xGov-154: Cosmic Champs partnering with legendary indie toy company to bring physical toys in-game on Algorand

Governance xGov Proposals
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Abstract

The Toy Collectibles market was estimated at 13bilion in 2022 and is estimated to grow to 25bilion by 2025. It is rapidly growing market that is also a great match to combine with NFT technology.

If succesfully funded we are partnering with an established player in the colletible toy industry that holds singinficant brand IPs for action toys that are also a perfect fit for our mobile game.

We will do a limited physical run of a known collectible toy and integrate it in our game as NFT. Each figurine will have its NFT counterpart. This will open Algorand to a whole new audience and pave the road for near future when industry behemots like Disney or Marvel will be looking for the blockchain to offer ther products as NFT + physicial collectibles.

Team

Cosmic champs team : https://cosmicchamps.com/#team
Our partner is a well established and long-time present entity in posession of multiple IPs in the collectible toys market. They have significant experience with sourcing manufacturing and distributing physical collectibles worldwide.

Experience with Algorand

For the last 2 years, we have been building a p2e game on Algorand called Cosmic Champs. We are innovators in the 3d NFT space with our fully animated 3d NFTs that are used in our game and also have utility outside of the game itself (3d viewer, AR viewer).
We have a strong understanding of the NFT space, the technical specifications, and the supporting infrastructure available. This positions us well to deliver a strong product for other Algorand projects to use and benefit from.

Our partner is new to Algorand and they are looking to do a pilot with a trusted and established project in the space that can ensure that their part(nft + game integration) will be done without issues. Cosmic Champs fits that description perfectly!

Present Proposal

We will launch a physical toy + NFT campaign with an established IP in the collectible world. Together with our partner we will produce a limited physical run of known action figurine, that will each be tied to an algorand NFT that will also be integrated with our mobile game. The figurine+nft pairs will be sold and distributed via online stores of our partner, in person on collectable/comics conventions, and via algorand NFT markets.

Basically we will do what nextg3nz failed to do, but efficiently, organically with actual positive impact on Algorand and user onboarding, and for a lot less funds and with high certainty! Our and our partners combined experience has all parts of the process covered. Further more the collectible physical toys + game nfts are a lot more natural and “sane” combination of the Real world Asset and virtual good and are something we are cofident will become a very popular trend in near future.

Future Blueprint

In the future we are looking to bringing more IPs from the collectible world and their wast audiences to algorand.

Benefits for the community

Doing this successfully will further position Algorand as the best chain for RWA. This will open Algorand to a whole new audience and pave the road for near future when industry behemots like Disney or Marvel will be looking for the blockchain to offer their products in NFT+phyisical combination.
We will also show that phisical item + NFT can actualyl be exciting novelty and show that it can be done on algorand efficienty, professionally and in timely manner.

Additional information

Play our game here: https://beta.cosmicchamps.com/
NFT browser + 3d view: https://nft.cosmicchamps.com/
Browse game characters: https://cards.cosmicchamps.com/
Coorporate page: https://cosmicchamps.com/

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This proposal is a temp check to see if xgovs can get behind this idea. We belive it has many benefits to Algorand and it’s future and market position as best chain for RWA.

If there won’t be enough interest for the proposal we might remove it before the voting period as we understand we are asking for quite significant allocation, however you do have to pay up front for manufacturing of physical collectibles.

At this time we are not comfortable disclosing our partners identity, it will be revealed at later date.

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Can you please add the github header info to your post? Including how much is the grant request for?

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id: 154
period: 3
title: Cosmic Champs partnering with legendary indie toy company to bring physical toys in-game on Algorand
author: Cosmic Champs (@madshapes-dev)
discussions-to: Cosmic Champs
company_name: Cosmic Champs International Limited
category: Community
focus_area: User Onboarding
open_source: No
amount_requested: 250000

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Is there no interest for proposal like this, or it just got lost in the flood of porposals?
Were everyone burned by nextg3nz this badly?
Would love some feedback positive or negative

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Could you be more specific about who you would be partnering with on making those toys? It’s tough to evaluate this if I can’t make sure I will like the looks/quality of them.

Will it be the classic CC NFTs or also possible to include the collabs you have done/are doing?

Will the NFT be claimable by persons without algorand background? Would be great if people could claim if that have no Algorand wallet and therefore also no ALGOs yet.

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thanks for the questions.

I can’t disclose the otehr party at this moment, but will do so if viable .e.g. if proposal gets enough traction.

The NFTs wont be classic Cosmic Champs NFTs e.g. we won’t “invent a new character”, they will be a separate IP/brand that is brought to our game.

For an example imagine Cosmic Champs adding Transformers or Gundam or GI Joe to our game. The main thig here is that this is an established toy that fits the cosmic champs universe - this is as close of a comparison i can give without revealing too much about our partner.

This cross-ip mixtures are something we are observing more and more recently, either in mobile/computer gaming scene as well as in TCG scene (for an example MTG did a LOTR edition - how cool was that!)

To explain a bit more, with other collabs we are doing, we add a cosmic champs spin/feel to a specific collab nft - but it is a cosmic champs “invented” character in the end - think Ram & MNGO example, we took inspiration and yieldling from MNGO and we combined it with our Ram character. This is how our collabs are done - this proposal is bringing an already existing toy into our game.

Yes, NFTs will be claimable without any priod algorand knowlede. We aim to make it as simple as scanning QR code provided inside the phisical toy case. There are lots of possiblities how to do this and we’ll explore best options - hopefully/potentially we can partner with Pera or Defly to help make this as smooth as possible process while onboarding a new user to the ecosystem.

And for the other way around, as we are looking to sell NFTs at the same time on algorand marketplaces - if you own the NFT you could claim the phyisical toy directly from the online store site, which handles the shipping etc.

I’ll jsut add the the ASK here is way below total costs of this sort of deal, we and our partner would be putting up significant money ourselves on top of the grant to get everything ready. We as a company don’t have enough spare funds to put towards exploring this expansion but we beleive it can add significant value to the ecosystem as described in the proposal. Hopefully we can get some help from xgovs and proceed with this deal.

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better than sneakers, in my expert opinion.

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We have seen before that companies fail to deliver on phigital objects. Since these are usually targeted at non-crypto natives it always leaves a worse taste in the mouth of users and makes the whole ecosystem look bad. What steps is CC taking to make sure this doesn’t happen? Is there a pricing tier we could look at or a minimum requirement to fund the production of these that we can at least be certain that the community will get something?

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You make a great point and this is the exact reason why this idea was born!

We - Cosmic Champs have proven track record of minting and distributing NFTs on the Algorand blockchain as well as integrating them to the game and developing and providing all neccessary auxilary infrastructure. So the digital aspect of this project is taken care of with quite high certainty.

Our partner has decades of experience in the phyisical collectibles market and is a known entity in the space. They will provide the IP-rights, handle the proccess of picking the right manufacturer for the toy and their shipping/logistics, as that is routine for them. They will handle presence/distribution on the conventions too.

Basically the main thing to take away here is: we each have a part to do and we are both experts in our respective areas.

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How many unique users are playing your game daily and monthly?

Does the third party specialize in web3 that will be helping you connect them to NFTs? Or will you be doing that work?

If they are not helping in that regard. You should be able to get figurines for around $130-$300 per unit. You could do a limited run for about $2,500 upfront to test the market. The profits from the test could then be reinvested into the project with little costs to get this off the ground.

I think a challenge here is brand recognition. Pudgy Penguins were fairly successful in launching their plushies in Walmart because the entire web3 space knows about them.

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Our user base size is of secondary importance here - what is important is the successfull pilot and showing it can be done on algorand as explained in teh proposal. But to answer your question: Our game had about 1200 unique user accounts in past 3 months, DAU and MAU vary greatly depending if we run events or not, but when we are actively promoting an event we are hitting about 100-120 DAU. If you are comming from ETH world these numbers might seem low to you, but this is significant traction as far as alogrand gaming is concerned.

Your eample with pudgy penguins is not ideal as we are not talking about 8888 plushies here neither are we talking about trying to launch our own cosmic champs created brand or toy, algorand is too small and has no appetite for this sort of stuff as it was shown in the past. For an example there were Alchemon physical toys, tiny socks etc…

We are talking about a limited run of a collectible toy (existing brand/ip) that already exists outside of web3 it has 0 to do with our game at this point other than being a good fit to integrate to the game and add novelty to the item. The toy itself would be advertised and sold to the web2 audience mostly(but not exclusively), think comic-con attendees - e.g. appealing to new audience, and not being just another project that tries to “milk” algofam. With a novelty of having it NFT counterpart available on the blockchain.

Regarding your numbers for inventory we have a very different caluclations, but i’m guessing you are suggesting some sort of print on demand approach which might work in some situations, but not for our case if we want to ensure quality and timely delivery. E.g. what you would expect if you ordered an item from reputable shop.

The smallest run we can do is 200 units, selling them at cost (manufacturing, packaging, shipping and collab branding) our current estimate is at about 140-150$. Jsut that alone puts us to 30k$ in costs just to get the minimum inventory.

I think brand recognition within web3 might be a small issue but the mint size is small and the web3 is not the main audience - (as it wont be in the future when major brands enter the web3. Think Disney, do they sell to web3 enthusiasts or do they sell to their web2 15bil+ market?), but the brand itself is known in the collectible world - again this is not us making up the brand and trying to sell it.

hope this answers your questions

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Cosmic Champs stays building when many other promising companies succumbed to the bear. This looks like a potential win to me.

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I understand you can only give so much detail about your partnership and that does make it a bit difficult to comment too much on this proposal.

I do think that bringing outside IP that is well known and has it’s own fanbase/community into the Algorand ecosystem, if done right, could positively contribute to ecosystem growth. Interested to keep an eye on this proposal and for any further details that will be released.

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Well then, if this is a temp check, please delete it. This is a joke and the longer you keep this charade up the more it will actually reflect poorly on Cosmic Champs. If you are wanting to partner with and toy company for promotions, they should be paying for it, not us. End of story.

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Thank you for your opinion.

If you have anything actually constructive to add we’ll be happy to hear it.

What will or will not reflect poorly on cosmic champs luckily is not in your domain nor in your power. We see a good partnership with potential to onboard new user base to algorand, you see a joke - enough said.

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The problem is that we cannot evaluate this without knowing more details about what the collectible is, the audience it typically appeals to, and some sort of evidence about how that is likely to drive usage to Algorand more generally.

For example, Let’s assume this is for a Hello Kitty Funko Pop. Sure, people love Hello Kitty and will buy the physical collectible, but what is the likelihood that they will actually care about the associated NFT? Play CC as a result? Stick around and try other things in the Algorand community? I surmise that unless this is targeted to a specific population that is already Web3 curious and interested in gaming of the type that CC delivers, then we will have spent money just to sell collectibles with no associated payoff to the broader ecosystem.

I think there is a way to structure this where it drives people to the ecosystem, but it requires making the physical collectible the payoff after utilizing the NFT and game rather than selling a collectible and hoping people care about the NFT.

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FIFA is a legit brand with followers. They seem to like algorand and have IPs.
Maybe do a fifa space soccer game kinda partnership?

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we have other xgovs asking for 20,000 algo to do nothing, cosmic champs has done so much already!!!

hello? has anyone seen how popular funko pops are? the team here is excellent, not some people trying to take 20k algo to make a simple tool, they built an entire game! fund cosmic champs = fund innovation!!!

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This is actualyl a really good feedback, much appreciated!

We’ll brainstorm with our partner to see how we could better ensure people buying the phyiscal collectible are actually playing the game and exploring the ecosystem.

On a side note we do wish to be able to sell phyisical toy (at least portion of the mint) as an entry point, because this is where we address the new audience, and imo web2 audience wont be willing to fork over 200$ to get a NFT, but they “might” cehck the NFT if it’s attached to the physical toy. Perhaps a slightly more elaborate onboaridng experience(on top of just getting the NFT) → e.g. install pera(or access preloaded pera account), then gamified flow to explore few verticals of the ecosystem and unlocking small rewards(assets) for each of the steps.

will deffinitelly think about this