For large firms, this is an acceptable mode of distribution as they have the advertising budget to ensure that their sales volume is huge. But, for indie developers and smaller studios the story is very different — giving up this amount of profit can be the difference between covering the costs of development and going bankrupt.

Steam indie sales are down 70% in 2019 and average game revenue has declined 47%. This means that indie developers are stuck between a rock and a hard place when it comes to distributing their games and making sure that ends meet.

If you’re lucky (really, lotto-lucky) your new app or game will get featured, which will drive sales and help you cross that critical threshold to profitability. For many developers, this means that their app or game will never get exposure, and never recoup the costs invested.

This uneven playing field, with so much power in the hands of so few large distributors, is something that Ultra wants to tackle by offering a much lower distribution fee, and at the same time giving everyone unique advertising and monetization tools built directly into the platform. It’s a win-win for everybody, especially developers.

Most of these platforms also do not provide adequate referral fees nor are they as transparent about reporting those fees as will be Ultra’s solution and this is made possible by its public blockchain foundation.

Where Ultra Truly Shines is its Proprietary Tech Stack

The system that Ultra runs on is based on EOSIO, created by Block.one. Ultra has added and altered the base tech stack enough that it warrants a comparison. Ultra maintains version compatibility with EOSIO, so each new version’s features are ported to Ultra.

That being said, there are some really unique features baked in which differentiate the UOS network from the EOS, a public network running EOSIO.

So Let’s Compare EOS to UOS

Ultra has free accounts

On UOS, accounts are free which largely removes the frustrating and confusing on-boarding process that EOS users must go through. UOS does require users to have a unique phone number as a way to mitigate users abusing the account creation tool, ensuring that precious system RAM is not wasted. Because of the intrinsic value of the assets on the system, Ultra also must comply with international anti money laundering laws.

Ultra has free transactions and a more user-friendly resource allocation methodology

As part of a strategy to alleviate the complex requirements of network resource staking for users, Ultra allows the developer to purchase RAM using a mechanism that makes speculation impossible.

CPU and NET transactions are free

With 60% of all available resources being allocated to users evenly from a free quota. The remaining 40% can be allocated through staking to ensure that transactions of any volume go through.

Voting and Block Producers

There will be no voting on UOS, as Block Producers are business partners who are hand-picked by Ultra and go through a KYC process of their own. This ensures that the BPs are of the highest caliber, while also dis-incentivizing bad behavior on the network. Block producers will know that their reputation is on the line. Poorly performing BPs will be removed from the network by Ultra.

The final number of BPs is still being determined, but it is likely to be less than the 21 seen on the EOS and Telos Mainnets. The more block producers you have, the more secure the network becomes, but that has to be weighed against the need for fast consensus between the nodes. We expect Ultra’s blockchain to outperform EOS Mainnet by a large margin. When we launch the Testnet, we will release benchmarks.

Industry giant Ubisoft has already signed on to become the first Corporate Block Producer for UOS. The infrastructure standard is defined by Ultra and Block Producers must be willing to meet these minimum requirements. This will ensure that the hardware that the Ultra blockchain runs on will be top-tier. Read on here if you’re interested in reading more about our first Block Producers.

Real Ownership of Assets

Non-fungible tokens, or NFTS, are generated by developers in Ultra’s easy to use token factory from within the developer’s game management system. These NFTs can be anything from items like a sword in a fantasy game, to unique legendary items that grant special abilities to players that own them.

The Games Themselves Are Also NFTs

With users having the ability to buy and resell games in the built-in marketplace, giving your old game library real value. When you’re done with a game, you’ll be able to resell it at a price determined by the value of the associated account.

This opens up the possibility of a free and open market of users buying games, leveling up characters, and freely reselling them.

Either way, the developer will get their cut. Developers will also have control over when this can happen (say, a minimum of six months from the release date), and the minimum price the games can be resold. Developers can even issue special editions in limited quantities, creating a collector’s market. We at Ultra think that this will lead to revolutionary advertising and monetization strategies.

We envision a thriving digital economy emerging from these technologies.

Ultra Will Be Where Communities Thrive

Game developers do not own their user’s data and there is no centralized place for their communities to develop in. Ultra’s goal is to empower all developers with tools to build not just games, but a place for enthusiastic players to interact and thrive.

Earn While You Play, Thrive While You Build

Part of our goal at Ultra is to make something more than just a platform for fairly distributing games and their content. We are striving to enable new and unique experiences for players and developers to earn by creating content. Reviews can be monetized. Users with large followings, say from Twitch, can earn through referrals. Developers can quickly reinvest their earnings into advertising budgets directly on the Ultra platform because of faster payouts.

It’s a wide, open world which we think will entice and excite the gaming world in a way that nothing before it ever has.

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— Ultra is a unique blockchain-based technology stack which is reinventing the gaming economy by enabling real ownership of digital assets, and creating new opportunities for fun, community, and profit.