The gaming industry is on the cusp of a big moment — the free-flowing exchange of decentralized assets. It’s one that we’ve envisioned since the beginning of the Merit Circle DAO — and we’re prepared. We believe that Sphere, our native marketplace, will be the best place in the gaming industry to trade these gaming assets.

Here’s how we picture Sphere impacting the gaming industry in 2023.

The idea: a marketplace tailored specially for gaming assets

When the Merit Circle DAO started out, riding the initial wave of the web3 gaming industry, we built a solid foundation of games and infrastructural partners. As we spoke with all these innovators and learned about their challenges, we noticed there was a gap in the market. There was, and still is, no place for gaming assets to be exchanged in a trusted, seamless manner.

We felt that we had all the right ingredients to turn this into an opportunity. So, in June 2022, we proposed the development of an NFT marketplace in collaboration with DEPT Agency. At that point, there were dozens of marketplaces around, but none of them were tailored towards gaming in particular.

With the gaming industry constantly growing and more established game developers incorporating blockchain into their development, gaming assets are expected to become a multi-billion dollar industry. With our strong set of partners, we felt we could launch a decent marketplace quickly and easily.

An evolution in our thinking

As time progressed and the market evolved, we came to the realization that our initial thesis wasn’t quite right — limiting ourselves to just our partners was too narrow, while launching a marketplace without really distinguishing features wasn’t going to attract enough market share. We wouldn’t generate enough value.

Our solution? We pivoted to a platform that remains focused on gaming assets, but is much broader in scope. With custom made creator pages and white label solutions, we will become more than a marketplace. We believe that this approach will really help game studios trust robust infrastructure and thereby enter the web3 industry seamlessly.

In the background, we were also determined to build something that wasn’t impactful solely in the short-term, but was a platform with a clear vision and multi-year plan.

Seeing what Sphere can do

We don’t want to go into too much detail right now — but what we can say is that our launch date is firmly on the horizon. And we think 2023 will be the year of Sphere, at least as far as the gaming industry is concerned.

Why? Because Sphere is unique in enjoying a trust-factor like no other marketplace out there. We’re initially launching Sphere only to whitelisted game developers’ contracts. And that means that all assets on the marketplace can be completely trusted, since each contract is vetted by those building Sphere. We also have some exciting features up our sleeves that will be released shortly after Sphere goes live.

In the meantime, we want to start a conversation with the community. Our core focus is gamers and we want to cater towards their needs and wishes. What is that gamers wish to know about their assets, how are they using these assets in-game and how does the decision-making process work?

Of course, we’re not expecting Sphere to take off like a rocket. At its core, it’s a simple NFT marketplace. Now, the separation factor here is the Merit Circle DAO that’s behind its development. Accompanied by our strong set of portfolio companies, we’re excited to let Sphere see the light of the day.

Bringing the expertise in-house

To realize all of this, some structural changes have been made, and will continue to be made. One of the most fundamental changes in the way we’re approaching Sphere’s development is bringing the majority of its development in-house. Previously, we collaborated with DEPT Agency on the initial phase.

As with any cutting-edge technology, there has been a steep learning curve. As our work on Sphere progressed, the nuances of building an indexer became more and more apparent — and slowed down development in other areas of the project. So one thing we’ve done is to shift the indexer work to a dedicated and focused team.

With Sphere being such a critical piece of the DAO’s infrastructure, we will also be constructing a core development team to take custody of all software that’s been built by DEPT Agency so far. Over the course of 2023, that team will grow and our reliance on DEPT Agency will shrink.

The Merit Circle DAO has matured to the point where it’s time for this next stage of company growth. We also feel that this move will cut costs and exponentially improve our web3 skills. We will ship faster and adapt more quickly.

The go-to marketplace for gaming

When Sphere is out in the open, we can finally show what we’ve been cooking behind the scenes for a brief while. In reality, it hasn’t even been a year, but we’ve truly learned a lot since we first started development. Without spilling too much, we are spinning out several features in the future that will make it appealing to start using Sphere — and to keep coming back.

Building the product might have taken longer than expected at first, but the conversations around business conducted on the platform never stopped. It’s one thing to allow other projects to trade their NFTs on our marketplace, it’s something else to build a marketplace for them. That’s why we’re in the works to create a white-labeled marketplace engine that fits into the ecosystems of our partners.

In this scenario, one of our partners simply knocks on our door requesting a custom marketplace that fits into their ecosystem. We sit back, reflect and start building, so that eventually, they can enjoy a seamless experience and meanwhile focus on building their game.

Upon launch, the DAO collects a percentage of the total volume traded on these marketplaces creating a win-win situation for both parties.