Disrupting the Game Publishing Model Using NFTs & Tokens

LE7EL
6 min readFeb 12, 2024

LE7EL positions itself as the Web3 Infrastructure Layer powering the next generation of games & virtual worlds, offering;

  • Game Creation & Publishing Toolkit: Build and publish games using our SDK and publishing software;
  • P2P Servers: A decentralized network of P2P server nodes that powers games & virtual worlds;
  • Web3 Infrastructure & Creator Tools: NFT, tokens and smart contracts to own, trade and grow games and game assets;
  • Network Economy: Unique stakeholder reward system designed to ensure that those contributing to the network are the same that captures the value it generates;
  • UX Abstraction: Simplified Web3 integration for game creators, allowing their players to play and pay without a Web3 wallet and only on an optional basis convert their assets into NFTs or tokens for digital property rights and trading;
  • End to End Decentralization: Full decentralization of code, ownership, servers, and governance.
A sneak peek into what you can already do with LE7EL as a Player or Game Creator

The network can be considered a decentralized alternative to all the centralized attempts to control our future virtual lives.

One of its key goals is to mitigate excessive value extraction by game publishers, as outlined in this article.

Games need players, product/market fit and funding. Players need great games, and be able to co-create and co-own the games they love. Investors need access to great investment opportunities.

How do we balance all of these needs in form of a protocol that any game creator, any investor and any player can use — without relying on corporations or traditional game publishers?

DGP by LE7EL

Enter decentralized game publishing (“DGP”) by LE7EL.

LE7EL wants to disrupt the game publishing model by making it end-to-end- decentralized, while sourcing great games as possible adopters of the LE7EL network infrastructure and tools.

Let’s look at the lifecycle of a game using the DGP protocol;

1. Proof of Ownership: Game Creator submit their game whitepaper on-chain as proof of ownership, staking $50 worth of $L7L to prevent spam;

2. Initial Review: Players (Avatar holders) vote with their NFT if they like the idea or not. Votes are weighted depending on their level. Games over a certain minimal vote threshold pass to the next stage;

3. Due Diligence: Investors (L7 Investors holders) do a deeper review, considering their risks and opportunities, market, economy, team, funding so far and what additional funds are needed. To pass due diligence, investors need to commit capital and vote, with their votes being 1:1 to their commited capital, with options to set a max cap per NFT. Committed capital is deployed into LE7EL’s escrow protocol funded by Aragon and audited by Coinspect.

LE7ELs Escrow Protocol accessed from its P2P messenger

4. Fundraising: The game enters fundraising mode. If the game reaches its fundraising targets based on what is identified earlier as its needs, it passes to the next stage, if not — all funds including the funds committed by investors on the previous step are returned from the escrow protocol.

5. Game development: Game uses its funds raised to develop the game. They can develop their game on any engine or infrastructure they like, including the LE7EL network.

6. Publishing: Game is published on the platform of their liking. If they publish on the LE7EL infrastructure they are eligible for Creator rewards as outlined in this article.

Note: If the game does not need funds and/or does not plan any token or NFT, it goes straight from Stage 2 to Stage 6.

DGP by LE7EL can be summarized as a permissionless allowlist, fundraising and game publishing tool across the Web3 gaming space — that can be used by any game, launchpad or app — where LE7EL will host the first UX and be its first user for its own game reviews, pre-sales, airdrops and giveways.

Let’s look at this protocol from the perspectives of both investors and players.

INVESTORS (“L7 Investors”)

The L7 Investors NFT is a core building block in the DGP protocol, as they can be utilized by any game, launchpad or project in Web3 that is looking for a decentralized allowlist to attract highly experienced people that will add long term value to their projects, specifically for these purposes;

a) Incentivized reviews;

b) NFT & token sales;

c) Giveaways;

d) Airdrops;

e) Quests,

d) Events,

and more.

For you as a holder, it means that you can get access these benefits listed above in LE7EL and across games, launchpads and apps in the Web3 space, if the NFTs get widely adopted. And as we stated above, LE7EL will be its own first user, using the NFTs as an allowlist for its own exclusive pre-sales, airdrops, events and giveaways.

Our thesis is that as these NFTs are being increasingly adopted across the LE7EL ecosystem and third party projects as an allowlist with all their benefits for holders, their market value will increase, and they will eventually float through secondary markets to an increasingly more capable group of holders, which again will add significant value to the projects that are utilizing them.

L7 Investors NFT in image form, check it in video form here

The protocol also supports staking, so projects can decide to include token stakes to the NFT wallet as a tier mechanism for their allowlist.

The supply is immutably set to 1111, as LE7EL has revoked its minting rights, to ensure that this allowlist stays as exclusive and dense as possible over time as the Web3 gaming space continues to grow.

PLAYERS (“Avatars”)

Avatars are already being utilized to measure and reward on-chain activity for Players of games in the LE7EL network, as described in this article. However, as we described above, they can also be used as tool to incentivize game reviews, as described in the “2. Initial Review” section above. As we know, players are the final judges when it comes to whether a game is successful or not.

Example of one of LE7EL’s Avatar NFTs minted Christmas 2023

Avatars will rank game ideas with their level as their weight, earning $PXP in the process that they can use to level up their Avatars. $PXP is an untradeable token with no market value and is only used to measure and reward activity in $L7L. These NFTs have an unlimited supply and costs 5 MATIC to mint, and can be minted by performing this quest in the LE7EL web app.

UTILITY TOKEN (“$L7L”)

At the heart of it all is $L7L, a payment medium that incentivizes necessary actions and distributes value among the core stakeholders of the LE7EL network.

The demand side of $L7L is driven by the following factors:

  • Players spend $L7L to pay for game passes or in-game items;
  • Creators spend $L7L to pay for transaction commissions, node network fees and portals placed in other games to attract traffic to their game;
  • Contributors bond $L7L to stay whitelisted as a contributor;
  • Operators bond $L7L to run network infrastructure;
  • Investors stake $L7L on their NFT to increase their tiers and benefits in projects that uses staked tokens as a tier mechanism.

The supply side of $L7L is based on the following:

  • Creators get rewards for making games and charging players for in-game items in $L7L;
  • Players get rewards for playing games and spending $L7L for in-game items;
  • Contributors get rewards for making software that all other stakeholders need;
  • Operators get rewards for running network infrastructure.

Eventually, it may also become a gas coin for the LE7EL chain.

JOIN THE NETWORK

LE7EL is live with over 140 games & worlds published;

Web app: https://le7el.com

Desktop app (PC): https://le7el.com/download/

Join our commuity: https://discord.gg/le7el

Thanks for reading this article about how LE7EL uses NFTs and tokens to disrupt the current game publishing model!

— The LE7EL team

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