8.3 Gamification

Play-to-Earn is the crank that powers all gamification initiatives to increase earning potential. The goal is to convert initial Kanon buyers into ontology miners through rewards, creating pressure to spend miners’ earnings to buy more Kanons and repeat the cycle.

Figure 25: Core Gamification Drivers of Play-to-Earn

There are four key initiatives to crank up this cycle:

• UI/UX. We will design our UI/UX to be simple and easy-to-navigate but also fun and social. We will make it easy for members to see, trade, and grow their assets on the platform.

• Community. Community management is the engine that needs constant fuel and maintenance. This will be among the top three on-going, operational priorities of Kanon Exchange and SynesisDAO at large. We intend to work closely with NFT influencers with strong financial incentives to drive growth and engagement.

• Monetization and Security. Our inspiration comes from early in-game item and currency trading sites such as Itembay and Itemania in Korea, and IGE (Internet Game Entertainment) and Playspan in the U.S. Those sites were basically early adaptation of digital goods trading sites catered to the hardcore RPG, RTS, and FPS gamers. And the main UI/UX focus for those sites was ease of monetization and security. Average annual trading volumes have been in the billions in USD and they serve as the powerful secondary market for otherwise illiquid digital goods, largely controlled by game publishers who often ignore the value of gamer communities and maximize their rent-seeking, shareholder value maximizing business model.

• Game of skill, not chance. Many elements of our UX will be inspired by RPG/RTS game communities like Lineage, World of Warcraft, World of Tanks, Rohan, and League of Legends. Mastering these persistent online games takes hundreds of hours of playing time and often demands the same level and in-game skill as any working professional to stay competitive in the community. In other words, we will not turn our site into an online casino for gamblers. It’s a subtle distinction, but an important design consideration.