Remix Quest

NFTs as Dynamic Licensing for User Generated Content

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Inspiration

As a creator in the table top RPG industry (think games like Dungeons & Dragons), I'm constantly talking with publishers in the space trying to convince them to license their narrative properties to me so I can monetize the content I create in their universes.

After interviewing a number of publishers in the same, the common problems they faced to licensing their IP at scale:

  1. They don't have the resources to sign a Licensing Agreement with everyone that would like to get access to their IP
  2. Even when they sign agreements, they have no tools to enforce the details within the contract. They rely on the licensees to self report their income, so if the licensee is underreporting their earnings, they have no way of knowing this.

While we used this technology to solve a real problem for the industry I'm familiar with and could do market research for, the same dynamic licensing for user generated content can be used for any industry where fans remix and relicense content, such as music or video.

What it does

The magic of Remix is that through proper use of web3 technologies, we create incentive structures where not only it's easy for creators to license and remix content, but also fun for fans to interact with it, and all of it is packaged into a system that rewards working within the system rather than trying to obtain the content through piracy.

Remix is a platform for Tabletop RPG games.

A publisher like Wizards of the Coast (makers of D&D) can register their game system onto our platform. Then, they can sell License Tokens to creators who can use these tokens to create License Contract NFTs. These NFTs can be used to MINT Nodes within the system.

That's a lot of confusing words, so let's see it in an example:

1) Wizards of the Coast creates their D&D Game on our platform

2) Jon, a small hobbyist publisher, pays $50 to buy a License Token in that universe.

3) Jon then turns the License Token into a Node Blueprint for "The Town of Newhaven", a type of NFT that describes a licensed property. This Node Blueprint holds information about the Town of Newhaven, and most importantly, a list of requirements needed to MINT it. Since it's original content within the D&D universe, Jon only needs to buy the game license, and no need to credit anyone else.

4) Dev reads about Jon's Town of Newhaven and thinks its the perfect starting point for an adventure he wants to publish. He creates a Node Blueprint for his Quest "The Samwise Adventure". Because it takes place in the Town of Newhaven, he adds that a Town of Newhaven Node Token must be required to MINT the Quest token.

5) When Horatio goes to purchase Dev's new Quest so he can play it, he needs to MINT it, which requires and consumes a Town of Newhaven token. This means that he needs to license all the requirements for the quest before he can buy the quest. By requiring him to buy the dependent Licensing Tokens, every time the Dev sells a copy of his quest, some of that $ also goes to Jon, who created town that Dev's quest took place in.

Web of Royalties

The cool problem the above example illustrates and works to solve is the concept of Web of Royalties. By allowing creators to license and remix content and still monetize it, we enable greater collaboration and cool content for everyone to enjoy, while building sustainable and transparent disbursement of funds every time a sale occurs. This transparency is only guaranteed on web3 platforms.

How we built it

Ethereum Name Service

Used for search and discovery and management of NFT/FT/Licenses

node-token.node-type.universe.system.rem

is the naming convention we go with, making content addressable and easy to do dependency management.

Decentralized Autonomous Organizations

Because creator of things are just ETH addresses → this implies creators of new content can be contracts as well allowing multi party publishers and creators to collaborate together. This opens up whole new ways to interact with universes, such as earning the right to veto content based on how well your content is doing in the universe (create-to-govern)

Non Fungible Tokens

We make use of NFTs as Licensing Contracts that collect payments. Just like real estate, these contracts have transparent performance metrics and rise and fall in popularity, incentivizing a trading market for usable NFTs, not just as collectibles.

Fungible Tokens

We use mint fungible tokens as instances of a License Agreement. They are proof that you paid for the license.

Challenges we ran into

  • Since we are largely backedn developers, the key things we built were smart contracts that dealt with the token economics side and didn't have time to learn/build a front end to showcase the interactions

Accomplishments that we're proud of

  • Solving the web of royalities problem for not just the Tabletop RPG industry, but also as an example for other industries

What we learned

  • Depedency management is HARD

What's next for Remix Quest

  • We want to make use of our existing relationships with publisher to license the Savage Worlds property and invite players to start playing our game. After we make some FE interfaces for them ofcourse :D

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