Moon Capital Observation #1 — P12

What is P12?

Why do people now discuss P12 when they mention blockchain games? Why do Web2 gamers start to ask “what is P12 airdrop”? What exactly is P12?

First, Let’s take a step back and look at the entire GameFi industry. The P2E GameFi projects have lost lots of users during the bear market. It seems like the P2E model can no longer attract developers and players. The blockchain game industry started to consider diving into the product and design and hopefully make a blockchain game that is beautifully designed and can be joyfully played. But creating a Web3 “PUBG” requires huge investments in R&D and supporting tools. P12 is exactly the kind of game development business that wishes to bring Web2 developers into Web3 and provide seamless support for them.

In addition, P12 also acts as a game platform similar to Steam, so that each separate game’s user group can gather around, socialize and easily find new games at the same time. In June 2022, P12 announced the Genesis NFT airdrop. Users can connect to their Steam accounts and get an NFT. This marketing strategy quickly attracted a large number of Steam users and developers.

Project Twelve is a Web3 gaming platform and game creator ecosystem with a sustainable economy. P12 aimed to offer a one-stop solution for developers and a one-for-all platform experience for gamers. Developers can create incredible games using the P12 game editor, maximizing creativity and never compromising for less. Likewise, gamers will see themselves in a gigantic metaverse arena provided by P12, where seamless interaction meets sustainability.

Break Down P12’s Product Matrix

P12 contains several product modules for developers and players. The three main modules are:

• The Editor: a full-featured Metaverse content engine for building game worlds.
• The Infra: a set of API/SDK and developer portals for bridging game content on-chain.
• The Econs: a set of economic and governmental rules and mechanisms implemented in EVM smart contracts.

The Editor is P12’s current direction of R&D. The current editor is structured on top of Unreal Engine, which has been iterated for 10 versions since March 15, 2022. In the future, P12 Editor should be able to connect with other engines (including Unity, Godot, Cocos, and GameMaker) to help Web2 developers get started quickly on their game development.

Project Highlights

Product first: Games should be fun

P12 rejects the traditional P2E model and advocates that the game must be fun and joyful, creating mental value-added for players. Hence, P12 is committed to creating a sustainable game creation environment. P12 believes that game tokens need to be carefully planned and traceable forever, and NFT needs to have value beyond P2E.

If you read P12’s whitepaper, P12 envisions 10% of the world’s gaming assets. That said, those expecting to make quick profits out of P12 will be disappointed. P12 says, “We will not be making private sales anytime soon. We will not issue tokens until our product is strong. We won’t stop until P12 is the best Web3 gaming platform and the best ecosystem of game creators in the world.”

A strong product matrix and a professional team

P12 has devoted itself to the development and polishing of the product. In a Mirror article back in April 2022, P12 declared that it “expects game developers to receive 60% of all P12 tokens”, which shows how much P12 values game development.

On the development side, P12 has introduced a META EDITOR built by over 500 professionals to break the barrier of chain game development. On the trading side, P12 provides a platform for developers and players to trade game assets, providing developers with incentives while ensuring an open and transparent trading channel for users. On the social side, P12 brings together the scattered user groups of each game through an aggregated platform. With the honor badges and rarity system in P12, players have show-off materials when socializing and motivation from comparisons. It can also create social functionality within the platform to increase user stickiness in the future.

Up until July 11, 2022, P12 has 52 games under development in P12. They will be released on the P12 platform when ready.

Outstanding Marketing Strategy

P12’s marketing strategy is expected to have a high potential return. On June 27, 2022, P12 announced the NFT Genesis Airdrop campaign, and it was very well received by Steam users worldwide. In the first week after release, the number of NFTs claimed exceeded 500,000 and is still rising, marking a new record for the number of NFT holders and airdrops claimed in the Web3 world. Nearly 70% of new users joined the campaign through referrals, reflecting its strong organic growth capability.

Up to the close of the airdrop, P12 had 564,970 verified Steam gamers and 52 verified Steam developers. The link of Steam data records and the NFT rarity ranking allowed Steam senior players to be honored and spread widely. And “No Gas” for the NFT airdrop helped P12 gain lots of users new to web3.

Competitive Landscape

P12 has two attributes: blockchain game platform and game editor. For the blockchain game platform segment, P12’s biggest competitor is Gala Games. Gala Games launched its platform in 2019. Now the most well-known game is Town Stars, a city-building simulation game. Gala Games has received investments from Flare, Mazer Gaming, Polygon, and others. Its token $Gala is now listed and can be traded on multiple trading platforms. Up to now, Gala Games has a maximum of 1.3 million monthly active users (MAU) and has sold 26,000 NFTs, with the most expensive one worth $3 million. Unlike P12, more of Gala Games’ games are created by the Gala Games team itself. But P12 officials said that P12 will not involve in game-making and will only concentrate on polishing products such as game editors.

For the game editor segment, P12’s potential competitor is Soba, where creators can create different types of games without knowing programming languages. Soba products are completely free. Its founder Juha Paananen and the founding team are from Germany and they have experience in game-related startups. The main difference between Soba and P12 is that Soba focuses more on non-coding game development, while P12 has a product team of over 500 working on its gaming editors. P12 strives to bring the best engineers from all industries and helps them seamlessly join the blockchain game industry.

Team

P12’s team comes from a mix of Web3 and gaming backgrounds. They have been involved in the blockchain and cryptocurrency industry since 2018 and have successfully built a decentralized exchange (DEX) product.

P12’s founder is Boyang, with an undergraduate degree in computer science from NUS and graduate study in computer science at Yale. He later dropped out of Yale to start his business. He previously worked at MetaAPP, Matrix Exchange, Bitsoda, and DEx.top.

The CSO is Amber Kelsang Drolma, with an undergraduate degree from Peking University. She was formerly an investor at Zenith and a strategist at Haul.

The Head of BD is Maciej Burno, with an undergraduate degree from University of Waterloo and a graduate degree from National Taiwan University. He formerly worked at several metaverse companies.

Conclusion

Overall, P12 has demonstrated its determination to build great blockchain game products. It has also received a warm welcome from over 500k Steam users. Now everyone is watching the first upcoming game on P12. It is to be examined whether P12 can substantially break the P2E model and create the trend of product-focused development in the blockchain game industry. Nevertheless, P12 is absolutely a bold and meaningful attempt in the blockchain game history.

About Moon Capital

Moon Capital is a cutting-edge investment firm focused on blockchain and cryptocurrency. Moon Capital portfolio includes, Project Galaxy, Woo Network , Matrix World, Litentry, DeepDAO and some other high-quality projects.

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