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IlluviumIt is a blockchain game world based on Immutable X and developed using Unreal 5 engine, which includes four different types of games. These four games share a unified worldview, are developed for different players, and are also developed through the economic mechanism of the game world.It was connected, greatly enriching the players’ gaming experience.The game development progress is good, the mechanics and gameplay design is reasonable, and the game quality has surpassed most blockchain games on the market. It is expected that the main games will be launched in public beta within the year, so we chose to pay attention to Illuvium.
Investment Summary
Illuvium is a blockchain game world containing four different types of games. These four games share a unified worldview, are developed for different players, and are connected through the economic mechanism of the game world to form a completeBlockchain game ecosystem.
From the perspective of team and funds, Illuvium’s development team has sufficient development experience and good development capabilities, and the project financing situation is good. On March 27, it just completed a 12 million Series A financing, so the capital market is also relatively large.Abundant.
From the product perspective, Illuvium designed a huge game world composed of simulated management game Zero, open-world adventure game Overworld, auto-chess strategy competition game Arena, and NFT collection game Beyond.In this game world, each game has a unique gameplay mechanism to target different players, but the four games are connected through the mining and utilization of interoperable resources between different games, allowing players to use this gameA richer gaming experience can be obtained in the world.At present, these four games have good completion levels, among which Zero and Beyond have been launched in public beta, while Overworld and Arena are still in the internal beta stage and are expected to start public beta soon.From a longer perspective, Illuvium’s game world design has put a very big test on the development ability and operation of the Illuvium team, especially the post-production adjustment of collection games and the balance adjustment of competitive games will be a must for the team.Illuvium has proved its development capabilities to overcome, but its operational capabilities still need further practice testing.
From the perspective of project development, Illuvium’s development is still in its early stages, Arena and Overworld are still in the internal beta stage, and the overall concept of the game world is still a bit far from being completed.However, the game has accumulated high popularity, and the community and social media are relatively active. It is expected that after Arena and Overworld enter the public beta stage, Illuvium will welcome more players to participate.
From the perspective of token economics, ILV tokens are mainly used as governance tokens for the network, and their main function is to feed back to the core participants of the game to promote the sustainable development of the game ecosystem.At present, from the perspective of mechanism setting, ILV tokens can basically achieve the above goals through the staking mechanism, but this mechanism puts forward high requirements for the subsequent profitability of the game, and the answer is needed after subsequent practice.
From the perspective of the track, since the end of 2023, the chain game track has achieved rapid development, and the transaction volume and user volume have increased significantly. From the data, it is expected that after the end of this round of market cycle, the chain game track is expected to be completed.The core user group of Tao will be at least more than twice as early as before, which means that for a long time in the future, the chain game track will still have a broad market space.The development of this round of chain game track shows two characteristics: diversification of game types and improvement of game quality, which are the main reasons for the continuous and rapid growth of the number of chain game users in this round.However, at present, most of the chain game games in this round have not broken away from the “Play To Earn” framework and have made few innovations. Illuvium is one of the few games that have made innovations in the underlying logic of blockchain games.Projects, which no longer rely on a single mechanism and gameplay game to acquire users, but try to establish an effective economic model from the underlying architecture to connect multiple games. Such a game ecosystem is expected to be more important thanThe traditional single blockchain game world is more vital.
In summary, the Illuvium project is worth paying attention to.
Note: The final evaluation of the first-class warehouse is the result of a comprehensive analysis of the current fundamentals of the project according to the first-class warehouse project evaluation framework, rather than a prediction of the future price rise and fall of the project tokens.There are many factors that affect the price of tokens, and the fundamentals of the project are not the only factors. Therefore, it is not believed that the project price will definitely fall just because the research report is judged as [not paying attention].In addition, the development of blockchain projects is dynamic and we have determined that the project [not paying attention] will be adjusted to [watching] if there are major positive changes in its fundamentals. Similarly, we have determined that the project is determined byFor projects that are [Follow], if there are major vicious changes, we will warn all members and may adjust to [Follow].
1.Basic Overview
1.1 Project Introduction
Illuvium is a blockchain game world based on Immutable X and developed using Unreal 5 engine, which contains four different types of games. These four games share a unified worldview, are developed for different players, and are also developed through the economy of the game world.The mechanisms are connected to form a complete blockchain game ecosystem.
1.2 Basic information[1]
2.Project details
2.1 Team
The development company of Illuvium is Illuvium. The team is located in Australia. The official website shows that the team currently has 102 people, and there are 96 people on LinkedIn. It is estimated that the current team is about 100 people. The information of the main members of the team is as follows:
Kieran Warwick — Co-founder, Kieran worked in e-commerce together with his brother Kain Warwick (founder of Synthetix), entered the cryptocurrency industry in 2015, and served as director of marketing and sales at an Australian OTC exchange.Leaving the cryptocurrency industry in July 2016 to work in the food industry, and in 2020 with the rise of DeFi, Kieran returned to the cryptocurrency industry again and founded Illuvium in September 2020.
Aaron Warwick — Co-founder, a bachelor’s degree in computer science and physics from the University of Wollongong, has been engaged in the retail industry after graduation and has also served as a tennis coach. In September 2020, he participated in the creation of Illuvium and was deeply involved in game design and administration.Kieran and Aaron, and Synthetix founder Kain, three are brothers, with a family with a sports background and running multi-million-dollar retail franchises, including several major sports centres in Australia.
John Avery — Chief Technical Officer, Bachelor of Computer Science from the Commonwealth University of Australia.After graduation, he has been engaged in software development in the gaming and financial services industries for a long time.It began to participate in game development on the App Store very early, and the JNA Mobile company where it is once one of the important publishers on the Unity Asset Store at that time, with more than 1 million users of the games it published.In December 2020, Avery joined Illuvium and has served as Chief Technology Officer to this day.
Danny Wilson — Chief Financial Officer, has been engaged in related work in the retail industry for a long time, and has served as the director of retail franchise for Harvey Norman, and has subsequently served as the managing director of Harvey Norman’s subsidiary. He also participated in the establishment of MAC1, an Apple authorized service provider, and served as the managing director. DannyWorked as an advisor for several startups and participated in the establishment of Oracle Venture, a Web3 investment fund.In December 2020, Danny joined Illuvium as Chief Financial Officer.
Benjamin Nietzsche — Chief Game Designer, has been engaged in the development of game-related industries for a long time.In 2013, he participated in the establishment of Aequus Gaming to develop third-party software for League of Legends players, including LolReplay and LSI.In 2014, Nietzsche joined Riot Games as a third-party consultant.In 2018, Nietzsche joined the independent game studio HeadByte Studios and served as the lead game designer.In March 2021, Nietzsche joined Illuvium and has served as the chief game designer to this day.
Currently, according to the official website information, among the 102 people in the team, there are 49 artists responsible for the design and implementation of game art, models, concepts, special effects, etc., 15 engineers are responsible for the development of the game body, and 9 are responsible for ensuring the quality of the game.testers and seven engineers responsible for building game servers.Overall, Illuvium’s core team currently has certain experience in the game industry and blockchain industry, and the game development team is relatively solid and has good game development capabilities.
2.2 Funding
2.2.1Extra-game financing
Table 2–1 Illuvium financing situation
As of March 27, 2024, Illuvium has completed 4 rounds of financing outside the game, with a total financing amount of US$65 million. Among investors, IOSG Ventures, Framework Ventures, Animoca Brands, Spartan Capital, Polygon Ventures, Yield Guild Games, Delphi Digital et al.The latest round of financing was completed on March 27, 2024, so the team should currently have sufficient financial capabilities.
2.2.2Illuvium Zero Land Sales
Figure 2–1 Illuvium Zero Land Sales Notes[2]
Figure 2–2 Illuvium Zero land sales results
On June 6, 2022, Illuvium announced that it had raised approximately US$72.19 million through the sale of Illuvium Zero land, selling a total of 19,969 of the 100,000 Illuvium Zero land.Land is divided into 5 levels, and land of different levels has different game gains. The first four levels of land are auctioned in the form of Dutch auctions, and can be auctioned in ETH and sILV2. The highest level of land is auctioned in the English style.Auctions can only be auctioned with ETH.
During the auction, the price of land of all levels fluctuated violently.The starting price of T1 grade land is 2 ETH and the transaction price is 0.3 ETH to 2 ETH.The starting price of T2-grade land is 6 ETH and the transaction price is 0.97 ETH to 6 ETH.The starting price of T3-grade land is 20 ETH and the transaction price is 3.67 ETH to 20 ETH.The starting price of T4-grade land is 80 ETH and the transaction price is 13.6 ETH to 76 ETH.
This round of auction raised a total of 4,018 ETHs and 239,388 sILV2, of which 4,018 ETHs will be traded as ILV tokens and redistributed to ILV stakers, and the remaining sILV2 will be destroyed to reduce the token supply, and the destroyed sILV2 tokens will be destroyed.It accounts for approximately 2.39% of the total token supply.
2.2.3Illuvium Beyond D1SK Sales
Illuvitar is a customizable portrait-type NFT on Illuvium Beyond.Players can acquire Illuvitar and its accessories by purchasing D1SK, thus matching the exclusive Illuvitar NFT. There are five types of accessories, including headwear, glasses, skin, clothes and props.There are two types of D1SK, Standard D1SK and Mega D1SK.Among them, Standard D1SK contains 1 Illuvitar, 3 accessories and 1 T0-level Illuvitar, and the price is 0.005 ETH.Mega D1SK replaces the T0-level Illuvitar in Standard D1SK with the rarer Illuvitar, but the price is more expensive than the Standard D1SK, and the price is 0.025 ETH.
Illuvium’s first wave of D1SK Alpha sales began on March 7, 2023. D1SK sold in this round will have special rare attribute labels for Alpha.
Figure 2–3 Illuvitar D1SK Alpha Sales Notes[3]
Figure 2–4 Illuvium D1SK Alpha Sales Notes[4]
The first round of D1SK Alpha sales sold a total of 20,000 Alpha Mega D1SK and 20,600 Standard Alpha D1SK, with a total revenue of approximately 47,844 sILV2 and 742 ETH, equivalent to approximately US$4.75 million.Illuvium started multiple rounds of D1SK promotions later.include:
On June 12, 2023, Illuvium launched a joint D1SK promotion with GameStop.Each D1SK sold will include a unique GameStop brand Illuvitar, which costs about $50 per D1SK.Illuvium has not announced the detailed sales amount of the round of promotions.
On September 8, 2023, Illuvium launched the second round of D1SK sales and launched the new Illuvitar. The Standard D1SK price was reduced to 0.00301 ETH, and the Mega D1SK price will be addressed 0.01801 ETH.Illuvium has not announced the detailed sales amount of the round of promotions.
On November 30, 2023, Illuvium launched a joint D1SK promotion with Team Liquid.Each Promo D1SK sold will include a unique Team Liquid brand Illuvitar, which costs about $40 per D1SK.Illuvium has not announced the detailed sales amount of the round of promotions.
As of March 27, 2024, Illuvium has completed 4 rounds of financing outside the game, with a total financing amount of US$65 million. Among investors, IOSG Ventures, Framework Ventures, Animoca Brands, Spartan Capital, Polygon Ventures, Yield Guild Games, Delphi Digital et al.The latest round of US$12 million Series A financing was completed on March 27, 2024, so the team should currently have sufficient financial capabilities.In-game NFT sales completed two rounds, with a total sales of about $76.94 million in land sales and D1SK sales, but this part of the tokens obtained from this part of the in-game sales are mainly used for destruction and return to ILV stakeholders.Revenue will not be included in the team’s funding portion.Overall, Illuvium’s overall funding is currently in good condition and should be able to support subsequent game development and operation.
2.3 Products and Technology
2.3.1Game introduction
Illuvium is not a game, but a game world composed of multiple games. In this game world, each game has its own role in the world.From a large category, the games in Illuvium can be simply divided intoSupply categoryandRequirementsTwo types of games,The former is mainly aimed at input-output. Players invest a certain amount of real resources and then produce game resources to lay the foundation for the operation of the entire game world., and at the same time, Illuvium official can also adjust the output of game resources to maintain the overall economic balance of the entire game world.The latter is mainly aimed at competitive consumption. Players use the acquired game resources to fight, and consume the gradually accumulated game resources during the confrontation., Illuvium official can stimulate players’ competitive needs by adjusting the balance of competitive games, thereby adjusting the consumption of game resources to maintain the overall economic balance of the entire game world.According to the official current game mechanism settings, the simulated business game Zero and the open world adventure game Overworld mainly exist as supply games, and the auto-chess form strategy competitive game Arena and the NFT collection game Beyond are mainly used asExisting in demand games.In addition, Illuvium has also developed a marketplace IlluviDex that specializes in trading game props in the ecosystem, where players can use ETH to buy and sell game props and complete cross-game prop interaction.
In the game’s background setting, players will be survivors of the Star Fleet to investigate a mysterious signal on a strange planet that is suspected to be the birthplace of civilization.There are variable climates, complex terrain, and a wild beast called Illuvials on this planet.This beast, called Illuvials, has some special energy, and players can use crystal fragments mined from the surface of the planet to capture and control the beast.Players will explore, collect, build and compete in this world to uncover the mystery of this planet.
2.3.2Illuvium Zero
Illuvium Zero is the foundation of the Illuvium game world. Players will play the role of survivors surviving on alien planets through a simulation management game, develop surrounding minerals, and produce corresponding resources to support the future exploration of this mysterious planet.
Figure 2–5 Zero game screen
In Zero, players can choose to purchase land NFT or build a series of buildings on the official free land in the future to mine and develop resources in the plot.The inherent resources in the land include elemental ore and fuel mines. Players can build buildings to mine and develop these minerals. Among them, three elements: Hydrogen, Carbon and Silicon can be mined.Three fuels, Crypton (mung bean), Hyperion (color beans) and Solon (soybeans) can be mined in the mine.The elements will be used to build and upgrade corresponding buildings in Zero, and fuel will be used as an important resource in Overworld. In Overworld, mung beans will be used as consumables for players to enter high-level areas, colored beans and yellow beans.It will be used to manufacture and upgrade the equipment skins and drone skins in Overworld. In addition, the fuel mined by players will be stored in the wallet in the form of ERC-20 and then sold to other companies in the official market IlluviDex.Overworld players who need it.
In addition to the inherent resources, there is also illuvial as a random resource in the land. Players can build a special building to scan the Illuvials randomly passing through the land. After obtaining the biological data of Illuvials, players can continue to study this in another special building.Data to generate a blueprint NFT that can be used to create equipment skins and drone skins in Overworld, or can also be sold to other Overworld players in demand in the official market IlluviDex.
Zero’s paid land is divided into 5 levels, with a total of 100,000. Currently, 19,969 pieces of land have been sold for the first batch of land.Different levels of land represent different levels of rarity. The more rare the land can produce the more resources, the more output bonus of resources. At the same time, T3, T4 and T5 lands also have unique special bonuses (Landmark landmarks) andThe more expensive the corresponding price, the T1 to T4 level land can be purchased in the IlluviDex market, while T5 level land will only be obtained through auction.In addition, since the number and location of elemental and fuel mines are randomly distributed, some lands may face a situation where one mineral is oversupply and the other is insufficient, so players need to strategically choose more balanced land for purchase.In addition, the player’s position in the entire map will also have a certain impact on land development. In the future, if the player owns multiple adjacent lands at the same time, then these lands will be able to achieve resource interoperability and be merged to form an economies of scale.
Table 2–1 Land type[5]
Table 2–2 Land details
On the land, players can build corresponding buildings in limited space to develop resources in the land.There are several types of buildings that can be built at present:
1) Infrastructure.The main base (Nexus) can determine the upper limit of the number of buildings; engineering workshops (Engineering Workshop), pre-building for mining resource mining sites and power plants; quantum manufacturers (Quantum Fabricant), pre-building for fuel mines and technology buildings;Power Station can increase the output of mining sites and resource converters.
2) Mining site.Sediment Excavator, carbon mine mining farm; Mine, silicon mine mining farm; Hydrogen Pump, hydrogen mine mining farm; Crypton Gate, mung bean fuel acquisition pool;Colorful bean mine (Hyperion Extractor), Colorful bean fuel acquisition pool; Solon Dredge, Soybean fuel acquisition pool.
3) Converter.A carbon converter (Sequestrian Plant) automatically produces carbon elements and can convert the other two elements into carbon elements; a silicon converter (Photodisintegration Plant) automatically produces silicon elements and can convert the other two elements into silicon elements;The hydrogen converter (Condenser Plant) automatically produces hydrogen elements and can convert the other two elements into hydrogen elements; the mung bean converter (L-Crypton Collider) automatically produces mung beans and can convert the other two fuels into mung beans;Hyperion Lathe automatically produces colored beans and can convert the other two fuels into colored beans; Anti-Solon Inverter automatically produces soybeans and can convert the other two fuels into soybeans.
4) Warehouse.Carbon Matter Sil; Silicon Matter Silo; Hydrogen Matter silo; Crypton Containment Unit; Color Bean Warehouse (Hyperion Containment Unit); Solon Containment Unit.
5) High-tech buildings.Singularity Scanner, used to scan Illuvials passing through the land; Zero Point Transducer, the pre-building for manufacturing blueprints; Materials Lab, used to study back-passed biological data,Production illustrations or blueprints may also fail; Data Bank is used to improve laboratories’ output and yields;
6) Others.Holographic Statue displays scanned Illuvials and increases the chance of scanning again in the future; Marketplace allows players to replace the resources they need in the game.
In addition to building construction time and resource allocation selection, players also need to consider arranging appropriate locations and paths between buildings. Different locations and paths will have a great impact on the output of resource production buildings, and in the game, eachModifying the location and path of a building at one time will cause a lot of cost.Therefore, only if the path is reasonably arranged and the location is fully planned can the player obtain the most efficient resource output.The above key points will test players’ investment in the strategy and increase the fun of players when participating in the game.
In addition, the role played by Illuvium in the game is mainly the regulator of macro resources. Since the fuel efficiency produced by players is limited, it may not be sufficient to provide the development of Overworld games. Therefore, when players cast 1 in the form of ERC-20.When a single fuel bean is traded, 19 fuel beans will be cast in Illuvium’s treasury at the same time. That is to say, the player’s output in Zero will be expanded by up to 20 times and invested in Overworld, but what exactly is this outputAt the time, the amount of investment in Overworld will be controlled by Illuvium.When the price of fuel beans fluctuates significantly, Illuvium will intervene in the supply of fuel beans to stabilize the price of fuel beans to reduce the risk of someone maliciously controlling the price of in-game resources.In addition, such a setting also means that when players harvest the profit of 1 fuel bean, the entire game will increase the profit of 20 fuel beans, and the remaining 19 fuel beans will be earned after the future sale.The holder of ILV tokens allocated by the treasury.Simply put, in the entire Zero game, 5% of the revenue will be attributed to land holders, and 95% of the revenue will be attributed to Illuvium ecological participants in the future.And this proportion can be modified in the future through Illuvium DAO governance to better distribute the profits generated by the game.In addition, as a game developer, Illuvium may design more unique gameplay, buildings and resources to enrich the player’s gaming experience in the future.
The game has entered the public beta stage, and currently only paid land buyers can participate in the game. The blueprint created in this stage can be retained for subsequent use, but other data will be reset after the official version is launched. The game is on the PC side (MAC, Windows)It is available in both mobile (Android).
2.3.3Overworld
Overworld is the open world adventure game that is most closely bound to the game world view.Its main focus is adventure, exploration and capture.Players will play the role of the explorer on the planet, equipped with drones to collect ore in various areas, create equipment, and capture Illuvials.
Figure 2–6 Overworld game screen
Overworld has 8 areas, one of which is the initial area and the other 7 are explorable areas. Different areas have different landscapes, corresponding to Illuvials of different types of resources and different attributes.The area is also set to 4 levels, and the amount of mung bean fuel required for different levels is different, and the resource level and Illuvials level are also different.Moreover, there is a battery limit in the area. Players’ actions in the area will consume power, and they must leave the area after the power is consumed. Therefore, players need to arrange their actions reasonably within the area.
The materials that players can obtain in the area are mainly ores, plants and some materials. Then the player can also capture Illuvials through Shards props, and then conquer Illuvials by card battles with Illuvials in the combat space.After obtaining the materials, players can create some new props.These tracks have two types, one type can be used to collect materials or improve the efficiency of material collection, including Drone Blueprint (Drone), Equipment (Equipment), Shards, equivalent to the elf ball in the Pokémon game).Another type is mainly used to make cards in Arena, including function cards (Augments), weapons and armor, combat cards (Illuvials), etc.In addition, the production of props in Overworld requires the consumption of colored beans and soybeans produced in Zero, and the props created can also be sold to players in need in IlluviDex.
As an open-world adventure game, Overworld’s two main points are the adventure experience between different areas and experience the visual shock brought by the game’s art design.Another point is to let players experience the fun of collection and manufacturing, and increase the proportion of these mechanisms in Overworld, so that players can have more sense of gain.
The game is currently in internal testing. The internal testing qualification requires sending an email to the official to apply for an activation code. The game body can be downloaded in the Epic Games mall and has certain computer configuration requirements.
2.3.4Arena
As a strategic competitive game, Arena is fundamentally different from the simulated business game Zero and the open-world adventure game Overworld.Arena does not need to have cumbersome resource collection and production processes. Players only need to rely on their own Illuvials deck to engage in PVE or PVP auto-chess strategy battles.
Figure 2–7 Arena game screen
In terms of the core design of the game mechanism, Arena’s auto-chess settings are not much different from other auto-chess.The game adopts a turn-to-play system, and players need to use gold coins in each round to purchase the corresponding chess pieces and place them on the field to fight.Each piece in auto-chess has its own special abilities and characteristics, and also has two attributes: profession and bond. Players need to rely on these two attributes to make up corresponding bonds and improve the ability of the piece. At the same time, players can also repeat it.Purchase the same piece, perform synthesis operations, improve the chess piece’s ability, and change the shape of the piece.
From the perspective of profession, there are five basic professions in Arena, namely warrior, guardian, assassin, mage and auxiliary.The main difference between different professions is the functions of chess pieces. For example, warriors and guards are mainly used to place them in the front row to take damage to the opponent’s chess pieces, assassins are mainly used to bypass the opponent’s front row to cause damage to the back row, while mages and auxiliaryAs the back row unit, attack the opponent’s unit, or add BUFF to the units on the field.In addition, the same piece can also have multiple professions, and the player’s strategy choices and lineup matching will be more abundant.
From the perspective of attributes, the chess pieces in Arena have five main basic attributes, namely water, fire, earth, wood, and qi.These five basic attributes show a mutual restraint relationship.Each piece can be attributeless or has one or more compound attributes.When a chess piece has one or more attributes, the main attribute of the chess piece will become the main basis for restraint judgment.When there is attribute restraint between two opposing pieces, a predation effect will be triggered. The attribute restraint will obtain an exciting buff and gain the enhanced combat ability after the status bar is charged.Therefore, for players, choosing chess pieces with different attributes for different enemies will also be an important part of testing the player’s strategic ability.
In addition to basic chess pieces, players can also use the rune system and equipment system to add unique effects or ability bonuses to their chess pieces to improve the ability of the chess lineup at a certain stage, thereby improving the confrontation of the strategy.
As of March 27, 2024, Arena has launched 205 pieces with different attributes, professions and levels, 87 runes of different levels and types, and 81 super runes with different functions.Players will be able to buy these cards in the market in the future, or create corresponding cards in Overworld to form their own decks, and win the ladder bonus for each season in Arena’s arena.
The role Illuvium played in Arena is mainly the operator and the referee of the event. Illuvium is responsible for launching new cards to enrich the player’s gaming experience, and at the same time, each version needs to adjust the balance of the old cards to maintain the entire game.The competitive nature of the game will put high requirements on Illuvium’s official numerical adjustment capabilities and operational capabilities.
Arena is still in the internal beta stage, but it has been launched on Epic Games and has certain computer configuration requirements.And in the future, if players want to participate in the ladder mode to get the ladder bonus, they need to hold at least one valid deck containing 28 cards.
2.3.5Beyond
Beyond is an NFT collection game officially launched by Illuvium in June 2023, or strictly speaking, a portrait PFP production game.
Beyond has a relatively independent relationship with the other three games. Players can obtain Illuvitar avatar and accessories by purchasing D1SK, and can customize their own portrait PFP by equipping different accessories.In addition, players can buy and sell these NFTs in IlluviDex, then configure avatars that meet their needs, and use these avatars to participate in the official rarity competition, which will be held once a week, and the top 100 avatar holders willILV can be obtained as a reward.
In the future, these avatars will also become personal logos and social media for Illuvium players to participate in this huge gaming world.
Figure 2–8 Arena game screen
2.3.6Summarize
At present, the design of the four games of Illuvium basically conforms to the principle it laid at the beginning of its construction of the game world, that is, different games have their own independent gameplay and mechanisms to target different players, but they can also use the gameThe economic mechanism connects these games to each other to form a prosperous game ecosystem.From the perspective of completion, Zero, Overworld, and Arena have already achieved good completion in their respective game mechanisms and quality. What we need to do in the future is to technically connect various games. At the same time, Illuvium’s special game generationIn the future, Coin sILV2 will also play more important abilities in this game world, thereby ensuring that the entire ecosystem has sufficient sustainability.All of the above puts high requirements on the development and operation capabilities of the Illuvium team, but as of now, the team’s performance is basically satisfactory to players.
Summarize
From the perspective of team and funds, Illuvium’s development team has sufficient development experience and good development capabilities, and the project financing situation is good. On March 27, it just completed a 12 million Series A financing, so the capital market is also relatively large.Abundant.
From the product perspective, Illuvium designed a huge game world composed of simulated management game Zero, open-world adventure game Overworld, auto-chess strategy competition game Arena, and NFT collection game Beyond.In this game world, each game has a unique gameplay mechanism to target different players, but the four games are connected through the mining and utilization of interoperable resources between different games, allowing players to use this gameA richer gaming experience can be obtained in the world.At present, these four games have good completion levels, among which Zero and Beyond have been launched in public beta, while Overworld and Arena are still in the internal beta stage and are expected to start public beta soon.From a longer perspective, Illuvium’s game world design has put a very big test on the development ability and operation of the Illuvium team, especially the post-production adjustment of collection games and the balance adjustment of competitive games will be a must for the team.Illuvium has proved its development capabilities to overcome, but its operational capabilities still need further practice testing.
3.develop
3.1 History
Table 3–1 Illuvium Events
3.2 Current situation
3.2.1Operational data
Figure 3–1 Illuvium Zero land transaction data[6]
According to Immutable X’s block browser, as of 17:00 on March 21, 2024, there were 11,392 transactions in the land on Illuvium Zero, with a total transaction volume of 10,753 ETH, with an average transaction price of 0.944 ETH per piece of land.The current floor price is 0.12 ETH and the independent holding address is 7,680.
Because the remaining Illuvium games are still in internal testing, there is no detailed operation data yet.
3.2.2Social Media Scale
Table 3–2 Illuvium social media data
As of March 21, 2024, Illuvium’s social media platform is large in scale, with a large number of fans, frequent interactions, a large number of people in the community, and a high degree of activity. The content mainly revolves around the game mechanism and token mechanism..
3.3 Future
Figure 3–2 Illuvium 2024 Roadmap[7]
Figure 3–3 Illuvium 2024 Q2 Roadmap
According to the roadmap released by Illuvium, the main development direction of Illuvium will be focused on game development in the next 2024 year. It is expected that the fourth version of Arena and Overworld internal beta will be launched soon, and the second quarter of 2024 will be launched.Illuvium plans to launch a public beta version of the game world and release Beyond’s third wave D1SK. In the third quarter of 2024, Illuvium plans to announce a new game. In the fourth quarter of 2024, Illuvium plans to launch ILV-staking V3 and release BeyondThe fourth wave of D1SK.In addition, Illuvium has also announced an airdrop plan after the main network test version ends. It is expected that the launch of the airdrop plan will bring more players to the game.
Summarize:
From the perspective of project development, Illuvium’s development is still in its early stages, Arena and Overworld are still in the internal beta stage, and the overall concept of the game world is still a bit far from being completed.However, the game has accumulated high popularity, and the community and social media are relatively active. It is expected that after Arena and Overworld enter the public beta stage, Illuvium will welcome more players to participate.
4.Economic Model
4.1 Supply
4.1.1ILV Token Allocation
As Illuvium’s governance token, ILV was launched on the main network in February 2021, with a total supply of 10,000,000 pieces. As of March 27, 2024, the supply of ILV tokens was 9,605,840 pieces [8] and the circulation was 6,334,671 pieces..
Table 4–1 The estimated approximate allocation of ILV tokens
Figure 4–1 ILV token allocation diagram [9]
From the perspective of distribution, the tokens allocated to financing account for 30% of the total tokens, the tokens allocated to the team and treasury account for 30% of the total allocation, and the remaining 40% of the tokens will be used as liquid staking rewardsand in-game rewards are assigned to eco participants.Due to the long issuance of the token, most of the tokens have been unlocked.
In addition, there is a synthetic sub-token sILV2, which is mainly used to purchase items and services in the game.For example, in Zero’s land sales and Beyond’s D1SK sales, in addition to supporting ETH payments, sILV2 is also supported for payments.The way to obtain sILV2 can only be achieved by pledging ILV tokens, and the exchange between sILV2 tokens and ILV tokens is one-way and irreversible. Each minted sILV2 token will reduce the circulation of ILV tokens by one.In the long run, due to the irreversible exchange of sILV2 tokens and ILV tokens, as the game officially enters operation, more ILVs are minted into sILV2 tokens in one direction, and ILV tokens will go deflation as of March 22, 2024., a total of 154,310 tokens were minted [10].
4.1.2Coin holding address analysis
Figure 4–2 Analysis of ILV coin holding address [11]
From the above figure 4–2, according to Ethereum’s browser, as of March 27, 2024, ILV had 50,187 coin-holding addresses, with the top 100 holdings accounting for 90.22%.Among the top 20 coin holding addresses, there are 4 contract addresses, accounting for about 63.41%, including the ILV token’s home contract address, the treasury address and the pledge pool address, and 7 exchange addresses. The holding ratio is approximately9.66%, the total proportion of the above two reached 73.07%. In addition, there are three capital addresses belonging to IOSG Ventures and Delphi Digital, with holdings accounting for about 1.63%.Therefore, after deducting some of the above tokens, we can see that the overall holdings of ILV tokens are relatively scattered.
4.2 Requirements
As Illuvium’s governance token, its main function is to participate in the governance of the agreement, and its most important function is to pledge it to share the dividends of project development.Users can pledge their ILV tokens in the staking interface of Illuvium, and retrieve their principal and staking rewards after a lock-up period ranging from 1 to 12 months.The pledge reward can be retrieved in the form of ILV tokens or sILV2. If it is retrieved in the form of ILV, this part of the pledge reward will have a 12-month vesting period. If it is retrieved in the form of sILV2, this part of the reward will be unlocked immediately., and can be used in in-game purchases, which is also the only way for users to obtain sILV2 tokens.
There are two staking pools that users can choose, one is the ILV token pool and the other is the ILV/ETH token pool.The former is a staking pool set by Illuvium itself. Users only need to pledge ILV tokens to get pledge rewards, but the share of liquid pledge rewards is low, accounting for only 20% of all pledge rewards. As of March 27, 2024On the day, the total locked position of the liquidity pool was approximately 338,761,280 USD, the estimated APR is 2.93%, and the estimated token pledge is 2,219,930, including tokens in the liquidity pool, some of the tokens in the treasury andTokens that are still present in the attribution contract have not been allocated.The latter is a liquidity pool that cooperates with SushiSwap. In addition to pledging ILV tokens, users also need to pledge ETH tokens. However, the share of liquidity staking rewards shared by the token is relatively high, accounting for 80% of the total staking rewards.In addition to liquidity staking rewards, you can also get transaction fees for transactions in the liquidity pool as additional rewards. There are 291,165 ILV tokens pledged in the liquidity pool. Adding to the pledged ETH, the total locked volume is about 80,519,968.USD, the estimated APR is 49.29%, and the estimated token pledge is 263,827.After adding up the pledged tokens in the two liquidity pools, it is estimated that the total pledge of ILV tokens is about 2,483,757, accounting for about 25.86% of the current token supply.
Figure 4–3 ILV liquidity staking pool
Figure 4–4 ILV token liquidity staking rewards [12]
There are two sources of pledge income from ILV tokens. One is liquid pledge rewards that account for 30% of the supply of ILV tokens itself.This part of the pledge reward is distributed to one Epoch every 14 days, with a total of 78 rounds, and has now entered the 71st round of Epoch.As of March 27, 2024, the total estimated to issue tokens in this round of Epoch is approximately 11,694 ILV, of which the ILV liquidity pool will receive 2,339 ILV tokens and the ILV/ETH pool will receive 9,355 ILV tokens.The total number of ILV tokens issued is about 2.92 million, accounting for 97.33% of the liquid pledge rewards. It is expected that all liquid pledge rewards will be issued in early July.
In addition to liquid pledge rewards, ILV’s pledge income also includes the profits of the game itself.According to Illuvium Governance Proposal IIP-45-R[13], after deducting costs, 5% of all operating income in the game will be allocated to the land holders in Illuvium Zero, and the remaining 95% will be used by the Vault contractILV tokens purchased in the ILV/ETH liquidity pool and then distributed as a pledge reward to the stakeholder of the Epoch round.
Here, take D1SK sales as an example. Assuming that a total of 1,000 ETH tokens and 4,000 sILV2 tokens were obtained in one round of D1SK sales, then according to the distribution rules of Illuvium, 50 ETH tokens in this round of sales will be allocated to Illuvium Zero.The land holder, the remaining 950 ETH tokens will be collected by the Vault contract and used to purchase ILV tokens in the ILV/ETH liquidity pool, and then allocated to the stakeholder of the ILV token during the round of Epoch.In addition, the sILV2 tokens used to purchase D1SK will also be distributed to ILV token stakers as RevDis (profit distribution) in the future, or destroyed to reduce the total supply of tokens.
Overall, the principle adhered to ILV’s pledge design is to fully feed back to the core participants of the game and promote the sustainable development of the game ecosystem.
Summarize:
From the perspective of token economics, ILV tokens are mainly used as governance tokens for the network, and their main function is to feed back to the core participants of the game to promote the sustainable development of the game ecosystem.At present, from the perspective of mechanism setting, ILV tokens can basically achieve the above goals through the staking mechanism, but this mechanism puts forward high requirements for the subsequent profitability of the game, and the answer is needed after subsequent practice.
5.Raceway
Illuvium belongs to a chain game track, but because the track itself has a large difference in its projects, quantitative analysis cannot be carried out. Therefore, this section only discusses the current status of the track and the future of the track, and no longer conducts competitive analysis.
Figure 5–1 Chain game activity and trading volume [14]
Figure 5–2 Number of active users of chain games
Since the market entered a new bull market at the end of 2023, the chain game track has achieved significant growth and has become one of the main tracks leading the rise in this bull market.From the data, we can see that the chain game track is experiencing its second rapid growth period since the end of 2021.The number of chain game players has grown rapidly, with the number of active users exceeding 3 million at most, and the transactions are active, and the market is enthusiastic about participating.If estimated based on the player retention rate in the previous round of rapid growth, after the end of this round of growth, the core user group of chain games will remain above 2.5 million, which is the closest to the number of core player groups at the bottom of the previous round of the market.three times.This means that the entire chain game track will have a lot of room for growth in the future, and more top projects may emerge.
Looking at this round of rapid growth period, we can find some changes.
1) The types of chain game projects have become more diverse.Compared with the previous round of chain game growth, in terms of the track pattern dominated by role-playing, simulated management and sports, in addition to the above three traditional chain game types in this round of chain game growth, it emphasizes confrontation.Sexual and strategic large-scale multiplayer online role-playing, action, shooting, war chess, strategic simulation, MOBA and other chain game types have gradually emerged.
2) The quality of chain games has been significantly improved.On the one hand, in terms of game quality, more and more games have begun to use the most popular game engines for corresponding development, and art design has become more and more beautiful, and has gradually abandoned the initial mainstream of cheap pixel style.The art style and gameplay also emphasize the rationality and diversity of the mechanism, and quickly move closer to the traditional game industry in terms of playability.On the other hand, it is also reflected in the operation of games. Due to the rapid inflow of talents in the old game industry, the operating concepts and methods of several mainstream chain games are becoming increasingly close to the model of the traditional online game industry. This mature model is in the short term.It can still fully play a role in promoting the development of the game and communicating with players in real time.Therefore, the combination of quality and operation has significantly improved the visual experience of this round of chain games and the previous round of chain games.
However, the biggest problem facing this round of rapid growth period is that it has not yet gotten rid of the impact of the first round of chain games on it.Strictly speaking, there has not yet been a project that has innovated the track paradigm of chain games in this round of rapid growth.Because in essence, the rapid growth period of this round of chain games is not only the background of the bull market, but also the development of chain games requires a certain amount of time.A relatively simple development of chain games can be the first to launch the market and occupy the first-mover advantage. A chain game project that requires large-scale investment requires two or three years of development time to be truly implemented. The time difference between this determines that large chain game projects are inevitable.It will be later than market awareness, and the number of participants in large chain game projects is more, the cost is higher, and the transformation is more difficult.This means that as the latecomer of the development of the previous round of chain game track, it is actually difficult for this round of large chain game to make a big deal based on the experience and lessons accumulated during the rapid growth period of the first round of chain game.The innovation can only continue to deepen and develop the practice of the “Play To Earn” concept in the game economic model.
At present, Illuvium is one of the few game projects that have made innovative in the underlying logic of blockchain games. It no longer relies on a single mechanism and gameplay to acquire users, but is trying to build a system from the underlying architecture.With an effective economic model to connect multiple games, such a gaming ecosystem is expected to be more vital than the traditional single blockchain game world.
Summarize
From the perspective of the track, since the end of 2023, the chain game track has achieved rapid development, and the transaction volume and user volume have increased significantly. From the data, it is expected that after the end of this round of market cycle, the chain game track is expected to be completed.The core user group of Tao will be at least more than twice as early as before, which means that for a long time in the future, the chain game track will still have a broad market space.The development of this round of chain game track shows two characteristics: diversification of game types and improvement of game quality, which are the main reasons for the continuous and rapid growth of the number of chain game users in this round.However, at present, most of the chain game games in this round have not broken away from the “Play To Earn” framework and have made few innovations. Illuvium is one of the few games that have made innovations in the underlying logic of blockchain games.The project no longer relies on a single mechanism and gameplay to acquire users, but instead tries to establish an effective economic model from the underlying architecture to connect multiple games. This game ecosystem is expected to be more important thanThe traditional single blockchain game world is more vital.
6.risk
1) Code security risks:Illuvium’s pledge contract has undergone multiple rounds of audits, but there is still a possibility of code security risks.In addition, the code of each game in Illuvium is not open source at present, the security is unknown, and there is a possibility of corresponding plug-ins in the future.
2) Market risks:The competition in the game market is fierce at present, and various types of games are emerging one after another.
3) Operational risks:Both competitive and production games have put forward high operational requirements for the game project parties.
4) Token risk:As an important governance token for the project, ILV has the possibility of a significant fluctuation in the price of tokens affecting the development and operation of the project itself.
5) Development risks:The development of game projects is difficult and takes a long time to develop, and there is a risk that they cannot be delivered on time.
References
Illuvium documentation, https://docs.illuvium.io/illuvium-whitepaper
Community Encyclopedia, https://www.illuvialmaster.com/
First-class warehouse research report “Illuvium”
Illuvium Chinese game guide, https://ilvcn.gitbook.io/ilvplay
[1] http://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/illuvium data as of March 27, 2024
[2]https://illuvium.io/news/51-illuvium-land-sale-explained
[3]https://illuvium.io/news/illuvium-beyond-set-1-wave-one-buyers-guide
[4]https://illuvium.io/news/illuvium-beyond-v1-1-now-live
[5]https://illuvium.io/news/51-illuvium-land-sale-explained
[6]https://rc1-blockscout.ILV-testnet.org/mainnet/
[7]https://twitter.com/illuviumio/status/1772906673415262570/photo/1
[8]https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/illuvium
[9]https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/illuvium/tokenomics
[10]https://etherscan.io/token/0x7e77dcb127f99ece88230a64db8d595f31f1b068
[11] https://etherscan.io/token/tokenholderchart/0x767fe9edc9e0df98e07454847909b5e959d7ca0e
[12]https://staking.illuvium.io/
[13] https://snapshot.org/#/ilv-gov.eth/proposal/0xc4511bc3dadffcd3bcb617ea6b5fbeb8e0cf46c05f4805348f6fa87c601b8a0c
[14]https://dappradar.com/rankings/games/charts?range=1y
