The Most Important Thing in GameFi is to Create Good Tokenomics

Gaming Interview with Arker Labs

Juanjo Chust is CEO of Arker Labs, a company founded in 2018 which has been developing all kinds of applications. Arker is an online multiplayer game that allows you to create a custom character, equip it with NFTs, and fight against others to fight for control of the city of Ohm.

Ishan Pandey: Hi Juanjo, welcome to our series “Behind the Startup.” Please tell us about yourself and the story behind Arker Labs?

Juanjo Chust: Hello! Nice to be here. I’m Juanjo Chust, CEO of Arker Labs, a company founded in 2018 which has been developing all kinds of applications. However, for a couple of years, we have been dedicated only to providing consulting and Blockchain developments to all types for companies worldwide. We love technology and develop new ideas about it, giving more and more value to decentralized applications.

Ishan Pandey: DeFi is gradually establishing itself as the critical source of funding, with multi-billion dollars already committed. What are your views on GameFi, and how is it connected with DeFi?

Juanjo Chust: From our point of view, we believe this is the way forward to offer the user one of the best virtues of the blockchain, the ownership of the asset.

We believe in offering the user a way to monetize their time, and apart from that, offering a platform where they can continue to earn more rewards with systems such as breeding, scholarship or similar; bringing a very interesting vision for the player.

Ishan Pandey: How should play-2-earn games be modeled for developers?

Juanjo Chust: As developers, we believe that the most important thing is to create good tokenomics, so that everything is well organized, avoiding click2earn without any sense.

And the second most important point is to give a clear and concise use to the token, a use that allows quick and transparent usage for the user, making the token circulate and creating a healthy and lasting economy in the game.

Ishan Pandey: Despite recent market declines and regulatory crackdowns in some countries, cryptocurrencies are gradually but steadily gaining acceptance across all businesses, particularly the gaming industry, which is eager to get into the fast-growing market of digital currency users. Do you believe blockchain technology will be widely adopted in the next five years?

Juanjo Chust:Clearly, blockchain technology is going to be key in the future, and companies are already beginning to contemplate the possibilities of integrating it into their games. So, if you can bring more features to your players and bring them more security. Why not implement it?

If, as a player, I see two exact same games, but one of them offers me the possibility of becoming the real owner of the things I earn and doing whatever I want with those items. I will always choose the second one.

Ishan Pandey:  Please tell us about Arker Labs and the F2P and P2E model?

Juanjo Chust: One of our own products within the company is our game Arker, which we have been able to launch after many years of development. Arker is an online multiplayer game that allows you to create a custom character, equip it with NFTs, and fight against others to fight for control of the city of Ohm.

To enable P2E within the game, you only need 2 pets (NFTs with unique stats), this way, you can already have an ROI within the game. Otherwise, you can always play for free without making an initial investment.

Ishan Pandey: Can you please tell our readers what distinguishes the metaverse play-to-earn model from the play-to-earn model existing within the mobile gaming space?

Juanjo Chust: From my point of view, the metaverse is focused on the interaction between users, something much more personal, where within it, you can work, have your salary, buy things for your avatar, and be able to perform all kinds of activities within the virtual world. So that the currency is used for the same things that we use our local currencies in our lives.

Instead, at the phone game level, I think it’s more focused on monetizing your time to make profits or even reinvest them in the platform.

Ishan Pandey: What are your views on DeFi and the susceptibility of decentralized applications to hacks?

Juanjo Chust: Unfortunately, hacks are happening all the time on these types of platforms. But it is something that we will always have to live with since it is something that happens in any type of software.

The only thing we can do is if we have the ability to analyze the project, do it ourselves, and if not, verify that the project has always passed several audits of recognized companies to be as safe as possible.

Ishan Pandey: What does the roadmap ahead look like for Arker Labs and the blockchain gaming industry as a whole?

Juanjo Chust: We are currently creating much visual content, as we are one of the few projects where all the assets are made in-house.

We are making a revamped version of the current 2D game that is already available in the stores.

We are also making a 3D metaverse with AAA graphics, which looks spectacular. It will be much more extensive, and users will be able to see themselves while walking through the big city we are creating.

We will also create terrains for users to acquire ownership of these and perform activities with their friends, which makes the possibilities grow.

We also want to go out on console platforms to reach more users and allow them to make scholarships to help new users who want to unlock their full potential but don’t want to invest money at the start.

All this is just a small part of what we are preparing, as we have many things in mind, and we will not stop until we reach our goal: A triple AAA game where users play for fun and on top of that, they have extra features that the blockchain brings to the game, like ownership of items, monetizing your time and much more.

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