Yuga Labs has launched a new premium NFT game, but its high entry fee can cost new players dearly.
Yuga Labs, creators of the successful NFT series Bored Ape Yacht Club, Mutant Ape Yacht Club, Bored Ape Kennel Club, and the Otherside metaverse, have launched their first Web3 game called Dookey Dash.
Owners of Bored Apes and Mutant Apes will be able to mint “Sewer Passes” for free, which are NFTs required to play. A total of 23,390 passes have been issued to four tier owners, with higher tier owners receiving in-game rewards and exclusive content. The top pass is given to wallets containing Bored Ape and Kennel NFTs, and the bottom pass is given to wallets containing Mutant Ape NFTs.
Dookey Dash came out on January 19th and will only be playable for three weeks until February 8th. The game is an “endless runner”, reminiscent of the popular mobile game Temple Run, in which the gameplay requires dodging obstacles and collecting special items.
The more items the player collects and the longer they wander through the sewer system, the higher their score. The goal of the game is to score the most points among all players within three weeks. The top players will receive special prizes, which have yet to be announced.
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Yuga Labs is known for creating the world’s most valuable personal profile picture (PFP) NFT collection through its Bored Ape universe. The Bored Ape Yacht Club series originally minted 10,000 units at 0.08 ETH per NFT (~$200) in April 2021, inspiring loyal community members followed by subsequent releases, live events, and brand partnerships. Reward them.
Across all NFT sister series and crypto projects, the Bored Ape universe has a combined market capitalization of approximately $4.3 billion, including Bored Apes ($1.1 billion), Mutant Apes ($440 million), Kennels ($122 million), Otherdeeds for Otherside ($267). million), ApeCoin ($2.3 billion) and Sewer Pass ($112 million).
In March 2022, venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz invested $450 million in Yuga Labs at a $4 billion valuation to fund the growth of the Bored Ape ecosystem. Yuga Labs is in the early stages of creating its own surreal world, The Otherside, much of which is shrouded in mystery. Despite the secrecy surrounding their plans for the Metaverse, Yuga Labs managed to sell 55,000 NFT Otherside deeds representing virtual earth rights in the future Metaverse, generating over $318 million in primary sales last year.
Yuga Labs recently hired Spencer Tucker as its first director of games, showing the company’s focus on developing consumer-facing Web3 games. Tucker previously held senior management positions at mobile game companies Scopely and GREE.
Axie Infinity is a pioneering Web3 game that launched the “play to earn” reward phenomenon in 2018. Play and Earn is a way for early projects to drive user growth by rewarding players with their own protocol token for participating in games. a sharp drop in the bear market due to an overabundance of constantly issued new tokens. Axie’s monthly active users have dropped 85% to 430,000 over the past 30 days from 2.8 million in January 2021, and AXS’s native governance token has fallen 93% from an all-time high of $160 to $11 today.
Axie Infinity is a mass-market game that primarily attracts players from developing countries such as Thailand, the Philippines, and Vietnam, while Dookey Dash is launching as a value-added game that rewards existing community members in the Bored Ape universe. In addition, Dookey Dash has a limited run time compared to Axie and does not have its own gaming tokens to reward users.
“The future of gaming will be driven by player ownership, social collaboration and creative expression,” Spencer Tucker, Director of Games, Yuga Labs.
At the time of writing, Sewer Passes are trading at 25,200 ETH (approximately $40.3 million), and Yuga Labs has made $2 million in secondary sales to date, with 5% royalty applied to the NFT series. At the current pace, Yuga Labs could earn about $5 million in royalties in three weeks.
Yuga Labs, which values exclusivity over affordability, has always seen itself as a luxury brand that creates premium digital products and experiences.
Dookey Dash is not intended for the mass market, which is attracting new players to the Bored Ape ecosystem. Instead, it aims to reward existing community members with tradable game passes that provide access to web browser-based games and have value in secondary markets. To date, the game has 19,000 unique players and has been played over 3.6 million times.
The base price of the Sewer Pass is currently 2.9 ETH (approximately $4,600), which means players outside the Bored Ape ecosystem will have to pay that amount to play the game. The fact that Yuga airdrop entries will reward players with new NFTs based on their performance supports a higher floor price as speculators can bet on the future value of NFT rewards and their gaming skills.
This naturally raises questions about the value and usefulness of these passes after the game is over. A source familiar with Yuga Labs revealed that Sewer Pass holders will have access to the next iteration of their virtual world, The Summoning, which is still shrouded in mystery. With February 8 approaching, it’s reasonable to expect plumbing prices for sewer passages to fall.
Note. Token holders can delegate tokens to users so that they can try out games without physical storage of assets, but these mechanisms must be negotiated separately.
Interestingly, prior to the launch of the Sewer Pass NFT, Bored Ape sales were stagnant, however, Mutant Ape sales rose from around $2 million a day a few days ago to over $6 million on the day the Sewer Pass was released. The base price of Mutant Apes is lower than Bored Apes ($21,500 vs. $102,000 respectively), so new customers who can buy Mutant Apes with a pass are relatively more affordable. Over the next few days, Mutant Ape sales dropped to $1 million, presumably due to the pass being released.
Projects that continue to benefit the community will continue to exist despite the vicissitudes of the NFT and cryptocurrency market cycles. Alternatively, many projects “pulled up” their communities, indicating that they gave up and stopped the development of the project, or did not fulfill their promises to the holders. Yuga Labs appears determined to continue to benefit its NFT holders.
Investors and NFT enthusiasts should look for projects with a history of fulfillment and promise fulfillment. To increase accountability and avoid pull, holders should maintain self-continuing project teams, which means team members reveal their real identity rather than remain anonymous.
Exclusive games for certain members of the NFT community are just one of the ways the project rewards owners and builds their loyalty over time. Other approaches include creating exclusive media content and experiences such as movies, TV shows, music, live streaming, physical goods, and other forms of intellectual property that resonate with the audience.
However, anyone considering buying a pass on the open market should proceed with caution. Relatively illiquid tokens with an uncertain value can be subject to high volatility. Unless investors are determined to play Dookey Dash and be among the game’s top scorers, it’s hard to justify paying over $4,000 for a pass. Yuga Labs has yet to reveal the rewards and utility that will be provided to pass owners after the game ends on February 8, and the value of the NFT sewer pass will likely drop before the game expires.
Post time: Jan-29-2023