficult DeFi concepts.
Dave Donnenfeld | Avalaunch
Gamified interface of DeFi sounds like a definite improvement over stablecoin arbing.
With the goal of presenting the first AAA GameFi 2.0 project as a disruptor in the blockchain-backed game industry, can you tell us about what the PvE mechanics look like? What about PvP?
Leo | Imperium
The Imperium metaverse features a wide variety of PvE and PvP gameplay, where players team-to-earn by joining a guild of friends to conquer the metaverse and build their empires.
PvE: asteroids mining, materials transport, cooperation missions and more — the majority of the rewards will be in IMC.
PvP: players compete for seasonal rewards in guild tournaments by taking control of various zones in the Imperium metaverse, destroying and looting other players’ ships — the majority of the rewards will be in IME.
Our PvP economics is vastly different from most blockchain games in the market. We’ve implemented a NFT burn mechanism that ensures NFT supply and demand is well balanced. What is truly unique about this burn mechanism is that we closely tie it with the thrill of high-stakes PvP battles in the Imperium metaverse — meaning that some NFTs like spaceships will be damaged or destroyed when players voluntarily leave the safe zone in the Imperium metaverse.
Dave Donnenfeld | Avalaunch
This is way more thoughtful than what we are used to seeing
but let’s name names for a moment and do a little compare and contrast — There are numerous billion dollar projects such as Axie Infinity and Bloktopia with PvE and PvP mechanics in place. What would you say are the key features that make the Imperium Empire unique? How does Imperium ensure a competitive edge over these already launched and established projects?
Leo | Imperium
We are happy that projects like them have paved the way for us to design better game mechanics and tokenomics. We believe we are better than any popular blockchain game in the market because of our following competitive advantages:
A. Deflationary tokenomics and NFT supply: most GameFis have a hyperinflationary NFT mint mechanism, even Axie — the supply of NFTs scales exponentially with the number of players. So without a NFT burn mechanism to balance the supply growth, the supply always outgrows the number of new players coming in, reducing the rarity of the NFTs minted.
To solve this problem, core to our game design is a deflationary PvP battle system where NFTs owned by players (e.g. spaceships) can be damaged, disabled or destroyed. The destroyed spaceships can be looted by other players for rewards, so they will earn lucrative play-to-earn rewards by winning the PvP battles (but the lootable value will always be less than the original value of the NFTs — thus deflationary).
B. Seamless DeFi integration by Gamifying DeFi: we already explained the details before — none of the popular blockchain games in the market know how to merge GameFi with DeFi.
C. Guild based gameplay: gaming is now more like a social experience with your friends than playing the game itself. And given the huge number of players playing blockchain games (e.g. Axie Infinity has 2 million active players), it makes perfect sense for a blockchain game to be an MMO game like ours, so having a well calibrated guild system is a must. Guild based gameplay is also highly beneficial to the players, because a well played team can earn more than playing alone. As the saying goes: team-to-earn, more returns!
Dave Donnenfeld | Avalaunch
Wow
Just taking that all in. We got an A, B and C. Kudos for that answer and all that typing.
I feel like we should give you a lunch break after that but we are a tireless community so — As a metaverse with a long-term vision, a sustainable ecosystem and implementation of DeFi elements, what partnerships are you looking to secure in the foreseeable future? Have any partnerships been agreed yet?
Leo | Imperium
Yes — We’ve already announced partnerships with leading AVAX projects like BENQI and Yield Yak, and of course we’ll explore more partnerships with other DeFi protocols — stay tuned for our announcements!
Since guilds are central to our gameplay, we’re also discussing partnerships with some of the largest guilds, and listen to their feedback as to how we can perfect our official guild management and scholar management systems.
Dave Donnenfeld | Avalaunch
Look forward to some guild partnership’s!
Following on from the previous question, what can you tell us about your business plan? Are you actively looking for collaborations with other projects and protocols?
Leo | Imperium
To onboard players into Imperium, one of our main target market will be South East Asia, where many blockchain gamers are currently in. In fact, not just the blockchain gamers, but also the huge population of gamers in the SEA region.
I’m actually a native Filipino and am fortunate to know a huge network of influencers in both the Philippines and Thailand, many of whom are well-known celebrities and will help us a lot in terms of hyper-localised marketing. We observed that 50%+ Axie players are based in the Philippines, and a lot of them have very high engagements on TikTok — in fact we began our TikTok marketing just a few days ago, and engagement is already super high with our contents having 250k+ views.
And we’re also in talks with one of the largest gaming and e-sports company in the SEA region to explore partnerships, so we can also target non-crypto native gamers.
As mentioned earlier, we also strive to be a gamified hub of the major DeFi protocols on AVAX — we’ll continue to partner with synergetic protocols and make them become an essential part of the Imperium metaverse — stay tuned for more partnership announcements.
Dave Donnenfeld | Avalaunch
You’ve definitely got some traction and hype, for lack of a better word. This is a relatively mature project and I would think in something as ambitious in gaming, you have to be underway more than most things. Moving on to the token — Looking at the tokemomics there is a dual token economy at play, one maintained by IME and one by IMC. Can you tell us about the utility of each of these tokens and how they serve the protocol and its users?
Leo | Imperium
A. IME is the governance token of Imperium Empires, and it has a capped supply of 10 billion. Players of the Imperium metaverse earn IME by the following ways:
i. Seasonal tournament rewards: guilds compete with one another in seasons, and those who make to the top leaderboard will be awarded with IME tokens (based on a range of factors, e.g. area of territories occupied, guild members’ kill counts, etc.).
ii. looting destroyed spaceships: when players destroy spaceships of other players or pirate fleets, they can loot the destroyed spaceships for spaceship components, which can be sold for IME in our official NFT marketplace.
The utilities of IME will be mainly for: Purchasing NFTs and guild-related staking
B. IMC is the game-currency token of Imperium Empires, with an uncapped supply to match the growth of players. Players of the Imperium metaverse earn IMC in the following ways:
i. Selling refined ores: ores mined from asteroids need to be refined in guild owned refineries, after which they can be sold into IMC in the guilds’ star-bases.
ii. Rewards distributed by guilds: some structures built by guilds are revenue generating (e.g. refineries, star-gates) for the guilds. These rewards can be distributed back to the guild members based on their contribution to the guilds.
The IMC earned by players will be mainly used for: repairing damaged spaceships and components, paying for guild facilities fees, and contributing IMC to the guilds (that result in a larger share of the rewards distributed by the guilds).
Dave Donnenfeld | Avalaunch
You win an award for most thorough and organized answers for an AMA. Truly impressive stuff.
We have a couple of more before we move on to the good people over on Twitter
If you were to imagine Imperium past the milestones highlighted in the roadmap, what do you envision the long-term success of the Imperium Empire to look like?
Leo | Imperium
Haha, thank you — you’re too kind. In terms of our long term sustainability, as GameFi enters the era of GameFi 2.0, we are looking to onboard millions of players into our Imperium metaverse. A lot of our players may well be part of the 3 billion+ gamers who are mostly non-crypto natives — they will get into blockchain because they want to play our game.
We also hope that in the long term, Imperium will be more than a blockchain game — we can craft a separate space inside the Imperium metaverse as a venue to host all kinds of events (like all those concerts on Fortnite), where users are here to socialise in addition to playing our game!
Dave Donnenfeld | Avalaunch
Thank you again — As final thoughts, is there anything else you would like to discuss or are you excited to reveal to the community that we haven’t covered already?
Leo | Imperium
We are already building the game, and target to have a game demo ready to show a bit of gameplay towards the end of Q1 2022. Of course, prior to that, we’ll be conducting our public sale (watch out for our announcement on this soon!) and the first batch of NFT sales, along with the launch of our NFT marketplace. The official game launch is currently planned to be Q4 2022. Here’s our trailer and some graphics of our spaceships and character NFTs in case you haven’t seen them before!
Twitter Questions
@Starterx13 asks- You mentioned about Gamefi 2.0, what is that? What will that change in game area?
Leo | Imperium
GameFi 2.0 is the next evolution of the existing “GameFi 1.0” market — beyond staking, GameFi 2.0 enables real integration of DeFi protocols in-game by gamifying the experience; enabling DeFi protocols to reachout to more than 3 billion gamers worldwide.
@valtori21 What do you think is the key to a healthier economy in the metaverse compared to other game economies that collapse over time?
Leo | Imperium
Deflationary tokenomics and gameplay related NFT burns are extremely important when it comes to sustaining a healthy economy. Most other blockchain games has no NFT-burn mechanisms and an over-emphasis on idle playing PvE rewards (which means the rewards are zero sum games between the project foundation and the players — whatever the players earn, they all come from the project, and the rewards will eventually dry up).
Therefore our NFT burn mechanisms through high-stakes PvP battles, and allowing players to loot rewards from destroying other players’ spaceships, ensure that NFT supply in Imperium is much more constrained.
@hugo41618550 — What has the team done to make this attractive for beginners or just to make it easy to get started?
Leo | Imperium
Our metaverse is divided into three different zones to cater to different types of gamers — the safe zone, combat zone, and the war zone. Of course, even though there are more rewards in the combat zone and war zone, spaceships or components can be destroyed in the combat zone and war zone, so players who just started can stay in the safe zone and perfect their skills first before venturing out into the deep space.
Of course, we’ll also produce a lot of introductory content like video tutorials to get the beginners started!
@CengizYakn2 — Can players earn passive income while playing Imperium Empires?
Leo | Imperium
As mentioned earlier, you can earn play-to-earn rewards by engaging in various types of PvE and PvP gameplay including asteroids mining, materials transport, cooperation missions, guild battles, etc.
@jvlassco1980 — Will the graphic and game play match today’s expectations, eg like pc an PlayStation games?
Leo | Imperium
Yes, our team is very experienced in delivering high-quality games over the past decade. We are currently a team of 40, and we have an experienced in-house game development team led by our lead game developer and art director — he has 12+ years game development experience, having led the development of 8 games across PC/mobile/console with 7m+ total players and peak monthly grossing of US$6m+.
So we’re very confident that we can deliver high-quality graphics and gameplay that everyone is looking forward to!
Telegram Questions
The graphic of Imperium Empires is very nice. 👍👍 however
1. Will there be when there are too many people playing at the same time 🖥or prevent majority of mobile only gamers📱?
2. And will the game be using too much resources on graphic rather than player REWARDS?🏆
Leo | Imperium
great question — we have a very strong gaming server infrastructure team to make sure that we can accomodate a lot of players playing togerther at the same time, using our server meshing technologies — we’re also well aware of challenges associated with potentially unstable internet connections in South East Asia, so we’re also optimize mobile gameplay to be low-latency to ensure a smooth user experience
Do you have any plans to attract non-crypto investors to #your project Because it is the success of a project to get more investors who are still not in the crypto world. What are the plans to increase awareness around your in non-crypto space?
Leo | Imperium
yes — one of our main target market is actually non-crypto natives — you may recall that we mentioned earlier, we believe blockchain games have a much larger market outside of the crypto natives as this is the first blockchain application to reach the mass market.
That’s way a major part of our marketing strategies, is to partner with tier-1 influencers in SEA outside of the crypto space, to promote our game to layman and traditional gamers, and onboard them into our metaverse
Do the token holders have the right to participate in the governance of the project? What kind of decisions can they vote on about the project?
Leo | Imperium
Yes — there will be some key decisions related to our game mechanics that we will allow our community to participate in decision making prior to the official release of our game. We’re well aware how important it is to listen to the feedback of the community, so everyone’s happy at game launch!
How many team members do you have? Do they have enough experience in the blockchain field? Do they have any experience on working in crypto and non-crypto project?
Leo | Imperium
we’re currently a team of 40, including experienced game developers, game designers, game back-end architects, blockchain developers and marketing professionals — a very well rounded team to ensure the success of the project. You may also recall we mentioned that our game development is all done in-house by our team of experienced Unity developers — they have produced 8 games across all platforms with a total player base of 7m+ (with peak grossing once reached US$6m+ per month)
Crypto Wiz King — The 🅡ⓗino (alt)
What are the plans to educate and raise awareness and adoption among the community to make more people understand about the project easily?
Leo | Imperium
Yes — you might have noticed that most of our tweets are video contents, which you seldom see in many crypto projects. We are doing this because we have a very high standrd of making easily digestible video contents to intro our project, and make sure that we welcome both crypto-natives and non-crypto natives in our Imperium metaverse.
We also mentioned before that we’re not just focused on marketing on TG and Twitter (which most crypto projects do), but we’re making use of highly effective traditional marketing channels like Tiktok to reach the broader non-crypto natives — engagement is super high with 250k+ views on our Tiktok just over the past week!
Dave Donnenfeld | Avalaunch
Leo, it’s been a pleasure and really informative. Kudos for having such well laid out and comprehensive answers. It should give our members something to chew on. We very much appreciate your time @mleotan and look forward to doing our next AMA with Imperium. Thank you.
Leo | Imperium
Thank you as well!
Enjoyed this!
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