He had just returned from the conference NFT New York but it is from his Parisian offices in Dogami that Bilal El Alamy participated on Tuesday June 28 in 20 Mints Squared, our Twitch show dedicated to Web 3. Because if the petaverse, this imaginary world devoted to virtual dogs, has acquired a worldwide reputation, it is in France that he co-founded the company with his three partners. While a news dogami litter has just been put on the market, Bilal El Alamy gives an update on the progress of the project.
The second sale of NFT Dogami took place a few days ago and the new owners discovered the virtual puppies they obtained by purchasing the token. What can they do with these puppies?
Today on Dogami, you can already give a name to your NFT dog. Our goal is to create a Nintendogs or Tamagotchi virtual breeding game. What is important to us is that the user can create a link with his game avatar. This link is increased with NFTs because each dog is unique in appearance and genetics. But by giving it a name, we appropriate it even more.
When will the game itself arrive?
The first release will take place at the beginning of September to which between 100 and 500 users will have access. Then we will welcome more and more players until the worldwide release which will take place roughly two months later.
Can the Dogami, like a Tamagotchi, die if we don’t take care of it?
No, they can’t die. In the first phase, the game is played alone against the computer with the objective of growing the Dogami from puppyhood to adulthood. In Tamagotchi, you had six recurring actions to complete. In Dogami, you have about twenty actions, essential (feeding him, washing him…) and non-essential like fetching the ball or giving the paw. The first phase aims to teach your puppy these 20 actions. Depending on your diligence in these tasks, you earn more or less Doga, which is the currency of the game. With us, the more care we take, the more rewards we receive.
And the second phase?
Then the game will evolve into a new phase where your dog is an adult and you have new quests. The first is mating with other dogs, creating new puppies that you can sell and which will give you an income. But we can go further and establish a cross between Pokémon Go, Mario Party and Ingress. Concretely, there will be Pokémon Go-style quests, in a community mode a bit like Ingress and several Mario Party-style exploration mini-games.
It’s quite a challenge…
Yes, but we feel it. We managed to create a committed community of more than 250,000 people. We had two sold-outs [vendu tous les NFT mis en vente] including one in an economic context that is not the most favorable. We try to maintain the realistic aspect. It is not a simulation game, but it reproduces the characteristics of such and such a dog. Our Shiba Inu, for example, does not behave like a dog of another breed.
One could imagine that you bring back to life in the virtual world dogs that have had a real existence, from photos for example…
We’ve had a million such requests. People who tell us “I loved my dog, I grew up with him, can you bring him back to life? The third phase of our game, called the Petaverse, will be a spiritual phase in the dog’s life. And in this phase, we allow ourselves flexibility to create fun things like that, but nothing is stopped. I don’t want the community to have too many illusions.
Your community does not completely resemble the standards of Web 3 communities…
We have almost 30% of our users who are women. Half of our users are between 16 and 28 years old but it ranges from 12 to 62 years old. Finally, 45% of the community downloaded Discord for the first time with Dogami. In the end, if the community is less Web 3 than other projects, it’s because we implemented a strategy aimed at creating this result. We limited the number of Dogami we could buy at a time, so as not to have speculators.
And yet the breeding (the reproduction of dogs) that you were talking about earlier, is a mechanism that calls on speculators…
We put in place love seasons which mean that we cannot reproduce when we want. There is a limited number of reproductions during this period. After breeding, there is a latency period before a new puppy can be created right away, a period that increases each time the dogs are bred. So there are quite a few mechanisms that aim to control population inflation.
At the same time, you have attracted prestigious partners…
We actually announced on the cover of The Official our partnership with the Gap brand. With them, we create virtual accessories that we can put on the dogs to improve their style. And for each collaboration in the virtual world, we will develop merch (derivative products) in the real world. We try to build these bridges between the real and the virtual world and drive the barrier between the two crazy.