Today, we are super excited to be covering an up-and-coming esports and GameFi powerhouse: MegaFans. MegaFans is not your run of the mill blockchain project or GameFi platform that has one quasi-interesting game where the developer happened to put their incentives on the blockchain. No — MegaFans is much more than that and comes from a team with decades of experience in the web2 esports and gaming space, working alongside the likes of Ubisoft and DraftKings (both of whom are also now building ferociously in the blockchain space). MegaFans plans to be the open source base layer for a mobile-first, cross-platform esports arena that combines mobile game publishing with the ability for any mobile game to adopt tournaments and real cash prizes. Sound exciting? Let’s dive in.
When it comes to game development and esports, MegaFans are no slouch. With a library of five mobile games (and counting) that you can download right now from your favourite app store — including Tunnel Tournament, Crash N Win, Candy Boo Mania, King Koin, and Jet Jack: Tournament Edition — they certainly know a thing or two about publishing games. That is no accident: MegaFans has undertaken an immense amount of research to identify the pool of three billion people who play mobile casual games, as well as making great strides to connect with indie game developers and major game development studios. By gamifying their market segment research in the form of prizes, MegaFans has a great focus on feedback loops in order to design products that people want to use.
MegaFans utilises a “cage model” for managing economic interactions within games, where users purchase tokens via in-app purchase — a behaviour that many who participate in mobile games are already used to. These tokens can then be used to participate in skill-based pay-to-win tournaments in order to win more tokens. However, where MegaFans really differentiates itself compared to their web2 counterparts, is in the redemption of these tokens. Tokens can be redeemed for cryptocurrency and NFTs via a blockchain-enabled portal on the MegaFans website. While the inclusion of in-app purchases is a necessary bridge between the worlds of web2 and web3, MegaFans hasn’t allowed that to hinder them — with plans to allow users to stake their “super rare” NFTs as prizes for tournaments in order to then earn back a portion of the revenue from the tournament. With plans for the MegaFans SDK to be open sourced, anybody who wants to build a tournament on top of their, for example, PC game that previously didn’t have that mechanic built in, can implement it painlessly and it will work right out of the box.
MegaFans isn’t just about incentivising esports — although they do this very well! Part of their philosophy that we can get fully behind here at GamiFi is supporting women in tech and in gaming. MegaFans is not the only gaming or cryptocurrency project to look at the data and understand that women are severely underrepresented in both tech and gaming, but they are one of the only ones who are doing something about it. MegaFans currently supports the Code to Inspire program in Afghanistan, helping teach women in the region to code — and, in turn, this allows them to participate in the growing digital global economy.
We believe that MegaFans’ ability to identify key areas that need improvement, rather than just building what is popular, will continue to serve them well as they embrace our shared vision: GamiFi everything!
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