Welcome to our preview and interview with one of the people working on Wildchain, a Kickstarter about preserving endangered animals, which launched today! We will take a closer look at how the game works, what the base idea was behind Wildchain and how you can help to decrease your carbon footprint while taking care of animals. Just like in Pokémon Go you will have to collect rare animals (endangered ones) and take care of them. But there are only a few of them left, just like in real life! By saving them, you make an impact on the real world (fourth wall breaking). We really loved the idea of Wildchain and are looking forward to the full release of the game, but until then; you’ll have to do with this preview and interview! Luckily, our guest of today, miss Anastasia will give us some much-needed details!
The basis of Wildchain:
As always, our first question for our guests is to introduce themselves. Can you tell me a bit more about yourself and your company?
My name is Anastasia. I take care of Marketing and organizing Events at Wildchain. For the last few months, we have been working hard on our Kickstarter Campaign that has finally launched today! It is a proud, exciting, and nervous period, as we are a very passionate team when it comes to gaming, design, and wildlife conservation. “Play for impact!” is the concept we have been living and breathing for the last two years, so let me tell you a bit more.
Wildchain is created with a critical mission in mind to bring people together to protect our planet’s endangered species and natural zones by creating shared value between entertainment & real-world conservation initiatives. Together we strived to raise awareness, engagement, and funds to restore ecosystems through the power of entertainment.
In this mobile game, you get to adopt majestic animals, grow your very own wildlife sanctuary, and save them from the 6th mass extinction in real life! Wildchain team believes that doing good things has to be fun and exciting so that we all enjoy taking positive actions. Therefore, we created a fun digital collectible game that taps into the 152.1 billion dollar industry of gamers to raise funds to preserve & protect endangered species & restore the ecosystem. The data from the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species is used (International Union for Conservation of Nature), so Wildchain is accurate and represents the real situation in the wild. Finally, we utilize blockchain technology to guarantee transparency, providing immutable, and traceable proof for donations.
For those unfamiliar with the concept of the blockchain-based games, could you explain a little bit about it for our audience?
Wildchain is a digital mirror on the blockchain where every unique token “Wildlife Non-fungible Token” (WIN) represents a real endangered animal living in the wild, helping to build awareness, create engagement, and raise funds for their real-life counterparts. The tokens are collectible and tradable. Players are contributing to conservation & reforestation projects by merely participating in this entertainment ecosystem. Wildchain is a nonprofit that gives 100% of profits to conservation projects. In an Impact Dashboard, gamers will be able to see how they helped fund wildlife conservation and tree-planting initiatives. Users may also actively allocate where their donations go on a fully transparent Crowdfunding-like platform, which will give visibility into the impact they have created.
Sustainability is one of the key features of today’s news. The extinction of animals is a case that is close to my causes to strive for a better world. Why did you choose to gamify this cause?
Right now, more than 28 thousand species are hopelessly heading into mass extinction. 60% of all Earth’s wildlife has been lost in the past six decades. According to the journal Science, current extinction rates are almost a thousand times higher than they would have been if humans didn’t exist. Can you see where we are all heading?
The global mass animal extinction, loss of their habitat and degradation of natural zones, loss of biodiversity, climate change demand fundamental changes in the way nonprofits and charities raise funding as conservation funding needs to be scaled 20 to 30 times to reach our planet’s needs. Wildchain strives to support this by building novel fundraising structures that can mobilize funds at scale and that appeal to the masses.
The impact Wildchain is trying to make to protect and prevent the extinction of threatened species and reduce the degradation of natural zones.
There are three main outcomes we want to achieve:
Educate: More people are aware of the threats for wildlife
Engage: People have a tool that allows them to take action daily
Enhance: Wildlife conservation initiatives have access to new funding sources
The Kickstarter-ideology:
I already had the pleasure of looking behind the scenes of your Kickstarter, which launches today on https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/wildchain/wildchain-a-game-to-save-the-world-for-real. Is there a specific reason you choose to go with Kickstarter?
Our campaign will not only raise funds for wildlife conservation initiatives but raise awareness and engage people on the environmental problems, motivating them to take positive wildlife, climate, and environmental actions.
More so, it is a game, after all, so we took great pleasure in carefully creating each character and every detail, thinking through all the twists and mechanics. We promise you it is not another education game; it is a game to go wild! Our Kickstarter page features detailed information about Wildchain collectible game along with fun illustrations, so you get the flavor. Backing Wildchain on Kickstarter and sharing your participation and activities among your networks, will lead to a louder voice of the life-changing movement.
Many already tried to dethrone the powerful Pokémon Go (and Ingress); how do you think Wildchain will compete in the already overpopulated world of mobile gaming?
Wilchain is a digital collectible game to play for impact, so unlike other donation platforms, we are creating value via entertainment, not altruism, in a gaming platform. Donation transparency will be end-to-end, from the gamers to the conservation projects. Moreover, since IUCN data is used, Wildchain represents the real situation in the wild, updating the changes constantly, so simultaneously, gamers get to learn more about wildlife.
We are a purpose-driven social enterprise running on a sustainable revenue-based model. We believe that collectibles, gaming, and charitable giving are some of the most compelling use cases for blockchain technology. Unlike most blockchain projects, we are not another ICO*; we aren’t fueled by a cryptocurrency gold-rush mentality that causes harm to many individuals, developers, and organizations.
*An initial coin offering or initial currency offering is a type of funding using cryptocurrencies. It is often a form of crowdfunding; however, a private ICOs which does not seek public investment is also possible. Kickstarting through crypto.
Rare collectibles?
As I already explained in the preview, it’s a digital collecting game based around endangered species. Does this mean there will be certain species only a hand few of players can ‘collect’? Or is there a way to ‘trade’ them to finish the collection?
Indeed, just like in the wild, there is a limited number of animals, especially those in the super rare category. That means you can be one of the lucky few to adopt that specific animal, particularly if you get an epic Magic Egg. If you do not want to try your luck on Magic Eggs, Wildchain has an adoption center, where you can adopt the animals you wish to from your friends (or even strangers that you just met on the internet). Likewise, you can let your fellow digital conservationists care for your animals instead.
As a kid and teen, I used to play tons of Zoo Tycoon. Did you take any inspiration from games like this? Or is the game solely based on personal experience with wildlife and zoo’s?
Tamagotchi, Neko Atsume, Farmville.
Can you explain a little bit about the real-life impact players can make while playing Wildchain?
When you are playing Wildchain, you are also supporting our planet’s precious wildlife because 100% of our profits go to projects that work to provide the same loving care for animals in the wild as you do in your Sanctuary. This includes the money we make from selling eggs, in-game items, and optional ads. Giving is part of the game. You might support wildlife rangers who protect rhinos from poachers; you could support farmers to protect their livestock or help to protect the habitat of Zebras. As the population changes in the wild, so does those in the game, so by helping protect your animals in the wild, you earn a chance to be rewarded with their offsprings in the digital world.
You can also become a Guardian for your favorite species by supporting real-world conservation efforts. For taking this additional step to help conservation, your animals earn Alpha Score, which increases the chance of you hatching even rarer species in the future. Alpha Score can also be earned by sharing your animal’s referral link – thereby helping to raise awareness and funds to protect their species. Also, our tree-planting partner in Africa will plant trees for each magic egg sold. Therefore, playing Wildchain helps you offset your carbon footprint.
I think organizations like the WWF and the likes are thrilled with projects like these. Since we are more and more becoming a digital civilization, we sometimes lose sight of what’s essential. Is there any support from the likes of WWF and such?
Granted, we are in very close contact with organizations like WildAid, David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation, Eden Reforestation Projects, Socialgiver… to name a few. They help us with keeping a strong eye on the trends and changes, teaching us where there are the biggest necessities for funding and where help is needed the most. One of the most important aspects for us is to guarantee the transparency of funds received through donations. Not only we make sure we can trust the organizations we work with, but we want to know exactly what project and cause the funds to go towards and what difference that creates.
And of course – our final question: what’s your favorite game at the moment?
Wildeverse is a very interesting game where people can take the role of a remote wildlife scientist. Augmented Reality is one of our future plans for Wildchain further development; therefore, we love seeing how Wildeverse is exploring AR ways for their cool concept!
We want to thank Anastasia and the team of Wildchain for their time and we give Wildchain a Gaming Boulevard stamp of approval! Check out their Kickstarter, which launched today and help them make the world a better place!
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wildchainwin
Twitter: https://twitter.com/wildchainwin
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wildchainwin/?hl=en
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/wildchainwin
Telegram Community: http://t.me/wildchain
