Cyberpunk City: The Metaverse for GameFi, DeFi, Socializing

Cyberpunk City is one of the world's first functioning metaverses built on Unreal Engine 5. It offers an immersive and unique gaming experience with various activities, such as battle royale, team deathmatch, and sci-fi car racing games, with an impressive selection of 10,000 customizable in-game NFT characters. Cyberpunk City delivers a unified platform for all its users, enabling them to access their social media, DeFi, GameFi, and NFT Marketplace accounts from within without the need to log in to them separately.

Website: cyberpunkcity.com
Collections: xspotlight.com/@cyberpunkcity/creations

We sat down with the creators of Cyberpunk City to see what makes this projects so special, so beloved by the entire MultiversX community.

Can you tell us about Cyberpunk City’s strongest asset and what inspired you to create a blockchain-enabled metaverse? Can you explain the metaverse concept and how it relates to Cyberpunk City?

Cyberpunk City’s most vital asset is its team, a group of 15 highly intelligent & creative people. We focus on our project full-time, with most of our team working from the office. This allows us to communicate fast and always deliver on time. Even during lunch and coffee breaks, we talk about improvements, solutions, and brainstorm ideas.

Since 2017, we have dreamed of making a game where players could socialize, compete with and against each other, and, most importantly, profit from the game. However, the tech required to support such a scale’s transaction volume and complexity was out of reach. Until now. Thanks to MultiversX blockchain and Unreal Engine 5, Cyberpunk City will be the first NFT game entirely built with the metaverse in mind. It represents an exciting and rapidly-evolving area of technology with the potential to transform the way we live. As technology advances, seeing how the metaverse develops and impacts our daily lives will be interesting.

The metaverse can revolutionize how we interact with each other and the world around us. People could socialize, learn, work, and play in a virtual environment, with all the advantages of a physical world but without the limitations of distance or physical space.

This all relates to Cyberpunk City because we are building a place for people to socialize, play games and invest, or even learn with potential future integrations and partnerships while simultaneously trying to minimize the negative impacts of the technology.

What are some of the unique features of Cyberpunk City, and how do they set it apart from other blockchain-based gaming projects?

Here are some of the unique features of Cyberpunk City that set it apart from other blockchain-based gaming projects:

• WalletConnect: Cyberpunk City uses the WalletConnect protocol, allowing users to securely connect and enter our metaverse. This also enables users to make transactions, swap NFTs, etc., without the need to leave the metaverse, which creates a high sense of immersion.
• Ownership: In Cyberpunk City, players own and have complete control over their assets. This means that players can trade, sell, or even they can rent them (CitizenNFTs.) This gives players a sense of ownership and investment in the game, which is not found in many other blockchain-based gaming projects.
• Unreal Engine 5: Cyberpunk City uses Unreal Engine 5, a state-of-the-art game engine that provides stunning visuals and realistic gameplay. This is also a differentiating part because it sets the bar high, and no one can say that Web3 games are not good enough anymore.
• Solid Tokenomics: Cyberpunk City has a strong Tokenomics model, which ensures that the value of the game's native token ($CYBER) is directly tied to the success and growth of the game. This incentivizes players to participate in the game and contribute to its growth, which in turn helps increase the token's value.
• Mayor is the most reputable position in Cyberpunk City. While it has many benefits, being the mayor is a challenging feat. The candidate will need to have %50+1 vote rate to secure the mayor position. After becoming the mayor, the citizen will have the power to influence certain aspects of the city, such as the behavior of the security forces to protect their allies or disrupt their enemies' activities. The mayor will have a share of 10% of the city's income. We have never seen this concept integrated into any other metaverse.

Can you explain how the "Own the Game" concept works in Cyberpunk City?

One of Cyberpunk City's many unique features is the "Own the game" concept behind it. We developed this concept to combat the rapid inflations caused by the "Play to Earn" system. To put it simply: By owning Cyberpunk City's assets, you get to own the game.

Thanks to MultiversX, users can now actually own an NFT or a token. Owning an asset of Cyberpunk City makes the users/investors part of the project. The future income/profits will be shared with them through the TAX wallet.

Some of these advantages are:

• Access to the game is granted with the ownership of a character NFT.
• Owners of the characters will generate a 20% income from tax distribution.
• The characters can be put up for rent to generate passive income.
• Every character has a single vote right and can apply to become a Mayor candidate.

What are the benefits of having an NFT in Cyberpunk City?

We have 3 NFT collections right now, and there are numerous benefits to owning an NFT in Cyberpunk City, we will talk about 2 of them today.

By owning an NFT from the first collection, CityNFTs  (buildings), you get passive income in the form of city tax, which will keep the game economy alive. Also, 35% of the collected city tax revenue will be distributed among CityNFT owners. Moreover, CityNFT owners will earn $CYBER as long as they keep their collections staked. 20M $CYBER tokens will be distributed as staking rewards for a 6-year period.

And second, by owning a CitizenNFT, you get to enter the metaverse, and without one, you can't do that. It is also possible to rent it to earn $CYBER. 20% of the collected city tax revenue will be distributed among CitizenNFT owners. But the best part is if you "mint" a CitizenNFT, then you get to have a Case (NFT) with it (which we won't talk about it here.)

PS: Minting from all NFTs is done with $CYBER, and 50% of the $CYBER gathered from the minting event is burned. 30% will be kept in the treasury, and %20 will be kept as a Play-to-Earn reserve.

How will the community be involved in the development of Cyberpunk City?

The community is the backbone of Cyberpunk City. Without communities, there are no products. The community will have many roles but 2 prominent ones in the development of the project, and they are as follows:

• The community members share their ideas with the team. The team tries to see what fits best considering a few factors: deadlines, how realistic the idea is, the team’s vision, importance, and the number of people with vs. against this idea. All these factors and more are weighed and decided upon to ensure the most wanted and the best choice for the project and the community.
• The community will vote on the DAO and decide how things are run in our metaverse. A few examples: Selecting the Mayor, future developments, or even starting a new NFT collection.

What milestones did Cyberpunk City have, and what challenges it may face in the future?

Previous milestones:

• WallectConnect v2: After we integrated v1, MultiversX announced that they were upgrading to v2. That was a massive opportunity for us but, at the same a challenge because we needed around 190 hours to make it happen.
• $CYBER listing on xExchangeApp: This milestone needed a lot of work from our side and MultiversX's side to ensure everything we did met the guidelines and requirements.

Future challenges:

• Alpha & Beta releases: Building a metaverse/game is challenging, especially with deadlines. Meeting these deadlines is even more complicated than it sounds. That is one of the biggest challenges so far because the team is known for delivering on time among the community.
• Cross-chain integration: Choosing a chain that suits our needs is hard to achieve; to do this, we need to investigate as much as we can about as many chains as possible while considering which ecosystem will bring quality users to MultiversX.  
• Adoption: User adoption is essential for the survival and continuation of a metaverse or GameFi project. It is one of our solid strategies to promote Web3 and have more users through them by partnering with worldwide publishers.

How do you see the future of the blockchain-enabled gaming industry evolving, and what role do you see Cyberpunk City playing in this future?

Let's put it that way, we don't see the world with VR glasses hooked into their PCs all the time, but more of both worlds as an extension of one another.

Gaming is now the most used form of entertainment. Once gamers understand the value of Web3, there will be a big migration from Web2 to Web3. The reason is that Web3 games will be entertainment for some while, for others, a form of earning/investment. You get to choose which one you prefer, so welcome aboard.