Big Time

Big Time is a free-to-play multiplayer action role-playing game for Windows PCs, developed by Big Time Studios. Its premise places the player as a time traveler summoned to the end of the universe as the walls of spacetime collapse and historical eras collide; players join the heroes of Evermore Academy, based in an ancient city at the center of the universe, to fight back the resulting threats. Content is organized around procedurally generated dungeons across zones of escalating difficulty — Water Town, Rustling Forest, the Wastelands, No Man's Land and the Ice Wastes — plus Epoch City, a social hub for trading and player interaction. Combat uses six classes (Time Warrior, Chronomancer, Shadowblade, Quantum Fixer, Battlemancer, Techblade), each with distinct abilities and stat allocation, playable solo or in groups.

The game layers a digital-asset economy on top of this. Players craft and upgrade cosmetic and utility collectibles using the Forge (weapons), the Armory (armor) and the Time Warden (Hourglasses, which are used to collect $BIGTIME). SPACE units expand a player's "Personal Metaverse," a private customizable area to which Workshops can be attached for crafting; SPACE comes in varying rarities and sizes. Pocket Watches let players switch character classes during gameplay while preserving skills, abilities and equipment. Time Crystals serve as an account-bound premium currency used for enhancements, crafting hourglasses and access to special areas, obtainable only through purchase or rare drops. Certain cosmetic collectibles unlock exclusive game areas. The company states the game is free to play with no pay-to-win mechanics and no paywalled content.

Asset issuance and trading are handled by Open Loot, a platform for Web3 game economies that manages NFT and token operations for gaming partners. Open Loot provides a marketplace supporting direct sales, auctions and loot boxes with crypto, debit, credit and bank-transfer payments, along with AML/KYC and interactive KYC, fraud prevention, chargeback management, customer support, marketing and creator/influencer distribution, and integrated game and marketplace analytics for developers. Players download the game via the Open Loot Launcher.

Business model

The game itself is distributed free to play, with monetization tied to the sale and trading of digital in-game assets — cosmetic and utility collectibles, SPACE, Workshops and Hourglasses — through the Open Loot Marketplace, alongside Time Crystals, a non-tradable premium currency obtained by purchase or rare in-game drops. Open Loot operates as a platform business serving game developers, handling NFT and token sales, payments, compliance and marketing.

Sales of NFT collectibles and items on the Open Loot Marketplace (direct sales, auctions and loot boxes) and purchases of the premium Time Crystals currency; Open Loot additionally monetizes by providing economy, payment and compliance infrastructure to partner game developers.

Traction

The Big Time Founders Collection on Ethereum, minted in August 2021, comprises five unique items across 3,702 tokens held by 1,376 unique owners, with $21.5K in total volume recorded on OpenSea.

Latest developments

The company continues publishing development updates, including a sneak peek at forthcoming NFTs, new AFK animations and revised crafting paths, and promotes an Open Access phase of the game.