Hi Community,
Our team, the Revocation Committee received a request from the Grant Support Squad to discuss this case and make a decision in regards to the following proposal
Duel Arena P2E Continuum, Refinement & Game Expansion [Resubmission]
As a result of discussion and the final vote, we suggest that this grant should be REVOKED. @HPrivakos @Tobik @rizk
Voting Members:
Revocation Committee snapshot vote result:
Reasoning for revocation:
The points made by the GSS are as follows:
- Metrics and Target Audience
- Allocation of Funds
1. Development & Design
1. A total of 69.700 USD was spent on development and design, but this seems too expensive compared to the quality produced.
2. Marketing
1. This second grant focused on upgrading graphic design and development and a tournament as a marketing strategy, which failed to achieve its target audience goals
We reviewed Points 1 and 2b below:
Metrics and Target Audience
The project states a performance metric goal of 2,000 users over the four-month duration of the grant. Along with the GSS forum post, we reviewed the user metrics from the following data sources:
- Duel Arena Notion Page: Impact Metrics
- DCL Metrics: Duel Arena
- Atlas Analytics Query (Gitbhub)
- Server Data provided from the Grantee directly
As of the vesting contract pause of 4/30/2024, there were 666 unique users, pulled from Atlas Analytics Query ranging from January 25 (ending of proposal vote) to April 30 (last date of Month 3). Per GSS, there was 529 users in the last 3 months. However, we will accept the greater amount of 666.
For the year 2024 up until the review of this case (1/1 to 6/10), there were a total number of 1358 users, of those, 306 users visited the land twice.
Source: Atlas Analytics - See Github for Query Instructions
Per the Grants Program documentation relating to grant categories and requirements, performance metrics are based on the following:
- Newly populated land, Active Users, Returning Users, Time on Scene and
- Events created and number of attendees to the event.
Allocation of Funds: Marketing
Although the project has been working on growing its users through events and tournaments, there are concerns that the tournaments and collaboration events alone will have difficulty achieving the desired metric target and beyond. As stated by both the grantee and GSS, this grant is solely a development grant, with no specific funds allocated for marketing outside of the Event Hosting & Organizing budget of $15,000. The grantee received marketing funds from the previous proposal of $16,500. Per discussion with the grantee, “we did the marketing with the funds that were allocated from the last grant, when the RC gave the decision to still continue with the project and gave the 16,500 DAI in the end for the marketing. We also never actually mentioned anything about marketing in our proposal”.
Note: The scene points users to the project’s Discord server and X account for primary news related to the development of the game. However, the Duel Arena website listed under the X account was noted to not be operating, which may impact users seeking information related to the project.
Although Development & Design is a subjective review, we did note that the Instructions UI within the game was difficult to read and recommended review of the used font. This point did not affect the decision for the revocation.
The following concerns were noted by the Revocations Committee during our review:
- Lack of security of the back-end server
During our review, the team was brought upon security concerns regarding the back-end server handling the database for inventory resources, leaderboard stats, and player data. A user was able to manually update the resources in the server to provide unlimited resources to their in-world inventory, allowing to bypass the collection of resources in-game and claim wearables, posing a risk to wearable farming via botting.
Reasoning against Revocation
This is a long-running case with strong community sentiment both for and against revocation. One member of the RC expressed concern that:
- Although there seem to be serious issues with the game and the development process, under the remit of what the RC is set up to do, they do not see clear evidence for revocation.
- The project was approved by the community without clear KPIs or metrics on which it should be reviewed.
- The fact that this project is continuously approved by the community highlights issues within the DAO voting and money allocation process, rather than being specifically about this project or its team.
They stated that as the RC can only go by metrics, rather than be the arbiters of subjective issues like taste, the case for revocation is not clear.
They also wished to express concern about the amount of public shaming this project has received. The team has consistently been communicative and transparent with their data. They have delivered on all requests made by the DAO.
Further recommendations:
We would like to ask that the DAO Committee (@HPrivakos, @Tobik, @rizk) perform a one-time payment for $1,500 USD, to be used for the payout of the April Tournament winners. Based on our discussions with the grantee and GSS, this was not yet paid.
For the future, we recommend that Duel Arena review their KPI metrics related to user acquisition, UI design, and review the back-end server security.
CC: @InJesterr, @Zino @palewin @fifitango
Thank you!
Revocation Committee