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This article was written by Battle For Giostone Co-Founder Mile Gramatikov.

A Road Ahead

As a founder, sometimes a great idea will come, and you won’t be able to stop thinking about it. That’s what happened with Battle For Giostone.

After competing and building friendships in the MOBA space for more than a decade, we started to tinker with blockchain apps and immediately fell in love. The thought of combining the two became a mesmerizing concept — we couldn’t help wonder what the result would be of bringing these worlds together. Battle For Giostone is our attempt to reinvent gaming by allowing gamers to immerse themselves in familiar and fun experiences, with the added benefits of ownership and self sovereignty that Web3 technology provides.

That’s no easy task. But Gandalf the White said it best: “Things are now in motion that cannot be undone.”

The Beginning — Q1 2022

Many people remember the beginning of 2022 as a time when the pandemic was still raging on in the world, and the conflict between Russia and Ukraine was heating up. In the Battle For Giostone offices, we were hard at work developing a product market fit for our idea. With the assistance of Theeban, aka 1437, we went through a couple of iterations of the game, conceptualized numerous new abilities, and crafted the first edition of our website. It was was rudimentary, but it was enough to test out the waters and we discovered massive community support for a Web3 MOBA game.

As soon as we had evidence that real players as well as professional gamers loved what we were doing, we doubled down on our ideas and started developing the BFG token. The tokenomics went under heavy development, and in the meantime, we started to develop out our early Web3 contracts (such as staking).

The game production phase itself also started in Q1, where we worked tirelessly to make the first edition playable as soon as possible.

The Middle — Q2 2022

The closed MVP game launch happened in Q2 2022. We devoted a lot of resources to developing the product, and it was important to us to have the hero and ability mechanics working the way we intended. Our initial idea was to make the fundamentals work, and then to make it beautiful later. That was our engineering approach, and it has turned out great. The parameters of the heroes and the abilities began meshing, but of course there were still a lot of bugs to resolve. One by one, we handled them all, ensuring that the Pre-Alpha would come out on time.

Q2 was also special because that’s when we launched our Forum. The Forum has been a place for the community to can discuss major events, patch notes, read announcements, talk about the economy, submit ideas about balancing the game, give item suggestions, or even talk about the rest of the MOBA world.

Also during this period, we were focused on getting Seed Round funding and pitching our idea.

The Current State — Q3 2022

Over the last three months, we’ve completely redesigned our website. That was a massive draw for our community because they loved the new look when we launched it. We also rewarded the most active participants in our Discord community with access to the Pre-Alpha version of the game and got enthusiastic as well as honest feedback from players about what they wanted to see next.

Turning this feedback into reality, we returned to the drawing board, covered their requests in new patches, and even started developing a surprise. This turned out to be our first hosted tournament, with the Pre-Alpha version of the game. Things were getting serious. After two successful tournaments, we started preparing for the IDO, scheduled for the 4th of October.

After the IDO is finished, we’ll start hosting monthly or bi-weekly tournaments with a Spectator mode that will allow casters to comment on what’s happening during the match in real time. That will elevate the streaming experience and transform the game into an enjoyable experience for players and spectators alike.

During this time, we also launched our Official Cinematic Trailer, released Pre-Alpha gameplay videos on YouTube, and released a developer update to cover the new designs and gameplay mechanics.

In the last several weeks, we have started publishing the Battle For Giostone lore. People can now go to our website and read about the story of the Three Kings, the appearance of the Giostone, what it did to their civilization, and why the battle started in the first place.

The Future — Q4 2022

We are really excited about what is to come. Once we complete the IDO, we will release information about the Closed Pre-Alpha game launch. We will also release the GIOS utility token, which will serve as an in-game currency and will not be a blockchain-based asset.

We will then release a marketplace and an NFT Heroes pre-sale and complete a CoinMarketCap listing. Immediately after our token generation event, we will create a liquidity pool where people can stake their BFG tokens and receive rewards for supporting the project early on, per our vesting schedule.

We will also begin placing a much larger emphasis on the Esports component of Battle For Giostone. We’re currently in the final stages of negotiating with several sponsors that we think will make our Tournaments legendary in regards to player rewards. We want the watching experience to be spectacular, where the Story Mode will help gamers immerse themselves into the heroes’ backstories and the world’s beginning.

Finally, we will begin working on the Android, iOS, and Ubuntu releases of the game to broaden our funnel for player onboarding. We are excited to involve as many people as possible in a project that aims to reinvent gaming as well as the rewards it provides for their time, effort, and skills!

While progress is ultimately measured in both steps backwards as well as forward, those living in the day-to-day of crypto have an acute understanding of the pains of each step back. In the Web3, gaming is a microcosm of the broader markets and the embodiment of three steps forward, two steps back. While pundits nearly unanimously agree that blockchain built games will rule the roost in due course, getting there will not be without its growing pains.

There are complex difficulties in creating a sustainable token economy for a game. The current cris de coeur amongst experts is to shout the rather self-evident, “a game must be playable.” True, but there is much more to it.

We all know:

• Attracting users through inflation is unsustainable.
• Rewards easily earned are easily spent.

Typically, tokens can be earned through play, staking and LP’ing.

From first principles we can understand — a game is an attention economy. This is why the narrative “games need to be playable” is an important one. Should a DeFi protocol masquerade as a game, the attention required to drive sustainable ongoing growth is not there. Instead, participants merely work on “gaming” the protocol, rather than have the protocol serve the gaming experience.

Earning

The stain of an earning game that no longer has sustainable economic activity does not come out in the wash. Whilst Web3 games can be dynamic and create opportunities for a higher percentage of players to earn income—thanks to decentralized value distribution models—without ongoing revenue this model will fall flat. Dota2 famously generates more than 200M USD annually and puts about 40M of that revenue into tournaments. Were a Web3 game to attain similar success, by all accounts the tokenomics should be much more inclusive. This would equate to a much larger percentage of value being distributed via rewards, tournaments, tokenized incentives and the litany of possibilities that simply do not exist in Web2. However, the key differentiator here is that players return to Dota2 over the course of weeks, months and years. Utility (or attention) drives value, hence value needs to be driven into utility. Passive staking for example is not complementary to play and must be reconsidered. Game loops must be thought of as value loops, driven by the attention and enjoyment of the player.

A Word on Staking

Locking tokens to receive emissions is mildly worthwhile as it incentivizes vesting as a project matures but — it is not the utility of a token. Users receive more of a risky asset and can now mitigate some of the risk by selling it. This is a simple equation that often undermines inchoate game ecosystems.

Liquidity

Incentivizing liquidity is of value but should not be too heavily front-loaded or bloated, otherwise, users will depart when they see their outsized APYs dwindle. Teams should be willing to provide more liquidity than they often do for myriad reasons. Should a team not feel like their listing price is a worthy buy, why should anyone else?

Proper liquidity forces teams to reevaluate their diluted market cap as reliance on people showing up to provide liquidity for them in uncertain markets is a perilous prospect. Even in better conditions, the same scenario has played out ad nauseum — highly valuated, well capitalized projects experience a dramatic drop in volume, making it near impossible to enter or exit a position without massive slippage. While all markets have suffered greatly, these projects are going to have difficulty re-emerging as unlocks continue and every bounce gets sold. Teams that experience this become gun-shy and attempt to save every last dollar rather than defend their own token. The psychological impact is awful on early stage projects while private investors sit on the sidelines, saying nothing and waiting to sell. Early on, it is essential that a team understands their fragility as a new entrant into a highly volatile trading environment and must learn to balance their funding needs and liquidity.

Diluted Valuations

Battle For Giostone has a considerably lower diluted cap than most projects coming to market. And, as anyone can see, their distribution is a little different than what has become a standard but hugely flawed practice. Participants became worried that investors could own too much of a given supply and teams responded by raising their valuations in order to sell less tokens. This hugely limits upside potential and makes it extraordinarily expensive to provide liquidity, especially following unlocks. BFG as a project wishes for broad distribution of their token across their user base while conversely, keeping their cap table incredibly small. They have been remarkably efficient and believe that a lower starting point in terms of diluted value supports not only their prospective public but the future of the game economy itself.

This is inherent to preparing a worthwhile token economy — one in which the game tokens are prepared to grow in step with the growth of the game, not one where a newly released ecosystem sags under the weight of initial overvaluation.

In-Game Economy

The Battle For Giostone economy is a rethinking and gamification of the typical play-to-earn model. Sustainability should come from activity within the network and not be a slave to time-based emissions or investor demands. The borderline delusional hope that value can be shared and sustained through gratuitous emissions, without real underlying attention and activity will hopefully constitute a misguided footnote in Web3 gaming history. DeFi apps, which deployed similarly disastrous strategies, have woken up from the slumber of three-digit APYs to a rather stark reality. In recent months, the term “real yield” has become popularized. This simply means that APY is created by revenues derived from a given protocol. Gaming can be approached similarly even though the value of play is not something that can be perfectly quantified.

The dynamism of a token within a game is essential. While there is no game without capital contributions, players everywhere see these parties as prospective enemies. This largely adversarial relationship is problematic and was previously mitigated by very large community funds where players received free tokens, causing massive sell-offs. An improved appearance created a worse reality whereby the “cure” was worse than the “disease.” Tokens and their economy must be designed to serve both of these parties — the holder and the player — at the same time.

To better align incentives, the BFG economy has been designed to respect all types of token holders by introducing a looped economic system. After all, those who earn tokens bring activity and revenue to buyers while token holders can bring revenue to gamers, within the constructs of a mutually beneficial architecture.

A schematic of the BFG in-game economy (some of these values may change)

The diagram above illustrates how a shared value economy can function within both a gameplay and holder loop.

For example:

• A capital contributor who supports the project will hope to earn additional tokens by staking their tokens.
• In order to do this, they must forge an NFT which will be taxed.
• In the diagram, the tax is 10% (as an example).
• This tax is then deposited into a player reward fund.

This is the beginning of a symbiotic relationship — holders are likely to lock up their tokens when they see future growth potential in the ecosystem while future growth potential must come in the form of new players.

• Network generated revenues offer BFG rewards to the NFT stakers.

A Tradable Asset

An overlooked element in all of this is the listed token which can live in a world that is separated from the game itself. Since the BFG token utilities is an acting currency among other utility, all game associated revenues will be converted to BFG. This allows for some token velocity and creates a direct relationship between APY, token price and emissions.

• When the APY is lower, the token price will respond in kind thus:
• Stabilizing the amount of BFG tokens to be distributed as revenue.
• When rewards increase, APY increases as will the token price, thus:
• Stabilizing the amount of BFG tokens to be distributed as revenue.
• Any inefficiency or lag creates opportunity for those who follow the game’s economy.

There are additional safeguards in place that further capitalize on the price to earning ratio:

• Not all locked BFG will have earning power — it will be capped by a percentage of the supply to incentivize early participants to gain earning seniority.

Naturally, economic activity will ebb and flow but the APY will be adjusted at the both high and low end to best support a burgeoning economy:

• Effectively rebasing to a lower APY when activity spikes around very bullish price activity balances value between the token and its return.
• Conversely, boosting APY during a lagging or developmentally intensive period will also impact price.
• The overall effect is stability both in BFG earning power as well as potential token price.

The ultimate aim is to create a popular game that has a sustainable economy with robust token utility. This requires thought surrounding the speculative nature of crypto in general as well as the seasonal aspects of gaming. Three digit APYs do not support the long-term growth and reward a minimum number of early entrants. APYs that offer very little do not attract users. Using a rebase function to create ceilings and floors provides economic sustainability. This is also the reason that not all BFG will have earning power from day one. The reasons are as follows:

• A new game needs time to grow and creating seniority incentivizes early adopters to forge NFTs (lock BFG) in anticipation of network activity.
• Increased economic activity will create more earning NFTs but — it must be sustainable.
• A user can lock in their earning power by being early to forge an NFT.

Modifiers

In order to create a sympathetic relationship between active players and token holders there must be a point of convergence. When there is zero overlap between these two parties, dissent can occur as gamers tend to see capital contributors as a necessary evil at best. The reality is far different but in gaming economies, there is something of a Chinese Wall between token holders and players. One never seems clear what the other incentives are and on occasion, they function independently of each other. There are examples of games with poor token utility with limited activity and vibrant gaming communities. This is a massive lost opportunity for genuine synergy as a vibrant Web3 game needs players and speculators alike.

To combat this, Battle For Giostone has introduced artifacts generated from in-game activity that are of benefit to token-holders, called modifiers.

• Modifiers are NFTs that boost earning power for a finite period of time.
• Modifiers can only be earned through gameplay via random or skill-based drops.
• Token holders purchase these from players on the BFG marketplace.
• Modifiers can have varied utility but can only be used with forged NFTs that have earning power.

Mutual support between gamers and passive token holders is an ideal for Battle For Giostone. This is achieved through the dispensation of earning modifiers that are dropped to gamers as a result of general gameplay activity. The range of modifier functions will be broad, not limited to but including — improved APY characteristics for the modifier holder, upgraded seniority position in the locking queue, time-based upgrades that provide powerful results for a limited period, and rare modifiers that will only ever exist on a very limited basis.

Recap

The BFG token economy is a significant departure from what has become a flawed standard play-to-earn economy. In fact, there are numerous differentiators across gaming economies on the whole that represent an important step forward.

Some key features of the BFG economic cycle:

• NFTs must be forged by BFG holders and staked in order to participate in the rewards schema.
• Saleable items, of value to holders, are generated through economic activity within the game.
• Forging NFTs exercises a tax, generating rewards for the players.
• Yield is non-inflationary and tied to actual in-game popularity.
• Player Rewards tend to be earned by highly skilled players.

Within this gameplay loop, there is a token flow to players that is bolstered by modifier drops (which boost the earning power of BFG locked NFTs), to be sold in the secondary marketplace. BFG producing NFTs are seniority based so longer-term users are always first to earn. Depending on the flow of rewards coming into the system, an NFTs earning power will vary.

As it stands, there is a second tokenized asset, GIOS, which lives off-chain where players can only earn GIOS through gameplay and which will not be tradable on exchanges. It acts as an in-game credit and its primary purpose is to forge new Heroes. While there may be a modest conversion rate to BFG, the rate will be purposefully high to stimulate players to forge new heroes.

The game itself will evolve rapidly as assets are created and seasonal play begins. There will be clear epochs that will stimulate economic activity and create favorable circumstances for entry. New entrants into the game will not feel behind in any capacity and the entree itself can be sped up through skilled play or subsidized by economic activity.

Conclusion

The BFG economy is designed for any and everyone to enjoy, however, participation trophies won’t come with monetary rewards. The promise of Web3 gaming and broader distribution of value is that more players are able to economically benefit from playing a game but more does not mean all. It is unrealistic to expect things to be any different and the performance of early play-to-earn models are proving this point in a painful way. Nonetheless, they are not to be maligned as progress is always marked by those who came first and dared to experiment.

Battle For Giostone has set out to improve upon the great experiments that have come before them, focusing on creating an economic loop that seeks to unite the passive and the active, the player and the invested holder if you will. It is not a DeFi protocol dressed up as a game. It is a well-balanced game, a long time in the making, where yield is non-inflationary and rewards benefit all parties. Economic activity and play are the drivers of this economy, not inflation and bloated APYs. Investors are incentivized to forge NFTs that add to the player reward fund, and invest in boosting modifiers via the secondary marketplace to improve their yields. The ultimate motivation behind this design is to enhance the existing gameplay experience for players into something that is uniquely Web3 oriented, financially rewarding, whilst at the same time provides for the familiar sense of enjoyment found in traditional gameplay experiences.

This article was written by Battle For Giostone Co-Founders, Mile Gramatikov and Theeban Siva.

Filled with promise, blockchain gaming has taken the world by storm and it has been stormy at times. In a space still taking its earliest steps, forging ahead requires development teams to navigate an oft confusing road. This is especially true in the creation of a Web3 MOBA.

MOBAs are the most difficult games to master because they exhibit infinite strategic complexity. To begin with, one must make team-oriented decisions — it’s as if instead of controlling the entire chessboard in chess, you control a single piece. And instead of individual defined moves, you must then make thousands of momentary decisions which build towards the same goal as your four other teammates. Popularized by Dota2, League of Legends, and hundreds of other copycat games — we believe it is now time to transition this Web2 genre into a true Web3 experience.

Battle For Giostone

Battle For Giostone has already undergone significant active development and is coming up on an alpha release. From the outset, you’ve got two teams made up of five people, and the goal of the game is to destroy the enemy base within the first 25 minutes. This mechanic should feel very familiar to existing MOBA players.

However, there is an added a gameplay twist. Should a base not be destroyed in the 25 minute time-frame, all of the players get summoned by the dragon Gio (a monster that spawns on the map, dropping stones to powerup teams following defeat), leading to a battle to the death. The winning team of this final fight emerges as victorious.

Uniquely, in Battle For Giostone, Heroes are created via a forging mechanism. Instead of using pre-made heroes, players are able to forge an ideal hero, customized to individual playing styles. There are six Hero classes and a total of 72 abilities, with each forged Hero possessing 4 permanent abilities. With more than 6 million combinations of play styles available, strategy and playing to one’s strengths is of paramount importance.

From the outset, we have wanted to make Battle For Giostone a game that was built by passionate MOBA gamers, with tweaks that we believe improve the overall gaming experience. This might sound easy in practice — but turning that into reality is another story. In Battle For Giostone, gameplay has always been our main focus. An example could be — if you attack an enemy hero and they’re near their creeps, they need to start attacking your hero to defend their position. We believe that continued refinements like this add up to an overall experience that takes the genre forward.

Visual Design

In order for a game to be successful in this day and age, it needs to be visually pleasing. This is obvious but surprisingly overlooked as gaming projects often prioritize the wrong things. In a MOBA, the map, towers, creeps, heroes, bushes, lanes, equipment, abilities, the dragon Gio, and the user interface need to have the same theme, branding, and look like a premium, AAA game. We have a team of designers working continuously to push out in-game assets whose aesthetic supports this vision.

Balancing

Abilities, stats, level upgrades, and items require lots of balance testing. Most abilities have counters, and the ones that don’t will be countered by items. Heroes that have abilities from the same class have increased stats, and that can influence the outcome of a match. Balancing means that all playstyles and levels of experience will feel rewarding in-game. Over time, this meta will change and we will remain vigilant not to nerf, or overpower specific abilities in those changes.

Tokenomics

Gameplay and design must be at the heart of every Web3 game—but that doesn’t mean that the tokenomics aspect isn’t a vital and crucial piece to the puzzle. Some people will play a game just because of its ability to earn. In Battle For Giostone, there are two tokens: BFG and GIOS. BFG is a blockchain-based token on the Avalanche network, while GIOS is a non-blockchain token that will work as in-game credits to forge heroes. BFG is the absolute driver as we don’t believe utility belongs in the hands of a team controlled token supply. It is there to complement BFG and allow users to advance in the game while BFG runs and effectively is the economy. We are constantly refining our design around these tokens to ensure that rewards will be fair for both the players and the investors.

Players will be able to earn by playing, winning esports events, forging, trading Heroes, and creating content. The more passive will be able to earn by staking BFG tokens but must forge NFTs to receive any share of the revenue from the game and furthermore, need players to maximize their earning potential. In order to increase staking rewards, token holders require modifiers that spawn inside the game, and must buy them from the players. This creates a circular economy and a closed loop where the two sides help fulfill each other’s objectives.

Community

The best game in the world, is nothing without its players. Our community has been incredibly supportive so far, and we are excited to see it continue to grow. Many people have played traditional MOBA games, but are thirsty for something new. We believe Battle For Giostone is the thing they’ve been waiting for.

Team

Everyone on our team is passionate about MOBA gaming and crypto, and they firmly believe Battle For Giostone is the future of Web3 gaming experiences. We are a highly motivated pedigreed team filled with skilled individuals working toward the singular goal to make both the game and a token economy a riveting success.

Conclusion

While we don’t suffer from a lack of ambition, we are very grounded and focused on our deliverables. The Web3 may offer unlimited potential which has also hastened the migration of opportunists looking to exploit the space. Hyper inflationary tokenomics and unsustainable DeFi protocols masquerading as games are slowing the potential for growth and BFG believes it is incumbent upon us to do something about that—beginning with a game that earnest games want to play.

This article was written by Battle For Giostone Co-Founders, Mile Gramatikov and Theeban Siva.

Without question, play-to-earn made a massive impact on the entire crypto space with Axie Infinity paving the way. The sector grew quickly, perhaps too quickly as the infrastructure and inflationary tokenomics could not support such a large influx of playing and earning. Scalability issues and sell pressure were an inevitability that we are now facing.

Both opportunists and players came in droves and unceremoniously left. It was lacking in economic stability but from a player’s standpoint, there was a crucial missing piece of magic that has historically kept players hooked and that is tournaments.

Tournaments

Gaming is all about competition. The quest to climb the leaderboards and prove that you’re among the best in the world is an inherent driver for any true gamer. It may start passively enough as users hone their skills to be competitive with friends, and from there, morphing into an unquenchable desire to dominate your opponents. That’s true in chess, it’s true in checkers, and it’s true in any other game on the planet.

A MOBA, being the most complex game of all, requires the combined effort of five people to play as one. Unity in the name of a singular goal will push one team to victory, while the others will succumb to defeat.

As humans, we love watching competition when the stakes are high, and the boundaries of what we think is possible will be pushed. It is a vicarious thrill as we live in the moment of a shared experience with players and spectators alike.

“Winner take all” tournaments are the ultimate form of competition because there can only be one. It is an all-or-nothing proposition where only one team will be left standing to claim the grand prize.

Battle For Giostone—First Tournaments

Battle For Giostone is a game that’s embedded in true MOBA culture. We are defined by Esports and started hosting tournaments long before the pre-alpha was released.

Recently, two of our guild partners competed in the first tournament, and the gameplay was spirited and intense. It was a watershed moment for us and following this success, we allowed multiple guilds to compete in order to further crystallize our vision for the game.

In the beginning, the two opposing teams were targeting the enemy shrines. These structures restore HP and Mana which is crucial for team fights when you’re running low and battle beckons. The teams actively guarding these structures were initially able to slow the matches because no one wanted to lose their shrine. However, when multiple guilds joined in the second tournament, a massive shift happened to the in-game dynamics. The players understood the role of Gio and the Giostone giving powerups to their creeps. Suddenly, the gameplay changed, and everyone rushed to kill the dragon before the enemy team. The match duration decreased instantly, which led us to add another victory condition.

When players are unable destroy the enemy base within 25 minutes, they will be summoned by Gio for a team fight battle to the death. This is of paramount importance as the last team should always stare down and overcome death before they can exit as the winner.

Our Next Tournaments

Rome was not built in a day. Everything great requires time, trial, and error in order to continuously refine and improve the game. Our mission is to be recognized as one of the best MOBA games ever made. We can only achieve that by hosting sizable tournaments with significant prize pools, competitive viewership numbers, and partner collaborations.

Casters make tournaments special because they add their personality to the matches. Their commentary builds up the hype, and newbies and pros alike will have the same knowledge about what’s happening at the moment, what could happen, and what each team is thinking. These people will know the game inside and out.

Finally, if local communities, individual organizations, and creators would like to host a tournament of their own, we are open to creating unique maps, custom skins, and ad placements for them.

Let’s say that a massive sponsor wants to create an open tournament where everyone will be able to compete. We could make custom towers and creeps to thank them for their support or add their logo on the lanes or shrines. That way, apart from the leaderboards, the players would have an additional source of income that increases the total earning potential from the game.

Tournaments Are Filled With Emotions

People love games that make a visceral impact. Experiencing an emotion, a drive and desire is amplified when it is being experienced in real-time by any number of people. When thousands or even millions share an emotion, you get a masterpiece.

Recently, Theeban, aka 1437, visited our home country Macedonia. In a small local internet cafe, we played a few matches and felt an atmosphere of pure emotion. That’s what we want to achieve on a global scale. Happiness, sadness, anger, joy, rage, and elation unite people, crossing physical and language barriers.

Join us on our quest to reinvent gaming.