Ethereum is a Game Environment

From Digital Objects by Ben Roy

People describe Ethereum in a lot of different ways.

It’s a smart contract platform, an asset ledger, an always-on financial system, a massive multiplayer online money game, and so on and so forth.

People describe Ethereum in a lot of different ways.

It’s a smart contract platform, an asset ledger, an always-on financial system, a massive multiplayer online money game, and so on and so forth.

The gaming metaphor is the one that I’ve always resonated with most. It helps tie together my entire engagement with this blockchain into a consolidated experience, that of a gamer.

Think about it.

There are different “levels,” starting with the main chain and followed by other execution environments that exist like layer 2s and aligned scaling solutions.

There are different “players” active in these environments, from traders and speculators to investors and collectors. Some are retail, some are institutional, and each have different degrees of skill, awareness, and experience.

There are different specializations, and players can “play” in NFTs, DeFi, memecoins, infrastructure, or other more niche domains.

There are different “game modes” as well. One period of time will be talked about as player versus player (PvP) where the same actors are fighting over the same liquidity to make money. Then another period will be thought of as player versus environment (PvE) where it’s easier to trade profitably because net new users (and funds) enter the ecosystem and lift it up.

The beginnings of a “gamer score” also exist with onchain transaction history converting into credentials like a wallet’s Degen Score or NFTs like POAPs from Proof of Attendance Protocol. Trackers like Nansen even categorize wallet addresses into “whales” or “smart money” based on their activity.

We see a unit of account for the game (i.e. Ether) as well as status symbols connected to the subculture that has formed around it (e.g. CryptoPunks), both of which are reminiscent of massively multiplayer online role playing games like RuneScape with its gold and party hats.

Ethereum also has a loose parallel to mainstream games like Fortnite or Roblox in that it thrives on user generated content (UGC). People are naturally incentivized to create “content” including everything from art to applications and gaming assets because there is money to be made by building out extensions of the game.

All of this is tied together in a “user interface” for Ethereum, which is how I think about the patchwork of block explorers (Etherscan), analytics platforms (Arkham), wallets (MetaMask), marketplaces (OpenSea), and relevant social media apps (Twitter, Discord, Telegram) that all players use to process and interact with the game.

There are a lot of implications that arise from thinking about Ethereum in this way. In my view, the most important one is that all products, services, and experiences built onchain inherit this game environment as their primary context.

People are drawn in by the global, open source game that we’ve created, and in this domain they behave in particular ways.

Every builder, every artist, every team doing something in crypto land would be wise to design with those norms and behaviors in mind.

Thank you to Liam, Lambo, Emmy, and Apix for feedback and review.