Hard to believe, but the year 2022 has nearly ended. Let us recap what we achieved, what the current stat is and future plans.
What we achieved
- Waxel World was released!
- Release of the Waxel World trailer
- Introduction of events in the Waxel World such as The Great Storm, Lost Treasures, Waxel Halloween 2022 and Waxel Christmas 2022
- The “Eyes” trait from the Waxel Ninjas was implemented to the Waxel World
- Release of the Waxel Ninjas Wallet Checker and Waxel Ninjas Market
- We achieved milestone #3 regarding Waxel Ninja pack sales and are now at 6,545 total sold packs
- First Waxel Birthday
- Guests at several podcasts from Neon Space, Oversea Madman, BD_AO and NFT Gamer TV
- Part of “WAX #Art Week” by WAX.io, article by NFT Culture, article by NFTINsider, partnership with Flame and AtomicHub’s Green Christmas Event
- Videos have been made about Waxel by Warrior Lion, Savage Gaming and other YouTubers
- Had a booth at DYGYCON #8, #9, #10, #11, the last one #12 and released our 3D Waxel Ninja avatar
- Collaborations with Rusty The Red Panda, Krypto Kumas and Cat Stickers
- Release of our second game Waxel Rush!
We are super proud of what we have achieved with this community and our small team this year!
Current state
Unfortunately the past months have been very rough with the global economy struggling hard (most of the biggest tech companies have laid off at least 10-15% of their workforce), extreme inflation all around the world, higher energy and grocery costs and especially the whole crypto and NFT market going completely downhill.
Just as an example, in January the price of 1 $WAX was $0.5 and now we are at $0.04 which is a decline of over 90%!
The NFT activity on Twitter is pretty low, a lot of “influencers” / YouTubers release less and less content (some stopped completely) and most Discord servers feel like ghost towns (especially comparing to their member count).
Of course all of this has also a huge impact on us and we want to be transparent with your like we have always been from the beginning.
We are a very small “indie” team of just 3 people with only 1 person having a background as a software engineer. No one of us has ever developed a game and on top of that we try to also integrate cypto / NFTs which is a very very new technology. You can believe us that this is not an easy task at all as we are pretty much learning by doing everything.
There is also no need to even think of hiring more people to help us with the development of the game(s) as we can’t even cover our personal costs at all.
With the high taxes in Germany (especially the ~40% income tax), monthly costs for our global healthcare system and high daily living costs we would need a minimum monthly turnover of ~10,000$, but since September we haven’t been able to even earn $500 per month!
Since November we weren’t able to pay our developer we hired a couple of months ago. We talked with him about the current situation and he can understand that, but of course he also needs to cover his personal costs and had to look for a new job. BUT he is still in our team and will help us here and there when he finds the time on a voluntary basis. We are very thankful for that and as soon as we will earn enough, we will be able to pay him again 🙂
Frittchen and I (Ryu) have been working 100% on Waxel since last year while CoinCobra was never working 100% on Waxel as he stayed in his day to day job to have a guaranteed steady income for him and Frittchen (they are a couple with a little son if you didn’t know).
As stated before we haven’t really been earning anything with Waxel over the past months, but we still have our fixed monthly costs that somehow need to be covered. Therefore both of us had to look for alternatives.
Some weeks ago Frittchen started to work again on some of her past projects and is now more or less working part time on Waxel.
Since December I (Ryu) am working again full time as a quality engineer, but on a freelancer basis. For example my current contract is running until January 2023 and will eventually be extended for 1 or 2 more months.
Being able to work on a freelancer basis allows me to be pretty flexible in having a guaranteed income. For example I could work a couple of months full time as a freelancer, stop and work a couple months 100% on Waxel or work for a longer duration part time as a freelancer and part time on Waxel.
Therefore the development on Waxel will be slower over the coming months until things get better, as we need to get in money on a guaranteed basis to cover our personal costs.
We would love and really want to work 100% on Waxel all the time, but it is simply not possible in the current situation and we are very sorry about that.
Future plans
No matter what, we will stay here with you and work on Waxel!
Our next milestone is still the same like last year and that is releasing the Housing System for the Waxel World. We just can’t give any estimate on when we will be able to do it.
The new professions for the initial version of the housing system are ready that we have leaked this year (also some more still not revealed professions for future update), the art is completely finished and we already locally implemented the basis of the engine we are going to use.
The next big task is developing all the housing mechanics in Unity and smart contract parts.
Of course while working on that we are going to do collaborations, events, giveaways, podcasts etc.
With all that being said, we wish you all an amazing New Year’s Eve and a Happy New Year!
The Waxel Team
