Game Gems

Game Gems mark the beginning of a new chapter on Sonic, where blockchain games are not just part of the ecosystem, but central to its growth.

Just like DeFi apps earn Sonic Gems, eligible games on Sonic earn Game Gems, unlocking a share of the S token airdrop. Similar to the existing Sonic Gems, these allocations are designed to be distributed to players, helping bootstrap in-game activity and drive lasting engagement.

Game Gems Calculation

1. Growth Score

The growth score uses a transaction-weighted Quick Ratio to evaluate a game’s player dynamics. Specifically, it measures how many new and returning players a game attracts compared to how many users it’s losing or failing to retain.

This formula is designed to reward both new and established games fairly. To prevent manipulation, the score is capped, and scores cannot fall below zero. The metric is dynamic, with flexibility to adjust time windows, weighting, and inputs as new games join the program.

$\text{Growth Score} = \min\left(\text{cap},\ \text{QuickRatio} - 1\right)$

$\text{QuickRatio} = \frac{(\text{New Players} + \text{Resurrected Players}) \times \text{Their Transactions}}{(\text{Inactive Players}) \times \text{Their Transactions}}$

2. Activity Score

The activity score tracks relative player engagement across the ecosystem. It rewards games that command a larger share of total active users in the Game Gems program.

This helps ensure the reward distribution reflects real-time network activity and user interest.

$\text{Activity Score} = \frac{\text{Unique Players (Game } g\text{)}}{\text{Unique Players (All Games)}}$

3. Score and Final Allocation

Each game (denoted as g) will receive an overall score, calculated as a weighted blend of the growth and activity scores. These weights (w_g and w_a) are chosen by Sonic Labs to reflect strategic goals and may evolve over time.

$\text{Score}(g) = \max\left(0,\ w_g \times \text{Growth Score}(g) + w_a \times \text{Activity Score}(g)\right)$

$\text{Final Allocation}(g) = \left( \text{Score}(g) \bigg/ \sum\limits_{g'}^{G} \text{Score}(g') \right) \times \text{Total Tokens Allocated to Games}$

Game Gems are separate from Sonic Gems and come from a separate prize pool as part of the airdrop.