Managing Multiple Tokens for a Healthy Game Economy

Managing Multiple Tokens for a Healthy Game Economy

By Erik Bethke, GM Games & Founder at Million on Mars

We are in the new golden era of games.

The decentralization of the masses to play and compete without the traditional gatekeepers controlling the ownership or even what can be owned. And it’s awesome.

With this comes the massive challenge and debate on how to manage a player economy of such games. In the play-to-earn space, it’s a rather mad house dash to drive players in, and not always with clear intentions for the player’s long-term value.

At Million on Mars, we see the potential for strong player ownership in online games. We also deeply care about our mission, our games, the economy, and the players. This new golden era of games presents opportunities for truly massive scale decentralized player-owned economies where we, as game designers, act as stewards. The challenge with building a stable, long-term economy that yields value over time is that it takes intentional design. Specifically on how the economy’s tokens are used and when they are used. It also takes multiple tokens.

That’s where I come in. I’m the Token guy.

So What’s With the Name?

The name Million on Mars comes from Elon Musk’s own speculations on how many people it will take to create a robust economy on Mars. Enough that the red planet is cash flow positive, or at least self-sustainable in terms of financing its debts on a long-term basis.

The Mars metaverse is our simulation of these economic flows. Here we are explicitly growing an international population and economy with crafting and in-situ manufacturing game mechanics. It’s a massively multiplayer game where the players own their own 40 acres of heaven on Mars and conduct meaningful trade of raw material, parts, and finished goods. It’s also a beautiful opportunity. An organic use case for a fully player-driven economy, on Mars.

Economy Contribution

Let’s start with the multiple game modes in Million on Mars, the multiple ways in which to play and contribute to the economy.

You can choose to start as a worker, a nomad type of character at the start of their career in settling Mars who scavenges the terrain for tradable resources and performs work to earn Dusk. Once a player is established on Mars, or jumps straight into establishing themselves, they can move into Land Ownership. This unlocks a variety of paths to harvest and transform the resources of Mars to grow the Martian economy and profit in the process, all which require or yield Dusk. And then there’s Settlements, a Landlord-style game mode that allows players to rent resources and buildings from each other. Again, with Dusk.

From this trend you might have picked up on that Dusk is our in-game token, used for all the high-frequency, every day purchases. If you were buying pizza on Mars, you’d use Dusk.

What’s a Token Anyway?

Well, it’s anything that you attach value to.

In crypto, it’s a virtual currency that can be traded, used, or held for economic reasons. In Million on Mars, we use two tokens, Dusk and WAXP. Moving forward, we will also be using a new token called Glitter, as an alternative to WAXP and as our governance token.

In Dusk We Trust.

Now that’s not just funny — it’s intentional.

We are actively managing Dusk to be the “stablecoin” of the Million on Mars game. It will expand as the player population grows and with increasing economic activity. It’s designed for players to earn and to spend, similar to a fiat currency. If we allowed Dusk to dramatically increase in value, then there would be motivation for players to hold it. The result of that would be a curb in the economic velocity inside the game, slowing down player participation because they’re not spending their Dusk. A decrease in economic growth isn’t good for long-term players, which is why we will continuously manage Dusk to be stable.

The primary source of Dusk is Land Owners, with their 40 acre plots developed with buildings and shops. As they expand into their Martian entrepreneurships, they unlock new ways of generating Dusk, as well as actively consuming it to maintain their economic position. Workers contribute to the cycle of Dusk through game loops by performing jobs and scavenging tradable items to sell on the marketplace. It’s the interplay of these two positions that creates stability, as the demand for Dusk increases, so will the supply.

Don’t get us wrong though, we don’t want workers to stay workers. We have designed pathways for players to invest in skills and expand their economic opportunities. Highlighting the path to becoming landowners and dancing on an evergreen staircase of increasing investment, engagement, and profit-making potential.

Everyone gets an opportunity to settle Mars and create their own Martian Empire.

Yeah, fine. I get Dusk. But what’s with Glitter?

By having two separate tokens we can be intentional about the different uses of each. While Dusk is designed to be stable, Glitter is designed to grow.

For starters, Glitter has a fixed supply. There are one billion tokens of Glitter and there will never be any more. It is consumed in-game as well, but only for higher-value, low frequency activities. All of these tokens have a planned disbursement in order to maintain sustainable growth for both Million on Mars and across the portfolio of our future games. We are incentivized by this long-term stable growth and the opportunity to build additional services, games, metaverse expansions, and platforms — all of which utilize Glitter. This adds further utility, and further increases the value of Glitter.

Then there is the inherent value we are giving Glitter: Governance. Giving holders the potential to shape the long-term economic growth and return on an entire ecosystem of games through voting rights.

Our most iconic use case for Glitter is that it will be required to purchase Metis Tokens that can then be used to “breathe life” into a crafted Building Blueprint such as a Lava Tube Habitat that can then be minted as an NFT. This Glitter for a Minting Token cannot be understated in its importance on our Glitter Token Launch. It is where Million on Mars enters a new phase where the players themselves directly create the NFTs that are traded between players instead of primary sales drops from Million on Mars, Inc.

Glitter is not just about Token Staking. We are creating a layered approach with engaging game systems and mechanics that accommodate for different levels of investments in resources, time, and money, with different risks, rewards, and time options. Glitter is for everyone.

Why the Multiple Tokens?

It’s the interplay between the two where the magic exists. The stable coin you regularly spend, aka Dusk, and the investment coin you hold and sometimes spend, Glitter.

Managing Dusk and Glitter: The 80/20 Rule.

How does one manage the different token dynamics? The 80/20 rule.

In both Dusk and Glitter, 20% of all fees collected from players are used to replenish the play-to-earn pools. This replenishment from the fees acts to prevent inflation in the circulation supply of both the Glitter and the Dusk tokens. It also provides a bit of pari-mutuel elegance for paying off the winners of the various play-to-earn systems. When someone pays a tax in the marketplace, job, rental or purchases something in the shop they have the satisfaction of knowing that 20% of their spend on fees will come back to them as a form of further rewards.

What about the other 80%?

Glitter and Dusk are different tokens, with different value goals, and so the 80% fee mechanics are necessarily different.

Dusk Fees — 80% Burnt

In the case of Dusk, we expect to see the value of Dusk increase as we grow and we burn the 80% to keep Dusk stable.

We will also continuously shift the higher-end sinks of Dusk over to Glitter — never so much so that Dusk itself falls in value. A falling Dusk is not a stable coin and would cause an economic shrinkage of the Mars Metaverse.

Glitter Fees — 80% Pays for Operations and Development

In the case of Glitter, that is what Million on Mars uses to fund operations and development. We are stewards of the Mars Metaverse, and we are paid directly from the fees generated from the player driven economy.

When a player purchases Minting Tokens and crafts and creates that Lava Tube Habitat, we earn from the consumption of that Minting Token and, in return, that player has created an NFT on the blockchain with strong in-game utility and a liquid secondary market to be paid a premium on their efforts.

What do we price in Glitter, what do we price in Dusk?

• Glitter is for low-frequency, high-value items and services.
• Dusk is for high-frequency, everyday value items and services.

In general, when purchasing something directly from Million on Mars in the in-game shop or as a fee for a service between the player and Million and Mars, Inc. we treat these all as “shop purchases” with the 80 / 20% rules.

But I Have WAXP?

We love the WAX chain, and our founding players. This is one of the reasons why Founder token holders will continue to receive unique utility and rewards from us.

We will be migrating to the majority of primary sales priced in Glitter, of course, to support the value of Glitter. But don’t worry about your WAX NFTs. Their quantity is ultra limited yet their utility is ever-increasing. I don’t have to tell you what this will do to their value.

Ready Player, What’s Next?

We have additional games in concept development that fit inside our Mars Metaverse, using the same high-fidelity Martian terrain. All titles in our world will use Glitter as the high-value token.

In short: In the Mars Metaverse, Dusk is fiat and Glitter is gold.

Want to learn more about the economy and tokenomics of Million on Mars?

Read our full Whitepaper

Ready to Play?

Play Million on Mars

Originally published on Medium.