Joshua Cantrell Shares the Ins and Outs of Metasource Games, Castles, The NFT Game

Disclaimer: The text below is a press release that is not part of Cryptonews.com editorial content.

NFT gaming provides players with a whole new way to have skin in the game by buying and selling NFTs as part of the gameplay. While this crypto segment gets a lot of flack, some gaming projects stand out for their integrity and dedication to players. One group that shines above the rest is Metasource Games and their expanding Castles, The NFT Game.

Metasource is 100% about player ownership of the game and providing security and a safe community for the game to be played in. Today, we sat down with Joshua Cantrell, one of the game’s co-founders, to understand what running a successful NFT game is all about.

What brought you and the other founders to start the NFT gaming business?

We started with the idea that we wanted players to have ultimate control and agency over what they had in the game. We took some inspiration from a couple of different places and figured out how we could do it better and simpler. Simpler because most blockchain, crypto and NFT gaming can be complicated. Players typically have to do a lot of learning and math on their own. And so, we wanted to start with something that was not complicated.

Castles uses a basic merge three concept that people are already familiar with in their mobile games. So players can buy basic, upgraded NFT game pieces, and the basic NFT land types can be merged in a three-of-a-kind fashion up until they build a castle. They can also buy and earn other game pieces that unlock different functions in the game. One thing that makes our game really different from most NFT games is that the land game pieces are the token generators. Players are not buying tokens from us to make purchases in the game; they are earning them while building, trading and playing the game.

This puts the game’s control into the player’s hands, so players can merge what they merge, control the Barons that generate the lands and the lands that generate the tokens. We are never competing with the players from the game wallet. And that’s why we built the game, to provide an experience with 100% ownership for players.

What is your business model?

Most NFT games fund themselves by selling tokens. The idea of selling tokens to generate revenue did not meet our standards, so we mint and sell certain game pieces to players that want them. Keeping in mind that players are also free to buy game piece NFTs from one another, we just make some of them available, so it’s easy for people to get started or to a desired level if no one else is selling.

The problem we saw with token sales is that the token creator essentially centralizes the game around themselves, leaving the in-game marketplace open to manipulation. This can’t happen with our system because you can’t just mint things and mess with the token supply — the players are completely in control of how that supply is handled.

Also somewhat related and quite uncommon, the entire game is built entirely on the blockchain. The design solves the problem of running the game on a server that could crash at any time. Everything is written directly on the chain as it happens; there is no lag time or risk of losing items if something goes down. 

What is it like to manage the community?

We have 8,122 members in our Discord community, which is pretty sizable. I would say at any one given time; we usually have about 1,500 online. There’s definitely a lot of moderation that goes into holding the community together and answering questions and things. We do our best to spend as much time as we can in our community answering questions. But with that many players, it’s not possible to personally answer every question. So we have a community manager who’s on staff and helps us quite a bit with the times we’re less available. And we also have about 10 volunteer moderators; they’re under no obligation to spend any certain amount of time in the Discord. The community has nominated them as people who are just generally helpful people. We’ve got some in the United States, some in Europe, some in Australia, and other places like that to cover all the time zones. But overall, our Discord, I would say, is fantastic and generally pretty lively. Communication is pretty happening, and anybody can come in and ask questions. We do pretty well with the community, with a lot of credit to the moderators for keeping everything together; they do an outstanding job.

How much time do people typically spend playing Castles?

You don’t need to spend a whole ton of time playing the game. I would guess the players who chat about the game spend a lot more time chatting than they do playing. The gameplay is pretty friendly. It’s an asset management game where you’re deciding things like do I want to put my game currency into building up this area? Or do I want to focus on a different area? So I would say 20 to 30 minutes a day is on the high end while some are spending five to ten; it doesn’t take a ton of time.

What is your proudest moment with the game and business?

As players purchase NFTs, we set aside a pool of tokens to give back to the players. So, at the beginning of May, the players constructed the first wonder, which allowed them to access the tokens. It was a pretty significant amount. We gave back over 250,000 wax, which at the time was something like USD 35,000 distributed to the community. That was a pretty amazing moment for us, and we look forward to doing it again soon.   

What is the best way to get started playing the game?

I would say right now, getting into our Discord community and asking people about it is a really great way to get started. And if you want to come in and hit the ground running, grab a castle to start off at the top.

Disclaimer: The text above is an advertorial article that is not part of Cryptonews.com editorial content.