Hi, I’m Veronica. Let’s play a game.
It’s going to be a long one, but you can handle it.
(Let’s be real: you’re going to play this game whether you want to or not. Don’t sleep on the game. We’re already here.)
The game starts when you are born, and it ends when you die.
Does that sound like a lot of pressure?
It’s okay, because some people play this game consciously, and some people play it unconsciously. It can consume you to whatever level you want.
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Here are the three rules of The Game:
- Money can be exchanged for goods and services
- Money can be used as a store of value
- Money is used as a method of account
When I was repeatedly given these rules, at the start of every math and economics class in college, I didn’t realize that these were rules to a game. But make no mistake: these are the rules to THE GAME all around us.
You probably know people who get depressed playing this game because they lose at it too much. But funnily enough, you probably also know people who get depressed playing this game because they win at it too much.
So what is money?
Well… it’s kind of up to you. And everyone else.
And we mean EVERYONE else.
The government may have something to say on what money is. So do your friends, family, celebrities, and internet communities. For a long time, money currencies were fancy objects, like seashells and rocks, and then currencies became special designed precious metals in the form of gold or silver coins. Money became paper. Money became mental bank tallies on a computer screen. Money became a decentralized ledger. Money morphed from boring to stressful to fun and back again. Money morphed back into rocks again.
But no matter what, money can be exchanged, used as a store of value, used as a method of account. The rules are the same.
Money can be exchanged for the basics of life. In The Game, you might use money to buy cheap food, or expensive food; a nice house or a REALLY beautiful big home. You might use contracts in this game to get money that isn’t yours (at first) to fund a beautiful big home. You just have to pay that money back one day; the contract terms you get are part of The Game.
You might join a community that raises money to tell a powerful story or deliver a service in a special way. You might use money to fuel a cause you believe in and to make the world a better place, whatever that means to you or others. You might use money to pay off bills, but you might also use money to flex: put on a show, plan parties, buy a diamond, buy jpegs, create jpegs of diamonds.
On that note: how do you win or lose this game?
Also: kind of up to you and everyone else. In fact, whatever it takes to win or lose this game has that much more to do with the government, your friends, family, celebrities, and internet communities. Your choice of money may lose or gain store of value. It changes. You may not ever win. You may not ever lose.
But at the end of the day, you play this game because of why we play any game.
If a game is all around us, then you first play to survive. And once you are successfully surviving, you play a game to feel any number of the following feels:
- Lucky - We love gambling.
- Powerful - We love winning.
- Smart - We love strategizing.
- Connected - We love socializing.
And what do I have do say about these for you?
Having led marketing efforts for Pokémon GO, one of the most played augmented reality games in the world, I come from the world of gaming and the metaverse (sorrynotsorry) of marketing: two zones where together we can play out the literal meta world of the money game all around us.
- In markets, perceptions is reality is perceptions of value.
- In gaming, perceptions of value come from item economies, incentive design, and currency creation based on culture.
- In crypto, culture is commerce is culture.
I’m looking forward to exploring these ideas with you here.
See you out there in The Game ;)