Human beings have always been full of curiosity and longing for the virtual world that breaks the boundaries of time and space. So when the metaverse concept emerged, more and more encryption enthusiasts and investors flocked to this track, including major technology and Internet giants, such as Facebook, Microsoft, Google, Apple, Amazon, etc. ByteDance has successively invested in three metaverse companies. South Korea is betting heavily on the metaverse track, launching four metaverse-focused ETFs in just one month.
In the long run, the content gamification and scene entertainment of the metaverse are important areas of fund layout, and as the basic unit of the visualized metaverse, virtual land has taken the lead in becoming an important value carrier, and its market size and demand have seen significant growth . For example, Grayscale Fund founder Barry Silbert spent $81,000 in 2019 to purchase 64 pieces of virtual land on Decentraland. The huge demand in the market has also brought huge returns to early investors.
In addition, virtual land also has more possibilities in development and construction, such as entertainment facilities, commercial centers, social spaces, etc., and has become the preferred direction of many entrepreneurs.
1. The highly sought-after land parcel NFT
The recent addition of Otherdeed has brought the NFT track of the plot into an explosive period. According to the statistics of 6 plots of NFT (Decentraland, The Sandbox, Cryptovoxels, Somnium Space, NFT Worlds, and SuperWorld) collected by WeMeta, recently, the average market value of these virtual lands has reached 3.2 billion U.S. dollars, and the total transaction has exceeded 800 million U.S. dollars. However, this vertical field is still in the early stage, with huge room for development, and there has not been a direct confrontation between projects located in different ecology and operating different routes. There are also many bright starting points for new projects.
Hangout, which we have recently paid attention to, is one of them. The highlight of Hangout is that it is not a pure NFT project, but a functional integration platform that provides technical support. Through the multi-chain layout, Hangout integrates and empowers various blockchain projects such as NFT, DeFi, GameFi, DAO, etc., and then builds a future blockchain business ecosystem, and finally presents a complete encrypted world to users in the form of metaverse culture.
"Our vision is to empower daily business and social interactions between players, users and project parties, and project parties, allowing them to build businesses, create value, and share results with our ecological participants. Let project parties And users meet, work and live in Hangout, becoming a Web3 super traffic portal." Hangout team said.
2. Diversified gameplay, jumping out of the homogeneous competition of metaverse land
The current plot NFT project mainly faces the following problems:
High barriers to participation and slow user growth
At present, the gameplay of most land NFT projects is to sell the land first, and then carry out large-scale land development. However, the soaring price of land and the work involved in the land development stage, such as decoration, building blocks, and IP investment, have made the entry threshold for ordinary players higher. Many players do not have the ability to develop and decorate after purchasing land. Even if they find a professional team to complete the scene construction and decoration work, they cannot afford the high pricing fees. Therefore, although the participation and discussion of the plot NFT project is high, its user growth is still very limited due to these potential problems.
Serious homogenization, single playability
Most of the NFT projects in the land are based on the main interactive forms of holding on-site activities, exhibiting NFT collections, decorating their own space, and visiting other people's spaces; selling/renting land, trading NFT items, and placing advertisements are the main ways to make money. For example, on top projects such as Decentraland, The Sandbox, and Cryptovoxels, you can see many of the same entertainment scenes. Due to the limited functions of the platform, the homogeneity of most NFT projects in the land is serious, and the gameplay is single, so the only way to attract traffic is to "hype" the land.
In contrast, Hangout combines the concept of Web3, presents commercial entertainment and content creation through social interaction and 2D pixel style, and then develops customized sandbox simulators and smart contract multi-protocol APIs such as in-game space, content, and land , providing a visual front-end display and application entrance for various blockchain applications such as NFTs, DeFi, GameFi, etc. Users and project parties can access the on-chain protocol in a low-threshold and high-flexibility manner, which enriches the platform's The gameplay can also allow B-end and C-end users to re-experience the traditional blockchain business in a gamified way.
In terms of overall layout, HANGOUT is divided into L1 soil layer and L2 interactive layer:
1. L1 land layer:
Land is the basis of human survival, and it is endowed with currency storage value. Even in virtual space, land is also endowed with important attributes. After combining with NFT, land ownership can be completely returned to players, and all transactions are Open, transparent and traceable. The first layer in Hangout is the land layer, which is composed of a continent called Mojito. There are 9 different land plates on Mojito, and each plate corresponds to a blockchain and is associated with different geographical features. Currently, land assets are planned to be deployed on Ethereum, BSC, Polygon and other chains.
Each land block contains hundreds of scene graphs. Generally speaking, scenes can be divided into "reserved scenes" and "customizable scenes". "Reserved Scenes" are only used by Hangout to build public infrastructure or provided to Hangout's partners, and are not for sale.
"Customizable Scenarios" can be purchased and customized by players, who own the lands. Each customizable scene is in turn made up of 16 plots of various sizes, each with its own house number, which can be sold separately. Players can also customize the decoration style in the scene, and make special game functions, such as playing music, creating game tasks, etc. Experienced players can also integrate their self-developed blockchain protocol into Hangout, so that every game player who enters the scene can experience different products.
Hangout was first deployed on Ethereum. Ethereum Flatland is the first exploration and development section on the Mojito continent. The total number of scenes: 369 (16 plots for each scene, a total of 5904 plots) Number of "reserved scenes": 72 (1152 plots) Number of "custom scenes": 297 (4752 plots). The first land sale included 47 scenarios (752 plots).
2. L2 interaction layer:
Like traditional real estate, virtual land also needs an infrastructure that integrates entertainment, leisure, creation, social interaction, and learning. For example, the business center Genesis Plaza in Decentraland, the entertainment center Vegas City, the education district Decentrland University; the digital music stage and business office center in The Sandbox; the art exhibition center in CryptoVoxels, etc. The existence of these scenes not only enriches the entire space, but also provides players with more opportunities to display and socialize.
The interactive layer of Hangout also provides players with such functions. However, compared with similar projects on the market, Hangout has its own characteristics.
Obtain a new identity and open social interaction through NFT
Hangout will obtain the user's asset information based on the user's decentralized ID. Players can wear their own NFT assets to create an identity into the Hangout world. In addition, this asset display function can also allow players to identify different types of players, such as high assets, creativity, gameplay, etc., and use the follow function to form a new social relationship chain. If your asset contains a music NFT, it can be played in-game or shared publicly. This method greatly increases the application scenarios of NFT, extending its value, not just for collection.
At the social level, Hangout encourages players to explore social interactions between different communities by importing existing social relationships and networks in Web3 and providing rewards such as POAP. In addition, Hangout also provides each partner with a large enough interactive space, and all players who hold these project assets can be directly transferred to this space, thereby expanding the social scope of players.
Create-to-Earn mode, get token rewards
With the establishment of infrastructure and social relationships, commercial transactions will naturally occur. Hangouts can access smart contracts in the L2 space, and players can also use the toolkit provided by the platform to customize their L2 assets to develop virtual banks or other financial functions, such as conducting transactions and loans, realizing user asset realization, and more. DeFi projects can also customize advanced options and gamification functions according to the needs of developers to attract more users to join. In addition, Hangout also provides an SDK for developers, so that custom Protocol services can also be implemented in Hangout. This is also known as the Create-to-Earn pattern.
"At first we didn't care how many users and transaction volume these features would bring, we just thought it could do more things in the Hangout world and increase the fun. However, when we successfully integrated in the Demo, and When we created a game task with the condition of "executing a transaction in Uniswap", we felt that this was a significant attempt. There may be huge commercial value behind this attempt." Hangout said.
Customize the scene, use the editor to customize your own space
Players can use the built-in editor to decorate their own space, including freely placing equipment, decorations, NPCs and NFTs, etc. At the same time, they can also set player names, access rights and paid access functions.
In their own private space, players can also use the pixel graphics editor to create pixel paintings, and the created works can also be cast into standard NFTs through the game. Hangout has an NFT trading market. In order to encourage players to create more works, the platform does not charge commissions. The Hangout Foundation will also be established to encourage the creation of high-quality content and games by providing grants to promote the development of the ecosystem of the platform.
Comes with functional NPCs to guide players into the game and help them complete quests
The NPCs in the Hangout world are named "HOMI", and players can purchase NPCs and customize NPC dialogue, as well as equip their characters with different NFT assets to change their appearance. NPC can also access the NLP service on the cloud platform, making it an AI virtual human to communicate with players. In addition, he can also guide players into the game, provide non-crypto players with conversational teaching guides, and let them easily join DeFi projects in a fun way.
3. HANG: the hub of value exchange
HANG is the hub of value exchange in Hangouts. Players can earn HANG by making various contributions to the Hangout, and then exchange HANG for unique experiences or rights. For example, use HANG to purchase tickets to enter other players' L2 space to participate in activities.
In addition, HANG is also a governance token. Players who hold a certain amount of HANG can initiate and participate in DAO governance voting to determine the development trend of Hangout culture, art, economy, entertainment and other aspects.
At the same time, HANG is also used to pay service commissions and copyright fees for casting and selling NFT.
The specific distribution of tokens is as follows:
Total Supply: 100,000,000
DAO Foundation: 20.00 %
Team Development: 10.00 %
Marketing: 2.00 %
Seed round: 4.50%
Round A: 13.50%
Airdrop: 1.00 %
IDO：1.00 %
Advisor: 3.00 %
User Rewards: 45.00 %
4. Constantly improving business ecosystem
In our interactions with Hangout, the team told us that Hangout can be compared to Amazon or Alibaba, and what they want to build is a commerce ecosystem.
Judging from the actual performance of the product, Hangout is also trying its best to practice this concept.
In the early stage of project development, Hangout provides a visual front-end entrance for different projects by providing technical support and functional integration, allowing them to freely access various protocols. market expansion. When the platform traffic increases in the later period, it will focus more on providing various experiences for C-end users.
In addition, in terms of development, the R&D members of the Hangout team have many years of experience in public chain and DeFi R&D. These experiences are of great help to the business connected to Hangout. For example, develop low-threshold access functional components to ensure access to existing on-chain protocols in a low-cost, secure and standardized manner. At the same time, the team will also independently develop important infrastructure protocols on the platform, such as the asset transaction protocol and the Mini chain game protocol, to lead the development of the entire Hangout ecosystem.
In terms of art effects, the main artistic team of this project is Pixpil, an independent game studio in Shanghai, whose works are among the best in terms of praise and sales on Steam and Switch. Among them, "The Land of the Wind" is its main masterpiece, which is called the ceiling of pixel wind games. Excellent pixel-style graphics, profound plot and worldview shaping, as well as puzzle solving and combat complement each other, laying a solid foundation for Hangout's visual effects.
Such an experienced team can ensure the high quality and fast delivery of Hangout products.
In May of this year, Hangout completed the first phase of 752 LAND sales, and the first round of LAND was sold out within 40 minutes of going online. The outstanding results also prove that Hangout's product model is recognized by the majority of users and players.
Next, Hangout's business focus is still on product development. The following is the HANGOUT product roadmap:
· Phase 1（2022.05）
First Land Sales
The first batch of open world partners
Official website online
The Demo version implements MMO and main NFT asset application functions
· Phase 2（2022.07）
$HANG Utility Token Issuance
Complete the official version of the game art upgrade
Comprehensive application of L2 space, with space customization and social light entertainment functions
PixelMaker, MetaController professional editing tools enter the development stage
PVE gameplay expansion
Hangout asset mall enters research and development stage
· Phase 3（2022.11）
Launched contract access specification HO SDK
PixelMaker, MetaController Alpha testing
Deepen community cooperation and promote L2 community functions
Hangout Asset Mall Alpha Test
· Phase 4 (after 2022.11)
Incubate Hangout built-in game projects, Web3 community
Today, the Metaverse track has become the main field for the transformation of traditional companies and the entrepreneurship of emerging companies. When facing strong opponents, Hangout said: "Metaverse has never been a life-and-death contest for the purpose of defeating opponents. We respect and Learn from all products of the same type, and strive to create a more unique experience for builders and players.
