Revv Racing’s Play-to-earn Feature is Upcoming

I spoke to Matthew Solomon, the Brand Lead for Revv Racing, a game that is part of a large metaverse of NFT racing simulation games by Animoca Brands. The company recently announced a collaboration with play-to-earn guild Yield Guild Games, wherein adding a certain amount of liquidity on the REVV/YGG pool on Sushiswap would enable the liquidity provider to win a YGG-themed racing car, which can be used in upcoming Revv tournaments. 

On Being the Brand Lead for Revv Racing

The newest play-to-earn offering from Animoca’s metaverse of racing games displays the familiar graphical and technical detail that one would usually expect from a PC or console game. But Revv Racing loads on the browser just fine with display quality that one would not expect from a game that loads on a web browser. (In my experience, I received no lag whatsoever when using Microsoft Edge.) According to Matthew, this is a conscious decision from Animoca, and one of the reasons he now works for this brand is because he knows the space all too well; he was a former professional race driver. “Anytime we made updates to the game, or when we build cars, I would test them obviously, to give some of my input on how the car should perform or how  the track looks,” he said, while noting that he’s more into the brand side and looking at opportunities to collaborate with people — and racing legends. “This is to make sure that we are pushing the right message to the right audience and we’re connecting with the biggest names in the space.”

Revv Racing is a Fully Hands-on Racing Experience

Going back to graphics, Matthew said Animoca’s earlier racing games like F1 Delta Time might not be what traditional gaming audiences are used to (the game’s top-down, chase view, and there’s no full control of the car), the same could not be said for Revv Racing. “It’s fully hands-on, a full racing experience where you are able to take full control of your car, a game that the core racing gamers are more familiar with.” Revv Racing, Matthew said, is the first arcade simulation racing game on the blockchain, and it could be exciting for people to own these fully realized racing cars as NFTs and use them to race and win prizes in tournaments. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shRWRmwC2mw

I tried Revv Racing myself before the interview by joining a tournament that was currently ongoing at that time. First my friend Nathan Smale lent me a car and then I finished the race with suboptimal results, mainly because at that time I was unfamiliar with the controls. Nevertheless, I bought a car myself on OpenSea.  I ended up asking my friends to race for me as well, so I let them borrow my car just as Nathan lent me his before. 

That tournament I joined was primarily a trial run (Alpha Inaugural) for future races. Matthew said the results of the said tournament were favorable. There were 5,000 unique players with over 50,000 gameplay sessions recorded. There was also a significant volume of cars traded on OpenSea, one of those I bought for myself. Because a lot of the cars were given away for free, the entry point to be able to race (being “buying a car”) was more affordable than the prices currently seen in the NFT space. “The barriers to entry were a lot lower and people were just having a go, giving the game a try, and seeing whether they could win prizes,”  Matthew added. 

Lend a Car – Rent a Car Feature as a Play-to-earn Mechanic?

Did I mention I was able to borrow a car and I was able to let others borrow my car? The rent-a-car feature — which is technically “rent-an-NFT” — is a feature that not a lot of these play-to-earn games have, with the exception maybe of Axie Infinity. Through Axie Infinity “scholarship programs,” the owners of the Axies can rent out three of those to other players so those players can play and earn from the game, all while the Axie owner and the player get a cut on those earnings. Matthew did say that this car lending feature is something they want to “fully implement” in the future, though right now, the function is still very preliminary. Case in point, if any of my friends who borrowed my car to race actually wins, all the prizes go to me, the car owner. “We don’t yet have a system to lock down any agreements between owners and racers and to automatically distribute the rewards between owners and racers now, but this is something we would like to release in the future,” Matt added.

The game may have some barriers in and of itself. For one, it’s primarily a desktop experience and players with low end computers might experience lag and stuttering. (Suggestion: Use Microsoft Edge.) But Revv Racing is a reminder of what’s possible to be played in a browser, and most especially, it’s a reminder that many games we play on traditional platforms can have some form of blockchain implementation that would allow for more ownership for the players. I have these cars I used in Revv Racing, and I can use them in other games so long as they are supported. I can sell it if I want to, or I could lend it to a friend who’s better at Gran Turismo, so the possibility of my car winning a race gets higher. Animoca Brands is betting on this future where game content is tokenized to empower gamers and have digital property rights. With that, I suspect the rent-a-car feature would be something that will become native to all of Animoca Brands’ games in the future.

This article is published on BitPinas: Revv Racing’s Play-to-earn Feature is Upcoming