Summary
Requesting funding for 2 components: The first is a web-interface and integration layer that allows NEAR ecosystem projects to easily make their technology available to our game creators for integration. The second is a Use-Case for the NEAR profile on the MFG aggregation platform which is an open-source unity game showcasing NEAR integrations. The game will be coupled with an open-source back-end API that invokes and demonstrates integrations on NEAR i.e. smart contracts for NFTs, balances and transfers. The project will be documented and fully coupled with a “getting started guide” to educate users.
Introduction to the problem
There are a plethora of solution providers to navigate when game creators want to start building and launching web3 enabled games.
These solution providers are often building in isolation and many of them haven’t tailored their solutions towards game creators that have never worked with web3 based technologies. Game creators are often approaching protocols for help, but with thousands of game creators looking to work with protocols and their ecosystems, this becomes a very laborious task to manage.
Web2 game creators are also approaching web3 solutions with a healthy sense of scepticism as they have seen some of these solution providers experiencing security breaches, in some cases due to pure ignorance and they question the robustness and lack of interoperability between the various solutions in the market.
Web3 gaming solution providers need legitimacy and to be simple to use.
About Made For Gamers (“MFG”)
Made for Gamers is building an industry aggregation and integration platform for gaming.
We help educate, connect and integrate all the stakeholders of the gaming industry, with a focus on helping game creators build, launch and distribute their games.
The biggest problem experienced is one of simplicity, speed and trust. We help game creators connect with vetted tools and service providers, by providing them with a simple integration that is protocol ecosystem specific.
Mission
- Provide education and working open-source use case examples of web3 enabled games.
- Curate, review and integrate technologies for the game creators to use rather than building the solutions in isolation.
- Give game creators the means to find the right tools and partnerships they need.
- Give protocols and their developers / partners the ability to seamlessly on-board game creators
- Help game creators to build community, launch and distribute their titles
What we are building
The 50,000 foot view of the company, vision and ambition is to become the one-stop-shop where:
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Every game creator can go to find the right tooling, support and rewards that benefits their use case and;
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Every service provider in the game creation, blockchain and web3 ecosystems can integrate their tech, gain a new channel to market and ultimately receive tailored insights, support, validation, review and assistance to mature their offerings.
We are building a platform to house these requirements with an exceptional back-end and custom relationships to ensure we channel the energy in the directions where it can be used best.
Our tech stack is (and not limited to):
- C#
- C++
- Rust
- Vue
- Node
- IPFS
- Cudos
- Docker
- Git
Why do game creators need MFG?
We save game creators time and money.
We are building a one-stop-shop aggregation platform where game creators can:
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Use our website’s decision-tree driven partnership selection wizard to navigate what their needs are and be provided with the right tech stack, infrastructure, integration points, examples and assistance.
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Find and connect with publishers, e-sport events, guilds, protocols, investors and accelerators.
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Educate themselves on the vast content provided to them by our platform, depending on the partnership they can learn and earn while doing it.
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Get their game tested, reviewed and announced.
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Enjoy a gamified experience where they can earn rewards for achieving milestones on building and releasing their own game.
Why do service providers need MFG?
We provide service providers a new channel to market and if they have integrated their technology or solution into our integration layer, we remove a great deal of the assistance they may need to provide individual game creators, allowing the service provider to focus on scaling rather than customer service.
Service providers also benefit from the fact that Made for Gamers conducts customer acquisition campaigns to drive game creators to our platform, which ultimately benefits the service providers when those game creators start using their products.
Why would NEAR benefit from MFG?
MFG will help drive game creators to the NEAR ecosystem and reduce the amount of engagement required to on-board these creators and their titles.
For the game creators that want more control:
We have a game being built in Unity that we will publish as open-source together with a small back-end example all with documentation for the NEAR case study on how game creators can:
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View and understand the basics of near account, access keys, gas, networks, balance and transactions.
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“How To” for Smart Contracts (Rust).
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NFT Example.
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Basic tokenomic use-case.
Unreal Engine or Javascript examples can be built upon request.
For game creators that want to focus purely on building their game and spending minimal time on figuring out what goes on behind the scenes:
NEAR has a vast amount of projects building and providing tooling, SDKs, infrastructure and or other creation tech stacks to game creators, among others.
These projects can now opt-in and integrate with MFG’s platform to get their use-cases done, documentation reviewed, achieve product maturity and gain a new channel to market.
Once complete, the projects will be under the NEAR umbrella for selection by game creators once they have progressed through our Wizard based decision tree, providing a significant opportunity for insights, marketing exposure, growth and innovation.
Our journey so far
MFG was started as a game studio to “build better games”, and what that meant was specifically games that were more equitable, sustainable and ultimately scalable to any individual, no matter their location or disposable income level.
We started to build a game and experienced some roadblocks when we wanted to introduce web3 value propositions. We ultimately decided to start building our own web3 gaming SDK but soon after joining the Outlier Ventures Filecoin Basecamp accelerator program we made a pivot into building an aggregation and integration platform.
After speaking with numerous game creators we realised they were looking for an easy to understand, easy to use and fast to implement on-board into web3, and that is what we are creating on a one-stop-shop, working with the best technology and service providers that each protocol ecosystem has to offer, instead of trying to build everything ourselves and to bring together a global network of providers building in isolation. We started building our wizard and commenced ob-boarding and integrating with various partners and solutions providers. We now aim to work with protocols direct to streamline the ecosystem specific solutions provider on-boarding process.
Our partners include but are not limited to Filecoin, Protocol Labs, Idexo, LandVault, Zokyo, Block8, OP Games, Vexed esports and Outlier Ventures.
Roadmap
2022 Q3
- Unity game integration and example back end development.
A.Top-down 3D single and multiplayer game built in unity:
a. Example Menu.
b. Lobby / Matchmaking.
c. Working Scene supporting single or multiple players.
d. Scripts for NEAR integrations.
e. Metamask Wallet Connecting NEAR.
f. Example Networking Controller.
B. JS API for invoking smart contracts and handling game business logic.
C. Smart Contracts Project.
D. Documentation and guide on each module of the project.
- Aggregation component built into our website for NEAR projects onboarding development.
Epics:
- NEAR application provider registration component.
- NEAR application provider profile.
- Front-end console for integration.
- Insights and reporting.
2022 Q4
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Unity game integration and example back end development completion and marketing launch.
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Web Aggregation Component for NEAR projects completion, marketing and onboarding.
Team
Paul-David Oosthuizen - CEO (Stakeholder management and commercial lead)
Jean-Pierre van Loggerenberg - CTO & Software Engineer (Project architect and lead engineer)
Marius Cojocaru - Core Software Engineer (Rust and Web)
Paul Miell - Software Engineer & Senior Game Designer
Victor Moore - Senior Visual Artist
Clare Roberts - QA
Alicia Bauling - QA
Costs
25 000 NEAR