IN the digital world, the past recent years have seen blockchain—a growing list of records called blocks that are linked together using cryptography—constantly creating a buzz. Some see it beneficial for making online transactions fast and transparent, while others fear the uncertainty and the disruption it might have. Amid these contradicting notions, this emerging digital technology is here to stay.
To make it more acceptable and understandable in the Philippines, which has been reported as a market with slow adoption rate of the blockchain, a group of former officemates has endeavored to introduce the beauty of it to a huge number of people by educating them in an interestingly fun and easy way through Drakons.
This blockchain based game features genetically one-of-a-kind and artistically designed digital dragons called Drakons created as crypto-collectibles or digital-collectibles.
“Drakons is basically an NFT [non fungible token]. Unlike the typical collections of NFT, we created a world where people could still interact, play, and challenge one another,” said Cris Tagle, chief executive officer (CEO) of Zynappse, a 100-percent Filipino- owned company behind the Drakons.
Leap of faith
FILIPINOS are, indeed, at par with their foreign counterparts in the information technology (IT) industry. Proof of which are the success stories of local talents, who have penetrated and managed to rise from the ranks while working in some of the giants of the Silicon Valley. Such triumphant tales, however, don’t just end there.
Locally, the team behind Drakons, which he led and co-founded with Chief Information Officer Javier Allan, Chief Marketing Officer Rachelle Consul, Multimedia Director Trixia Betito, and Chief Technology Officer John Paul Orpilla can possibly outperform some of the “Dragons” in the industry.
And this is likely not by working for any of the local IT firms or multinationals based here, but through their enterprising spirit and courage to take a leap of faith to put up in 2014 a tech company called Zynappse that offers app and cloud-based solutions—thanks to their simple fervor for a blockchain game complemented by their tech skills, talents, and vast IT experience.
“In fact, we established it over a cup of coffee because we used to work for a company working with local government units. We develop different solutions. We develop real property tax, business permits, and everything. Until one day, maybe we got tired of moving around the country, deploying different solutions. So I said, ‘Why not experiment on mobile solutions?’” Tagle recalls the time when mobile apps were really a hype.
Initially, the company created solutions for businesses, especially in the local market. Its success began with its first client, a big regional resort and casino industry player that wanted to revamp its mobile app. From then on, the firm has never stopped offering different apps and solutions in Cloud and mobile platforms.
As years passed by, the team saw the rise of blockchain technology. Consul discovered an article about NFTs via CryptoKitties in 2017. She and the rest of the team fell immediately in love with this pioneering blockchain game. Eventually, it inspired them to come up with their own, thus, giving birth to Drakons a year after.
“We’ve been developing solutions for over the years, [so] why not create our own dapp [or] decentralized application?” the CEO said.
Have more to offer, will stay in the game
GIVEN the rise of the many players in the gaming sector today—with the blockchain technology playing pivotal into it—their staying power does not depend on how long they have been in this field, but with the kind of offerings they give.
This is what separates Zynappse from the rest of the competition, according to Tagle. He said: “They may be the first ones to introduced those, but we we’re looking for something more, something artistic, something that people would really love to pet.”
So how does anyone can enjoy Drakons? First, collect according to their attributes in terms of agility, strength, intelligence and health points. Own or buy Drakons according to basic elements: Earth, fire, air, water, frost and metal.
A user called Drakon Master can then sire and breed them. Gamers can play, upgrade, train and battle with Drakons using their desktop or smartphones. Increasing their value and skills on the battlefield is possible by upgrading or buying additional boosts, accessories or skins. Every battle won will be rewarded with orbs.
Going up the leaderboard will earn loots like boosts, shards and gems, which are tradable to Drakoins or DRK—the game’s official utility token.
Users can sell their Drakons via the secure blockchain transactions. They have value equivalent to an ERC-721 token or a regular cryptocurrency like the Ethereum (ETH) coin. They can be sold in other NFT marketplaces like Opensea, Rarible, etc.
“Statistics show that NFTs value on the blockchain will double in 2020. In fact, statistics say that there’s around $250 million worth of NFTs in the blockchain world from different platforms—simple arts being posted as NFTs, [or] simple graphics,” cited Tagle.
“In terms of Drakons NFTs, we’re kind of surprised because they have different values in terms of cost, from .01 ETH to like .7 ETH. But people are actually buying or collecting these NFTs even though they’re worth like our recent sold NFTs—these are Metal Drakons, which are legendary and come up only at least once a year—that were bought for like .08 ETH per Drakon,” he narrated.
Leveling up
STARTING merely from just literally playing the game, the team expressed elation by the positive response to Drakons by the markets not just here but overseas as well.
“It was for fun really [at the beginning]. It’s like a passion of buying NFTs that we converted to our own dapp that we didn’t realize people were like addicted to dapp and addicted to collecting things like Drakons,” the to executive said.
In fact, Tagle shared that when they launched this blockchain game in December 2019, there were a lot of players from Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States who engaged with them, collected and bought Drakons. Recently, statistics showed that membership from Indonesia stood at 27 percent; India, 9.58 percent; the US, 9 percent; and Brazil, 6.24 percent.
“We [also] have people from Vietnam, China, Myanmar, and Japan. Different countries are actually signing up almost everyday,” the CEO added.
In the Philippines, Drakons have more than 7 percent of the total number of members worldwide. A lot of Drakon Masters here are actually from Zamboanga and other parts of Mindanao. There are also a handful of players in Metro Manila who are mostly IT people.
“So we’re kinda happy and, hopefully, we’ll be able to tap more of the Filipino market and then be proud that Drakons is really a pure 100 percent Filipino-owned introduced globally and being adopted by different races and players,” he said.
Zynappse is leveling up the game with various innovations it plans to introduce in the next couple of years.
“We would like to create a world where artists, players, collectors, and gamers will find a world where they could participate and work with one another and come up with an ecosystem wherein everyone, aside from their fulfillment on everyday challenges in their battles and, of course, fulfillment in their victories, will also somehow be able to apply and realize the term ‘play to earn.’ And that’s what we want to target and, hopefully, we’ll be able to tap the local market,” Tagle stressed.
1 comment
interesting..!!!