#Illuvium Needs a Rental System

1 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

sleek peak
#

TLDR:
Illuvium needs a system where owner's of assets are able to rent to others. This would be helpful for Leviathan Tournaments as well as for Iluvium Zero.This needs to be done by Illuvium instead of an outside party to foster trust in the system. Web 3 offers a unique advantage of bringing investors and players together and we should be leveraging that.

I was sad to see Polemos shut down their Illuvial Rental System. It is something that is needed to improve the gameplay and economy in Illuvium. As many of you know I used the system. The advantage to it is to be able to bring people who can afford to buy the Iluvials together with those who lack the finances and/or inclination to buy them. It was a way for those people to be able to play in Leviathan. As a buyer of Illuvials I was giving money to the DAO through gameplay, other players on the market as well as hiring someone for levelling the Illuvials. I know others who were doing the same. It is a way of improving the economy.

The one major issue was a lack of trust that some in our community felt for Polemos. They didn't want to connect their wallet to an outside site, which was fair enough. If Illuvium were to set up their own system we could get around that trust issue.

At minimum we would require a way to rent one Illuvial for a specified price for a specified period of time. The asset would be able to be played by the renter but not be able to be stolen by the renter.

Preferably we could have a system in place where we could do multiple rentals quickly. Something where we could do a scholarship type program where a person could rent a team of Illuvials for a tournament in a way that was fast and easy for the person renting the Illuvials. It would be great to be able to not have to put them on the open market but instead specify a specific wallet to use the Illuvials. Polemos was very slow to try to rent out 30 Illuvials to one person and ensure they got them. It required both being on at one time, and took literal hours. We need a faster system.

We saw an increase in the price of Illuvials after the Leviathan tournament which featured prizes. It sounds like there was also at least a small increase in OW runs. We need to do what we can to encourage Leviathan playing, to encourage people to be catching and fusing to get great Illuvials. It will improve our economy and give a use case for our Illuvials. This is a way we can do that. One of the reasons Web 2 doesn't like Web 3 is they see no use case for it in a game and think we are just trying to sell a token. Let's show them a way that Web 3 and blockchain has a prime advantage. Let's bring players and investors together in a way that is beneficial to both parties and the DAO.

rain gale
#

I would love to see this, and I know resources with the team are tight at the moment. So even if a full rental system wasn't up and running straight away maybe some kinda of system that might allow someone to use assets in a different wallet without having the power to edit the account would be handy

That way you could allow someone to use your illuvials in game, but they can't buy/sell/send or burn/edit them in any way.

sleek peak
calm jay
# sleek peak TLDR: Illuvium needs a system where owner's of assets are able to rent to others...

The team can correct me if I'm wrong but I extensively discussed this with Caveman. The external wallet was a necessary evil due to IMX Legacy.

For context, Legacy has highly limited smart contract capabilities, leaving less freedom to create something truly capable.

In the end, this should not be targetted until Illuvium is on zkevm. After that happens it would be easier to create these systems, but external providers wouldnt even need their own wallet since you can just deploy smart contracts to zkevm.

The real problem for both Illuvium and Polemos was delaying zkevm as long as they have. It obviously takes resources, but the freedom it allows builders would have been a net positive imo.

wet crater
wicked nexus
#

Could the dao purchase the code. I'm sure @spark ginkgo could facilitate

calm jay
surreal bison
spark ginkgo
#

I will also respond to @vague tapir statement as well in general about is it worth building a rental system here:

It depends how you build it. If we would have added stats and batch renting and free renting. I belive there would be substantially more traffic.

Our security solution was quite expensive with our HSM servers.

However With roughly 400 players we saw very few rentals. We can blame a lot of that on user experience for sure.

But even if 400 users all rented out lets say 100illuvials 4 times a month and at a cost of 1 dollar(which is very high, no rentals were above the 50cent mark)

That's 160,000 in revenue. We only take 5% of the rental fee the rest goes to the owner(and 5% was even debated as too much)

So $8,000 at the most per month then you have the costs to keep it up.

As a solo developer developer it might make a business case especially if/when illuvium grows and if you don't make the security as intensive. We probably over engineered our design. I know some who decided to just lent out their illuvials with trust.

tired ether
#

Definitely love the idea of beng able to rent out our illuvials directly through the illuvium website.
I know they have always tried to support 3rd parties, but the industry is brutal and too many fail to survive long term. To build any kind of longevity I think in house is the only way and like Torial stated, it would build a level of trust unmatched by a third party.

As the system would take a lot of time/funding to get to a standard that people are looking for, I think there may be another intermediary solution.

Currently we have the ability to add a second wallet onto our account which enables us to use assets from that secondary wallet, yet we don't have to do any transfers, the account is simply authorised to use the assets.

What if, we are able to list/sell authorisation to use our entire collections via a similar system. Assets can be used in game, but unable to be transferred as the users wouldn't own or have the ability to sign any transactions on them, only the true owner would. Their account is simply granted access to use the agreed upon assets for the agreed period of time when purchased through the illuvidex.

The seller can list the collection address, the type of asset to rent, and the period of time to rent for.
The system then simply grants access to those particular assets for the set time agreed upon purchase, after that time access is revoked.

#

Thinking about it, there's no reason why this couldn't be used for both singular assets and collection alike.

brittle wagon
#

I like this idea, and honestly, it’s a feature I’ve been wanting and waiting for a long time. It’s hard to understand why no steps have been taken toward it…

sleek peak
# spark ginkgo I will also respond to <@313274772446380034> statement as well in general about ...

With numbers as they are it just doesn't make sense for Polemos and that is fair. Your system was an excellent start but would need improvements to become really popular (such as being able to rent multiple Illuvials at a time to one wallet). However, for Illuvium to do it themselves the money would be made in other ways, not just in the rental system. Increase in sales, OW playing, eyes on the game etc. It makes more sense financially for Illuvium to do it.

unkempt cedar
#

Ok so let me play devil's advocate.

While a rental system sounds attractive for accessibility, it risks undermining the core economy Illuvium is built on. If players can cheaply rent good stat Illuvials for tournaments or progression, many will choose not to buy or fuse their own collections, reducing long-term ownership demand. That shift could place downward pressure on Illuvial prices, discourage investors, and make assets feel more like temporary utility licenses than scarce collectibles.

There’s also the danger of market flooding. Owners with large collections would inevitably undercut each other to maximize rental revenue, driving prices so low that even rare Illuvials become cheap to access. This erodes exclusivity and could fragment the collector fantasy that gives Illuvium its long-term identity.

#

That being said, I think a rental market is bound to happen sooner or later. If there’s demand, someone will build it and try to make money from it, that’s just how the free market works. With that in mind, I’d much rather Illuvium have its own rental system than leave it up to some third party.

tired ether
# unkempt cedar Ok so let me play devil's advocate. While a rental system sounds attractive fo...

You do make some compelling arguments, although high stat illuvials are still in short supply, so you'd imagine that they would demand higher rents from competitive players trying to gain any advantage possible. With this additional revenue source, it should increase demand to own such illuvials, not reduce it.

The rental market doesn't destroy the housing market. Having the ability to let your home increases the demand/value for the home, and not everyone wants to let there home, they live in it. Same thing here.

brittle wagon
sleek peak
# unkempt cedar Ok so let me play devil's advocate. While a rental system sounds attractive fo...

I disagree.

In a market where Illuvials are rented who is the target market (TM) for high TPI/high level Illuvials?

  1. Collectors for long-term holding
  2. People who have money but lack skill who want to make money on renting out Illuvials while flexing a great collection.
  3. Good players with the money to buy a great collection.
  4. Good players who lacked the money to buy great Illuvials so rented them but are using some/all of their winnings playing Leviathan to buy Illuvials so that they no longer have to share their winnings through individually renting or scholarship programs.
    Let's now look at a market that doesn't have a rental system.
  5. Collectors for long-term holding
  6. Good players with the money to buy a great collection.
  7. Good players who lack money who will only buy if the Illuvials are super cheap.

Without a rental system you are decreasing the size of your target market. You are also taking away the only way someone who lacks finances has to win Leviathan UNLESS Illuvials are super cheap to buy. We will still have the players who have/are collected/collecting Illuvials and are busy fusing for 100 TPI Illuvials but there will be less players with money who want the Illuvials. With a rental system the price of the rare Illuvials will increase because there will be more demand for them. As it stands right now the only use for them is from people who have both the money to buy them and a lot of skill in Arena.

The only way a rental system will not be beneficial to the price of Illuvials and Illuvium as a whole is if our player base does not grow but if it doesn't grow we are dead anyway.

The other thing to remember is that not having a rental system hinders new players coming into Illuvium and puts them at an unfair disadvantage. I rented Illuvials through Polemos to someone I didn't know because it was a safe way to do so. I also rented Illuvials privately with a deposit but that was only because we both had trust in each other having seen each other on here for years.

The only way of giving people who are new and/or have less finances a chance in Leviathan is having a rental system. With Arena coming to mobile that becomes very important to do.

tired ether
quick cobalt
# unkempt cedar Ok so let me play devil's advocate. While a rental system sounds attractive fo...

From all the issues we are facing, I would say that is not even in the top 10. Those things will only be a problem with a small and stale player base.

We need to get people to play the game. Then the +1 difficulty would be to get them to play leviathan. The appetite comes with the first bite. Then if there is enough utility, and people enjoy playing the mode, people will go for ownership.

There might be pros that only go for rented illuvials around tournaments, but in a healthy player base those would be less than 0.1% of the players, would hardly impact the eco negatively.

worldly canopy
#

On that note, renting full packages would help a lot to take out the time it takes to assemble those 30 rogues.