Hello my fellow Zed Heads!
We’ve been patiently waiting for Sit N Go tournaments to arrive and it looks as though they will be with us in September!
Hallelujah!
We all love the thrill of watching our digital thoroughbreds run in tournaments but historically that’s involved racing qualifiers and then waiting a day, a week or even longer for those finals to run.
Not anymore, with on demand Sit N Go tournaments!
However, faster time to fun is not all that SNG’s achieve, they are also an important piece of the puzzle for Zed Run.
So you may ask, where do they fit in to the game loop, and how do they enhance it?
I guess the first and most obvious answer is that they provide a place for a lot more horses and stables to be competitive.
A nimble live ops team will now be able to quickly activate certain sections of the horse population based on all sorts of criteria from top to bottom.
Class based, level based, Bloodline based, breed type based.
WTA for the VAR horses, something for our stability and mid VAR horses.
Low buy in, mid buy in, high buy in.
A massive array of tournament options to keep the game interesting and our stables active.
It’s coming.
Another aspect of Sit N Go’s that will get players very excited is the opportunity to race for large prize pools for a small entry fee.
The thrill of racing for huge multipliers should be a key element of a horse racing game and these tournaments can provide that in a way that is sustainable while also providing revenue to Zed.
A win/win for players and the future of the game.
The team seem to be taking a “build it from the ground up” approach and so I imagine to begin with the entry and prize pools for Sit N Go’s will be relatively small and affordable but will be scaled up as we move forward.
Our high rollers (Iceberg Racing I’m looking at you) will be eagerly anticipating high stakes versions which hopefully for them won’t be too far away.
The sky really is the limit here.
I’m guessing perhaps Zed will start with options ranging from a $1 to $10 buy in, or something like that.
I can imagine a pretty large volume of players paying a $1 entry for a chance at a good share of $174.
At the other end, a $10 buy in for 194 horses could yield a nice $1,746 prize pool after the 10% rake is taken out so I’m sure they would fill in reasonable time too.
I’d run in those $10 tournaments all day long.
As our user base and appetite for Sit N Go’s grows I am sure we will see much larger stakes.
The top stables perhaps entering $100 for the chance at a $17,460 pool.
Scaling up from there you can do the math. ($1,000 entry Iceberg?)
The players and team know there is still much work to be done in regards to the first time user experience and onboarding processes of the game but if you have some imagination you can see the sort of volume that could easily be achieved with on demand Sit N Go’s.
Once in full swing we should see major positive effects on the game economy and overall loop.
As it stands today, with our current paid racing and tournament structure, we have at least $200,000 in weekly volume which is injecting about $10,000 toward weekly tournaments.
Our breeding activity adds perhaps another $15,000 to the prize pools.
Conservatively $25,000 in total.
With a multitude of formats, faster time to excitement and bigger potential rewards driving higher volume (and later marketing too) the above numbers will increase and should in time increase dramatically.
This will allow Zed to do things like increase the Maiden prize pool to a very enticing level.
Imagine the effects of a weekly $50,000 or $100,000 Maiden tournament on breeding activity and user growth!
(Or for fans of a monthly Maiden imagine a quarter million dollar extravaganza!)
As the prize pool’s increase breeding will increase and so will Zed’s breeding income, further allowing them to stage showcase events with major (marketable) prizes.
As prize money increases so will the price of good horses and the demand for quality studs.
In order to compete for these prize pools, especially at the top level, players will need to equip their horses with the recently added XP NFT’s, otherwise known as “Crack Rockets”.
That money will flow to lower budget stables and by way of buying and aging cheap horses they will create a horse floor price and age/burn lower tier racers from the eco system.
(The out-of-control inflationary horse population was a massive dilemma that the team seems to have now solved)
As an added bonus the Zed Tokens used by players to mint crack rockets will go back in to the eco system for rewards and prizes.
With Sit N Go tournaments slotting in to what has already been built this year, we have a pretty phenomenal game loop.
The class and level system, horse aging, the XP progression and XP NFT’s; Sit N Go’s really tie it all in together cohesively.
We’re now arriving at a point where various levels of player can find their place in the eco system, playing the Zed that suits them.
Grinders, casuals, high rollers and us hard core Zed Heads.
The effects of this cohesive game loop and competitive eco system should not be under estimated.
Watch this space.