Finding Forever (Games)

Hello and welcome to Dark Tunnels, a newsletter dedicated to exploring the emerging ecosystem of fully onchain games.

We’re back in your inbox after a brief hiatus (more on that at the end of this newsletter) with some musings on the idea of the “forever game.”

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Hi friends,

All that talk of “value propositions” in the last edition of this newsletter got me thinking more deeply about one value prop in particular: the idea of the "forever game.”

It’s nice to think that an onchain game can exist indefinitely, free from the affordances of centralization, but what would this actually look like in practice? Since we have little in the way of actual case studies to refer to, I thought it’d be interesting to look at other examples of long-lasting games and see what insights we can glean. Perhaps history offers some suggestions on how we might better understand the staying power of games?

Let’s get into it.

Finding Forever (Games)

I find the concept of the eternal game to be utterly fascinating.

If you’ve been keeping up with the Dark Tunnels back catalog, you’ll recall that I’m a big believer in the idea of unstoppable, autonomous, and indefinite games being one of the central value propositions offered by maximally onchain experiences.

We know that onchain games can theoretically outlive their developers. So long as the underlying blockchain continues to run and players remain interested in participating, the game should be available indefinitely. No need to worry about developers getting shut down, game servers being decommissioned, or rules being changed unexpectedly.

Yet I also struggle to reconcile this concept with the practical realities of game development today.

I’m actually less worried about the game itself lasting forever, as that’s really just a technical hurdle to overcome. Rather, the greater challenge is one faced by all aspiring live service game developers, both within and outside of web3: how to convince an increasingly content-overloaded gaming audience to return to one specific virtual world — repeatedly — for years on end.

To illustrate this point, consider a hypothetical AAA-caliber game with some level of blockchain integration. Assume for the purposes of this example that this game has the same budget, the same development talent, the same access to distribution channels, and the same level of technical challenges faced by any other large gaming studio. In other words, a relatively level playing field; apples to dApp-les.¹  

Even when controlling for all these factors, what are the chances that our hypothetical game will be able to stand out from the crowd? Tens of thousands of games release to little fanfare every year. To assume that gamers will flock to a new game simply because it has incorporated NFT assets or P2P trading is, frankly, foolish.

Today’s gaming audiences are spoiled for choice. An ever-growing back catalog of excellent titles is increasingly being made available to consumers via subscription services like Xbox Game Pass and PlayStation Plus. Add to that the deluge of high quality new releases hitting the markets seemingly every week and it’s easy to see why game discovery can be a challenge for any game…to say nothing of games with complicated new financial mechanisms and unclear value propositions.

Of course, when your game’s time frame is indefinite, perhaps you’re less concerned with the challenges of short-term discoverability and user acquisition? In such cases, a game developer may instead be more focused on laying down a strong foundation for an ever-expanding game world to be built upon.

This does kind of make sense, in a way. Marketing traditionally comes downstream of a finished (or mostly finished) product, whereas an immortal onchain game is never really feature complete. Builders can always extend, modify, or update as they see fit, provided none of the underlying digital physics are altered.

Nevertheless, a “forever” game really can’t be considered as such without a similarly long-lived pool of players and contributors taking part in the game’s ecosystem in parallel. In this way, user acquisition and ongoing development become a sort of chicken and egg problem.

It Means Forever and that’s a Mighty Long Time…

One topic we’ve not yet broached is the current crop of titles commonly discussed as “forever” games: franchises like Counter-Strike (first launched in 2000), World of Warcraft (2004), League of Legends (2009), Minecraft (2009), Candy Crush (2012), or Fortnite (2017).

Indeed, games like these do have massive staying power and offer many interesting points of comparison for onchain titles hoping to replicate that sort of long-lasting success.²

While a decade or two of successful operation hardly qualifies as “forever” — especially when compared with other physical or analog games that might have hundreds or even thousands of years of recorded history — that kind of staying power is still remarkable, given how much the industry has changed over that time.

Still, I am of the opinion that it’s worth taking a closer look at games that have much longer track records before we dive deeper on digital games. Here, I am referring to categories of games like board games, casino games, parlor games, sports, and so on.³

Obviously, computers and digital entertainment haven’t been around long enough to match the sort of recorded history underpinning games like Go or Chess. The first video game was created in 1958, and video games didn’t reach anything approaching mainstream popularity until the 1970s or 1980s. With less than a century of historical data to rely upon and a long trendline of changes to the supporting technology underlying video games throughout that period of time, we may simply not have a large enough sample size to draw meaningful conclusions about the staying power of digital games into the distant future. 

Many of the longest-lasting franchises in the history of the games industry have only been created in the last 10 to 20 years. Games like Grand Theft Auto V, Fortnite, Candy Crush, and others have only become possible with the advent of always-online connections, free-to-play business models, the development and refinement of “live ops” publishing and operational capabilities, social metagames, and countless other innovations largely unavailable to physical games.

However, herein lies a tremendous opportunity. One of my personal hypotheses is that we will eventually see digital games that rival the staying power of their historical analogues. Games that outlast their creators by generations.

As a subscriber to this newsletter, you’ve surely surmised by now that I believe blockchains are key to enabling that hypothesis.⁴  

The permanence and immutability of blockchains enable robust, verifiable history, data, and lore to emerge within and around digital games. This creates a strong foundation for future participants to build upon, learn from, and engage with, regardless of their geographic location or time of entry.

The permissionless nature of blockchains also means that anyone with a suitable computer or mobile device can participate in digital play. While those of us residing in relatively free and open societies might take this for granted today, the ability to take part in games and sports has historically has not been especially equitable.

Couple these dynamics with the ability of digital games to spread rapidly via the Internet and digital distribution platforms and, if you squint, you can see how an onchain game might potentially spread farther, wider, and with much greater magnitude than its historical counterparts.

Conversely, physical games have carried on by way of oral traditions, close ties to religions or ruling monarchs, or via centralized bodies tasked with preserving, governing, or administrating these games.

Physical games also require physical presence and infrastructure. Billiards tables, baseball diamonds, cards, tiles, dice, and so forth all represent different forms of physical infrastructure required for participation. While the advent of computers and the Internet has helped to expand the reach and legacies of many of these games (see image above), physical requirements necessarily place limits on adoption.

Though some requirements are obviously more intractable than others (e.g. a deck of playing cards is much easier to acquire than a set of ski gear and a suitably snow-covered slope), any physical requirements will inevitably be at odds with wider game adoption.⁵ It’s hard to shoot pool or play ping-pong without the proper table; it’s tough for netball to take hold in a country where all the nets have backboards, too.

Another important factor in the spread of physical games has been the ability of participants to remix or reinterpret the rules of play.

Through use of simple “primitives” like dice, playing cards, or dominoes, participants can easily construct new variants suited to their preferences. Sports are an especially strong example of this dynamic, perhaps representing the original form of decentralized play.

Consider the many twists present in some of today’s longest-tenured games:

• House rules: Monopoly’s Free Parking spot; Settlers of Catan’s “Robin Hood” Robber⁶

• High stakes versions: the Super Bowl; the World Series of Poker; the Summer Olympics

• Regional variants: Chinese vs. American Mahjong; Australian Rules Football; Gaelic Football

• Accessible formats: Braille playing cards; wheelchair basketball; beep baseball

Similarly, the permissionless composability of smart contracts enables countless variations of onchain games to emerge, too (provided the initial rulesets are sufficiently flexible). We have already seen simple examples of this take place around Dark Forest (Dark Forest —> Dark Forest Arena —> Dark Forest Grand Prix).

Currently, there is little incentive for participants to create variants of existing onchain games, given the limited adoption of the format. However, this is essentially one of the key bets being made by builders in the space: that a game with enough player momentum will inspire its own set of new twists, formats, and spin-offs.

So, to recap, we’ve discussed how the spread of digital games is uninhibited by many of the physical requirements and gatekeeping present in the “forever games” of the past. We’ve also covered how the permissionless composability of smart contracts enables onchain games to be remixed and reinterpreted in the same way that sports and board games have been for centuries.

Next edition, we’ll pair these observations with a closer look at some recent learnings from the crop of digital “forever games” referenced earlier.

Notes:

1. Sorry, I couldn’t resist.

2. We’ll cover this topic in much greater depth next edition.

3. I know what you’re thinking: sports and games are two different categories! According to the legendary Raph Koster, “from a game designer's point of view, they aren't that different.” The full Quora post from Raph is well worth the read and will provide all the nuance you crave.

4. Importantly, I don’t believe that a blockchain is strictly required for a digital “forever game” to exist; rather, it is my view that blockchains enable more of them to do so, more readily, by eliminating many of the challenges presented by centralization.

5. It should be noted that digital games may also have physical requirements. For example, PC games with demanding min spec requirements, console-exclusive video games, or titles that make use of specific peripherals (e.g. Xbox Kinect, Guitar Hero, etc.).

6. House rules exist in digital games, too! Consider the “no Oddjob” rule in GoldenEye 007, or the countless homemade variations on Smash Bros.

In Conclusion

Before I sign off, I wanted to share a brief personal note.

I’ve always viewed this newsletter as a passion project — something that I get to do, not something that I have to do. When life gets busy, I do my best to write and publish, but sometimes I need to push things off.

And so it was these past few weeks. It’s been a hectic last month or so, for reasons both good and bad.

On the positive side, my wife and I celebrated our first anniversary with a lovely trip to the Central Coast of California. We also have a new puppy and plenty of social and professional obligations keeping us busy.

Unfortunately, we recently also had to say goodbye to a family member. My best buddy Walter passed away after a months-long bout with cancer.

If you’ve ever wondered why the Always Scheming logo is cat-shaped, it’s because of Walter. He was truly always scheming: on how to get a snack; on how to get attention; on how to mess with you. He was a classic kitty.

Case in point: Walter was notorious for booping the backlit power button on my Xbox One at critical moments of gameplay or movie viewing. Coming down to the final seconds of a tense Overwatch match? Sorry, time for scratches.

He was a real bastard sometimes, but he was also my closest companion for more than a decade of life’s ups and downs. I really miss him.

Anyways, if you made it this far, know that I truly appreciate your support. Thanks for reading and for sticking with me. Newsletters will not normally be spread this far apart.

Next time around, we’ll explore the staying power of digital games in much greater detail. Specifically, we’ll work through a notable investing framework for evaluating "forever" games.

Until next time.

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