My colleague Bryant TOOK NO PRISONERS today in a post taking blockchain bullshit to task:
I don't want to clip too much of it here because it's a very strong, in-depth piece, but I couldn't help but get very actively angry (not at Bryant! at blockchain execs!) when editing some of this segment:
If you can't get work in your home country, why wouldn't you log on to Grand Theft Auto Online and role-play a bank teller that high-rolling players from richer regions could stick up in exchange for some much-needed cash?
The risk of that behavior is so high that Rockstar Games took the unusual step of giving its blessing to roleplaying GTAO servers, but also banning the financialization of them. Mojang did something similar. Neither studio wanted their virtual worlds to be turned sweatshops (If you want to get cynical about it, it's probably because neither developer could quickly earn a share of those payments).
Yes, companies of all sizes are desperately looking for new audiences because the cost of user acquisition has ballooned alongside the budgets of notable games, but those blockchain-based users are not a massive audience in waiting. It's a prospective class of indentured servants—something that has no place in an industry dedicated to recreation.
And if we want to keep it simple, just look at the player counts of big-ticket blockchain games like Decentraland or The Sandbox. They're low! If any non-blockchain live service game posted numbers like that, we'd be writing about their shutdown here on Game Developer.
I'm shouting
Yes, I am probably going to keep sharing A LOT of GD pieces here on my cohost page, not just because I'm a new EIC who wants to keep our numbers healthy—but because I actively want to shout this good work out (and shout it from the rooftops. Is cohost a rooftop? Let's just go with this metaphor.)
We'll have a lot more end of year content like this in the coming weeks, and a lot more design deep-dives that I'll keep shouting too. Hell, maybe I'll even write something myself!
