Press Release

Singapore, Mar 22, 2024 -- Digital Entertainment Asset (DEA), a Singapore-based global Web3 entertainment company and owner of the popular PlayMining GameFi platform, has announced the official launch date of their new game “PicTrée -Grid Grab: Capture the Current-” on Saturday April 13, 2024. PicTrée is developed in partnership with TEPCO Power Grid, Japan’s largest and the world’s fourth-largest electric power company, together with Greenway Grid Global, a power utility business development venture.

PicTrée is an Inspect-to-Earn team battle game in which teams of players physically go out into their real-world communities to take pictures of TEPCO’s electric power assets, such as utility poles, steel towers, manholes and handholes. By uploading images of the aging public infrastructure, people are able to help TEPCO mitigate a labor shortage of utility pole inspectors and contribute to the upkeep of their own communities. At the same time, they can receive rewards for their efforts in the form of Amazon gift certificates and PlayMining’s proprietary DEAPcoin ($DEP) token.

“Since our founding in 2018, this is the biggest step we have taken toward realizing our dream of truly improving society through Web3 games that reward players as important stakeholders in the entertainment ecosystem,” said Kozo Yamada, Founder & Co-CEO of DEA. “We call this new business model ‘Gamified Work’, and are actively working on applying it to a wide variety of industries through several exciting partnerships in development.”

The #GamifiedWork model uniquely merges elements of Web3 gaming with the “Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Networks” (DePIN) model, making it possible for physical infrastructure companies to gamify and outsource parts of their business operations to a decentralized community of gamers.

Capture the Current in the PicTrée Utility Pole Battle Game

PicTrée is a free-to-play mobile game that encourages players to get outside and explore their communities by foot — in this respect, it is somewhat similar to the still-popular Nintendo game Pokemon Go.

PicTrée players can join one of three teams named Ampere, Volt or Watt. Teams must battle to earn points by photographing TEPCO’s power assets and connecting the most power poles on a grid map to link the longest electricity wires. The teams are ranked and rewarded according to how many points they earn.

Players can chase points by snapping photos as quickly as they can, but the gameplay also highly rewards teamwork to implement a well-thought-out strategy by moving through the neighborhood in the most efficient manner and paying attention to cut off other teams’ progress.

PlayMining will launch an initial demonstration test of the new PicTrée social contribution game in Maebashi, a city in central Japan. From April 13 to June 29, 2024, PicTrée will be playable in five successive Maebashi neighborhoods for around two weeks each. The testing period will verify how effective the acquired photos are at meeting TEPCO’s inspection needs, and will bring to light areas in which the service can be improved.

There is also a special event on May 4th and 5th organized with five universities based in Maebashi city. University students will be divided into teams and fight for their team’s pride across the entire city.

“Through this game, we aim to create new value for the power assets we own,” said Aki Mizuguchi, TEPCO Power Grid General Branch Manager for Gunma, the prefecture that Maebashi city is in. “We hope that a wide range of local residents will participate and become more familiar with electricity and power assets than ever before.”

The DEP token can be traded on many popular cryptocurrency exchanges for crypto or fiat, including HTX, Gate.io, OKX, MEXC, Indodax, Bitmart, Tokenize Xchange, Zaif, Uniswap and others. It can also be spent on the PlayMining NFT marketplace to purchase GameFi NFTs that can be applied to various PlayMining games.

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