[Looking for sponsor] Develop Onchain Social Games that Attract Builders to Optimism

[DanSingjoy]

Delegate Mission Request Summary: Develop engaging onchain social games that attract and nurture builders, fostering a vibrant community of developers who build valuable applications on Optimism.

S6 Intent : Intent 3A: Grow Application Developers on the Superchain

Proposer: Dan Singjoy

Total grant amount: 250k OP

Should this Mission be fulfilled by one or multiple applicants: Multiple

How will this Mission Request help accomplish the above Intent?

The Mission Request to develop onchain games will help accomplish the Intent to grow application developers on the Superchain in several key ways:

1. Engagement and Attraction: Onchain games are interactive and engaging, providing a fun and compelling way to attract new developers. By offering gamified experiences, builders are more likely to explore and become interested in the Optimism ecosystem.

2. Skill Development: These games can be designed to incorporate educational elements that teach developers about the Optimism platform, its capabilities, and best practices for building on it. This hands-on learning approach helps developers gain the necessary skills and knowledge.

3. Community Building: Onchain games foster a sense of community by encouraging collaboration and competition among developers. This helps build a supportive network of builders who can share ideas, solve problems together, and contribute to the ecosystem’s growth.

4. Showcasing Potential: Successful onchain games can serve as showcases for what can be achieved on the Optimism platform, inspiring developers to build their own projects. Seeing the creative and technical possibilities can motivate more developers to join and innovate within the ecosystem.

5. Incentives and Rewards: Incorporating incentives and rewards within the games can further motivate developers. These incentives can be in the form of tokens, recognition, or other benefits that encourage ongoing participation and contribution to the Optimism ecosystem.

By leveraging these aspects, the mission request to develop onchain games aligns with the goal of growing the number of application developers on the Superchain, ultimately contributing to a more robust and innovative development community.

What is required to execute this Mission Request?

Execution Requirements for the Mission Request:

• Game Design and Development: Develop engaging onchain games that incorporate educational elements about Optimism.

• Integration with Optimism Ecosystem: Ensure seamless integration of the games on Optimism, utilizing the unique features and capabilities of the OP Stack.

• Incentives and Rewards: Design and implement incentive structures to motivate participation and ongoing engagement from developers.

• Community Engagement and Outreach: Actively invite builders to participate in the games, leveraging marketing and outreach strategies to gain sufficient distribution and network effect.

• Documentation and Tutorials: Provide clear documentation and tutorials to help developers understand and participate in the games.

• Impact Assessment: Regularly assess the impact of the games on developer engagement and the overall growth of the Optimism ecosystem, making adjustments as needed to maximize positive outcomes.

These responsibilities and deliverables are essential for successfully attracting and growing application developers on the Superchain through onchain games.

How should governance participants measure impact upon completion of this Mission?

Milestones:

1. Milestone 1: Initial Game Launch (Month 3)

• Deploy 1 onchain game, initiate community outreach, and invite builders to participate.

2. Milestone 2: Midterm Review (Month 6)

• Conduct a review of progress, including engagement levels, community feedback, and initial impact on developer growth.

3. Milestone 3: Yearly Review (Month 12)

• Conduct a comprehensive evaluation of the mission’s impact on developer growth and community engagement.

Metrics:

1. Developer Engagement: Number of new developers, participation frequency, and retention rates with the game’s contracts.

2. Onchain Transactions: Total and volume of transactions and unique wallet interactions with the game’s contracts.

3. Community Participation: Increase in community size, showing lasting success in development.

4. Project Development: Number and diversity of new projects, and their onchain activity, demonstrating tangible outcomes like successful RetroPGF and mission applications.

5. Network Outreach: Reach, social media engagement, website traffic, and new sign-ups, measuring visibility and audience growth.

6. Incentive Distribution: Amount and distribution of rewards, and their impact on participation, assessing incentive effectiveness.

Impact:

1. Developer Onboarding and Retention: Number of new and active developers, indicating sustained growth.

2. Ecosystem Activity: Increase in onchain transactions and unique wallet interactions, reflecting network usage.

3. Community Engagement: Growth in community size, RetroPGF participation, and Mission completion from participating developers.

4. Educational Advancement: Improvements in developer skills and knowledge to ensure educational growth.

5. Outreach Effectiveness: Reach, social media engagement, website traffic, and new user sign-ups to the game.

Has anyone other than the proposer contributed to this Mission Request?

While originally conceiving the Mission Request, I spoke with several community members at Optimism Fractal events who helped provide some inspiration for the idea.

Additional Information

Eligibility for Game Developers

Game developers must meet specific criteria, including:

• Proven track record in developing games, preferably in Web3
• Strong technical understanding of the Superchain and OP Stack
• Commitment to Optimism’s values and collaborative development towards the Optimistic Vision

Funding Allocation

• OP tokens for game developers are locked for one year (in a similar way to prior builder grants)
• OP tokens may be distributed to players as participation incentives (in a similar way to prior growth experiment grants)

[DanSingjoy]

Additional Context and Rationale for this Mission Request

I’m requesting a budget 250k OP budget for this Mission Request, which is an increase from the previously approved 75k OP and equal to the amount that I originally requested. This is based on the following:

1. The original 250k OP request better reflects the potential impact and scope of this initiative.

2. The previously approved Mission Request with a 75k OP budget was a compromise due to various factors, including time constraints.

3. Over the past months, I’ve been in communication with several grants council members about the potential for an increased budget.

4. I’ve created a mission proposal as a first step based on the limited budget available, but there are additional development phases and other related Missions I’d like to propose that could create profound benefits for the Collective.

5. Several other applicants have already applied for this Mission, and nearly half of the current budget has been allocated. This demonstrates strong interest and the need for additional funding.

6. The increased budget will allow for more comprehensive implementations of onchain social games, potentially attracting more builders to Optimism.

For more details on the benefits of this Mission Request, please see this post and feel free to reach out with any questions. Thank you for your consideration.

[LuukDAO]

Hi @DanSingjoy, The passed budget still has a 40K OP budget left, with only 30 K being requested (by your team). Why aren’t you requesting 40? What makes you believe it’s critical to top up this MR, while other MRs have been 100% allocated?

I overall see the value of this MR, but feel that the current budget is somewhat right.

On a separate note, if the idea were to bring it to the intended 250k budget, wouldn’t it make sense to ask 175K now instead of another 250k, making the total budget 325K OP?

[Jrocki]

@DanSingjoy Would agree with LuukDAO’s comment that there is still budget left over for this existing mission request so not a fan of increasing the budget for this one.

[Gonna.eth]

For the metrics team to be able to compare multiple approved applicant’s success in this mission request we need you to propose only one metric from this table as the northstar:

1. Number of addresses voting for the first time
2. Number of addresses delegating for the first time
3. Total amount of OP delegated from new addresses using the grantee’s protocol
4. TVL in the grantee’s protocol
5. Number of transactions emitting event logs
6. Number of active addresses interacting with grantee’s contracts
7. Total amount of gas fees generated from grantee’s contracts
8. Percentage of retained active addresses interacting with grantee’s contracts
9. DAA/MAA ratio
10. Number of testnet transactions emitting event logs
11. Number of active developer addresses interacting with grantee’s contracts

[brichis]

Totally agree, doesn’t makes sense for me neither.

[DanSingjoy]

Hi LuukDAO, thank you for the feedback and thoughtful questions! Have you read the rationale that I provided in response to this Mission Request or the Mission Proposal that I created for this Mission Request?

If you haven’t already, I’d appreciate if you could check them out since these documents provide a lot of clarity that could help you better understand the value of this Mission Request. If you prefer a more visual overview, you can also watch my recent presentation from Superchain Demo Day or the videos of Optimism Fractal events to gain a better understanding of the rationale behind this Mission Request. Now, here are the answers to your questions:

Why I’m requesting 30K instead of 40K in the Mission Proposal:

I’m requesting 30K for this initial phase to use the collective’s resources efficiently given the limited budget. By requesting less than the available budget, I’m being conservative and saving additional funding for future proposals.

This amount covers the research and design of a fund distribution system for the Respect Game. I originally planned to request at least 100k in my proposal (as you can see here), but needed to pivot our strategy because only 75k was approved in the Mission Request and nearly half of the budget was already approved for another project before I submitted my proposal.

When more funding becomes available, I plan to make two more Mission Proposals for the development & implementation phase of the fund distribution system and a growth experiment style grant to reward Respect Game participants.

Why it’s critical to increase the budget for this Mission Request:

1. Onchain Social Games have Extraordinary Market Potential: Onchain social games represent a rapidly growing market with immense potential. As you can see here, onchain social games have proven success and are uniquely positioned to attract vibrant developer communities for many reasons.

2. Onchain Social Games have Unparalleled Potential for ROI: The Optimism Fractal Respect Game (and similar onchain social games) can provide an unprecedented level of benefits to the Optimism Collective, with an outstanding return for investment compared to all other initiatives.

To understand the potential benefits of onchain social games, please consider the following:

• The Respect Game provides better ways to distribute funds than current Retro Funding mechanisms, which are distributing over 40 million OP this year.

• The Respect Game lays the foundation for an ideal governance system that enables the Collective to scale both the Citizens’ and Token Houses in a truly decentralized manner.

• The Respect Game provides a perfect process to onboard, attract, and empower builders with a wide variety of resources throughout their development career.

The Respect Game has consistently demonstrated its ability to attract builders throughout our three year history, inspiring hundreds of builders and motivating countless volunteer hours of development work. This success is well-documented in both videos and onchain gameplay transactions.

The Respect Game has the potential to significantly enhance core aspects of the Superchain, including Retro Funding, Optimism Governance, and the developer experience. Given the substantial investments the Optimism Collective makes in these areas and the importance of these core aspects, it’s critical to consider allocating proportional funding to the development of the Respect Game. The potential impact of this project, as recognized by many community members, warrants funding well beyond the scope of this Mission Request. This Mission Request serves as a foundation, with the intention to seek additional resources as the project demonstrates its value to the Optimism ecosystem.

While the funds for other Mission Requests have been fully allocated, the primary consideration should be funding Mission Requests that will create the most value for the Collective, regardless of whether the original budget has been consumed.

Why the request for a 325K total budget is justified:

The potential impact of onchain social games, particularly the Respect Game, on the Optimism ecosystem justifies a substantial investment. While I believe it would be in the best interest for the Collective to allocate many millions of OP towards the Respect Game, I’m requesting a more modest 325K total budget to balance ambition with pragmatism.

I originally created four Mission Requests with an aggregate budget of over 800k OP with the primary goal to fund the development of Optimism Fractal Respect Games (as you can see here). However, less than a quarter of this was sponsored and approved, which was a compromise that was a largely due to time constraints. In this governance season there is 6 million OP allocated for Intent 3A and approximately 1.7 OP is remaining to be allocated amongst Mission Requests, so continuing to request approximately 15% of the budget for Mission Requests that could fund the development of Respect Games seems to be a fair percentage when considering the potential benefits described above.

In addition, here are more reasons that provide justification for the requested budget of 325k:

Comprehensive Application Development:

This budget allows for parallel development of various aspects of onchain social games, including the Respect Game and auxiliary games. As stated previously, the approval of this Mission Request would also enable me to propose the two other important Mission Requests for implementation phase of the Respect Game funding system and the fund distribution phase (which each follow the design phase of my currently proposed Mission).

In addition to developing the fund distribution component of this onchain social game, I also plan to make Mission Proposals to fund developers who are building several other important aspects of Respect Game development. This includes such as scaling up development of different kinds of fractal apps, developing gamified governance apps that leverage Respect, and building related products for growing communities upon our suite of open-source software.

There are several developers who are currently building these apps on a volunteer basis and their development could be greatly accelerated with adequate funding. This Mission Request can provide onchain social game developers with security that they’ll be compensated, provide the opportunity to build bigger teams around different components, and attract more developers who contribute to our open-source codebases (which the Respect Game is perfectly designed to do). There is a large amount of development work needed that would enhance the Respect Game, which are well organized into tasks and projects our community notion site. In addition we’re also developing several auxiliary onchain social games that can each create profound benefits for the Collective (such as Cagendas, RetroPitches, and Cignals).

The funding in this Mission Request would enable the creation of more comprehensive tools, documentation, and SDKs that other teams can use to develop all kinds of applications on Optimism. It enables us to create a robust foundation that developers across the Optimism ecosystem can build upon, while also providing opportunities for all other developers to build onchain social games on Optimism.

Strategic Ecosystem Development:

The Respect Game serves as a powerful catalyst for rapid community growth within the Optimism ecosystem. It has the potential to scale Optimism Fractal from its current weekly events with dozens of participants to a thriving hub of thousands of builders engaging daily. This scalability isn’t limited to Optimism Fractal alone; the open-source nature of the Respect Game allows other organizations, communities, and businesses to adopt and adapt it to their specific needs, creating a network effect that fuels growth across the entire Optimism ecosystem.

Onchain social games represent an emerging paradigm in social coordination, opening up a new category of applications that can unlock tremendous innovation and potential for the Collective. The benefits provided by the Respect Game can be very useful for a wide variety of fields, including governance, finance, media creation, impact evaluation, and developer tooling. You can envision a future where builders can join multiple Respect Games daily, each tailored to their interests and expertise. For instance, there could be Respect Games specifically for smart contract developers, front-end engineers, governance enthusiasts, artists, and specific project collaborations. Each organization that implements the Respect Game can serve as a powerful attractor for builders on the Superchain.

Time is of the essence in realizing this vision. While Optimism already benefits from having Optimism Fractal on its network, fully embracing and supporting this initiative is crucial for maximizing its impact. The Respect Game provides essential foundations for attracting builders, optimizing governance, and developing ecosystem resilience. These capabilities are vital for Optimism to navigate future challenges effectively and fulfill its mission of creating a more equitable internet. Moreover, the Respect Game provides an essential piece of the infrastructure needed to tackle global coordination challenges and actualize the Optimistic Vision throughout society. The Respect Game’s ability to facilitate fair, transparent, and efficient coordination at scale is poised to revolutionize how communities and organizations operate in the digital age.

By supporting the Respect Game and similar onchain social games, Optimism (and more specifically the OP Mainnet) can attract builders much more effectively than market competitors, play a pivotal role in addressing broader societal needs, and create immense value by improving the Collective’s core processes. By supporting this Mission Request now, we provide Optimism Fractal and other communities developing onchain social games with the opportunities needed to maximize impact and set the stage for increasingly profound benefits.

Conclusion

I maintained the request for an additional 250K because I believe that a far larger budget would be in the best interest for the Collective. However, I would also be very appreciative if 175K were approved, as this would still represent a significant improvement over the current 40K remaining and allow for substantial progress in developing these critical tools and infrastructure.

The key is to provide sufficient resources to create a robust foundation for onchain social games on Optimism, which can then be built upon and expanded in the future. Any increase in funding will directly translate to increased capacity for development, community building, and ultimately, value creation for the Optimism ecosystem.

On another note @LuukDAO, I think the products supported by this Mission Request will be very helpful for your work with Kolektivo, Superchain Eco, and Celo Public Goods. I’ve enjoyed following Superchain Eco over the past year and am looking forward to potential collaboration opportunities that may arise in the future.

I invite you and anyone else reading this to join Optimism Fractal weekly events and experience the Respect Game for yourself. Feel free to reach out with any other questions or feedback.

[DanSingjoy]

Thank you Jrocki, I appreciate you sharing your thoughts about this Mission Request and would be curious to hear your thoughts that I just shared above in response to LuukDAO.

I’d also encourage you to review the rationale I provided a couple months ago when I first urged Grants Councillors to approve this Mission Request with the 250k budget. One of the main points that I made in this rationale is that sufficient funding is crucial to maximize impact with onchain social games and a larger budget will benefit the Collective far more than a limited initial approach. As explained in the post above, the budget remaining for this Mission Request is not sufficient to develop many aspects of the Respect Game (or other onchain social games) that can provide outsized returns for Optimism. The primary consideration should be funding Mission Requests that will create the most value for the Collective, regardless of whether the original budget has been consumed.

It’s also worth noting that there is currently over 73k OP being requested across three applications in this cycle, there was an addition 75k requested in another proposal last cycle that nearly reached the final stage of review, and there are still three cycles remaining in Optimism Season 6. Given the recent amount of proposals and requested amount of funds, it’s possible and may be likely that the funding for this Mission Request will be fully allocated in this cycle when there is still half of the season remaining. Meanwhile, the four Mission Requests for Optimism Dominance in Yield-Bearing Assets has already been allocated nearly 2 million OP and the newest related Mission Request is likely to be funded with an additional 500k budget (based on the Cycle 27 MR List). I am confident that this Mission Request for onchain social games would enable a larger impact at a much lower budget.

It’s very clear to me that it’s in the Collective’s best interests to approve this Mission Request with at least a 250k budget, so there is some disconnect in how we see the potential value of this Mission Request or its relative value compared to other Mission Requests. I believe these posts make a very compelling case about why it’s so helpful for the Grants Council to sponsor this Mission Request and would appreciate hearing more of your feedback. I’d be happy to discuss this in more detail and/or address any other concerns. Thanks!

[DanSingjoy]

Thank you, Gonna. I propose ‘Percentage of retained active addresses interacting with grantee’s contracts’ to be the northstar metric for this Mission Request.

[DanSingjoy]

Hey brichis, thank you for sharing your perspective. I’d appreciate if you could read the posts above that provide rationale for this Mission Request and let me know if it makes sense to you with this information in mind.

I’m curious to hear your thoughts and would be happy to provide clarification if you’d like. I appreciate your consideration and am open to discussing potential adjustments to ensure this proposal aligns with the Collective’s goals and resources.