Litepaper: Air Guitar Academy — Art, Game, Music and NFT Platform
Written by BB
Our mission is to empower artists, musicians and community leaders to deliver mind-melting experiences to their fans and NFT collection owners through music-based gaming events.
- Website: airguitaracademy.com
- Twitter: twitter.com/AirGuitarNFT_
- Discord: airguitaracademy.com
We aim to do this through a blockchain based game, with great art and music. Our goal is to provide the NFT ecosystem with a project that intersects these rapidly growing industries — providing utility and value to players, musicians, buyers and creators.
This paper explores the following topics and lays out the plans for the development of Air Guitar Academy under the Air X Academy template, a music and NFT based gaming experience.
Gaming x Music for NFT Owners
Given the market size and growth in both the gaming industry, the early validation in the NFT and crypto projects that are pursuing these markets and the rapid adoption and growth of NFTs with a lack of utility — we see a world in which we can bring these industries together in a combined experience that is beneficial to players, musicians, owners, creators.
Players
Benefit from being able to use their existing NFTs to play games and play-to-earn opportunities through competitive gameplay.
Musicians
Benefit from providing the music for these immersive and interactive experiences. This opens an entire distribution channel for them.
Owners
Benefit from an increase in the value of their NFT as new utility becomes available along with the ability to participate as a player themselves, earn income directly from renting their assets for in-game use or participating in betting or staking in games.
Community Creators
Benefit from utility in games that integrate their collections and provide a platform for them to run events and experiences within their communities.
Two main models can be envisioned:
- Inclusive: artists provide their music and any nft owner can battle any other nft owner
- Artists and/or collection creators can host exclusive events with a playlist of select music and only certain nft holders can participate
Scenarios
- You battle your friend to your favorite beats on a Friday while you take a break from nft shopping.
- Snoop Dogg releases a new album and the Bored Ape Yacht Club owners can play his music with him.
- The Degen Ape Academy hosts an internal tournament exclusive for DAA owners, with an exclusive playlist of music created by their community.
- CryptoPunks battle PeskyPenguins to see which community is the GOAT.
Air Guitar Academy: PVP P2E Music NFT Game
How it started
Through a similar insight in early September, @michaedeon_ put out a concept game for the Degen Ape Academy called Ape Hero. You can view his concept video here and initial website here. It received a warm welcome from the community and led to the development of Air Guitar Academy.
Core elements
- 8888 uniquely generated Air Guitar NFTs with mind-melting artwork hand produced by Ben Rausch
- A PVP P2E game that integrates any Solana or Ethereum NFT
- Royalty payout plan to players, musicians and deflationary wallet
- Community and DAO management on Discord to direct project development
How it works
Air Guitar Academy will let any Solana or Ethereum NFT holder play the game for free.
To play
- Connect your wallet
- Select an NFT as your character
- Select an Air Guitar from your wallet with special powers or the free-to-play provided
- Get matched with opponent
- Use keyboard, mobile device or hardware instrument to play song
- Use the Air Guitar NFT powers to hinder opponent
- Get a score and ranking on leaderboard
Benefits to stakeholders
Air Guitar Academy seeks to benefit players, musicians, owners and creators in the following ways, aligning with the principles mentioned above:
Players — 25% Royalties
- Gain utility for the NFTs they hold and a mechanism to connect with other holders.
- Connect with others and develop a culture of interoperability for NFTs.
- 25% of the royalties collected from secondary sales of Air Guitars on a monthly basis (P2E).
- Over time develop a crypto token to reward players.
- Over time develop other P2P P2E mechanics like play for keeps.
Musicians — 25% Royalties
- Gain a distribution channel to expose their music to the NFT community.
- Will be paid out 25% of the royalties collected from secondary sales of Air Guitars on a monthly basis.
- Over time we will develop further ways to let musicians trade their music with players.
- Can offer exclusive experiences to specific communities like playing against their fans with their album launch.
Owners
- Increased value of NFTs as they become items that can be used to access the game.
- 25% of royalties will be spent on buying low-value Air Guitars from the market and burning them to increase the rarity of the remaining.
- Get early access to exclusive chat where product updates will be released early and they can vote on new releases.
- Over time we will develop ways for owners to let players use their guitars.
Creators
- NFT Collections will have a new utility.
- Use Air Guitar Academy as a platform to host events with their community and other communities.
- Enables partnership with musicians for exclusive events and experiences.
Air X Academy: a template for music game experiences
Air Guitar Academy will be the first version of a game that brings together NFT holders with a love of music and PVP experiences. It will serve as a template for musicians and creators to launch their own experiences — either with the Air Guitar Academy team as support, advisors or even service providers.
We will help other teams in whatever way we can to launch their own Air X Academy by:
- Creating NFT/instrument as an item that can be equipped to any NFT to play a music or rhythm based game.
- Creating a whitelisted experience for their fans or their community to have a gated academy.
- Creating exclusive musical content in an environment — e.g. only a certain playlist or album available to players within their academy.
- Their own custom P2E mechanics.
Air Team: friendly people figuring this out
We are passionate about empowering people within the space to change the ecosystem and the communities that they contribute towards. We don’t have everything figured out and don’t believe in that way of thinking.
We are a dynamic team that works iteratively with our environment and our community to develop value. We believe in sharing our ideas openly and removing barriers for those who want to leverage our ideas, technology and platforms.
- Michael Deon: Founder and Lead Dev
- Ben Blaine: Ecosystem and Community Dev
- Ben Rausch: Creative and Art Director
- Bare: Mint Security Advisor
Market Analysis: NFTs, Games and Music
Global NFT Market
NFTs have begun to reshape the online space in the form of PFPs, art and collectibles taking over Twitter, Discord and other major social areas of the internet. NFT buying exceeded $10bn in sales in Q3 Oct 2021 alone, with in-game items accounting for 22% or $2.3bn in sales¹. This is even spilling over into the real world where we are seeing events like NFT NYC taking over billboards in downtown Manhattan.
Rachel Sun/CoinDesk
This explosive growth sets the stage for what is to come in terms of adoption of NFTs as it becomes more accessible to the mainstream — along with Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Some are even predicting that NFTs can eclipse the value of crypto: Brain Armstrong stated that they “could be as big or bigger” than Coinbase’s cryptocurrency business as they prepare to launch their NFT offering².
Global Games Market
In 2021 games will generate $175.8bn in revenue from over 2.9bn players worldwide³. The in-game microtransaction market consisting of the sale of in-game virtual goods and services is expected to reach $34.59bn in 2021 and grow to $50bn by 202⁵⁴.
“Major players in the online microtransaction market are SmileGate (CrossFire), Riot Games, Inc., Nexon Co., Ltd., Wargaming.net, NCSoft, Activision Blizzard Inc., Electronic Arts Inc., Valve Corporation, Tencent Holdings Ltd. and NetEase Inc.”
NFT gaming has already begun to show it’s potential with early movers netting $9bn in private financing raised in the first nine months of 2021, $1.8bn of that was for NFT-related gaming projects⁵ like Axie Infinity which has token market cap of $8,4bn on Coinmarketcap on 23 Nov 202¹⁶.
With so few players in the space, there is a massive opportunity for investors to get involved in NFT games currently in development and aiming to reach the market in 2022.
US Music Market
Music revenue in the US alone is growing at a rapid pace, increasing by $1.5 billion or 27% year-on-year, to $7.1 billion in H1 2021 (from $5.6 billion in H1 2020)⁷. Streaming has taken over the global music market accounting for 84% in 2020. Spotify now counts it’s base at 365 million users.
Growth in the sale of music NFTs has been slow but the potential to revolutionise the way that royalties are collected form music streaming and sales is massive and a few projects have shown what is possible: Kings of Leon generated $2m in NFT sales of their new album⁸, Audius has achieved a market cap of $268m with their token AUDIO⁹ and although not specifically NFT related Tidal was acquired by Square for $302m¹⁰ — and with Jack Dorsey as CEO it’s likely that they will be making a move into the crypto and NFT space soon.
NFT Utility
Many investors have aped into projects like Solana Monkey Business or the Degen Ape Academy and the floor price of these projects is proving them to have been great investments. Their NFT also provides them access to the respective DAOs along with upcoming projects. Most of these projects are however focused on developing utility for their community and not focused on interoperable utility between projects.
We see an opportunity to create a project that provides utility to all NFT holders and creators, brings them together in an inclusive way and helps them to connect and interact through fun and exciting experiences.
“A rising tide lifts all boats.”
NFT Owners
A quick analysis of the top Solana and Ethereum collections gives somewhat of an idea of how many individuals are invested in these projects at high evaluations. There are hundreds of other projects too that are offering little utility to project owners at the moment — although much amazing work is being done by collection creators to provide utility for each collection.
- NFT trading volume hit $10.7 billion last quarter — here are 2 reasons why people are spending thousands on digital assets
- NFTs could be ‘as big or bigger’ than all crypto on Coinbase, CEO says
- Global Games Market to Generate $175.8 Billion in 2021; Despite a Slight Decline, the Market Is on Track to Surpass $200 Billion in 2023
- Online Microtransaction Global Market Report 2021: Focus on In-Game Currencies, Random Chance Purchases, In-Game Items, Expiration — ResearchAndMarkets.com
- Understanding the NFT gaming platform war
- Axie Infinity price today, AXS to USD live, marketcap and chart
- US recorded music revenues grew $1.5bn in H1 2021 compared to the first half of last year
- Kings Of Leon have generated $2 million from NFT sales of their new album
- Audius price today, AUDIO to USD live, marketcap and chart
- What Square’s $302 Million TIDAL Acquisition Means For Its Music Industry Ambitions
- HowRare.is Solana Monkey Business (SMB)
- HowRare.is Degen Apes Academy 2021
- HowRare.is thugbirdz
- Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT and Collectibles
- CryptoPunks: All Owners.
