MatchboxDAO is a collective of developers, artists, and designers building the infrastructure of on-chain games with StarkNet.
This is the fifth article in MatchboxDAO’s series on “How to Make On-Chain Gaming Competitive”. A new article will be released every Tuesday fortnight and will cover different topics around how developers are shaping on-chain games to become more intuitive and entertaining for gamers. This can include new features, games, onboarding tools and just about anything that improves the on-chain experience in a gaming context.
It’s part of our ongoing efforts to reduce stigma around blockchain gaming and to show the benefits behind keeping these features on-chain in a trustless, accessible manner. We hope this series can drive adoption from new developers and gamers because the future of on-chain gaming will be collaborative. Join us each fortnight to learn where this space is heading and how we’re preserving integrity and most importantly, fun in gaming.
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By BibliothecaDAO - building Loot Realms
Introduction
Over time technology has trended toward placing the means of production into the hands of those who could only previously consume the output. Writing, making music, creating video - these used to require large amounts of capital to create and distribute. As a consequence they were centralised to a small group of broadcasters and publishers.
To illustrate: The printing press was expensive, as was the distribution of printed materials. Today you can write and distribute your thoughts and works of literature with a chromebook, a free medium account and an internet connection.
Camera-phones turned citizens into journalists and movie makers. MySpace became a place for musicians without publishing deals to access potential listeners directly.
The same trend - the decentralisation of production - has taken root in gaming. We believe on-chain gaming is an accelerating force in that trend
The blurring of the line between developers and players
Games have become platforms. Take Roblox and Minecraft - the players in these gaming worlds don’t consume games. They also want to build them.
Their reasons are varied:
Players mod games to create a world or game mode they preferred to play.
Arma 3 - a FPS - was modded to become PUBG - which brought attention to the now ubiquitous battle royal format. The same game was modded to create Dayz, a zombie survival game.
To make a living
Popular content creates an income stream. Roblox currency ‘Robux’ provides players with many ways to monetize game content they have created. Attention in-game has a value you can be paid to harness.
Because they can
Thousands of talented game devs maintain open source games simply because they like the game, community or challenge. Lancelot - a talented Cairo developer working on Briq also helps maintains 0AD. Emotional connection to a game is a powerful motivator.
With on-chain games the blurring of the line developers and players is… blurrier
Games from established (web2) publishers see the value of creator content, and some embrace it… to a point. They tend to create a walled garden and put down boundaries to protect IP and keep the cash flowing inside of their system.
On-chain games - especially those that are open source, like Loot Realms - take a much more ‘laissez faire’ approach. The IP is community owned and can co-mingle with other IP from other open source game worlds if someone simply creates it. Great examples of that can be seen in the Dom Hoffman inspired projects like Blitmap, NounsDAO and Loot where recognisable items from the three worlds pop up in the other projects.
Rather than a centralised organisation protecting their code and IP, we see DAOs operate interoperable worlds with blurry boundaries where surprising and delightful collaborations can take shape. We see this trend going exponential after quality on-chain games become more numerous and accessible (UX improvements etc).
Player / Developer / Creator
On-chain gamers have a LOT more scope to contribute to game design and build. From game modules to creative assets, bots, tools and alternative game clients / user interfaces. Human beings tend to support the things they have contributed to, and so player-creators become powerful advocates of the game they helped create.
Bibliotheca DAO is on the journey to creating an open source on-chain gaming ecosystem. We are taking learnings from Roblox but allowing much deeper access to the development and design process and are happy to see our IP cross over into other worlds.
We are still early. But here are some things we learned so far.
Four initiatives that have helped to strengthen the Realms community
(i) Build the game world together
We have two examples to share. First we created a ‘Wonder’ building competition in partnership with Briq. A ‘Wonder’ is a key game asset in the Realms world. Briq is a little like on-chain Lego, where individual briq NFTS can be laid on a grid and on one another. People who had never touched a voxel in their life leaned into the experience out of fun, to be part of the game design process, and to stand a chance of a token prize. The discord bloomed with creativity.
The second is the lore creation module being built by core team members. They can see their game assets on an atlas, and if they wish they can add lore about that place, battle or character. They will be able to call on-chain data to help populate events into the Reams game lore.
(ii) Bounties unlock community potential
Our logo, font, token symbol were proactively created by community members and as a gesture of thanks we offered bounties in the native $LORDS token of the Realms ecosystem.
We took this on-board and are putting in place an official bounty system to stimulate the next wave of community creativity.
How this will work, for example, with creative assets: The core team Creative Director sets the style and supplies a brief for the creation of game assets. We match up community members with tasks. They deliver and are paid in $LORDS. Our community members use their talents and become creator advocates.
(iii) Hack together to create the ultimate team
We have found participating in hacks and hosting hackathons has fostered a strong developer community. Key team members were recruited from the smoking area of the StarkNet hackathon in Amsterdam. Our recent hackathon in partnership with Matchbox DAO drew nine serious entries. The game modules they proposed are being scoped out for inclusion in the game.
(iv) Forking and modding
If you like what we have built but would prefer a space opera version? Fork the code and create it. Or create a game client / front end that displays the game in a way you prefer. It’s your game to play and create with. This openness, we believe, will create persistence. Fresh experiences built by fresh talent keeping attention and interest healthy.
To conclude
We believe on-chain games can compete with web2 games because they can extend the player-creator trend to new limits (in fact, with no limits). Why build content in a walled garden, when you can have a great deal more flexibility and openness in web3?
** **Article written by:
https://twitter.com/LordSecretive
https://twitter.com/lordOfAFew
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