Blockchain is soon to be used in a novel way, with the addition of augmented reality fantasy gaming to the list of possible applications for the technology. Augmentors, created by Michael Deon and Kyle Haffendon, is a blockchain-based augmented reality game, backed by some of the leading investors from Shark Tank South Africa. The game announced an ICO of its DataBits crypto tokens which began on January 30th, 2017. With incentives for early investors, the ICO will run alongside the ongoing bounty campaign, which started a week previously, to end on February 28th 2017. Within the first 6 hours Augmentors had raised over 250 BTC, rising to just over 484 BTC – worth around $460,000 - at the time of writing.
The Augmentors game is a 3D modelled augmented reality fantasy game consisting of 50 rare creatures, known as Augmentors. Each Augmentor is capable of unique attacks, spells, and movements. They also have their own origin, backstory and can be trained, traded or even swapped between players, with the goals of becoming ‘The Destined’. The concept behind the gameplay and its integration with blockchain technology has been recognized by Vinny Lingham, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur known for his association with bitcoin and blockchain-based identity start-up, Civic. Joining Vinny on this venture is the Group co-CEO of the African advertising agency — The Creative Counsel and board member of Grotech venture capital tech fund, Gil Oved.
The game has already raised investment through Shark Tank and it also ran a successful pre-sale showing appetite for the game among both gaming and cryptocurrency communities. Through the DataBits ICO, the game platform now intends to raise the rest of the $1 million required to complete the game development. Augmentors has created a total of 100,000,000 DataBits, 70 percent of which will be made available to investors during the ICO. The remaining 30 percent will be split between development, marketing and promotion of the game. Those purchasing DataBits packages during the token sale period will also receive a selection of rare, one-of-the-kind creatures relative to their contribution size.
Deon, creator and founder of Augmentors, remarked: “It’s been a long but exciting journey to conceptualize the mechanics of the game, design the 50 characters and their stories, as well how the token sale will work. We think what sets this game apart is that backers of the game will have real ownership of their characters and the in-game currency, DataBits,”
During the 30-day ICO, the DTB tokens will be available in a ratio of 15000DTB: 1BTC. The ratio of DTB tokens to BTC will be reduced by 1000 at every 5 day intervals throughout the ICO period. Even if the platform fails to raise the required $1 million by the end of the stipulated timeframe, all funds raised will be directly put to use for developing the Alpha version of Augmentors, set for release by the end of May 2017 on Google Play Store and the App Store. The Beta version will soon follow. Meanwhile, throughout the development process, the team will continue working on updates and new game features to create a wholesome game experience for the players. Upon completion of the ICO or the goal of $1 million, all unsold DTBs and Creature tokens will be burnt to protect the tokens’ value. The team will continue development by utilizing all the funds raised till date to ensure its completion on time.
The Augmentors Bounty Campaigns offers an additional way for gamers and cryptocurrency enthusiasts to earn DTBs. Each campaign has a stake attached to it, which can be earned by completing the stated objectives. The detailed structure of all bounty campaigns is explained on the website’s ‘Bounty Campaign’ section. The bounty distribution will be executed according to the campaign structure, and the allocated DTBs for each campaign will be divided amongst all its participants.
In order to realize its vision of inter-playable in-game assets, Augmentors had organized a pre-sale of DataBits tokens, exclusively for the backers of ‘Spells of Genesis’ – a blockchain based mobile game in a trading card/arcade gaming style mix. During the presale, held between 5th and 11th of December 2016, the platform offered a limited-edition collaboration creature — ‘Genesis of Light’ inter-playable on both Spells of Genesis and Augmentors. During the pre-sale, Augmentors raised a total of 45.2 BTCs, equivalent to $42,400, by selling 678000 DTBs. Early investors in Augmentors bought 67 units of Genesis of Light. Additional 20 units were sent to Spells of Genesis and the remaining unsold 913 units were ultimately burnt. All the game elements are backed by Counterparty tokens that run on the Bitcoin Blockchain.
