Proposal: Experimental Incentive Program for Arbitrum Game Builders(for Discussion)

Grants Discussions
1

Proposal: Experimental Incentive Program for Arbitrum Game Builders(for Discussion)

Proposer

Hello ArbitrumDAO,

I am Blank, the co-founder of Scattering, the instant liquidity market for NFTs on Arbitrum, and RentFun, the NFT rental protocol on Arbitrum, which is also a grant winner from the foundation.

Having been a small builder in the games and NFT space on Arbitrum for over a year, I aspire to see Arbitrum become the best and only home for decentralized games like TreasureDAO. This vision is crucial for our business, which relies on the success of Arbitrum and its games/NFTs.

Therefore, I am presenting this proposal to ensure that the voices of games/NFT builders are heard. If you observe, the majority of forum proposals come from DeFi protocols discussing incentives, while there are very few from game builders. The Arbitrum DAO should seriously consider why this discrepancy exists.

Please note: this proposal is not finalized yet, and it is only for discussion and check whether the ArbitrumDAO is interested in moving forward quickly to incentivize and grow the native game builders on arbitrum.

I’ve gleaned valuable insights from the post of Learnings from Stip Community Interview Summaries and Notes titled “Hesitance to Speak Up.”

Please pardon any errors in my contributions to this discussion thread. My sole intention is to contribute to the improvement of Arbitrum as a preferred platform for games like Treasuredao by expressing my genuine thoughts.

Abstract

It all began with the proposal of pitching TreasureDAO to build a superchain on the Op stack from Optimism (https://twitter.com/Fwiz/status/1752130755894120909), followed by the ZK Stack proposal (https://twitter.com/Ozhar/status/1752479114852815343).

Perhaps within the next 24 hours, another proposal may emerge to attract the TreasureDao team😂

For further insights into why TreasureDao has a compelling reason to engage in this discussion, I have elaborated on it in this post: https://twitter.com/Blanklee3/status/1752288907180552504.

TL;DR:

  • Treasure Chain is a new blockchain seeking incentives and funds to attract both treasure and new games in the future. However, they continue to rely on magic tokens, limiting the potential for significant incentives that a completely new chain could provide. This is a common and realistic challenge for new chains.
  • The Arbitrum DAO is somewhat dominated by DeFi space builders and degens. Consequently, there is insufficient voice and attention given to treasure and game builders, at least from the game builders’ perspective.
  • Undoubtedly, the Arbitrum Orbit Stack boasts the most user-friendly and customizable technology for the Treasure DAO team. This observation is widely acknowledged. Yet, as a small and new builder, I recognize that technical aspects alone may not guarantee 100% success for a new chain. Blast’s success, for instance, wasn’t solely due to technical factors. Therefore, if other chains like Optimism(Op) and zkSync offer better funding and support, and their technical capabilities are comparable, it is worth the Treasure team’s consideration for their optimal benefits.

My thoughts find expression in Karel’s response to AvgJoesCrypto’s argument, which can be viewed here: https://twitter.com/karelvuong/status/1752376789513453802

In this response, Karel expresses hope that the Arbitrum DAO will attract increased attention and support, enabling it to move swiftly despite its experimental nature and willingness to make bold bets.

The situation is straightforward. If the Arbitrum DAO intends to support TreasureDAO, which has made significant contributions to the gaming ecosystem on Arbitrum, it should address their current situation. Continuing to focus solely on technical aspects (which are known to every Arbitrum enthusiast) may not be as beneficial in achieving this goal, if indeed there is a desire to support them.

Motivation

However, I don’t want to propose the incentive plans for TreasureDao in this proposal because Treasure has already attracted enough attention through this “competition” and possesses sufficient bargaining power. I believe that whether they choose arbitrage (arb) or operate (op), the Treasure team will secure the best deal in the end.

What I do want to propose is a plan for every small game builder on the Arbitrum or Orbit chains.

Are the Op or Zk advocating for the Treasure Team?

NO!

They are advocating for approximately 15 solid treasure games and communities standing behind Treasure. They are placing significant bets on web3 games, not on the Treasure team.

Therefore, ArbitrumDAO should focus more on how to make it a better home for all web3 game builders.

Only by doing this, will the TreasureDao team stay, and there may be a second or third “TreasureDao” on Arbitrum or Orbit chains.

Again, please don’t solely focus on the technical side; otherwise, Arbitrum Nova is already very successful, but we all know its current performance.

Therefore, I propose a dedicated Experimental Incentive Program for Games(EIPG), whether they are outside or inside of Treasure.

This plan involves quick funding for each game builder, providing 30K USDT-valued arb tokens from the treasury, with an easy and expedited process.

Specifications

Quoted from @AvgJoesCrypto: “Since the treasury holds 3.52 billion $ARB, it is the largest treasury in all of crypto. The Arbitrum DAO can spend just under $4 billion and still maintain its position as the largest treasury in the crypto space.”

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Grant Program: Experimental Incentive Program for Games(EIPG) on Arbitrum and Orbit Chains

Objective:

  • The EIPG aims to provide timely and substantial financial support to game builders, developers of game-dev tools, and liquidity marketplaces for game NFTs on Arbitrum and Orbit Chains. This program seeks to empower new, small, medium, and established builders in the gaming ecosystem, fostering innovation and growth within a condensed time frame.
  • Expand the gaming sphere within the ARB, employing metrics such as transaction count, player presence (both on and off-chain), retention ratio, expenditure, player satisfaction, and playtime. Utilize these indicators as benchmarks to gauge the accomplishment of the stated objective.

Budget Allocation: 30M $ARB tokens

Grant Size((based on unique user base and NFTs market cap/trading volume) :

  • New and Small Builders: 30K USDT each with a streamlined 3-week review process
  • Medium Builders: 30K USDT to 100K USDT each with a comprehensive 4-week review process
  • Big Names: Budgets up to 1M USDT each, subject to a thorough 6-week review and voting process

Targeted Areas:

  • Game builders operating on Arbitrum or Orbit Chains
  • game-dev tools

Application Process:

  • Interested parties must submit grant applications detailing their project, goals, and budgetary requirements.
  • Review timelines vary based on the builder category, ensuring a balanced and efficient evaluation process.
  • Grant recipients are encouraged to expedite project development, maximizing the impact of the allocated funds.

Grant Committee:

  • A dedicated committee will be established to oversee the grant evaluation and decision-making process.
  • The committee will predominantly consist of esteemed game builders with recognized expertise on Arbitrum.
  • The committee could not vote for their own proposal.
  • And committee members should get a payout of $ARB that has to be stated so people will want to step forward to participate in the committee.

Key Considerations:

  • Emphasis on supporting projects that contribute to the growth and sustainability of the gaming ecosystem on Arbitrum and Orbit Chains.
  • Transparent and inclusive decision-making processes, incorporating community input through a voting system.
  • Continuous improvement of the grant program based on feedback from the gaming community and evolving industry trends.

Conclusion

The Experimental Incentive Program for Games(EIPG) for games is designed to catalyze innovation and accelerate the development of games on Arbitrum and Orbit Chains.

By providing timely and substantial financial support, we aim to empower builders of all scales and contribute to the vibrant and dynamic gaming landscape within Arbitrum Eco.

3 Likes
2

Supporting game builders is crucial; however, assigning 30 million $ARB tokens appears overly generous. Redirecting the budget towards initiatives that benefit the broader ecosystem might be a more strategic use of resources. The proposal lacks a transparent justification for the chosen budget, and providing a more detailed breakdown could enhance understanding and justification for such a substantial allocation.

2 Likes
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Hello,
Thank you for the interesting offer and detailed description.
I’ll make a few points:

  1. I don’t yet see the difference between game development projects and DEFI. If game developers do not apply for funding, then this proposal will not change anything. Perhaps developers need to be made more aware that this possibility already exists.
  2. Financing can be of 2 types. Grants, as you suggest, are intended to boost the product and the opportunity to show off at an early stage of development. A small cost of 30,000 EPIRBs is acceptable in this case. In the case of 1,000,000 ARB, in my opinion, only Investment is possible, that is, becoming a shareholder of the project, the owner of its part. Otherwise, the DAO may simply lose a large amount of funds without receiving any return.
  3. If you create such a grant program, then it is worth doing the first stage with a small amount, as an experiment.
2 Likes
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Hi I’m a indie game dev coming from web2 and building in web3 using L1 and L2 blockchains.
I am currently building AR citizen: an augmented reality open world game where users can explore tasks and check in to get rewards from home. This AR map will be human scale and will be a 2nd layer on top of the real world.
We have currently applied to the funding round on jokerrace.

I am interested in more opportunities for small game developers to get funding or traction because usually this is the hardest part, and this sounds great but I think there should be more communication and real updates with a dated schedule to show the progress coming from the devs to acquire these funds.

I also think projects with already massive amounts of acquired funding should be less prioritized to give more opportunities to the new indie game devs.

From experience, It doesn’t take 100k to build an indie game that’s just a beta version of the app more like 5k - 20k to get started assuming the dev already has the hardware and software to build. After that then there should be a second round of funds allocated after the first funding batch to initialize the devs.

3 Likes
5

I very much like the idea behind this proposal.

upporting game builders is crucial; however, assigning 30 million $ARB tokens appears overly generous. Redirecting the budget towards initiatives that benefit the broader ecosystem might be a more strategic use of resources. The proposal lacks a transparent justification for the chosen budget, and providing a more detailed breakdown could enhance understanding and justification for such a substantial allocation.

Not sure I agree with this in relation to what other L2’s are spending to incentivize gaming this is not a crazy amount. However, the proposal made can probably be structured better

Grant Size((based on unique user base and NFTs market cap/trading volume) :

  • New and Small Builders: 30K USDT each with a streamlined 3-week review process
  • Medium Builders: 30K USDT to 100K USDT each with a comprehensive 4-week review process
  • Big Names: Budgets up to 1M USDT each, subject to a thorough 6-week review and voting process

I think attaching milestones to grants is more interesting than a one-off grant depending on your size. It aligns and incentivizes better. Also have to be careful that usage numbers are not tampered with to achieve milestones so a proper monitoring program needs to be in place.

2 Likes
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Hi @blanklee

First, I would like to mention that I’m a bit concerned that having “the largest treasury in the crypto space” is mentioned as a reason to spend, I think it’s something we should stop bringing up (both in this and the other proposals). Arbitrum DAO must take care of its treasury and its spending should be sustainable in the long term regardless of its size.

On the other hand, you have mentioned that this would be an experimental program, while I agree that the industry has potential, using almost 1% of the treasury in an “experiment” exclusively dedicated to gaming is overly generous as @Jl_DefiEdge said. To give some context, it has recently been voted to fund with 45.8M ARB a long-term incentives program that is iterating the STIP and is covering several arbitrum ecosystem verticals.

I honestly consider that we need to be careful about creating too many committees. While I think they are necessary, imagine having an exclusive grant program for each industry of the arbitrum ecosystem and each with its own committee.

Anyway, in this case, there are a few things to determine first, how many people could compose the committee? How much would be paid to each member?

How do you plan to implement this voting system?

I believe that the proposal in general lacks consideration of the follow-up of funded projects, as well as their duties to report updates. All of this is essential for the community to provide genuine feedback.

Finally, I suggest that instead of continuing to create isolated grant programs for different aspects of the ecosystem, we should focus on generating a framework that will serve as a basis for awarding grants throughout the entire arbitrum ecosystem.

This opinion is my own and does not reflect the one of SEEDLatam Gov.

1 Like
7

There are some good points here; a couple can be reasonably addressed, while some others are fatal.

Using a high ceiling for a budget does not suggest the actual budget implementation will be that high. If the program continues to prove successful, the DAO should want the budget to be utilized up to the ceiling. However, it would benefit the DAO in advance to establish the metrics it would want to measure individual projects and the incentive program as a whole.

Committee Structure

Unfortunately must agree. In order to provide a committee a large budget, it should have both a structure and defined processes. This should not count against the idea of this particular fund, but as proposed there is a remarkable lack of substance for a large ARB distribution.

Structuring a Successful Gaming Program

A successful gaming program could take many forms. One example could be as follows:

First ringfence funds through a vote, without providing unilateral control to a particular committee or even moving the funds. Make this a green light, to approve the structure of the program considered.

A small portion of those funds could be set aside in a multisg for operations to fund reviews by a due diligence committee (e.g. 1000 ARB for 5 people to review for 2 hours). Proposals must then meet pre-determined criteria to qualify for a review. The initial hard work goes into the template and basic gatekeeping. The high bar for applicants elicits a better signal to noise.

These proposals could be reviewed by the committee, if it meets certain criteria it can be approved to go to vote. Approved proposals could then be bundled and voted on as a set or individual on some cadence that is not burdensome to governance. Once you have the first round of successful projects, you fund the multisig in accordance with defined operating procedures.

Proposals only 500k ARB or above could be considered to start, this means either you get people investing the work upfront with the appropriate talent, or not. With a high floor you reduce the number of applicants and reviews are easier.

Regardless, there are plenty of solid ways to structure something like this, but it requires work and time. A good step would just be to set aside a modest budget to fund proposals to structure an EIPG properly.

Would be happy to help if people genuinely want to support gaming.

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Hi frens who commented,

Apologies for the delayed response; I had been anticipating feedback on this proposal within the Proposals section. However, after noticing the lack of response over the past few days, I refrained from circling back.

While initially proposing the LTIPP program for Scattering, I observed that my proposal had been shifted from the proposal topic to the grant discussion topic.

You’re correct in pointing out that this proposal seems more suited for discussion to gather feedback from the DAO and optimize it accordingly. Moreover, I aim to use this opportunity to emphasize the significance of gaming builders on Arbitrum to the DAO.

However, it appears that there may not be a necessity for this approach, given that XAI and Treasuredao have already introduced a gaming proposal. In light of this, I won’t pursue further action on this proposal and instead defer to their proposal for the benefit of gaming builders on Arbitrum.

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yeah, keep building!