Learn more at 8HoursFoundation.org

I remember it now… Packing up my desktop computer, monitor, mouse & keyboard, and a tangled mess of cords all up into a massive bin. I was going to my friend’s house to play World of Warcraft until 5 o’clock in the morning, and it was the highlight of my week. As a child, every day after school I looked forward to playing games with my friends and inevitably forming social bonds and trust that is lasting a lifetime. Because there’s nothing quite like the feeling of knowing someone has your back when you’re about to face off against the most powerful enemy you’ve ever encountered. These are the experiences that motivate me in my life today. But, I didn’t always have a tight group of friends I could rely on and trust. I have to admit that before these fantastically fun nights, I was a very lonely person. While I found tranquility in reading books on technology, taking apart electronics, and playing chess AI, there’s nothing quite like not having anyone to talk to — enduring the entire day alone just to go to sleep and repeat it all again the next day. No one to spend time with, and no one to trust. Loneliness is truly the worst human experience imaginable. There’s a reason why when you misbehave in prison, a place for people who have already misbehaved, you get sent to solitary confinement. Historically, being outcasted from society was the worst punishment an individual would be subjected to — an everlasting trauma that can permanently damage one’s psyche and sense of identity. When there is no one who supports you, you truly feel at your lowest low. Imagine an experiment yourself: To go a week without talking to your closest family and friends. No phone calls, no text messages, nothing. How do you feel afterwards? The feel of isolation and pseudo-rejection will weigh so heavily in your heart that it’ll be difficult to get out of bed in the morning. There are more people out there experiencing this than you think. That was me. An endless cycle of unfulfillment — curious as to why the world would seeming neglect me for being me. Nothing would fix it, until one day, I encountered a Kevin Rutherford, who was quite like myself. A fellow lonely soul who was searching for a sense of companionship which we all long for in life. With no one else to talk to, and nothing else to do, Kevin approached me with a game. He needed a playmate for a trading card game called Magic: The Gathering. Little did I know that Magic would soon become a staple of my adolescent years, and all because I finally found a place to belong. Those worn-down cards soon meant much more to me than the money I spent on them, since they represented many shared smiles and bouts of laughter in the friendships I kindled. Eventually, we found more and more people like us, with similar stories, and that formed the backbone of the gaming community of my small town. It is because of this I know that gaming has the power to bring people together. I know what it’s like to feel lost and alone, and I’m here to offer to the community that games can provide as a weapon against loneliness; a way to bring people together. However, the world is different today than when I was a child. It’s steering towards a very dangerous place. We’re at an all-time low of feeling of connectedness and the social fabric that makes up society is collapsing. From 1985 to 2004, the number of people saying there is no one with whom they discuss important matters nearly tripled [1]. “Thirty years ago we used to have 3 close friends. Now we’re lucky if we have one close friend. 25% of Americans say they have no one to connect to or depend on. So that amounts to 80 million people in America that have no one.” -Starla Fitch, MD [2] The lack of true human connection of even a single person to talk to has caused the suicide rate to steadily climb in the US to be one of the top 10 leading causes of death. And now kids are reporting record-high feelings of loneliness, with 39% of 12th graders saying they often feel lonely [3]. Our next generation is left feeling disparate and struggling to develop even basic social skills. “An 18-year old boy… says to me wistfully, ‘… someday, someday, but certainly not now, i would like to learn how to have a conversation…’” — Sherry Turkle, PhD [4] It’s almost as if everything we do today is distracting us from what’s really important. We get further and further separated from the real world of our real family and friends everytime we zone out into TV shows, plug ourselves into VR, or mindlessly surf the internet. Almost every modern device fails at fulfilling our core social need. It’s ironic that we’ve failed to build a true human experience at the heart of all our technology when companionship is what we truly seek. To be constantly creating the social bonds that drive us is what makes us human. Without the interpersonal relationships we form, and the resulting emotions, there’s little left of our humanity. But the good news is that there is something that we can do. In fact, there’s already people worldwide who have discovered the best possible way to connect with each other — they connect with the power of fun in board games. Board games are a timeless social medium that humans have played for thousands of years. They’re an incredibly powerful way to truly understand someone because the main mechanics are the people you play with. It’s the antithesis to a purely virtual and isolated world — an experience where we’re sitting face-to-face with our closest family and friends having a great time. And now, with the power of technology, we can make board games an accessible way to interact for anyone. To rekindle family game nights and truly get along with each other. Just by spending 8 hours a week actually sitting down and playing with someone will bring you closer than you thought was possible, as it has for millions of people around the world. And this is where we start. Giving hope to society and building social bonds through the most social kind of experiences that exist — playing games. Just like how I was able to find my first true group of friends with Magic: the Gathering. John Dempsey Director 8Hours Foundation Founder & CEO PlayTable

Introduction:

In the modern world, we’ve solved many problems with our technology and innovations. There are so many things that our ancestors dealt with that we don’t need to worry about today. But, there’s still one big glaring issue in modern society that we seem to refuse to address — one that is making us lose our humanity.

We don’t spend enough time together.

The foundations of society are the social bonds formed with our family and friends and the essence of interaction between us. But it’s ironic that in a world more informationally connected than ever we are also more emotionally separated than ever.

I’ve experienced this firsthand growing up with my family. When I was young, we had a ritual: board game night every Saturday that we spent together. Those are some of my most cherished memories. But eventually, the board games that we would take out every week to play were replaced by single-player mobile games and (soon) Virtual Reality. We gradually spoke less with each other, had less family dinners, and were pulled into our own isolated worlds. This issue of loss of connection within the family is ubiquitous.

How much time do you spend with your family and friends? Do you think it’s enough?

There are just too many distractions nowadays — news to keep up with, movies & shows to watch, and the modern hustle & bustle. All of these things beg for our time every day, but in the end they don’t truly make us happy. These activities will never bring us fulfillment because fulfillment comes from trusted interpersonal relationships and thriving social interactions. It’s truly a tragedy that we allow ourselves to become “too busy” for such simple fundamental human behavior.

The lack of social interaction nowadays has led to catastrophic negative consequences — rising depression rates, civil unrest, and countless tragedies. How distant has our society become when we don’t even make the time to connect with and truly understand another individual?

We founded 8Hours Foundation as a weapon against loneliness. Our mission is to bring people together, because if we can spend just 8 hours a week interacting with each other we truly will have saved someone’s world. With 8 hours a week, we can stand against the ritual solitude that plagues modern society and extend a helping hand to lonely souls who are searching for companionship. With 8 hours a week, we will become happier and have the support to live out our lives the way we’re meant to. With 8 hours a week, the strength of friendships formed will be life-changing.

Because just 8 hours a week of social interaction is enough to build social bonds that last forever.

Overview

8Hours Foundation is empowering a blockchain-based ecosystem of people who connect with each other with meaningful play. The ecosystem uses the Eight Hours Token (EHrT) as a utility token that facilitates social play with platform-level features. The Foundation serves to build a community consisting of Game Developers & Publishers, Players, Manufacturers, Collectors and Token Holders.

8Hours Foundation had partnered with CREAM and have been going through the CREAMethod incubation process since a while ago. EHrT will be minted as a VIP180 token and the whole 8Hours’ blockchain Ecosystem including its affiliates and founding partners will run on VeChainThor Blockchain.

Platform

Game Developers & Publishers use EHrTs for the convenient creation of a non-fungible token known as “Authentic Asset Certificate” (AAC). The AAC creates true linkage to physical collectibles and proof of ownership. With PlayTable, collectible toys enter an entirely new world of immersive gameplay.

PlayTable Detects Real Pieces and Cards in “Battlegrid”

Imagine a toy that develops a history as you play games — tracking the battles won, collecting items, and gaining experience to finally level up. The immutable nature of each toy’s whole experience ensures enduring relationships with players and impact in the ecosystem.

The long chain of transparent transactions also results in verifiable ownership, whereby the essence of collectibility can be perceived and authentic value validated. Imagine being able to look at your collectible’s past and finding out it was owned by a famous celebrity. Side markets can form to speculate on value of toys, and games can create rare events to be associated with the toys. Or imagine a father building up a single collectible character’s experience so that he can one day pass it off to his son for him to cherish.

Each toy gets to tell its own grand story — and that is the true power of collectibility.

When combining a compelling physical/digital medium and true ownership of collectibles, the possibilities become endless for all kinds of different of in-game assets, game mechanics, business models, ecosystem rewards, and meaningful interactions to be formed. This is the value of blockchain that can be felt by anyone — from families to casual gamers — and actually be held in your hand.

Secondly, Game Developers & Publishers use EHrT as a powerful way to unite their communities. Developers can mint their own branded in-game currencies (IGCs) to reward their users for play, provide tracking for their brand, and promote their games. A unified brand of crypto tokens, called the Eight Hours Tokens or EHrT can be utilized between different games, platforms, and states of reality but still foster loyalty within the heart of true community. Game Developers and Publishers can utilize EHrT Tokens alongside tools provided by the 8Hours Foundation to create self-branded credit systems for ecosystem participants. These credit systems create controllable premium cryptocurrency within the 8Hours network. This not only saves development time and infrastructure costs (i.e. payment service providers and backend servers) , but gives access to a global ecosystem of connected players, tools, services, and features. This enables interoperability between entirely different game economies; imagine if you could spend one game’s currency, transfer it to another account, and spend it in an entirely different game.

Developers can create limited edition versions for different aspects of their games, or to run community events.

For example: A fictional game Tournament of Fighters has an in-game currency “SWEAT”, that is used to purchase upgrades and items in-game. These are created on the fly by burning EHrT as players purchase them to buy items. Another in-game currency “BLOOD” has a fixed supply of 300 and is unlocked only by the top 300 players in the game for this season. Next year, Tournament of Fighters wants to promote a grand tournament so they invite all players who have some Blood tokens to earn a bonus powerup in-game. This year the prize for winning the tournament is “Tears”, of which there are 5,000 in fixed supply. Now the amount of players/characters to have both Blood and Tears is small, and the number of characters to have Blood, Sweat, and Tears is ultra-rare. This automatically becomes a collectible because its experience compounds through the addition of different currencies.

Furthermore, the in-game currencies of Tournament of Fighters can be used for cross-promotion to another gaming ecosystem, the fictional game Helmet Warrior. Helmet Warrior has their own currency, Helmet Warrior Gems (HWGs) and also accepts Blood and Tears for exclusive offers of cross-branded in-game assets. For cross-promotional purposes, Sweat is also accepted as a currency for Helmet Warrior’s marketplace for a slight discount. This encourages Helmet Warriors players to try out the Tournament of Fighters game, and create value because the collectibles can participate in both ecosystem.

Imagine IGCs like paint, and each brand of IGC as a different color of paint. HWGs can be a “color” and Sweat can be a color. As collectibles and players travel between ecosystems and accumulate layers of paint. Each player has a unique color blend from all of the different types of IGCs accrued. The uniqueness of toys can make them highly sought after and collectible. Exclusive events and minigames within games can exist that have their own supply of limited-edition IGC, giving scarcity to the participation of events. Historic accomplishments are forever preserved and can be shown off, giving players a sense of in-game identity, glory, and pride.

This arbitrage for play helps smaller game developers get ahead, as they can leverage larger audiences that move between games spending currency. If someone’s better at one type of game, they can play that game to grind currency to be spent in another game. Developers can set promotional discount periods or blacklist certain currencies if they come from toxic or poorly designed game economies.

Lastly, the transparency of players and collectibles makes it possible to find out who the most hardcore players are and promote to them directly. For example, a game developer can look up the wallet address of a top player and send them IGC to encourage them to try their game.

Furthermore, since HWGs exist in a universal context, some players of Cloud Jumper also download Helmet Warrior to unlock HWGs for their own game. Helmet Warrior HWGs can even be cross-promoted into other game franchises for more exposure to the exclusive event. If a developer wants to have their own brand IGC. After the event is over there will only ever be 380 HWGs and the original players’ participation can’t be undone, thus increasing the value of HWGs through scarcity.

Toy Manufacturers use EHrT as a convenient way to collaborate with publishers, market their products, and guarantee authenticity to users. The 8Hours platform is the technical infrastructure for manufacturers to connect with the games that their toys are used in, giving them much more flexibility through the integration of digital context (such as digital art assets, sound effects, animations, upgrades, experience points, and in-game items). The toy maker burns EHrTs to mint AACs and links it to the toy through RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) as the toys are manufactured. With AACs, they can leverage the digital world and games as a way to further monetize their toys, cross-promote brand deals, and increase perceived value through the addition of smart-technology.

For example: A toy manufacturer makes toys for fictional game studio Jackhammer Games, selling at an average of $12. Without 8Hours, this would be the end of the story for the manufacturer. But with 8Hours, the manufacturer can also benefit from additional digital sales on top of the initial $12 and take 15% royalty of all future purchases made to upgrade the toy. Transparency of the toy’s transactions and software make it possible to fulfill on the royalty automatically, making it a scalable process for any Intellectual Property or game developers the toy manufacturer wants to work with. Now the manufacturer can subsidize the cost of the toy directly or provide bundling deals with the expectation of future additional revenue via digital sales. The 8Hours platform is the bond between the manufacturer and Jackhammer Games that facilitates collaboration to provide the best user experience to the player and maximum benefits for intellectual property owners.

Players and Collectors use EHrT to verify the authenticity of their collectibles, purchase content within marketplaces, and participate in community activities. Every toy on 8Hours can be verified for ownership to an individual with its Authentic Asset Certificate and immutable transaction history. Collectibles have perceived value primarily because of their novelty (or uniqueness), scarcity (or rarity), and/or personal sentiment.

With the 8Hours platform, collectibles develop unique characteristics over time through in-game interactions. The original stories that each toy accrues reflects novelty to collectors. The total AACs in circulation will always be transparent, leading to verifiable scarcity of ultra-rare collectibles. Developers can also limit the chances of in-game random events and total number of collectibles released for control over an item’s potential rarity. Just by playing with toys in games personal sentiment from players can be built. Furthermore, the addition of digital context through AACs allows for the generation of transactions to exhibit that toy’s history in permanent storage, enabling easy recall of great memories.

Additionally, players can now add value directly to their toys simply by playing with them to level them up, upgrading them with premium assets, or even by random chance encounters. These toys can be sold on side markets to other players who value them for their prestige and are willing to pay money to bypass tedious grinding. The premium assets and upgrades are permanently attached to the toy, so the value is unlikely to depreciate.

For example: A pro gamer retires after a successful career. His toys and collectibles have a history that is now engrained permanently and he decides to sell his toys to his loyal fans. He auctions his toys in a marketplace to players who care deeply about the celebrity and fame that accompanies the collectibles. The new owner can play with the toy themselves or just store it in a safe place. They can purchase upgrades on top of what already exists with tokens and continue building on top of the value that the toy already has.

At the platform-level, EHrT can be used by players to purchase content within marketplaces. Digital collectibles, games, and other “VIP” access can be unlocked with EHrT. I.e. custom player avatars that guaranteed integration with 100% of platform games; early access to brand new games; and discounts on games and other exclusive promotions. Participation within communities is also fostered via EHrT rewards. Players are encouraged to engage with the community by getting involved in promotional events, providing direct feedback to developers, supporting the curation of great content, and furthering other beneficial objectives.

Founding Partner — PlayTable

8Hours is pioneering the social gaming space and there is no better way to bring people together with social games than PlayTable. With the 8Hours platform’s technology and support, we are excited to see PlayTable become the world’s first blockchain-enabled game console.

The unique features of PlayTable consist of the following:

A true linkage of toys to the blockchain through RFID in what we call “Toy Reality”.

Physical collectibles and cards can be placed right on the PlayTable’s screen for recognition and riveting game experiences. This new type of physical/digital interaction can make anyone’s eyes light up as blockchain finally begins to feel real.

Massive demand for interactive toy experiences has already been proven with the great success of the first toys-to-life franchise, Skylanders, which single handedly sold over $3bn over the course of four years. The brand-new market managed to take over households across the US, with parents estimating an average $131 spend on toys and games from character franchises such as Skylanders (Activision), Disney Infinity, and Nintendo Amiibo. [5].

2. The immutable nature of blockchain allows toy authentication and customization

Owners to truly authenticate their toys and customize them with nearly infinite attributes to gain collectible value. Like the saying “Seeing is believing”, the PlayTable lets anyone of any age, background, and technical literacy witness the power of blockchain in their own hands and understand the value.

Toys are brought to life in the real world with many amazing additional digital attributes, animations, and sound effects. Ultra-rare and limited edition versions of toys have proven scarcity and a gaming ecosystem that they can interact in.

PlayTable replaces physical board and card games and enhances playability of these games via new touch screen and digital offerings

3. PlayTable serves to rekindle family game nights in the modern world by recommending the perfect game, teaching you how to play, and automatically setting it up. Board games no longer take up an entire closet full of space, and are more immersive than ever with animations and sound effects.

The board games market reached $9.6bn in 2016, and is expected to reach over $12bn by 2023, growing at a CAGR of more than 9% [6]. In fact, a single board game can achieve retail sales of more than $80 million in a single year, such as Catan when it became the fourth largest board game brand in the U.S. in 2013 [7].

PlayTable provides solid foundations in social games by innovating on classic board/card games to make them more accessible than ever. With 93% of families still playing analog board/card games with their kids 4 to 10-year-olds [8], the ritualistic game nights is as important as ever.

These inherently social games are not only played in families, but also college students, millennials, and casual gamers around the world. “Around 30 percent of millennials say they are interested in visiting a board-game themed café or bar, according to a report from market researchers Mintel on the leisure habits of millennials, published in August.” [9]

4. Exclusive gaming title partnerships (yes, exclusive):

With PlayTable’s exclusive partnerships in the board game industry, we foresee a successful launch to bring families and friends together worldwide with familiar games. Top-selling games such as Catan, Ticket to Ride, Love Letter, and Smash Up (and over 40 more) dominate the board game section in Target and retail hobby stores everywhere.

5. We have designed, built, and developed the hardware PlayTable and its software platform from scratch 3 years ago, and PlayTable is currently a working Alpha Product with a few iterations to go before full launch.

We welcome and encourage our community members and anyone who are interested in our product to come check out our product: http://go.playtable.com/optin and join the waiting list to get a PlayTable for your family and friends.

More special rewards programs and amazing deals coming SOON™, please Follow us on Twitter @8Hours_official and join our group on Telegram t.me/The8HoursFoundation

6. With the current market size of the toy industry to be $89bn globally [10], we believe that PlayTable can bring in additional millions of dollars and massive amount of transactional volume to our users by taking away a chunk of that market share and innovating with toy-enabled multiplayer experiences unique to PlayTable, such as Battlegrid, Mahjong, and other titles. More on expansive gaming experience adaptations in future releases. Stay Tuned.

Tokenomics

EHrT tokes are to be used in every scenario where fun meets digital innovation. This includes being the ecosystem coin for the PlayTable Gaming Platform and compatible toys, collectibles, and cards. As EHrTs are used to create new assets, 50% of the EHrT is burned, capturing the value of the object both as data and as a new standalone addition to the ecosystem, with 50% being sent to the 8hours Foundations to further development and community growth efforts. In the integration with Playtable, EHrT tokens will initially be used to:

Create branded in game currencies that an IP owner can leverage to be cross platform, integrate into third-party markets, create event driven currencies, create loyalty rewards, and other use cases

Mint non-fungible tokens that can be attached to a physical or digital asset

Register, manage, license, and sell IP

Add redeemable stores of value to toys and other merchandise

Subscribe to platform features

Buy digital, physical, and identity related assets on participating platforms, such as PlayTable

Request foundation resources such as game submission, asset creation sponsorship, grant submission, etc.

Circulation of EHrTs sent to the Foundation after tokens are minted ensures long-term capacity of the Foundation to continually push for growth of the ecosystem. It also allows for the community members to have a consistent mechanism with which they can accomplish Foundation objectives and achieve EHrTs as rewards. For example, development objectives may take the form of bug bounties or content submissions; growth objectives may take the form of marketing initiatives or securing new partnership deal; and for other objectives that further the Foundation’s mission, additional incentives may be created.

Team

John Dempsey — Founding Director.

John is an Eagle Scout who’s DNA resides in social play. A lifelong gamer with a technical background and passion for bringing people together, he created dozens of hardware electronics kits teaching kids how to code. Eventually, he dropped out of college to pursue his dream — to unite people with the power of play. Since then, he has gone on to create the PlayTable, a revolutionary gaming project that is pioneering new space for social gaming.

Shane Zhu — General Manager

Shane has a wealth of experience in fundraising, manufacturing, and business development. Previously, Shane was the co-founder of Titanium Falcon, a Silicon Valley-based smart hardware company. He led the company to a $1.5M Series A round, and built the manufacturing and supply chain ecosystem. Before Titanium Falcon, he helped design and build the mechanical systems for the NASA Mars Rover. Shane has a BS in Robotics Engineering from Arizona State University.

Joe Brogno — Creative Director.

Joe has 9 years of experience at Nickelodeon as a CG Environment Supervisor, overseeing titles such as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness, The Penguins of Madagascar, and several more. After Nickelodeon Joe spent 3 years at Trion Worlds game studio as a Live Media Manager. He’s also designed a great deal many board & card games for publication.

Ye Deng — Software Director.

Ye has over 12 years of experience in software engineering. After working at Huawei, he was the founder of a game studio that developed proprietary lagless physics engine on arbitrary curved surfaces with custom mathematical spatial queries and collider interactions. Ye has an MS in Computer Science from the University of Kentucky and BS in Computer Science and Technology from Jilin University.

Sherman Meredith — Lead Blockchain Engineer.

Sherman has 7 years experience working on games and with games studios. Most recent studio before Blok Party was Playchemy, where he lead blockchain interaction in games. He was one of the first-ever blockchain game developers and natively built his wallets inside of the Unity game engine (as opposed to traditional Web3 for dApps). Games include The Wild 11, The Living, Codey Samurai, as well as server-client interaction using Unity 5’s UNET framework.

Jiaqi Wang — SDK Architect.

Jiaqi is the co-founder of MBAville, an educational games studio that published Project Quant — a game that teaches accounting, economics, and analytics. Master of Science in Computer Graphics from Purdue University and a BS in Software Engineering from Beihang University.

Sam Lee — VP of Hardware

Sam is a top RF Engineer in Silicon Valley. After working for Apple, Nokia, and Amazon for the past 10 years, he’s become an expert in wireless technologies and hardware development. His notable achievements include helping design the iPhone 4, Amazon Echo, and Amazon Fire tablet. He has a degree in Electrical Engineering from UC Berkeley and studied Communications at Stanford.

Partners