Decentraland DAO first monthly grant update from the wonderzone team

WonderMine is a play-to-earn game in Decentraland where players collect resources, mine meteors, and craft upgrades. It rapidly became one of Decentralalnd’s most popular locations and has become a staple game within the Decentraland realm attracting more than 1,400 players daily.

A tier six grant proposal authored by WonderZone with help from the rest of the team, Lew, Joe, maruudn, and Radix sought DAO funding to upgrade WonderMine and revamp the WonderZone Park area.

The proposal passed with 95 votes in favor (7,021,923 voting power) and 36 votes against (1,935,259 voting power). The vote closed on the 30th of December, making this one of the last grant proposals to be accepted before the two-month freeze for new proposals.

The total grant amount was $120,000, and the spending breakdown is as follows:

Server costs: 5,100 USD
Software licenses: 2,680 USD
Wearables submission fees: 4,500 USD
Developers: 46,800 USD
3D Artists: 43,200 USD
Community management & support: 14,400 USD
Cushion/Contingency: 3,320 USD

The central points of improvement will be the introduction of new multiplayer mechanics for WonderMine, turning WonderMine into an event space, and overhauling the aesthetics of the WonderZone Park area.

The January Update

The first update focuses primarily on logistics moving forward. All DAO grants are subject to a month vesting period giving the teams sufficient time to plan how to deploy capital efficiently throughout the grant period. The team has created payment structures, updated the game design for the new multiplayer meteor mechanic, introduced a new steampunk pickaxe, and continued the essential and ongoing maintenance of WonderMine.

Decentraland DAO member NikkiFuego showed their support for the grant:

It is no secret that I am extremely supportive of the WonderMine project. It is 100% a staple in the community and an even bigger staple in my journey in Decentraland.

Whereas other DAO members questioned whether WonderMine will ever become profitable and if the DAO is funding an unsustainable project. HPrivakos pointed to the prior grant received by the WonderMine team:

I really want to support projects that bring users to Decentraland, but at the same time P2E games have proved again and again that they are not sustainable. WonderMine has had 300k unique users (so including people that showed up only once) over two years and received 240k USD from the DAO. That’s 0.8 USD per unique users, I don’t know if it’s a good investment.

The prior grant proposal secured $240,000 to expand and improve WonderZone. The market conditions in 2021 were very different, and this grant passed easily. Have colder market conditions made DAO members more scrutinous about DAO spending? It would appear so.

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