WASHINGTON, DC and NEW YORK CITY – Aug 7, 2018 – OpenSea and War Riders™ on Tuesday announced a strategic partnership to host a massive digital item pre-order campaign that will run simultaneously on both companies’ websites and the Ethereum blockchain. The two startups are teaming up to revolutionize the way blockchain-based games sell crypto- collectibles and other in-game assets.
OpenSea is the first peer-to-peer marketplace for blockchain-based assets which include collectibles, gaming items, and other assets backed by blockchain. The OpenSea team has backgrounds from Stanford, Palantir, Google, and Pinterest and is funded by YCombinator, Founders Fund, Coinbase Ventures, 1Confirmation, and Blockchain Capital. OpenSea is currently the largest general marketplace for user-owned digital items with the broadest set of categories (50 and growing), the most items (over 900,000), and the best prices for new types of items. Since their beta launch back in December 2017, the site has had over 1000 ETH pass through their market.
War Riders is a massive multiplayer online (MMO) game based on earning cryptocurrency, customizing vehicles and combating opponents. The game is being developed by Cartified, Inc, a VC-backed blockchain startup headquartered in Washington DC. Players can customize their own war vehicles which may be used to mine while attacking other users for the in-game currency, Benzene (BZN). Players can mine for BZN by driving through waypoints or shamelessly raiding other players. BZN has a finite supply and unique “burning” mechanism enforced by a smart contract. The game is set for beta release late 2018 with a full release scheduled for early 2019.
“Together with OpenSea we’ve developed an interesting technology that allows us to seamlessly integrate two websites and connect them to the same smart contract system,” said Vlad Kartashov, CEO of War Riders. “The OpenSea users will have exclusive access to our Deadly Car Factory smart contract allowing them to pre-order vehicles without leaving their favorite marketplace. We’ve always believed in the native integration, and we think the marketplaces could be a great platform to organize the initial sale of in-game items.”
“War Riders is one of the most impressive blockchain gaming projects we’ve seen, and we love that they’re building with interoperability in mind from the start,” said Devin Finzer, CEO of OpenSea. “We’re super excited to partner on the launch of the game and support War Riders items on our marketplace. It’s a unique time in the blockchain gaming space as new, high-quality teams are both building compelling new user experiences to onboard the next set of consumers into the ecosystem.”
Official dates released:
The official start of the pre-order campaign is set for Monday, August 20th, and is scheduled to last for 2 months. Although we anticipate an early sell out based on the amount of inquiries we received, our company wants to make sure there is enough time for everyone to participate. The pre-order campaign will start in a private mode and continue until we open it to the public. Shortly after the pre-order campaign, players will be able to customize their vehicles ensuring true uniqueness of their rides.
Pre-order structure:
When buying a vehicle, you don’t know exactly what kind of performance stats you’re getting, as the vehicle you’re pre-ordering is being produced on the fly. You know the type (say you’re buying an SUV or Lambo), but you won’t know the vehicle’s speed or how much your BZN tank can hold. You will know the ranges for each vehicle type, but only after delivery will you be able to know exactly how your ride compares to others. The game developers think that this creates a fun and engaging experience that can be compared to opening a loot crate (or breeding a CryptoKittie for that matter).
The pre-order contract sets the lowest price for every vehicle which increases by a certain percentage with every vehicle sold. The price will update simultaneously on both War Riders and OpenSea’s website. There are only 30,000 Premium vehicles (this includes 1000 Special vehicles) that will be offered for sale at this time. Premium vehicles are extremely rare compared to a total supply of all vehicles which is capped at 1,180,000. The premium vehicles have superior mining and combat capabilities, and they will never be offered for sale again after the initial pre-orders take place. The only way to acquire the vehicles after pre-sale will be to buy them from other players.
Bulk buying:
Users will be able to buy War Riders vehicles in bulk. Tactical and well-equipped players will purchase multiple vehicles early on to increase chances of dominating the Wasteland. Until now, such thing were impossible because of the ERC-721 tokens that have to be “minted” from the smart contract individually. The bulk buying function imposes no limits on the amount of vehicles a single user is able to purchase, thus initializing a single transaction. It will take some time for the Deadly Factory to deliver a large order, though vehicles start arriving to the user’s wallet within seconds.
Benzene fills and distribution:
War Riders is not offering BZN for sale, and there will never be an ICO. Instead, all War Riders vehicles will come with a tank which will be filled to the top with BZN the following day of purchase. The BZN truck will stop by the garage with a huge nozzle to disperse BZN straight to the user’s wallet. Let’s say a player bought 10 War Trucks with 1,500 BZN tank capacity in each – the BZN truck will fill each tank the following day, totalling 15,000 BZN. Filling vehicles with BZN officially kicks off the “preparation for the Apocalypse” process and allows users to immediately have access to the valuable resource. All additional BZN will be discoverable in the Wasteland and will recycle with a 30% burn (when players use BZN in the game, all unburned BZN goes back to the same game pool). This mechanism ensures Benzene will never fully run out but will become extremely scarce. BZN may be used to buy weapons, upgrade garages, and can be exchanged for other cryptocurrencies like ETH, BTC, WAX, and more.
Marketplaces and exchanges support:
War Riders strongly believes players should have full control over their hard-earned loot crates and virtual money. Recently, War Riders partnered with OPSkins and WAX announcing the company’s items will be tradable with WAX Tokens, Bitcoin, ETH, US dollars, Euros and dozens of other currencies. In addition, players will be able to freely trade their in-game items at OpenSea and similar crypto-collectible marketplaces, while BZN is coming to exchanges shortly after pre-orders are finished.
About the market
The secondary in-game skins and item market turnover is estimated to be $50B and is rapidly growing. Newzoo estimates the Global Gaming Market to reach $137B in 2018 with a 13% YoY growth. Blockchain-based gaming and games that utilize blockchain-based assets is poised to revolutionize this rapidly growing market. The decentralization of the in-game assets and currency provides players with enormous benefits such as true ownership of items, true scarcity, and the ability to trade items across multiple marketplaces without any restrictions. According to Cartified’s research, the blockchain-based gaming market has been demonstrating 45% MoM growth since december of 2017.
To learn more about War Riders visit their website https://warriders.com. You can also join their discord, telegram, and follow them on twitter.
To learn more about OpenSea visit their website https://opensea.io, join their Discord or follow them on Twitter and Medium.
Official Press Release From
Media Contact:
Caroline Veillon
War Riders
info@warriders.com