RESEARCH SUMMARY
Heroes of Mavia
Heroes of Mavia is a Clash of Clans style base builder RTS game. Players use their base and army to battle other players; and they can purchase, rent, or partner with landowners. A player’s objective is to grow their base and army using in-game resources gained from attacking other bases.
Game Summary
GAME FOCUS
Free-2-Play (F2P), Pay-2-Play (P2P), and Play-2-Earn (P2E) Multiplayer combat real time strategy (RTS) crypto game.
GAME LOOP
GAME LORE
The game is set in a fantasy-themed island called “Mavia” where settlers arrive to mine for the resource, $Ruby. The landscape and the NFTs (land, heroes, and statues) will undergo an evolution with time and there will be periodic game mechanic releases. The main resources in the game are Gold, Oil, and Ruby, with Ruby ($RUBY) being one of the two cryptocurrencies used in Mavia’s Dual Token model.
Tokenomics
$MAVIA – Utility Token
- Total supply: 250,000,000
- Governance token and will be used outside of the game on the Mavia web platform to buy/sell NFTs, rent bases, staking incentives, and voting.
$RUBY – In Game Token
- Total supply: Unlimited (earned by partnering, renting, or owning land/bases)
- Utility token; used in-game to upgrade NFTs, purchase power-ups and skins.
- When token bought on exchanges/deposited: +10% deposit bonus will be minted.
- When withdrawn and sold on exchanges: a 15% withdrawal fee will be burned.
- The withdrawal fee amount is flexible and implemented as a disincentivization to exit the ecosystem with $Ruby and to alleviate inflationary token pressure. Players are incentivized to exit the ecosystem via NFTs.
Team
Large, Doxxed core team (98 members on the team, including six game devs and five blockchain/front-end devs).
- Nam Hai (COO, previous CEO); Production Manager at GameLoft 5 yrs, has a total 15 years in lead and management experience in gaming.
- Nhan Cao (CTO); Young with more freelance and less professional experience, track record shows he’s capable of bringing projects from inception to completion and meeting expectations of clients.
- Yvan Feusi (Executive Director); Responsible for art & technical direction for game and short films, 10 yrs at Aiven.net as freelance 3D artist and Art Director.
Investors
- $335K | 01/20/22 | AAG Ventures (NFT Land)
- $5.5M | 01/21/22 | Binance Labs, Genblock Capital
- $2.5M | 02/21/22 | Crypto.com, Hashkey Capital, Merit Circle, GuildFi, YGG SEA, Avocado Guild
GAMING STUDIO
Skrice Studios
GAME ENGINE // BLOCKCHAIN
Unity // Ethereum, Arbitrum
PLATFORM
Desktop Browser / Mobile (IOS & Android)
TARGET AUDIENCE
Casual and Hardcore gamers, all ages and genders
NOTABLE PARTNERSHIPS/BACKERS
- Machinations
- Animoca
- Yield Guild Games
- Tribes Gaming Group (Ford, Razer, Discord, Elgato, Incase, G Fuel)
- Delphi Digital
- Alameda Research
- Bitkraft
SOCIAL STATS
CURRENT PHASE
Pre-launch | Private
IMPORTANT DATES
2022 Q3: Alpha Gameplay (released)
2022 Q4: Beta Launch
2023 Q1: NFT App Launch
2023 Q2: F2P Global Launch
Pros
- F2P, Land NFT not required.
- Full game in 3D.
- Large, Doxxed team with strong use of social media/engagement.
- Game trailer and gameplay has been released.
- Dual Token economic structure is very well thought out: Strong Tokenomics model with deflationary mechanisms and utilization of an alternative mechanism catering toward mass adoption (monetizes F2P through microtransactions and not dependent on increasing NFT lands as the main revenue source – solving the issues of match-making and on-boarding members with no land).
- In-Game marketplace.
- Release on both Desktop and mobile (iOS and Android)
- Many big CoC guilds are already onboard helping to onboard more mainstream gamers.
- Possible 1st mover advantage for an crypto RTS mobile game.
- Anti-cheat technology via Synchronous Server Simulation.
Under Debate
- Skrice Studios is Heroes of Mavia’s 1st gaming project (No past history of success).
- Team’s gaming experience is mediocre as many don’t have direct experience in game development/creation.
- Built on ETH, but utilizing Arbitrum as L2 scaling solution and will support BSC in the future.
- Gameplay is influenced heavily by Clash of Clans (CoC) and can be seen as a negative.
- Outreach strategy is getting community input for direction of game development, etc (possible source of delays, team running out of ideas/negative perception).
- Skrice Studios is located in Vietnam which has been known to be strict regarding gaming: In July 2019 Supercell delisted CoC in Vietnam due to the games being in violation of local regulatory issues (Potential issues pending government regulations/policies).
- Vesting for Team and private investors is 4+ years (longer than average).
Cons
- NFTs and web3 gaming still hold a negative perception in the mainstream gaming communities.
- Most current info found on discord server (barrier to mainstream adoption as casual gamers/most people don’t have discord accounts).
- No public beta, internal beta ongoing.
- Roadmap on Game Deck/Discord post is out of date (Q2 2022 Alpha, Q3 2022 Beta, Q4 2022 Mavia Launch) versus website.
- Based on original roadmap on website, original timeline has been delayed.
- Extremely competitive gaming sector: Boom Beach, DomiNations, Dawn of Titans, Clash of Lords 2, Rise of Kingdoms, Castle Clash, Guardian Kingdoms, Gods of Olympus, Plunder Pirates, Total War Battles: Kingdoms, Brave Conquest, etc.
- Team token allocation is 22% (higher than average when comparing crypto projects (usually 10%).
Opinions
RESEARCHER OPINION #1
Jess | Lead Research Analyst (Science/Medical/Compliance industry, non VC perspective) on October 6, 2022
The core gameplay loop and theme is borrowed heavily from Clash of Clans (CoC), but this is a proven gameplay structure in terms of gaming loop, game mechanics, and features. This concept has been highly successful in CoC and Heroes of Mavia (HoM) is iterating on an existing and proven gameplay formula. However, the overall negative sentiment regarding NFTs and crypto gaming is concerning and must be overcome in order to attract and onboard the mainstream/non-crypto users. But regarding crypto based games in development, I see this as one of the best crypto gaming projects being developed. Fundamentally, this gaming project is very strong because the tokenomics and the gaming micro/macro economy models are very thorough, the game is targeting a wide user base (F2P, P2E, geared toward casual and hardcore gamers, appropriate art direction with wide audience appeal), and partnerships have been established and created with both the traditional and crypto gaming guilds/communities.
From a tokenomics perspective, what concerns me is the team allocation at 22% (team average is around 10% comparing similar projects), but the team has a 6-year quarterly vesting schedule. The private sale purchasers also have a 4-year, quarterly vesting schedule. From an investor perspective, there will be little selling pressure from these groups as these tokens will be locked up for quite some time. This also shows the team and early investors are committed to the project in the long term.
I think the biggest issue facing this project right now is the timing/state of this current market because a lot of raises and development has happened during the end of the bull run into this current bear market (potentially lasting many years). The big question is if this project can be sustainable and keep community engagement/interest until the next big, bull market rally.
RESEARCHER OPINION #2
Jesse | Sr. Research Analyst (non-VC perspective) on October 8, 2022
Mobile gaming is a highly competitive industry that requires strong incentives to maintain a good retention rate. Heroes of Mavia aims to achieve this by implementing a proven game concept with robust social and gameplay loops. However, the game’s longevity is uncertain, as many mobile games fail to last beyond a year.
Additionally, a four-year vesting schedule could negatively impact investments. Aggressive, consistent, and innovative branding, marketing, and community building efforts are necessary to remain relevant and compete with top games in the long run. At present, building the game appears to be the top priority, and it is unclear whether these efforts will be sufficient to sustain the game’s success. Despite these uncertainties, compared to similar mobile and crypto games, Heroes of Mavia has a promising chance of success due to its strong community, traction, and proven game and social loops.
Jess’s statement and question regarding these concerns are agreed upon.
