Treasure DAO is a game console ecosystem that aims to connect game communities through a decentralized platform that includes 13 games, NFTs, and its native token, MAGIC. The team behind Treasure refers to itself as the “decentralized Nintendo,” intending to facilitate game publishing for developers and connect game communities through a common ecosystem like Nintendo. In this article, we will provide an overview of Treasure DAO, assess the game quality, tokenomics, user engagement, and value proposition. The Treasure team claims their ecosystem comprises three essential components: Games, Community, and Infrastructure, linked through the MAGIC token. The games are built from the ground up by Treasure and seasoned builders, while the Community is a composite of many smaller communities connected through lore, guilds, and resources. Finally, Infrastructure is shared through an economic engine, tooling, and resources that power the ecosystem and empower builders/developers. Development: While there is no public roadmap for the project, the team behind Treasure DAO consists of 30 anonymous team members, including developers, product managers, artists, brand builders, marketers, economists, and gamers. The co-founder also works for Osmosis, which is an automatic market maker on the Cosmos network. However, not much information about the team is readily available to the public.

Game Quality:

Game quality was assessed by accessing all 9 playable games through the Treasure website. Here is a quick summary of our experience:

1. The Beacon game would crash after logging in and connecting the wallet, requiring repeated reconnection at the titlepage, making it unplayable.

2. Kuroro Beasts game requires joining their Discord and connecting a wallet to play, with a demo that has gameplay reminiscent of Pokemon on Gameboy.

3. Bitmates game requires purchasing a BitMate, the cheapest of which costs 0.2 ETH (worth $333), making it expensive to play.

4. Tales of Elleria requires a significant investment of 50 USDC to build and upgrade hero characters for quests, with basic graphics and gameplay.

5. BattleFly is password-locked and there is no information available to figure out how to access the game, making it unplayable.

6. Smolverse is an NFT marketplace, but there is no clear way to access the game, making it difficult to play.

7. Bridgeworld requires MAGIC to play, with difficult access, and an emphasis on buying characters and missions for profit, leading to questions about its status as a game rather than a money-making scheme.

8. Realm requires over $100 to access the game, making it an expensive investment compared to more established games on Steam.

9. Knights of the Ether has closed buildings, making it impossible to start playing, and there is no clear guidance on how to proceed.

Tokenomics:

The Treasure ecosystem is governed by $MAGIC holders, who have the power to make important decisions about the platform's future development. The emission of $MAGIC is designed to mimic the halving process of Bitcoin, but it occurs every year instead of every four years. With a total supply of approximately 350,000,000 tokens, $MAGIC is a valuable asset in the Treasure ecosystem.
The MAGIC staking design offers uniquely high rewards to users who are willing to lock up their tokens for longer periods. This incentivizes users to hold onto their $MAGIC and strengthens the overall ecosystem. The team deliberately chose to have high inflation at the beginning to bootstrap the community and liquidity, a common practice in DeFi protocols.
As the Treasure platform continues to evolve and grow, $MAGIC remains at the heart of its tokenomics. Whether you're playing games, mining, or staking, $MAGIC is an asset that connects all aspects of the Treasure ecosystem.

Adoption and User Engagement

Treasure's token $MAGIC is listed on major exchanges such as Binance, Coinbase, and Sushiswap, making it easy for gamers to access and trade. One of the platform's advantages is that it is built on the Ethereum layer 2 network Arbitrum, which allows gamers to save on gas fees. Similar to ImmutableX, once ETH is bridged to Arbitrum, gas fees are almost non-existent. Treasure has been receiving a lot of attention and praise from the crypto community for its unique approach to gamifying DeFi and connecting metaverse projects. It has also been commended for providing a platform where game developers can bootstrap new decentralized metaverses through a community of gamers. By building on Arbitrum, Treasure aims to enable gamers and developers to perform thousands of transactions with barely any fees. The recent surpassing of Ethereum in daily transactions by Arbitrum is a testament to the importance of layer 2 solutions in the future of gaming. Treasure's Discord community is active across all their games, with each game project having its own active Discord. However, the overall Treasure Discord is not as active as expected for such a large community. Nevertheless, gamers are generally receptive and engaged in discussions on the individual game project Discords. While Treasure is hyped and well-received in the crypto space, there seems to be a lack of video content and guides around the platform. In comparison, other games like Illuvium have a significant amount of content, guides, and discussions being produced. Nevertheless, the active community on Treasure's Discord is a promising sign of continued engagement and adoption.

Value Proposition:

Treasure's value proposition lies in its unique approach to gamifying liquidity and making DeFi a more engaging and entertaining experience. By applying game interfaces and features to DeFi, they have created an ecosystem that is both innovative and fun. While some may question the need to make DeFi "game-like," Treasure's long-term objective is to become a game studio akin to Nintendo, providing tools and publishing new gaming projects. Treasure's platform offers various games and metaverse experiences that gamify DeFi, though some are not readily accessible for the average person. Their goal is to become the go-to platform for game developers, offering access to communities and a thriving ecosystem. As such, they aim to become the web3 equivalent of Nintendo, providing game developers with the necessary tools to create engaging and entertaining projects. It’s important to note that while this is their goal, the current quality in their games is very basic and non-functioning, as discussed earlier. One might wonder how Treasure generates revenue. The answer is that they take a 2.5% fee from all items sold on their marketplace. This model ensures that the platform remains sustainable while providing game developers with access to a thriving ecosystem.

Conclusion:

After playing several games on the Treasure platform, they still have a long way to go before they can be considered a web3 version of Nintendo. The lack of accessibility and basic gameplay in most of the games is disappointing, and the only game with some entertainment value required an expensive NFT purchase. While economic strategy games do have a market, the valuation of Treasure at $300 million and the claim to be a web3 version of Nintendo is far-fetched and potentially deceiving. Furthermore, the focus on gamifying defi to unlock more $MAGIC is concerning and built on a foundation of greed rather than sustainable gaming. Overall, Treasure may have potential in the future, but there is currently a lot of room for improvement.