I was glad to see some of my subscribers were also bullish on Illuvium.
Let me tell you why I am.
This should be a really big deal.
All It Takes Is One
So in total, I have four main metaverse projects I’m not only invested in, but am also very bullish at the possibility of them taking off and becoming big. They are, in order…
Illuvium – Will explain here
Cornucopias – Did a whole podcast episode on this
Cardania – Great concept with a card game built in
Pavia – Open-world metaverses have a LOT of work to do to become big and profitable, but if any of them have a real chance, it’s Pavia IMO
When investing in metaverse projects, I’ve said it before, we’re taking the venture capitalist approach. We use our own savvy (or you can steal mine, but be careful what you wish for) and spread our money out into a handful of projects.
If one takes off and become the next Axie Infinity or greater (the next gen games will do a lot more numbers), then you will almost certainly make all of your investment back and then some, provided you take some profit along the way.
Most venture capitalist portfolios from the past 20 years look something like this…
Wombat
Jiblet
Numbnuts
Spunkle
Safemoon
Meatdog
Turdball
Wizzwack
A portfolio like that alone, with one loser, one winner, and a bunch I just made up can and has made many a venture capitalist super rich.
Blockchain allows plebs like us the same opportunity.
But this is my way of saying don’t get emotionally attached to these projects and get all bent out of shape if any of them either rug or simply don’t get the retention you thought they should have gotten.
Failing will be the norm here. Expect it.
But all it takes is one.
What Is Illuvium?
Illuvium takes two concepts that have done gangbusters in real life, makes them better, and combines them into a play-to-earn game.
Imagine if you, the player or armchair investor had the chance to earn some type of revenue share in Pokemon (most successful game franchise in history) or any of the TFT (Team fight Tactics) style games which have dominated the Esports scene in the past 10 years.
The above would be my elevator pitch to somebody who had no idea what Illuvium was, but did have some clue about video games in the past 15 years.
Let’s run the stats…
- AAA game. Very very few studios out there making triple-A games for play-to-earn. As of right now, it’s mostly bleep-blurp Super Nintendo looking nonsense. You don’t NEED great graphics to do well, but with most gamers over the age of 16, it certainly helps. This game looks and feels awesome.
- Illuvium will be built on the Unreal 5 Engine, the top game engine in the world right now. If you know, you know.
- The team is massive. Most projects are very grass-roots, with a small team to start, then you sit back and hope it gets bigger over time. These guys already have a large team working daily on nothing but Illuvium.
- Commerce will be done on the Ethereum blockchain, but ran on the Immutable X layer 2, keeping fees down, and everything running quickly and smoothly.
- Daily updates from the founders, and their public relations manager Andrew Wall, who has over 15 years of experience with things like this. You will find most updates ending up on YouTube. We’ll show a few in a moment. Doing things like this however show us not only how it’s progressing, but this is not some rugpull, and if it is, it’s the most elaborate rugpull of all-time.
- Illuvium raised 72 million dollars with their first land sale (only 20% of available land was for purchase). They’re well-capitalized.
I’ll show you the main trailer first, then I’ll let you know of what I think is one of the most exciting parts about this game.
Watch that video, then compare this with current metaverse projects, and metaverse projects scheduled to come out in the next 3 years. Nothing else stacks up IMO.
I believe that video was shot back when they were using Unreal 4, and they’re using 5 now. The move has pushed the timeline back just a bit, but well worth it.
On that note, if there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s to NEVER assume a project, or even portions of a project are going to come out when the roadmap says it is.
Games never ever ever come out on time.
However, the founders have made it clear that they want most of the game to be playable by the end of the year 2022.
Having a AAA out before your competition, who not only has inferior games coming out, but doesn’t even have a working product yet, is an enormous advantage.
Contrast this with all of the other projects I’m currently invested in, which I don’t expect to ever sniff at until the middle of 2023, and even by then I would be pretty shocked if I was playing them all the way.
Again, when you are well capitalized and have a big team, this all becomes easier to do as opposed to most projects which start small and then slowly grow.
You Can Already Play It
Maybe not “you”, but some of us can play one of the several pieces of this game already, and it looks and plays spectacular. I play it at least once every day.
Before I get to that, I should mention the current lineup of pieces to this game. There are money making opportunities with each of these…
- Illuvium Zero – This will be made as a city-builder game for those who have purchased land. Think Clash-of-Clans, but you won’t be fighting other people. You will be harvesting the fuel that players will need to play the game and do different things. And they will need to buy this fuel from the land-holders (in a central marketplace so you won’t have to sell directly, thank God). You will also be able to play this piece on your phone.
- Overworld – This is the main game where you will hunt different illuvials (the Pokemons, the monsters in the game which you will use for battling and capturing other illuvials). I believe there will also be a story mode.
- Survival Mode – Using illuvials to battle other teams of illuvials in a survive-and-advance style game. This is the one that’s already out in beta.
- PvP – Taking your captured team of illuvials and battling other people’s teams for money and prestige.
Survival Mode
The beta for this is already out, with more than 10,000 players (myself included, ahem) able to take part.
It looks really great, and does (already!) have an addiction factor to it. I am only a casual gamer, and if I like it, I figure it must have legs.
Here’s a really well-done video showing you how to play, and giving you a feel for how good it looks already.
The strategy is very in-depth, my best run was getting about halfway through all of the levels, but there are some people who can reach the top almost every day. The game resets itself every morning, with new decks of illuvials and new levels to beat.
If they were to just stop here and release this portion of the game on its own, I think it would already be worlds better than Axie Infinity and likely do serious numbers.
But they are certainly not stopping here. The potential is off the charts.
Let’s Talk Money
Because it’s Play-To-Earn, and the commerce side of things is all on the blockchain, we have many different ways to partake in the game’s success from a financial end.
I must lead with this however. Every project I have mentioned up until now was on the Cardano blockchain, and therefore a LOT less expensive than what you’re up against here.
It’s for those reasons that I like those projects so much. The chance of them taking off is a bit less than what I see with Illuvium, but the risk/reward is too crazy good to ignore.
With Illuvium, if you want to be more than just a passive token investor, you’re going to have to open up the ol pocketbook quite a bit.
But let’s start slow here.
ILV Token
This is the passive way to invest, and most active investors also end up purchasing ILV tokens.
I have yet to do so, but I do plan on it.
You will have the option to stake your tokens for 12 months, and then upon release of the tokens back to you, participate in even more revenue distribution options. Some holders are already receiving this.
Revenue distribution information for the ILV token can be found here. Keep in mind the article is about a year old, and things can change, so if you are interested, check out YouTube or even better check out their Discord for more info.
ILV token currently sits at around $117 USD per token, and would 16x if it got back to its old highs.
A handful of exchanges have ILV, including Binance who just added it on Wednesday, but if you can’t find it on your exchange, Uniswap is sure to have it.
A great way to be involved if you don’t have a lot of ETH.
Illuvitars
The next cheapest way to get in on the action, this time via the NFT route, it with Illuvitars.
Illuvitars are the pfp’s players will use to represent themselves and their profiles.
These have yet to be released as of press time, but when they go for sale, you will receive a virtual disk. Inside the disk is one illuvitar and three separate accessories you can add to your Illuvitar, or sell on the secondary market.
Your best resource for Illuvitar info at this time is NOT the Illuvium website, but again YouTube and Discord, as the process has changed (and become more affordable!).
Playing the Game
You don’t even have to invest to make money here (though I would certainly recommend you do). It is a “Play-to-Earn” game after all.
You will have to purchase fuel to play, but you can make money selling the illuvials you capture, or make money in the PvP battles and tournaments.
Bit this is the huge draw for players who have been playing regular video games their whole lives and doing nothing but spending money instead of actually having the potential to make money.
I think even if there was no way for players to profit, this game would still be really big. But once you add those money-making opportunities to the ecosystem, man oh man does that change everything for the better.
Owning Land
So the initial land sale is over, but as is often the case, you can go to the secondary markets on Immutable X and buy land parcels cheaper than we got them during the land sale!
I coughed up about 5 ETH and got myself 6 different land parcels. Three Tier 1s and Three Tier 2s, for those who are interested.
Tier 1 land’s current floor is about .38 ETH.
But there are many ways to profit from this. Let’s list them.
- There will be revenue distribution here as well. 5% of all profits go to land-holders! Check Discord for more info
- You can flip your lands. Many already have, but I would wait until the game comes out because I think these things are going to be coveted over time. Or just don’t flip.
- Lands make fuel for the overall game itself. Anyone who plays will need fuel to travel, capture illuvials, create weapons and armor, etc. They will buy fuel from a central marketplace. Land holders will sell their fuel to the same marketplace, or simply keep some of it for their own game endeavors. Prices will vary based on supply and demand.
- Skins. This is my favorite part. If you build a scanner on your land, you will have the opportunity to “catch” hidden illuvials who are floating around in the world and possibly score a skins blueprint. With this blueprint and right ingredients, you can produce unique skins which can go on armor, weapons, or your pet robot, and sell them on the secondary marketplace.
If you get the right blueprint, it’s going to be big. Fortnite Skins were the #1 most requested Christmas present from 2018-2021. They are gigantic money makers.
Even if you don’t think you got a good blueprint, you could easily sell it, or make skins anyway and see what they do. A lot of people collect.
For the longest time, those millions upon millions of dollars made from skins of all things went directly to the company. Now they go directly to you.
Your Next Move
Please do your due diligence here. Never ape into a project just because I like it. I’m an idiot. Be informed.
And don’t think you’re going to make x amount of money in x amount of time, because none of that is realistic. Long-game players only. It will, as it always does, take longer than expected.
Take any of these aspects I mentioned in this blog post, and search for them on YouTube. If you see a video with Andrew Wall, this is probably the one to click on, as he explains it better than anyone. The guy is a huge asset.
The majority of people are not going to be able to fully invest in this project, but thankfully you can invest in portions of it and still do very well, so choose wisely.
And playing the actual game itself once it releases isn’t going to break the bank either, so be ready for that as well. It’s a great project to follow on that aspect alone.
Conclusion
Illuvium is the one metaverse project above all others which I think is the most certain to “take”, meaning people are going to want to play it, and play it all the time.
You have taken two wildly popular concepts, improved on them, combined them, and are doing it with outstanding graphics and creativity.
Compare this to literally anything else in the space. It’s levels beyond its second-place competitor.
This is a metaverse project, but it’s not really competing with other metaverse projects. It’s main competition is other AAA video games!
With anything you invest in on the blockchain, you want to look for upside, and certainty of that upside happening.
To me, Illuvium has lots and lots of both.
And this is what puts it at my #1 spot.
— VP
VP is not a licensed financial advisor. All of his material is for informational and entertainment purposes only. Do your own work. Own your own results.