Gamers DID - Trust Built by Gaming

[IMPACT] Please describe your proposed solution.

Contextual Background

The world of gaming is focused on providing experiences to a global fanbase that takes them through adventures, puzzles, strategy, combat, friendship, and storytelling. Some of these experiences bake in valuable reward to entice players. This has been seen in games like Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) with various cosmetics that are traded for hundreds to thousands - sometimes even in Bitcoin. It has also been seen in World of Warcraft (WOW), where the in-game currency has an exchange rate to fiat. 

These games introduce these rewards, in part, through in-game action at the end of matches and quests. Sounds similar to play-to-earn right? Well, the model works and even after 10 years CS:GO is still the most played game on Steam. 

The issue is this model of rewarding players invites bad actors. Cheaters, bots, and smurfs (experienced players making new accounts to face lower level players) join the games in hordes to obtain in-game assets and sell them for a profit. Standard players have trouble enjoying these games when they are competing against cheaters leveraging a hacked client for enhanced performance. Game studios respond to these bad actors with anti-cheat mechanisms such as VAC, Vanguard, Ricochet, and Easy Anti-Cheat. When these mechanisms work they detect irregular in-game actions, such as auto-aiming, and then ban the associated account. The issue is these bad actors can easily create new accounts and get back into the game, especially when the game is free, such as CS:GO. Additionally anti-cheat mechanisms can’t determine if a player is a smurf or not. Game studios use terms of service to prevent this, but it does little to stop players looking for easier rewards.

This has all been experienced in traditional games, where there is no blockchain backing that brings the trustworthiness and utility of smart contracts. Imagine how these bad actors will react when they can play-to-earn an NFT that they can be staked or used to provide collateral on a loan. The issue of cheaters, bots, and smurfs should be expected when building blockchain gaming applications and infrastructure. But how can we stop it?

The Solution

The best way to stop these bad actors is to apply blockchain based game theory. Use tokenization to make it more rewarding to play a game as a trusted entity, as opposed to an ever churning list of cheating accounts. This is accomplished through a DID based reputation system, where the player builds trust based off of their gaming and wallet metrics. Things like total hours played, number of games owned, number of reports on account, and number of epochs staked can paint a picture of the player without requiring overly personal information. These metrics can be obtained from users who have completed an Oauth process like Epic Online Services, Steam, and the web 3.0 equivalent in combination with an API like Overwolf.

Based upon the reported gaming and wallet metrics we can develop a trust score for each user. More metrics that show positive engagement = higher trust score. Game studios and developers can then use this trust score to impact the rate, quantity, and quality of rewards that a player is obtaining. This tool will be aimed at supporting Cardano based games to start, with the goal of utilizing their own Oauth and API systems to strengthen the validity of the DID and possible sources of metrics. 

Kicking Things Off

To initiate the usage of the DID as well as provide a set of gameplay metrics, PlayerMint will be the first project to integrate the DID. PlayerMint is a play-to-earn layer that integrates with existing video games like Fortnite to reward gameplay performance. PlayerMint is worried that gamers will ‘smurf’ in order to play against lower skilled foes and obtain more tokens. This has led them to pioneer the Gamer DID with ProofSpace.

The planned impact is to apply subtle, yet meaningful multipliers to the amount of tokens a gamer earns through PlayerMint based on their trust score. The goal is to make it more rewarding to build up a single trustworthy account as opposed to many ‘smurf’ accounts.

Planned Trust Metrics

The following is a list of metrics that we plan to integrate into the first iteration of the DID.

• Number of hours played on Epic Games account - Epic Online Services
• Number of games owned - Epic Online Services
• Amount of PMX earned - PlayerMint
• Stake history (duration not quantity) - wallet connection

As time goes on ProofSpace and PlayerMint will update the list of metrics so the trust score is as accurate as possible. The goal is to bring in other gaming based projects so they can benefit from the trust score and add to the list of metrics. 

Game Developer Experience

Here is how a game developer would engage with the Gamer DID:

1. Susan is developing a multiplayer adventure game that utilizes NFTs. Susan is worried that hackers and smurfs will ruin other players' experience despite her use of Easy Anti-Cheat and terms of service
2. Susan discovers the Gamer DID and accesses it through ProofSpace/PlayerMint
3. Susan bases the frequency that players earn NFTs on their trust score
4. Susan launches her game confident in her ability to properly reward players based on their trustworthiness
5. Susan contributes to the Gamer DID by providing a number of quests completed metric that can be authenticated through associated stake key

Gamer Experience

Here is how the gamer would interact with the Gamer DID:

1. Rupert discovers Susan’s adventure game and begins to play it
2. Rupert learns that he can increase his NFT rewards by building trust with the Gamer DID
3. Rupert downloads the ProofSpace app and connects his associated gaming accounts and wallet 
4. Rupert completes the necessary steps to provide accurate metrics to the Gamer DID
5. Rupert goes back to enjoying an adventure game experience with heightened rewards and real players

PlayerMint Specific Experience

• User signs up / in to PlayerMint (PM) and gives consent for PM to pull game play and account name stats from Overwolf API and Epic Game Oauth.
• PM runs stats through its Trust Score algorithm (which you plan to invent).
• PM gives user an option to "Claim Your Trust Score" in PM online.
• User clicks "Claim Your Trust Score" and is prompted to download ProofSpace App (ProofSpace App)
• User downloads ProofSpace App and scans QR code (visible in PM online) to on-board to PM.
• User is issued a Trust Score to ProofSpace App.
• Next time user games using that account, they claim PM Points for gaming with an active trust score and some passive advantages accrue to that score.

Why We’re Building This

Giving gamers a decentralized identity around which they can build a reputation and earn rewards will:

• Incentivize players to game with the same account and earn this way, rather than earning via cheating with fraudulent accounts.
• Enable gaming platforms to reward players based upon their trust score
• Allow gaming platforms to set their own tolerance levels on different metrics within the gamer’s identity, e.g. number of hours played, age of credential, etc.

[IMPACT] Please describe how your proposed solution will address the Challenge that you have submitted it in.

The Gamer DID fits wonderfully with the Dapps, Products & Integrations challenge (gaming is one of the “types of proposals to include”). The challenge focuses on building products that service the Cardano community in ways better than current centralized providers. As discussed in the “Contextual History” portion of impact, the issue of bad actors in games is nothing new. Centralized clients like anti-cheat mechanisms have done their best to combat the issue but it is still very prevalent. The Gamer DID brings a fresh decentralized take on the issue that can service the developers of blockchain games and their players (the community).

A quality mechanism to build trust within gaming without revealing personal info will help make Cardano the go-to blockchain for game developers and their players. 

[IMPACT] What are the main risks that could prevent you from delivering the project successfully and please explain how you will mitigate each risk?

The main challenges of this project are based on its capacity to have a truly authentic trust score and community of developers and players that utilize it. 

Developing a trust score based upon a set of metrics will not be easy. This will take authentication on the users side with legitimate Oauth systems and then necessitate APIs to grab player metrics from trustworthy databases. The use of developer approved services like the mentioned Epic Online Services and Overwolf will ensure legitimacy and trustworthiness. Working with blockchain game developers on leveraging on-chain data as metrics for trustworthiness will ensure developers with less resources can still contribute to the DID. 

In addition to ensuring the metrics are of quality, a formula will be needed to aggregate all the data from the metrics and derive a trust score based off of it. This is a difficult process as the validity and value of each metric will need to be determined. How trustworthy is a stake history of 8 months and 22 hours played vs a stake history of 1 month and 63 hours played? The answer is to source input from a community of gamers with knowledge on the topic. Through many trials and usage of live data in a testnet environment an understanding of a metrics value can be determined. This combined with constant iteration can ensure a community backed DID that proves trustworthiness fairly is built. 

The final major challenge of the Gamer DID is to ensure it’s adopted by a community of developers and players. What’s the point of all this tech without anyone using it? This difficult issue will be solved through a representation of usage. As PlayerMint integrates and displays the advantages of the Gamer DID it can grow in usage. This combined with outreach to projects building on Cardano can ensure a level of usage between gamers and developers occurs.

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed plan, including timeline and key milestones for delivering your proposal.

PlayerMint’s knowledge in the blockchain gaming space and ProofSpace’s understanding of DIDs provides the necessary blocks to build the Gamer DID. 

Roadmap

Below is a breakdown of tasks for verifiable the gamer DID:

Month 1

1. Finalise and agree workflow
2. Engage with community to form valuation of DID metrics

Month 2

1. Configure draft workflow in PS Dashboard
2. Create Anti-Smurfing Schema
3. Create PlayerMint Anti-Smurfing Credential Definition
4. Create interaction sequence for required/issued credentials
5. Finalize valuation of DID metrics and trust score model

Month 3

1. Deep linking integration between PlayerMint and PS App
2. Webhooks integration between PlayerMint and PS Dashboard
3. Configure SSI OAuth with Onboarding Credential

Month 4

1. Test and Fix
2. Push to production

Deliverables and Milestones

Month 1

1. Published draft workflow
2. Public documentation of DID metrics followed by live and text based community discussions

Month 2

1. Publication of finalized trust score model

Month 3

1. Video of functioning workflow

Month 4

1. Product on the market

Managing the workload of this and other proposals:

PlayerMint

All of the proposals associated with PlayerMint, focus around the development and usage of its core play-to-earn marketplace application. The team of 7 with 1 advisor have the necessary skills to fulfill all of the deliverables set in the submitted Project Catalyst proposals. 

PlayerMint also employs the help of MLabs to assist from a development perspective. MLabs is a blockchain consultancy with a specialization in Cardano.

In the interest of transparency PlayerMint has also shared a daily set of deliverables in its Discord called the “Daily Dues”. These can be reviewed along with their Project Catalyst monthly reports to determine progress. 

ProofSpace

Here is a link explaining workload management.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xkE9MMoJGXWKLl9Lkdh7c-R3hH1nn7XdMsZzRSE9LCY/edit?usp=sharing 

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed budget breakdown.

The following list displays the deliverable items followed by the budget needed to achieve them:

• SSI Workflow Consultations and Design - $5,103
• SSI Workflow Implementation - $9,946
• 12 months ProofSpace Subscription (Validate Package) - $2,277
• 15 hours dedicated ProofSpace Support - $2,100
• 1 month MLabs development work - $15,000

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide details of the people who will work on the project.

Two projects in the Cardano ecosystem are collaborating on this proposal.

PlayerMint - Gaming Experience

PlayerMint is a blockchain layer that integrates with existing games like Fortnite. This layer provides play-to-earn capabilities, enabling gamers to monetize their gameplay performance in triple-A titles. The token earned is called PMX and is spendable across an NFT marketplace. PlayerMint leverages Epic Online Services to authenticate gamer accounts and Overwolf to determine gameplay performance.

PlayerMint Team working on this project:

• Grant Scholl - Chief Executive Officer. Has 2 years of experience in gaming and 4 years in blockchain. He works to build out the ultimate vision of PlayerMint and how it will evolve over time.
• Aidan Rankin-Williams - Chief Experience Officer. Has 2 years of experience in gaming and 4 years in blockchain. He works to form the user experience from first contact marketing to engagement across the product and customer support.
• Josh Shull - VP of Marketing Services. Has 8 months of experience in gaming and blockchain. He works to rally and strengthen a community of gamers, crypto enthusiasts, and NFT collectors so PlayerMint has a strong user base.
• Jack Rousseau - VP Of NFT Business Development and Sponsorship. Has 6 months of experience in gaming and blockchain. He works to develop strong relationships with esports orgs, gaming content creators, and projects needing help in the world of NFTs, while driving them to the PlayerMint platform.
• Courtney Guthrie - Project Coordinator. Has 5 months of experience in gaming and blockchain. She works to assist Josh, Jack, and Aidan across marketing, NFT development, and user experience design.
• Greg Fox - Strategic Advisor. Has 7 years of experience in gaming and 2 years in blockchain. He works to provide advice and guidance as to how the project should progress and establish quality lines of revenue.

PlayerMint has created an external Google doc for you to get a sense of the current development progress being made. It is possible that when reading this PlayerMint’s testnet is live. Proposals can no longer be edited after a certain date so this document enables constant updating.

ProofSpace - DID Experience

ProofSpace is a multi-network identity platform, wrapped with no-code tools for building and scaling decentralized ID workflows and ecosystems. Our goal is to eliminate the barriers to adopting Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI) and proliferate the range and volume of use cases on production. Our vision is to power global digital inclusion and cross-chain commerce with interoperable verifiable credentials, and in so doing expand use of blockchain as a medium of trust. We are live with Hyperledger Indy, on testnet with Atala PRISM and reviewing SSI protocols on Polkadot, Ethereum and Solana.

ProofSpace Team working on this project:

• Viktor Radchenko - CTO and mobile dev for ProofSpace. 20-year R&D track record. Skilled in project and product management, solution architecture, science consulting, blockchain, mobile, web, game, and embedded development. 6 publications in peer-reviewed journals. 
• Ruslan Shevchenko, PhD - Solution Architect and BE for ProofSpace. Skilled architect and scientific researcher with 30-years’ experience across blockchain, telecom, advertising and financial services. Researcher in the Institute of Software Systems and Founder of several successful ventures including NBI (an Internet Provider), GradSoft (a software development firm) and UA Scala user group. 10 publications in peer-reviewed journals, co-authored book entitled “Methods of Algebraic Programming” and is an active columnist for the Ukrainian developers' community portal.
• Alexey Hodkov - FE/BE for ProofSpace. Talented web backend and frontend solution architect and developer with 17-years’ experience. Team leader, tech mentor and CTO in complex projects for various companies like Yandex LLC and Megogo.
• Viacheslav Zhelobkov - Senior Mobile Dev for ProofSpace. Software developer with 20 years experience in wide variety of IT areas including embedded, mobile, web, backend, etc. in roles from solo founder to Solution Architect and CTO.
• Olesya Kershaw - Customer Success Analyst. A professional musician, experienced concert pianist and teacher who made a career change into digital technologies. She uses her analytical, relationship building and research skills in her work as a business and customer success analyst, while continuously developing her technical skills.
• Nick Mason - CEO for ProofSpace. Experienced social entrepreneur and venture analyst with a proven track record of social venture funding and of starting and growing ventures in Europe and Africa. Background as Consultant venture analyst at Toniic, Head of Portfolio and Operations at BeyondMe, UK Director for Sierra Leone based education charity and Trustee for Street Child. Co-Founded ProofSpace (formerly ZAKA in 2019).

[FEASIBILITY] If you are funded, will you return to Catalyst in a later round for further funding? Please explain why / why not.

If this proposal is funded the completed deliverable of v1 of the Gamer DID will be produced and made public. This DID will be implemented into PlayerMint and tested for impact.

If during or at the end of this development process other projects are interested in partaking in the Gamer DID (what we hope to happen) then we will look into sustainable mechanisms of revenue creation. This may start with another proposal but will ultimately lead to a mechanism that can finance the project through its usage.

In short, the deliverables of this proposal can be produced independent of a future Project Catalyst proposal. If interest in the Gamer DID is high, then a future proposal is very possible.

[FEASIBILITY] Are you or any member of your team working on any other proposals in this Fund9?

[FEASIBILITY] Are you or your team working on any other proposals from previous Funds?

[AUDITABILITY] Please describe what you will measure to track your project's progress, and how will you measure these?

Every deliverable of the project described in our detailed plan will be visible to the community. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) include:

Overall

• Publication of project deliverables through monthly reports, which will demonstrate adherence to the work plan.
• Number of community members contribution to trust score model
• Number of gaming projects that implement the Gamer DID
• Number of gamers with a Gamer DID
• Impact on number of bad actors present in integrated video games
• Qualitative feedback on validity of trust score
• Number of projects that provide metrics to Gamer DID
• Number of metrics that make up trust score

ProofSpace

• Functioning workflows for gamers and PlayerMint, including integration with existing and third-party systems.

PlayerMint

• Number of users with an associated Gamer DID
• Amount of PMX paid out based off of trust score through Gamer DID
• Qualitative reaction to usage of Gamer DID

[AUDITABILITY] What does success for this project look like?

Success is the completed development of v1 of the Gamer DID with integration in the PlayerMint app and interest from gamers and developers in the space.

Level of success can be determined by the number of gamers opting into the DID and number of bad actors prevented. Success can further be determined by the interest expressed by other gaming projects in the Cardano ecosystem. Other developers wanting to utilize the DID expresses its successful usage in PlayerMint.

[AUDITABILITY] Please provide information on whether this proposal is a continuation of a previously funded project in Catalyst or an entirely new one.

No, this is a new project proposal but is being built by projects with previous proposals.

Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Rating

SDG goals:

Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all

SDG subgoals:

Achieve higher levels of economic productivity through diversification, technological upgrading and innovation, including through a focus on high-value added and labour-intensive sectors

Promote development-oriented policies that support productive activities, decent job creation, entrepreneurship, creativity and innovation, and encourage the formalization and growth of micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprises, including through access to financial services

By 2030, achieve full and productive employment and decent work for all women and men, including for young people and persons with disabilities, and equal pay for work of equal value

Key Performance Indicator (KPI):

Average hourly earnings of employees, by sex, age, occupation and persons with disabilities

The above is copied from the "SDG Proposer Tool".