Main information
Project Name: World of Rogues
Game URL: https://game.rogues.studio/
X (Twitter) link: x.com
Discord: Rogues
Game information
About The Game:
World of Rogues is a post-apocalyptic social MMORPG where players get to socialize, gather resources, craft, quest with friends and fight monsters. The game is free to play, but players can also use their NFT avatars to gather resources, craft their armor and weapons, and go fighting and questing on their own or with their friends.
The game’s Season 2 is currently live and open to anyone with a NEAR wallet 24/7, with special areas open 3 x times a day. Land ownership, additional NFT avatars, areas and mechanics will be coming to the game in 2024.
What is the USP ( unique selling point) of your game?
The non-cookie cutter approach of the creative product team, the game and artistic innovation is what makes us stand out from the rest.
We know that gamers are looking to play a fun game together with friends, and make new friends, too. While social gaming is growing at a higher rate than gaming in general, there’s also a demand for quality games that engage the player base and make them have fun while utilizing ownership of assets. A game that tackles the above successfully will make big waves in the gaming industry.
World of Rogues solves the following by creating a radically social and fun gaming experience where gamers come to stay. An expansive in-game world, and a well-thought out game design by a founder with 1.4m downloads previously ensure a high quality product and a sustainable economy. With smooth onboarding and free-to-play mechanics, the game is designed to attract the traditional web2 players, as well as cater for the existing web3 player base.
How does your game align with the NDC and Gaming WG KPIs?:
NDC Charter: GamingDAO Charter - Google Docs
KPI 1 - Active Wallets
World of Rogues is has proven to fulfil, and will continue to fulfill both NDC & Gaming DAO KPIS by:
- Widening Adoption of NEAR by attracting players using the NEAR Blockchain
- Growing the number of Active Wallets on NEAR by onboarding new players to NEAR
- Increasing transactions on NEAR through utilisation of on-chain assets
For Gaming DAO specifically, we fulfill the following KPIs:
- Grow active gaming audience - we have grown and continue to grow the Unique Active Wallets that play NEAR games; this is a metric that we continue to grow
- Enhance community engagement - our players are constantly engaged with a high level of participation in gaming and community activities
- User Engagement, convert new users to active participants - our player retention is high and we continue to convert new users into active players that are truly engaged
- Elevate NEAR’s Brand Awareness - we’ve constantly been elevating NEAR’s brand awareness with our online presence, and we are going to continue to do so, as we continue to grow
Please Describe Your User Demographic:
We’re targeting players that are into MMORPG games, but also like retro-style gaming with fun, quirky and different art style.
Actual Data:
- 2.5x growth quarter on quarter
- 1300 players, 501 MAU, retention
- 22,000 Community Size - X & Discord Combined
- 7400 Newsletter Subscribers
Predicted Data (realistic & conservative, based on our strategy for Q1-Q2 2024 of launching the game to mobile)
- 25,000 mobile downloads in Q1-Q2 2024
- 5,000 MAU in Q2 2024
Further growth predictions for Q3-Q4 2024 are showing further exponential growth.
What is your Tech Stack?
World of Rogues is built on top of the Unity game engine. Since Unity can build for many different platforms, this gives us the flexibility to expand to other platforms in the future. The game is currently browser-focused as this enables us to iterate quickly and build the game along with our community using lean principles.
Rogues is also a 2D focused game enabling a small team to create many more assets than would be possible in a 3D game. The 2D in-game animations utilise Unity’s 2D skeletal rigging pipeline to enable a wide variety of characters to share animations but swap out body parts dependent on traits derived from the character NFTs.
The multiplayer aspects of the game are initially on Photon, since this is an industry standard but may move to the new Unity multiplayer solution as that matures.
Status of the Project
What is status of you project? Live - with NEAR Integrations on mainnet
What is financial status of you project? Bootstrapped (Team is covering expenses), Previous Grant/s
Monthly Burn Rate In USD: $9,000
Team
How many Team Members are working on the project: 5
Please Tell Us About Your Development Team:
Morgan Page | CTO & CPO + 2 x UK-based experienced Unity Developers specialising in game development
Game developer with more than 30 years of experience. Created a game with over 1.4 million downloads. Has close to 100,000 game development students on Udemy. On NEAR, delivered a course on how to add NEAR to a game that got more than 25,000 enrollments, and created a Unity SDK for NEAR. https://www.linkedin.com/in/morganjpage/
Please Tell Us About Your BD Team:
Anna Stoilova
3x startup founder, 100,000+ sign ups for previous startup, delivered gamified training to World Health Organisation, Qatar Airways, hospitals and school district in the US, and others. Speaker at NFT.NYC and other international web3 conferences. Anna’s Linkedin
Please Tell Us About Your Marketing / Community Building Team:
Anna Stoilova - see above
Derek Luna (aka Perhaps) - Head of Community at Rogues Studio, more than 2 years of web3 community experience and has been in Rogues from the start.
Simone Silva - Game artist and illustrator, focusing on creative game direction and asset design. Experienced in 2D graphics and animation, character design and development, unity integration & 2D environment design. https://www.linkedin.com/in/simone-silva-70178524/
We’re in the process of hiring additional marketing team members.
Support
What Kind Of Support Is Needed? Marketing, Business Concepts, Funding)
In the area of Marketing, we’d love to receive support in terms of amplification and additional support. We’ll also be hiring a marketing lead during Q1 2024, so would love to get help spreading the job ad to the wider community, and any recommendations.
Grants
Grant Amount Requested: $10,000
Please provide a budget breakdown:
Monthly spend:
• Social Media Marketing (post content, interact and engage with users on social media, respond to questions): $1500
• Art & Design, UI support staff (creating graphics for posts, videos for youtube and influencer marketing, in-game rewards graphics) : $2000
• Growth marketing staff (research and find influencers, help organise influencer marketing, pay and communicate with influencers, launch Zealy campaigns): $1500
• Payment for Influencer Marketing Campaigns on X & Youtube: $3000
• Zealy Campaign rewards: $1000
• In-game incentivisation: $1000
Roadmap & Milestones:
Milestone 1 (1st week): $3000
- Launch a Zealy campaign to encourage new players on NEAR (tasks to include creation of a NEAR wallet, login to our game with a NEAR wallet, completion of a 3, 5, 10-day streak and more)
- Announce Legendary lootbox competition on social media - that the first 50 players that get a legendary lootbox in the game get 20USDC each.
- Designing & deploying an X sharing feature in the game for players to share their streak on X for maximum growth
Milestone 2 (3rd week): $4000
- Creating video content and post for influencer campaign
- Completion of an influencer campaign to promote Season 2 of World of Rogues with minimum 2 influencers to share our post.
- Leaderboard live in-game: players to compete for season 2 prizes
- Design graphics and posts and share on social media about the launch of the in-game leaderboard
Milestone 3 (4th week): $3000
- Complete of an influencer campaign to promote Season 2 of World of Rogues with minimum 3 influencers to share
- AMAs minimum 3 with web3 gaming influencers
- Design posts and graphics to advertise collaborations and AMAs
- Fishing tournament in-game to increase UAW
Total: $10,000
The outcome of all of these milestones will be:
• Bringing new UAW to NEAR
• Increase the number of engaged UAW on NEAR
Have you applied for any other funding programs so far?
For current marketing of the existing season of the game, we have not currently applied for other funding programs. We have an ongoing grant programme for mobile development of the game from NF. Rogues Studio has successfully completed previous grant programmes, from NF & Human Guild, for initial launch on NEAR and initial game development.
NEAR integration
Will the game be NEAR exclusive or is it planned to integrate other chains or a web2 version?
Both Near and Polygon integrated with the web version; currency majority of players are on NEAR. With this marketing campaign, we’ll be promoting the creation of new NEAR wallets and new players on NEAR only. Future mobile development of the game will be NEAR only.