As many of you already know, I am a participant in the Virtual Universe (VU) Initial Coin Offering Partner Program. In exchange for writing regular blogposts about VU and cross-posting them to different social media, I get paid in VU tokens. (It’s currently the only way I can earn tokens before VU launches later this year.) This is a good example of a bounty program, in which volunteers get paid in in-world currency for undertaking various tasks.
I just recently learned that Decentraland also has a bounty program in place through Gitcoin, in which they pay users in MANA for such tasks as creating video tutorials, writing blogposts, and talking about the Decentraland project at game developer events.
And Linden Lab is now participating in Twitch’s new Bounty Board program in order to further promote the Sansar platform:
Bounty Board is a way for creators to browse and accept paid sponsorship opportunities (AKA bounties) directly from their Twitch dashboard. With Bounty Board, Twitch handles the relationship with the brand and finds sponsorship opportunities for you. Twitch will also handle your payments, so you can concentrate on streaming and growing your community.
We’re kicking things off with a closed beta with Partners in the U.S., where we’ll be experimenting with bounties from Twitch and select game developers. Every few weeks, we’ll be onboarding groups of randomly-selected Partners from the waitlist as well as some targeted Partners based on the specific bounties available.
And of course, High Fidelity has been paying participants in their monthly stress testing of the platform. In two months, I have already earned two $20 VISA cards I am planning to use on Amazon to buy some books for myself!
Bounty programs seem to be popping up all over! We might be seeing the start of a trend here. If you’re interested in promoting your favourite virtual world, check to see if your preferred platform has a bounty program in place. You may as well earn some in-world (or even real-world) currency while you’re at it!
