Launching April 13 initially in Japan’s Maebashi city, “PicTrée -Grid Grab: Capture the Current-” is a DePIN-integrated Play & Earn game that will bring communities together to contribute to society in a new and exciting way.
PicTrée is an Inspect-to-Earn team battle game in which teams of players physically go out into their real-world communities to take pictures of TEPCO’s electric power assets, such as utility poles, steel towers, manholes and handholes. By uploading images of the aging public infrastructure, people are able to help TEPCO mitigate a labor shortage of utility pole inspectors and contribute to the upkeep of their own communities. At the same time, they can receive rewards for their efforts in the form of Amazon gift certificates and PlayMining’s proprietary DEAPcoin ($DEP) token.
“Since our founding in 2018, this is the biggest step we have taken toward realizing our dream of truly improving society through Web3 games that reward players as important stakeholders in the entertainment ecosystem,” said Kozo Yamada, Founder & Co-CEO of DEA. “We call this new business model ‘Gamified Work’, and are actively working on applying it to a wide variety of industries through several exciting partnerships in development.”
The #GamifiedWork model uniquely merges elements of Web3 gaming with the “Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Networks” (DePIN) model, making it possible for physical infrastructure companies to gamify and outsource parts of their business operations to a decentralized community of gamers.
Capture the Current in the PicTrée Utility Pole Battle Game
PicTrée is a free-to-play mobile game that encourages players to get outside and explore their communities by foot — in this respect, it is somewhat similar to the still-popular Nintendo game Pokemon Go.
PicTrée players can join one of three teams named Ampere, Volt or Watt. Teams must battle to earn points by photographing TEPCO’s power assets and connecting the most power poles on a grid map to link the longest electricity wires. The teams are ranked and rewarded according to how many points they earn.
Players can chase points by snapping photos as quickly as they can, but the gameplay also highly rewards teamwork to implement a well-thought-out strategy by moving through the neighborhood in the most efficient manner and paying attention to cut off other teams’ progress.
PlayMining will launch an initial demonstration test of the new PicTrée social contribution game in Maebashi, a city in central Japan. From April 13 to June 29, 2024, PicTrée will be playable in five successive Maebashi neighborhoods for around two weeks each. The testing period will verify how effective the acquired photos are at meeting TEPCO’s inspection needs, and will bring to light areas in which the service can be improved.
There is also a special event on May 4th and 5th organized with five universities based in Maebashi city. University students will be divided into teams and fight for their team’s pride across the entire city.
“Through this game, we aim to create new value for the power assets we own,” said Aki Mizuguchi, TEPCO Power Grid General Branch Manager for Gunma, the prefecture that Maebashi city is in. “We hope that a wide range of local residents will participate and become more familiar with electricity and power assets than ever before.”
DEA co-CEO Kozo Yamada has an even bigger vision for the project, urging people from all over Japan to participate in this ground-breaking event to earn rewards and prove how games can change the world.
“After about half a year and countless daily deliberations and heated discussions with TEPCO Power Grid and Greenway Grid Global, I am deeply moved to finally be able to release this game,” Yamada said. “With the strong backing of official cooperation with Maebashi city, the demonstration will finally begin.”
Kazuhiko Shiba, President and Representative Director of Greenway Grid Global added that they “will take on the Web3.0 sector as our next challenge and solve various problems for all infrastructure operators, including TEPCO Power Grid. We would like to use this technology to bring about a game change in sustainable urban development and regional revitalization. Using a completely new method of Web3.0 x gamification, we aim to solve problems sustainably together with local residents.”
#GamifiedWork: a DePIN-integrated Solution for the Global Labor Shortage Crisis
With a healthy dose of innovation and ingenuity, PlayMining’s new Gamified Work business model can plausibly be applied to companies from almost any industry, helping them to outsource remote work tasks to a decentralized community of game players. This is a big deal, because according to a 2023 ManpowerGroup report, up to four-fifths of companies worldwide may be suffering from a lack of talent. Heavy industries, such as TEPCO’s electric utility subsidiary, especially feel the crunch of the labor shortage crisis.
PlayMining is already hard at work developing their next DePIN-integrated Gamified Work game title in partnership with robotics digital transformation company Rita Technology. This time, PlayMining is gamifying job tasks for the waste management industry, a space that faces significant difficulty sourcing workers due to stigmas of the job being difficult, dangerous and unclean. The new game, which people can play from anywhere in the world, will have players remotely controlling physical robots in real waste processing plants in Japan — played through a fun and engaging game that rewards gameplay with DEAPcoin tokens.
Other Gamified Work projects are in the works for a range of industries, including CO2 reduction, disaster prevention, elderly quality-of-life, inheritance, local revitalization, animal welfare and employment for people with disabilities. Many of these are new partnerships made possible through DEA’s investment from KDDI, Japan’s second-largest telecom operator.
The announcement of PlayMining’s Gamified Work business model on October 25 sparked a significant rebound of their DEP token, which joined the GameFi rally and outperformed many other top-ranked blockchain gaming tokens. The price of DEP has increased 250% since the announcement, with an outstanding market cap increase of 1,012%. In comparison, Oasys ($OAS) and Guild of Guardians ($GOG), two other leading GameFi tokens, grew by 144% and 196% in price and 377% and 273% in market cap respectively in the same duration.
The DEP token can be traded on many popular cryptocurrency exchanges for crypto or fiat, including HTX, Gate.io, OKX, MEXC, Indodax, Bitmart, Tokenize Xchange, Zaif, Uniswap and others. It can also be spent on the PlayMining NFT marketplace to purchase GameFi NFTs that can be applied to various PlayMining games.
About Digital Entertainment Asset:
Digital Entertainment Asset Pte. Ltd. (DEA) is a Singapore-based global Web3 entertainment company founded in August 2018. DEA is a developer of Play-to-Earn (P2E) games—also referred to as Play-and-Earn (P&E) games. DEA also operates the PlayMining gamefi platform, NFT marketplace and ‘Verse’ metaverse project as well as DEAPcoin ($DEP)—the first P&E token approved by the Financial Service Agency (FSA) of Japan. The team is headed by two co-CEOs—Naohito Yoshida and Kozo Yamada—who together bring decades of experience in founding successful startups (with 3 IPOs), creating hit video games, producing Web TV programs and displaying a deep understanding of NFT gaming.
About PlayMining:
PlayMining is a GameFi and metaverse platform that empowers creators and players alike in their mission to create social good through Web3 gaming. The platform features a new Gamified Work business model that innovates on GameFi’s Play-and-Earn mechanics—powered by the PlayMining DEAPcoin ($DEP) token—to help companies from other industries meet labor shortage demands. To empower artists, the PlayMining platform also includes a Web3 intellectual property (IP) model for content creation that features an NFT Marketplace. This is paired with an NFT gaming and Metaverse platform with 2.7 million users and a catalog of P&E game titles including JobTribes, Menya Dragon Ramen, Cookin’ Burger, Lucky Farmer, Graffiti Racer, SOUL Fusers, Rogue Roll Ruler’s and PicTrée, as well as the metaverse project Fujiwara Kamui Verse and the StoneStars AI virtual idol project.
Official Channels:
PlayMining Website: https://playmining.com
PlayMining Discord: https://discord.com/invite/xWeHGdt
PlayMining X (formerly Twitter): https://twitter.com/PlayMining_SG
PlayMining Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PlayMining/
PlayMining Medium: https://medium.com/playmining-game
PlayMining Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGWmK0RLV4SB_PSXpj2j6dw
PicTrée Website: https://pictree.greenwaygrid.global/en/
DEA Website: https://dea.sg
About TEPCO Power Grid:
TEPCO Power Grid Inc. is Japan’s largest — and the world’s fourth-largest — electric power company. As a major subsidiary of Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, Inc. (TEPCO), it is responsible for electricity transmission and distribution across Tokyo and eight surrounding prefectures in Japan. TEPCO Power Grid owns and operates a vast network of power lines, substations, and other equipment to transmit electricity generated from various sources, (including nuclear hydroelectric and renewables) to end users.
About Greenway Grid Global:
Greenway Grid Global Pte. Ltd. is a joint venture established in Singapore by Tokyo Electric Power Grid Co., Ltd., Chubu Electric Power Co., Inc., and ICMG Partners Pte Ltd. The company aims to make the world a happier place by combining investment in next-generation infrastructure and new technology, the development of new businesses, and leadership development programs.
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