Assumptions

Why does Heavenland need an in-game economy, and what technologies do we need to build it?

Games have been implementing some in-game economies to raise in-game experience to a whole new level. These economies are introducing some in-game currency, which you can use to make further progress in the game. How this currency is obtained differs - you can gather it in the game or purchase it by microtransaction. For a long time, this currency has been centralized and existed only within the game provider. With blockchain, web3 and mainly with Enjin initiative, game developers are given entirely new tools for expressing ownership and introducing the economy in the game.

You may wonder how it is possible for people to buy some virtual stuff instead of something from the material world? How is it possible that instead of buying a new jacket, people would prefer to buy armour for their in-game character, recharge energy to play further, or upgrade their in-game car? All these questions come to my mind when I see my 8-year old son playing on his tablet and asking me to let him purchase something in the game. Young people spend more and more time wired to the internet to meet their friends. The infamous covid situation has accelerated this trend even further.

A huge crypto community has built all the tools necessary to create a transparent economy where everyone can participate. Fungible tokens take care of in-game payments, NFTs for expressing ownership of different assets, and contracts are created to enable exchange without a 3rd party. The technology is battle-tested and trusted; custom components are audited and there is no black box.

There is, of course, a downside that comes with people exploiting what others are building. All this freedom gives a free hand to illegal activities, including money laundering. When building a long-lasting project you have to comply with all current and future externalities. To prevent illegal activities FATF continuously introduces new AML and KYC regulations to curtail these attacks, which, on the one hand, makes building the virtual economy harder, but, on the other hand, it gives a proper guideline on how to prevent this economy from being exploited. It’s 100% certain these regulations will evolve in the future, impacting all the participants in the economy. Heavenland will announce all the regulation-related changes, as well as changes of any other type, in advance.

Metaverse Currency

Even though there is no strict definition of the metaverse, many projects proclaim themselves as a metaverse project. Heavenland is not the first metaverse and won’t be the last. Decentraland paved the way to a metaverse, followed by Sandbox and other projects. These projects led to a metaverse boom at the end of 2021 when Mark Zuckerberg popularized metaverse as a buzzword.

The economy in the metaverses mentioned above is powered by its native fungible token taking the role of the in-game currency, a utility token with a limited supply. The value of these tokens grows based on their increasing utility - as the metaverse evolves, so does the number of possibilities for which the token can be used. Building anything on land increases the value not only of that land but all the lands surrounding it. Building anything that others are willing to pay for increases token demand and therefore its value.

In addition to the utility function mentioned above, Heavenland’s token, HTO, takes the role of a governance token through a staking mechanism. In short, if you own land in Heavenland and you stake your HTO tokens on that land, you have the right to access Heavenland’s DAO and influence how Heavenland will evolve in the future.

Technology Trends

The metaverse boom is heavily supported by movements in technology and how people spend their time. Computational power we have access to is growing steadily, VR headsets are arriving in more and more households, blockchain adaptation is spreading beyond the area of geeks and enthusiasts to the general public.

Several years ago, it was unthinkable that someone would want to watch others play. Now, there are e-sport tournaments, and Twitch alone has more than ten million daily users who watch others play. Virtual reality finds its use in more and more sectors, including gaming, healthcare, education, automotive, movies and development.

Metaverse could be the next big thing that will unite all of the above mentioned into a single product, everyone will understand. The product will abstract technology to enable everyone to experience something what was unthinkable several years ago and now can be accessed without a technological barrier.