VULKAN'S VOTE: Find Out More About AIP-78; Which Aims To Make A Series Of Bored Ape Themed Games

This week, we have AIP-78 up for voting. It involves Ape Worlds, an ape-themed version of the Vy Worlds game. It’s actually the first gaming proposal that has made it to the Live AIP stage. Let’s dive in and learn more about it.

Pass or fail, the aspect of this proposal that excites me the most is the fact it has started the conversation of what types of games the ApeCoin DAO should help fund.

Gaming is going to be a huge part of The Otherside and the entire ApeCoin ecosystem. It’s important we ensure the types of games we help fund will bring large amounts of people into the ApeCoin ecosystem, bring utility to ApeCoin, and garner long-lasting interest.

AIP-3 has allocated up to 3.2% of the Ecosystem Fund for game development to be paid out from March 17, 2022 until December 31, 2022. That is a significant amount of money. However, this doesn’t necessarily mean we should spend that entire portion of the budget by the end of this year. Any unused funds would remain in the DAO treasury and be available in the future.

On the topic of funding, this proposal is asking for one million ApeCoin, roughly $7 million today. I know game development is very, very expensive and blockchain developers are as well, but this is a big, big ask. I would prefer the Vy Worlds team build out a smaller portion of the game first for a lower budget. Their proposal does include the grant payments dispersed 25% at a time as each interval is unlocked, but it’s still the same amount of money when the entire project is completed.

The proposal also mentions goals of reaching one million wallets connected and playing the Ape Worlds game, tens of thousands of custom ape games created by the community, and 10 million views for the Ape Worlds trailer. These all sound great, but I’m not sure anyone really knows the likelihood of them happening. I’m hesitant to provide one million ApeCoin for a game we are not sure can reach these numbers.

This past Thursday, I hosted a Twitter Spaces session with the Vy Worlds team to learn more about the ambitions of their proposal. I asked about the funding and plans to reach one million wallets that I referenced above. I also asked whether their game would be interoperable with The Otherside. They acknowledged there is too much uncertainty surrounding The Otherside to know for sure, but from what they’ve read in the whitepaper they think they can. However, I have seen other people say it might not be so easy. You can check out the full discussion here.

Gary Geck has also been grilling the Vy Worlds team with some tough questions. One that was particularly interesting was whether or not the Vy Worlds team received permission to use the four apes found in their mock ups.

Once I saw this, I reached out to the Vy Worlds team directly for clarification. They acknowledged they did not have licensing arranged for the four apes depicted above. The images were part of concept art they put together to demonstrate the conversion process of PFPs to 3D characters. They also mentioned they realize releasing those images without permission was a mistake. This mishap leads me to believe this proposal might need a little more fine-tuning.

I admire the ambition of this proposal and the fact it has brought gaming into the spotlight of the DAO, but there are too many questions surrounding it for me to comfortably approve this proposal in its current state.

I would want more evidence that this game has the ability to have millions playing it and go viral before I do so.

I would also want to be certain it is interoperable with The Otherside because it’s going to be such a big part of our ecosystem. Finally, I would want assurance that each ape or mutant used in any way has permission from the owner.

It looks like early voters agree with my sentiment. At the time of writing, the current percentages are heavily against this proposal, with 93.3% voting against.

If this proposal is adjusted to ask for a lower amount of funding for a smaller type of game, the uncertainty around the Ape IP rights is clarified, it’s possible I could vote for a revised proposal. Until then, I’m voting against this one.

Vulkan’s Vote: Against