Finch West Project Proposal

[Finchwest]

Finch West Project Proposal

Detailed project proposal attached:
Finch West Project Proposal v0.09 (updated 11.22.2019).pdf

About

Project name:
Finch West

Project description

• The Finch West project aims to build four guilds on the upcoming Ember Sword blockchain game, which will include video game assets (cosmetics and emotes) and ownership of land within the game
• These guilds will function as decentralized organizations, which will take advantage of the Aragon platform

Where did you hear about the Nest program and what prompted you to apply?:
Our project requires the use of decentralized organizations. Our search for the appropriate blockchain to enable our project has led us to Aragon (through a Google Search). After reviewing the Aragon website, we realized that the Nest program would be a great opportunity to fund our project, while partnering with Aragon to help us realize our vision.

Team

Name of the project lead:
Mohad Ali (https://www.linkedin.com/in/mohadali/)

Email address of the project lead (whoever is filling out this application)
[e-mail]

List each other member that is/would be working on this project (LinkedIn/GitHub profiles are preferred but not required)

• Demetri Palmer
• Kunnal Kainth
  Note: 5 others have expressed interest in participating in the project, but will be onboarded after the initial planning phase

What are the main roles of each team member?
The project has 8 stated roles: Project Management, Web Administration, Asset Development, World Building, Marketing Communications, Community Development, Financial Management, Partner Management

Given the current state of the project, team members have not yet been assigned to their respective roles.

Has the team already worked together? (please provide details)
Yes - the team has worked together closely and previously built 2 projects:

• Enthoosi: a video game market analytics dashboard (powered by Microsoft PowerBI)
• Air Combo: a video game project management tool for indie game developers (using Wordpress)

Is your team already present on the Aragon Forum? If Yes, what are your usernames?
Yes - recently created account (Finchwest)

Progress

How far along are you?
Our project is currently in the pre-production stage. As of January 2019, we have been staying in close contact with the Ember Sword team and brainstorming our world building/cosmetic assets

Is anyone using your product/application?
Not yet - please see project timeline for additional details (PG 13 of the attachment)
If yes, How many active users do you have and what kind of feedback have you received?
N/A - however, we have received very positive feedback on the idea from other gamers
If you've applied previously with the same idea, how much progress have you made since the last time you applied? What has changed?
N/A - this is our first application

Idea Problem

Why did you pick this idea to work on? Do you have domain expertise in this area?
In the past, our team has participated in projects that offer services to independent video game developers (Enthoosi/Air Combo). As video game and blockchain enthusiasts, our thesis is that blockchain gaming has turned video game items into financial assets. For this reason, gamer guilds will function like decentralized organizations

What's new about what you're making? What do people resort to because it doesn't exist yet (or they don't know about it)?
We're planning to build a use case for gamer guilds as decentralized organizations in blockchain MMORPGs. We are confident that this will be a model for millions of gamers in the near future and we plan to be the first public experiment.

Currently, a large market exists for gamers to buy in-game assets, but they are not able to resell them. Blockchain gaming plans to address this and our project will demonstrate the true value of blockchain gaming for MMO gamers.

Have you talked to people about what you're making? Do people want it and do you have examples of this?
For years, we have spoken to gamers in a variety of gaming communities (across console and PC games) to better understand the challenges developers and players are facing. We built the Finch West project to fit our analysis - blockchain gaming will fundamentally change the gaming industry and players can take part in this value creation by building guilds who act as decentralized organizations.

A clear example of guilds who would be well served by our project will be the guilds currently forming around the Ember Sword game currently in development.

Market

What is the target market or end user in mind for this project?
The target market is made up of 3 groups: Ember Sword players, the overall gaming market and players in the Greater Toronto Area. For more detail, please see the attached project proposal
What are the alternatives or competitors to this project?
While there are no direct competitors, the alternative is unorganized gamer guilds acting inefficiently. Over the years, there may be a slow evolution of gamers figuring out what we've already learned, but we plan to accelerate this through our project

How will this project get users? If your project is the type that faces a chicken-and-egg problem in the sense that it won't be attractive to users until it has a lot of users (e.g. a marketplace), how will you overcome that?
The project includes an aggressive marketing campaign and a continual pull of new users through the Ember Sword social platforms and across other social media. This type of pull marketing is also designed to attract users to form new guilds on the Aragon platform

Legal

Will you be using an Aragon DAO for operating this project and receiving the funds? Yes/No
Yes - our project requires a DAO to be created for Gamer Guilds and will be the central component of our project

Are any of the project team members covered by non-competes or intellectual property agreements that overlap with your project? If so, please explain.
No

Aragon

Why do you think Aragon is a good fit for this project?
Aragon's core goal of enabling decentralized organizations is also the core component of the Finch West project, which is to enable gamer guilds as decentralized organizations. Given our thesis and vision (detailed in the attached proposal), we need a pre-existing platform that helps us build decentralized organizations, while we handle the other technical, organizational and marketing challenges of our project.

As blockchain gaming becomes one of the biggest applications of blockchain technology, Aragon should have a product ready in its portfolio to address this.

Are there any existing Aragon projects that are similar or complementary to your project?
We have not yet found Aragon projects that serve the same purpose. However, a number of Aragon apps are quite useful in moving our project forward (Payroll, Agent, Time Lock, Token Request, Memberships).

Funding

How much money are you requesting as a grant? (the maximum grant size we provide is $150k in USD value)
Finch West is requesting $145,000 from the Aragon Grant

Have you already received any grants or funds from 3rd parties? If yes, how much?
No.

Are you applying for funding to any other DAO platforms or grant programs? If so, that is not a problem as it increases the likelihood of your success, but it's important that we can take that into consideration if your project relies on multiple grants.
No.

How do you plan to deploy grant funds? (split between research/development/marketing/etc)
Please see our proposal (attached) for the outline of funding in further detail.

• Labour: $30K
• Marketing Comms/PR: $10K
• Promotional artwork: $5K
• PIXEL Private Pre-sale: $35K
• LAND: $65K

What is your expected monthly burn rate?
Average burn rate is $4,833.33USD ($145K/30 months)
However, the burn rate for labor will be $1,000USD per month for 30 months

Do you think this project will require additional funds once you have depleted the grant funds? If so, why? Where do you plan on acquiring further funding?
We do not anticipate that the project will require funds once they have been depleted. This is because our project is designed with the intention of building assets and commercial interaction in the blockchain gaming industry. Specifically, we will be selling the assets and services on the Ember Sword game beginning Q1 2022.

Roadmap

How long do you plan on working on this project before shipping?
We plan to develop the project between January 2020 until the game launch in Q1 2022.

What are the key milestones you have to accomplish before you can ship a production ready product to users?
Finch West project activities and milestones correspond with the Ember Sword game development timeline. The key milestones will be the following:

• PIXEL private pre-sale: Q2 2020
• LAND auction: Q4 2020
• Promotional artwork: Q2 2021
• Marketing Communications Campaign: Q4 2021

In addition, a number of smaller milestones and timelines have yet to be determined corresponding to game assets in development (i.e. world building and cosmetic development)

Notes

Is there anything else you would like to share or ask us?
Please see the detailed project proposal (link above), which outlines our vision, as well as the market potential and project parameters

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Thank you for applying! A Nest team member will read and reply to this application within 72 hours. They will ask questions to better understand your project and then they will help you improve your application to maximize your success in the Nest program. If you have any questions as to what this looks like or next steps, please see our Frequently Asked Questions page for more info.

Once again, thank you for applying to the Nest program. We look forward to working with you!

[Aaron Abu Usama]

Hey @Finchwest Thanks for Applying to Nest!

Organisations within games are indeed an excellent usecase for Aragon DAOs. The economic activity within MMORPG games can really take off.

However, the Nest program generally focuses on teams developing Aragon infrastructure as opposed to direct usecase.

I do have some initial questions.

On the Project

The Finch West project aims to build four guilds

• What exactly is a guild?
• why four? Presumably they would compete for resources and talent (I don't knowmuch about gaming)

On the Financials
The $100k for PIXEL presale and land, this would be land and tokens you buy from Developers?

Is a $1k per month burn rate for two employees? You also mention 10 other roles, how will those employees be finance?

On the size of the market

• Is this the first game from the developers?

• How many active users does the developers have in their other games?

• I had a quick look on like and found a discord server with 2500 people, what makes you confident the economic activity within the game will be enough to sustain your business?

[Finchwest]

Hi there, Thanks very much for having such a thorough a look at our proposal and for your follow-up. We've included our responses (in blue) below:

Hi @ Thanks for Applying to Nest Organisations within games are indeed an excellent usecase for Aragon DAOs. The economic activity within MMORPG games can really take off. However, the Nest program generally focuses on teams developing Aragon infrastructure as opposed to direct usecase.

We do understand that Aragon's Nest program focuses on infrastructure-building projects, so we'd like to thank you for your consideration of this type of project. We're hoping that Finch West being included in the Nest portfolio will improve the functional value of *your *infrastructural projects, while offering usefulness to *our *project - so it's a win-win. I do have some initial questions.

*On the Project* The Finch West project aims to build four guilds - What exactly is a guild? Quite simply, Guilds (also known as "clans" depending on the game) are

teams of individuals who coordinate to play the same game online. They can be very large or small in size and can interact with other guilds cooperatively or competitively. An example of a typical guild would be a team who unites several times a week to go on quests in the game (e.g. slay a monster in the game), where the game rewards them all in experience points. Their communal effort allows them to earn more than they could have earned alone and they train together so each player assumes a unique role (e.g. one member provides the team with health). Since their learning, operations and financial gains are shared (according to their structure), they function as a type of organization.

- why four? Presumably they would compete for resources and talent (I don't knowmuch about gaming) The primary reason for having *four *guilds is to ensure they will each

have a distinct theme that gamers enjoy (e.g. horror thematic vs. a trendy urban thematic). We're currently in the process of building these themes in detail (i.e. "worldbuilding"), but they are meant to be Mutually Exclusive and Collectively Exhaustive ("MECE"). To showcase the full potential of guilds, our four guilds won't have overlapping assets or services and they will be positioned on opposite corners of the game map. The success of all four guilds will effectively prove that guilds of varying themes and distinct offerings can be functionally and financially successful, as long as they organize on Aragon.

*On the Financials* The $100k for PIXEL presale and land, this would be land and tokens you buy from Developers?

This is correct. We plan to take part in both the PIXEL pre-sale and LAND auction, which will give us the ability to establish large and powerful guilds in Ember Sword. For example, we will use the PIXEL token to buy building structures (like marketplaces) that will be placed on top of the land. Is a $1k per month burn rate for two employees? You also mention 10 other

roles, how will those employees be finance?

We've estimated the project's burn rate to be equally split among the *roles*, as opposed to the *individuals *taking on those roles. So initially, $1K is equally sub-divided among the 3 of us doing the 8 roles. As new individuals join the project, they will assume 1 or more roles and therefore will assume a proportionate share of the $1K during the months they are active. This approach is meant to ensure disciplined project funding across the 30 months - it will allow us to take on as many people as *required*, while preventing us from acquiring *redundant *people. *On the size of the market*

*Is this the first game from the developers?

The team building the game are from a company called SoCouch Studios <https://socouch.com/#the-team>, based in Copenhagen Denmark. This will be the first game in the SoCouch Studios portfolio. However, they've worked together for many years and have collectively worked on both indie games and commercial AAA games (high profile, blockbuster titles), including Guild Wars, Kaos War, Aquanox, Blitzkrieg, and a variety of web titles. They've also got a team of Advisors and Ambassadors with a deep background in AAA games, eSports and blockchain technologies. If you'd like additional background info on the game itself, here are a couple of useful links: - SouCouch Studios <https://socouch.com/> - the team building the game - EmberSword <https://embersword.com/> - the game website (currently in development) *How many active users does the developers have in their other games?

Since this is SoCouch Studios' first game, we're unable to provide active user counts. *I had a quick look on like and found a discord server with 2500 people,

what makes you confident the economic activity within the game will be enough to sustain your business?

While Ember Sword currently has 2,252 users on their discord and 14,844 subscribed to their mailing list, it's still in the very early stages of their project development. So we consider these to be very positive numbers given the stage of their project. We've also heard from a number of MMO gamers who are very excited about Ember Sword and its potential (i.e. this game will use the blockchain to solve their biggest issues with MMO gaming). As Ember Sword continues its development for a Q1 2022 launch, we anticipate their marketing team to considerably ramp up their efforts using the funding they'll receive after the PIXEL pre-sale and LAND auction, which we're confident will result in *at least 100-250K daily active users*. We sincerely hope this answers your questions, but please feel free to reach out if you'd like further clarification. Kind regards, Finch West Team

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[Finchwest]

Hi Aragon team,

A great presentation was just posted to YouTube that illustrates the impact of blockchain gaming on decentralized organizations, so we wanted to recommend the Aragon team have a look: [https://youtu.be/2l9kVi9lTpk]

The video was posted yesterday, but was originally presented at Devcon 5 in Osaka Japan back in October. The presenter (Chris Robison) is part of a blockchain gaming startup (https://hoard.exchange) and we think he truly understands our thesis statement.

His arguments about decentralized organizations in gaming ("on-chain guilds") starts at 13:00, but we recommend watching the full video.

Have a great weekend
- Finch West team

[Aaron Abu Usama]

Unfortunately, we will not be moving forward with your proposal at this time. Nest is focused on infrastructure projects at the moment and we do not feel this proposal is the right fit. We hope you stick around in the Aragon community and build awesome stuff here.

All the best