In the beginning God created the metaverse and the earth, and took his rest upon the Sabbath. So it is spoken. So it is written. And yet…. What if I told you this was a lie? What if I told you we have been caught in a deception of biblical proportions? For weathered scrolls, stumbled upon by a Bedouin shepherd in the sprawling ancient Qumran Caves of Palestine, tell us a different story of the Seventh Day. Dear Pilgrims, brace yourselves. He did not rest. Far from it. He created the Petaverse.
Step aside, Zuckerberg, with your passé 2021 Meta pretensions. 2022 is all about the Peta. Every dog has his day. The King is dead! Long live the King!
Dogami Is the Word
Dogami. The name alone instantly conjures up a myriad of images, and not all of them innocent. I‘ve sneaking suspicion that whispering it into the ear of a lady in Harajuku would get my face slapped whilst she screamed “Hentai!”.
Anyway, down to business–what is Dogami, and will it get me arrested?
Well, no. Dogami is a proposed mass-market play-to-earn AR NFT game, which will combine AAA gaming and pet ownership 3.0. A recent press release stated that the game is focused on “paving the way for establishing a ‘Petaverse’ where players can adopt and raise their unique 3D dog companion and earn $DOGA tokens in the process.”
So, 3D dogs, that’s a first–yet let’s dig some more.
Players joining the Petaverse will “train and play with over 300 Dogami breeds, each with unique traits and providing a slightly different user experience”. The in-game currency, the $DOGA token, will be earned “when completing various tasks” and be used to gain consumables such as “build a digital wardrobe, purchase tickets to virtual events, collect badges and breed DOGAMI.”
Furthermore, the token will be traded via decentralized and centralized exchanges. Land sales within the Petaverse are also being mooted, and rumors of major deals with brand-name pet food companies swirl.
The upcoming P2E game, co-founded in mid-2021, and the brainchild of serial entrepreneurs and all-round wunderkinds including Maximillian Stoeckl (CEO, formerly BCG) and Adrien Magdelaine (COO, previously Wamiz, pet industry serial entrepreneur) is a largely French affair. With their headquarters in Paris, and their launch on the Tezos blockchain network, there is more than a hint of gallic romance in the air.
Max Stoeckl commented “ At Dogami we aspire to develop a play-to-earn game that pushes the envelope in terms of design, user experience and mass appeal. We believe strongly in the opportunities and the empowerment that Web 3.0 has to offer.”
And it has attracted backers with some serious pedigree, if you will excuse the pun. Its pre-seed fundraising secured $6M in capital from The Sandbox co-founders, Animoca Brands and Ubisoft. That’s some serious scooby snacks.
As ever, follow the yellow-brick road, mes amis. Follow the cash.
Ubisoft Vice President of Strategic Innovation Lab, Nicolas Pouard, adds:
“At Ubisoft, we believe that blockchain holds a key to the future of the videogame industry, bringing new possibilities and for players and developers alike. We think DOGAMI shares this vision and contributes to the opening of blockchain gaming to mainstream players.” Paws for thought indeed.
Lore Galore
Let's talk lore. Well, to be frank, gaming lore is a hugely divisive subject. Some otaku go mad for it, immersing and engrossing themselves deeply in every aspect of the history of every blade of grass. Others ignore it completely (cough, ahem, me).
However, this game has raised the bar, if you’re an aficionado, and might just change turn me to the dark side. Releases state there will be “lore surrounding the Petaverse to explore, created by Bryan J.L Glass, an alumnus of Marvel, Image and DC Comics who worked on Thor, The Mice Templar and Adventures of Superman.”
That’s like getting Shakespeare to write you a sonnet.
Right, well all this talk of 3D pooches this is a fair bit to take in, so let’s quickly analyze the above.
First and foremost, why dogs? Well, dogs work. Dogs fire the imagination, touch our souls. Dogs are man’s/woman’s/non binary/gender fluid’s best friend, n'est-ce pas?
Shiba Inu was the crypto cultural phenomenon of the past 10 months. Mr. E. Musk has one called Floki, and when he tweets a picture of it some coins rise 200%. DOGA also sounds like DOGE if you like a bit of word association, and that didn’t fare too badly last year either.
Dogs, well, dogs are hot.
Statistics are great, especially when you make them up on the spot to prove your strawman argument, but let me give you some cold, hard, facts.
There are 471 million pet dogs worldwide. (before you ask, and perhaps you’re wondering this, the answer is 370 million cats). The market is there and ready-made.
Dogs are always happy to see us, as opposed to cats who think about killing us every seven seconds, according to studies, and we can all reel off the names of some famous ones. Lassie, Rin Tin Tin, Laika the hapless hound shot into space by the clearly cat-loving scientists of the USSR and dubbed “Muttnik” by the press.
(For every yin, there is a yang of course. Cujo didn’t seem much fun. And it must have been a nightmare getting Cerberus’ three leads on).
But in general, you can’t too wrong with good old Fido.
The Success Formula
Now, not a lot of people know this, but there is a formula for success, developed by Harvard Medical School appointee Albert-Lazlo Barabasi, (clearly the smartest man in any room).
According to the esteemed professor, S (success) equals r (the potential value of a given idea) multiplied by Q (the person’s ability to execute on the idea). Thus, success equals the potential value of an idea times the ability of a person to execute on that idea: S=Qr.
Righty ho. So let’s apply that equation here. We have kawaii dogs. Check. We can breed said dogs. Check. There will be land for sale, opening up the possibility of selling pet supplies et al. Check. Sebastien Borget, Co-founder of the Sandbox is not only on the advisory board but is an investor. Check. You can see that there are a lot of boxes being ticked here.
In essence, we have Tamagotchi (feeding)+Zed Run (breeding) +Nintendogs=kaboom we have a live one here.Winner.Winner.Chicken/Dogs.Dinner.
We could extrapolate further. Snoop Dog has invested in the Sandbox. You need neither a crystal ball nor to be Nostradamus to see where I'm going with this, amirite? Collaboration city, folks.
The World Is Yours, Scarface
Now, given all this mouth-watering information, I can see you all straining on the leash to get involved. Well, steady. The game is still in development at present. Q1 highlights of the 2022 roadmap include the $DOGE token listing and the first NFT drop of the Alpha Generation dogs (there will be 8-10 breeds and 500 dogs minted of each).
Q2 sees the Defi features launch (farming and staking) and the beta launch, while Q3 sees the full launch of the Dogami mobile games (iOs and Android) and the Petaverse real estate agency. Which, I have to say, excites me.
To paraphrase the great Mark Twain “Buy land, they're not minting it anymore.”
As a result of the prospect of fortunes being made here, needless to say, competition to get whitelisted is cutthroat. From my cold dead paws doesn't even come close. At present, the only way to achieve these hallowed ranks is to win a weekly raffle in their Discord, which is largely based on your involvement and positive interaction with the community there.
And their Discord, well, its numbers have gone parabolic. In the mere month I’ve had the pleasure of being there, I've seen it skyrocket from 20,000 to its present 47,600 members. Given its current trajectory, I’d say it’ll be knock knock knocking on the 60K door by the time February sidles round.
The hype is white-hot. The FOMO/DOMO is off the charts. Everyone wants a piece of it. Getting whitelisted is like Charlie Bucket opening up that chocolate bar and seeing the first glimpse of gold. Don't wanna get old-skool, but if you've ever had the pleasure of seeing “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre '' I'm basically Fred C. Dobbs right now.
A Simple Plan
So where does this leave you, me, and potentially 471 million others, I hear you ponder?
Well, the best plans are the simplest. And mine is perfectly straightforward. I intend to become the Dr. Doolittle/Do-a-lot of Dogami. Cesar Milan meets Warren Buffet. It's as clear as the driven snow that the project not only has legs, but 4 of them. So I rub my paws a la Machiavelli.
Numero uno on the to-do list is get whitelisted. Part Deux is to get breeding. Who doesn't love puppies? Trois, open a store. Quatre, retire. That's how much ‘petential’ (forgive me) I see here.
And I'm clearly not alone. Don't want to heap more upon the already apparent abundance of riches here but the CBO is Kristofer D. Penseyres (previously Sony Pictures). I may be casting runes, but wouldn't be surprised at a possible movie deal at some point down the road. **That's how many stars I see aligning. **
NFA (aka definitely financial information with a lily-livered disclaimer) I also see this game almost single-handedly doing wonders for the TEZOS (XTZ) share price. At the risk of getting all Tezos till we Bezos here, the high gas fees that were the bane of the likes of Axie Infinity won't be an issue, and as the blockchain is touted as perhaps the greenest out there, you'll make oodles of cash whilst doing wonders for the environment.
Tezos is basically the veganism of blockchains #doingmybit
Assumptions make an ass out of you and me, so allow me to make an ass of myself. Having looked keenly/obsessively/desperately at all the offerings upcoming, I’d say this is as sure a bet as you’ll see from P2E blockchain games in 2022.
I believe the saying goes, “let sleeping dogs lie”. Well, dear readers, don’t sleep on this. Meta just got better and Peta. And just imagine when they release a Catami!
My ranking–4.5 stars out of 5 on the blockchain Richter scale. Get involved. Pronto. And vive la France!
Dogami links:
Webiste--https://dogami.com/
Twitter--https://twitter.com/dogami?lang=en
Discord--https://discord.com/invite/dogami