Discover the Future of Music Connection with the wavGAME 🌊👾

A search to find the real incentive behind collecting music

gm folks … It’s been a few weeks since you’ve heard from us, and we know what you may be thinking: wavWRLD has gone dark.

But that’s impossible. The wavs can never go dark, and so we can never go dark. As long as there are waves or .wavs to be surfed, we’ll be out here surfing them.

In fact, just the opposite has happened. We’ve put our heads down to build what is the biggest IRL<>URL project in wavWRLD’s history. You may have been to our music showcase last year at ETHDenver or NFT NYC, or perhaps the Art Basel wavROOM this past December in Miami.

We delivered unique in-person experiences made possible by onchain music, but it wasn’t enough for us. We needed to figure out how to bring the whole value proposition back around to highlight the potential of online connections and collectibles. The use cases for onchain music are clear, but we’d never been able to deliver on the full promise of this technology the way we had imagined.

Until now. It’s time for the wavGAME.

What do fans truly want when collecting music?

Since the beginning of the web3 music movement, the space has grappled with the question of why people collect music.

Some argue that, like other crypto assets, collecting music is a speculative investment. A bet on the artist’s future career. It goes something like, “imagine if you owned 1 of 30 verified editions of The Beatles’ early releases. How much would that be worth now?” This patronage model has been proven through time (think the Medicis sponsoring Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Botticelli and others), and now we can do it digitally since we have the ability to verify scarce digital property through blockchains. No arguing with that.

Others argue it’s about support and building community. You get what you give; what goes around comes around. You support artists you want to see succeed, you support artists who make you feel part of a community and give you a sense of belonging. We see many artists being big collectors themselves, and we see the support given back to them when they release music. Supporting someone you believe in and being a part of a community is beautiful, no arguing with that either.

Another set of collectors will say it is about access. They buy an artist’s collectible because they believe holding it will give them access to more. Whether that’s a collector-gated chat with the artist, pre-sales for upcoming releases, alpha, a surprise airdrop, or other digital experiences. Having access to artists you love is amazing, plus it supports the investment narrative since you will likely be able to collect rarer content by being a pre-existing collector. Seems valid.

While all of these are right in their own way, at wavWLRD, we believe that an under-explored motive is that fans collect to connect. Being in a collector-gated chat is great, but ultimately every type of access will fall flat because, when it comes down to it, connection is about the music and experiences surrounding it. We connect by listening to the songs we love. We connect even further when we listen to these songs being played live by the artists we admire. We go deeper if we listen to this live performance in a room that is occupied only by other collectors who connect to the song / artist as much as we do (as anyone who has attended a wavROOM will confirm). And we reach connection nirvana if we’re listening to the artist perform a song that we love and collected live, and that performance is only for us.

What do we collect music for then? Are we saying we want connection for the clout, but our actions show something different? Let’s find out.

Unveiling the wavGAME - A digital trading card music game

This kind of 1-on-1 hits different…

wavWRLD, in collaboration with Liquality, introduces the wavGAME, a unique music game set to launch on June 15th. This game allows fans to collect songs from artists' IRL wavROOM performances, level-up through trading collectibles, and deepen their bond with artists through unique experiences. The ultimate reward? A trip* that includes a one-on-one live concert with the artist of your choice. (*see bottom of article for more details on prize redemption).

Our vision for the wavGAME is guided by the following principles:

Making Collecting Music Accessible & Fun

Let’s face it, there are too many barriers to collecting music today. Even after you set up a browser extension wallet, save your seed phrase, go through KYC to buy crypto, and understand what technical concepts like blockchains, NFTs, and gas are, you’re still confronted with enormous gas fees that often represent 3x the cost of the asset. Collecting today is an experienced whale’s game.

The wavGAME aims to make music collection easy and fun, regardless of your prior web3 experience. Players will log in with their email (SSO), and a self-custodial wallet will be created for them in the background. Without having to understand crypto, players will collect (mint) directly with their credit cards, and trade their collectibles smoothly without having to worry about gas. All of this has been achieved by using the Liquality web3 SDK and Crossmint to remove the complexity of traditional crypto applications. Artists & teams working on the wavGAME will all be paid out via a Reveel Revenue Path.

Balancing Speculation & Connection

We believe collect-to-connect is an under-explored motive for music fans. We also know that many existing music collectors are driven by speculation of future profit. wavGAME encourages both connection and speculation. Whether you seek deeper experiences with your favorite artists or a healthy competition for top minter, wavGAME has got you covered. If you are looking for connection, the game will give you 6 different levels of experiences with your favorite artists, from a live performance song from a wavROOM, all the way to a 1-on-1 trip* and concert. If you sit more on the speculative side, the game will give 1% of the mint revenue back to the top minter. This will encourage a healthy speculative incentive that results in the artists getting paid more.

The wavGAME also purposely makes it difficult for a secondary market to exist for its game collectibles. Secondary markets for music collectibles don’t really exist outside of Ethereum Layer 1, creating a vicious cycle where artists only mint on Ethereum because collectors want potential liquidity and collectors mostly collect on Ethereum because that’s where markets exist. This also makes collecting highly inaccessible due to increasingly high Layer 1 gas costs (it’s not uncommon to pay $30 in gas to mint a $10 onchain song). Because the wavGAME collectibles are focused on the experiences behind them and not their resell value, the game is built on Polygon, a cheaper transaction cost platform, where the game builders can subsidize players’ gas costs, so players can have a smooth experience.

Finding the Ultimate Connection

The wavGAME aims to find what types of experiences are worth it for collectors. Would you want a digital listening room of an unreleased song more than a limited edition of an alternate version of an artist’s song you love? We arrived at the game’s 6 levels of connection experiences together with the artists, collectors, and builders from the music community. But this is the first of many iterations of the wavGAME. We will observe and continue experimenting on this quest for the ultimate incentive to collect.

Blending the Digital & the Physical

Most experiences that come from collecting music today are digital—whether it’s access to a collectors chat, pre-sale, onchain rewards, airdrops, early access, or others. But we (still) have a predominant physical presence, and tangible, physical connection is (still) hard to beat. This is why in the wavGAME, like the IRL token-curated wavROOM concerts, we aim to provide a mix of digital and physical experiences. A token-gated chat is cool, but a 1-on-1 concert with one of your favorite artists is something else.

Creating New Sources of Income for Artists & Alternative Paths of Entry for Fans

A big part of the game’s objective is for artists to find alternate sources of income through experimentation in fan engagement. Web3 music is more likely to scale horizontally (1,000 artists finding their 1,000 true fans) than vertically (1 artist finding 1,000,000 followers), and so building new and exciting options for true fans to meaningfully engage will help towards the sustainability of the fan <-> artist direct relationship.

That being said, fandom shouldn’t be solely measured by how much you can pay to have an experience. That’s why we will give away level 1 cards to create engagement-based entry points into the wavGAME. Artists leveraging their fan base to promote their game is a win-win.

Showcasing the Power of Community

wavWLRD is made up of volunteer contributors, mostly artists, and collectors. Community members help surface issues they are experiencing in web3 music, and they also build solutions to tackle them. By launching this game, we want to show the power of how communities, artists and collectors can come together to meme something into existence.

Creating Reusable Infrastructure for Artists’ Benefit & True Fan Engagement

This wavGAME aims to be the first reference implementation for other communities to launch their own games that can help deepen the connection between artists and true fans. Although this version is not fully composable yet, the vision is to build a plug-and-play platform for various play-to-connect games. If your community is interested in deploying your own version of the wavGAME, come say hi in our Telegram wavCHAT.

We hope you support and connect with the amazing artists on their wavGAME, and that it energizes you to think about the possibilities of what collecting and connecting could be like.

Join us in this exciting journey of discovering the true incentives behind music collection. Stay tuned for a deep dive walkthrough of the wavGAME. To stay updated, join our Telegram wavCHAT and subscribe to our wavLETTER.

good wavs

What is it about collecting that makes me want to own more? Are we just looking for connection in this ever increasingly digital world?

*Complimentary flights shall be provided exclusively to residents of the United States. Non-residents of the United States shall be entitled to a credit of up to $500 towards the airline of their choosing.

This provision pertains to wavWRLD’s wavGAME, whereby the victorious participant shall be transported to meet the artist and partake in a personalized one-on-one performance. However, it is imperative to note that this privilege is contingent upon the individual residing within the borders of the United States. Should the winner reside outside of the United States, they shall be granted a credit of up to $500 to facilitate their travel arrangements.

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Thanks to our contributing writers Fred Riko & Simon Lapscher, and our curator & editor-in-chief Violetta!

It’s all about the wavs we make with friends along the way.

-wavWRLD 🌊🌐🌱