The collapse of cryptokitties, the first big blockchain game

1. The global worldwide market place. While this introduces commerce/real money, which come with very real downsides, it also makes the game high stakes (meaning most people play to the best of their ability). WoW and other games showed how much a vibrant marketplace can add to a game experience for some players, and having everything trading for essentially real money doesn't change that underlying level of engagement.

2. Permissionless development. While there are many examples of attempts at building on top of CryptoKitties fizzling out, there are also success stories, especially around "WCK"—a fungible token created by an unaffiliated third party developer that essentially created a worldwide "Give a Kitty, Take a Kitty" pool that let you send away any cat you didn't want and get back one that you preferred. And because it's on the blockchain and uses blockchain standards, it can also be used as liquidity and barter, both of which add to the experience. I don't believe I've ever seen something like this built on top of a non-blockchain game... certainly it wouldn't be quite as easy as this was to build! Some examples of other third party creations include an auto-breeding platform, a Kitty racing game, a Kitty battling game, Kitty cosmetics (your cat NFT can own its own hat NFT!), and a trustless Kitty bounty smart contract.

3. Almost unparalleled transparency. This has all kinds of fun side effects from allowing the community to fully "check the work" of the developer to what amounts to an open-to-everyone API. And what's more, this is a standardized API so that someone who builds tools for CryptoKitties would be able to also use those tools for Cheeze Wizards. Again, there are amazing third party tools built on the backs of APIs of online games all the time, but it's actually cool how much you get "for free" by being on the blockchain. The verified fairness is pretty cool IMO.

4. Immortal assets. I poured a lot into City of Heroes back in the day, and then one day the devs shut down the server, and took all my heroes with it. This is a very common refrain. As long as there are nodes out there running Ethereum, anyone can breed their Kitty NFTs. That's not nothing. (There's a lot of nuance here about art assets, IP rights, user interface, etc., and it's messy and still very much being figured out, but that's how the world works—you build it, then you improve it!)

5. Value capture. Yes, this almost always has evolved into speculation and nonsense valuations and irrational behavior. But still: when you buy a Kitty, you have the right to sell that Kitty. When you breed a new Kitty, you have the right to sell that Kitty. This is enabled by blockchain almost for free! Note this is distinct and different from point 1. WoW has a marketplace, but when you earn a legendary BoP sword, you cannot then capture that value by selling it if that's what you want to do. This point is as often riddled with downsides as it brings upsides, but the unique and novel truth of it makes it better than a non-blockchain game for some people.

Again, this comes from years of being in the space, playing with these toys, building these systems, being a part of these communities. For some of us, this has been incredibly exciting, and fun, because we chose to explore and figure out for ourselves what upsides this new frontier might hold for us.

(self plug) I'm also working on an NFT parody game https://apps.apple.com/us/app/id1609874752 - it's a simulated trading & collecting market for emojis.

I'm always confused why people call cryptokitties a game, there's barely anything to play with. Maybe using blockchain makes it a lot harder to implement actual game features, or maybe it just corrupts your incentives lol.

Books have nothing in common with gambling except for the books about gambling.

Setting the scene: Before there were Banks, Mayors, Kings, or Mob bosses. Some random town or village. The wealthiest farming family has bought/fought (an exchange of a different type of resource) for most of the land in the town. That family has started to employ people on their land to build more wealth. This family doesn't know what to do with their wealth. They own all of the gold and jewels the traveling sales people bring by. They have built a castle and store treasures in their vault. They hire a militia to keep the peace. They have more money coming in than they know what to do with. Even the people in the town are happy. They now have a big wall paid for by this family. The family's militia is no fun, but it really has kept the peace. Trade is going well, and the towns folk haven't had gone a winter hungry in years.

Scene 1: One day a traveling artist brings canvas with chalk based drawing. A young adult from the wealthy family, called X, have seen similar, but this one is big. Its bigger than ever and connects with them emotionally. They want it. Sadly its already been sold. The artist offers to get a second made and bring it next month. However, X has connected with it emotionally. They connect with it so much they don't just want it, they want no one else to have it. They offer the artist more money than the artist's lifetime earnings to never again make chalk on canvas again. The canvas is hung up.

Scene 2: Everyone else in the town laughs/grumbles, "they spent 10 lifetimes of our earnings on a big canvas of chalk?". "No so that the artist would never make another". "... but the artist doesn't even live here. Couldn't they just make another?"

Scene 3: 3 years later, the canvas is a big deal in town. To some, laughable. To others, luring. Many more artists brought over canvas of chalk and many wealthyish families bought them for more reasonable amounts, but the wealthy family didn't just have any old canvas of chalk, theirs was a "..." no other could be made. The others are bought and sold, but their canvas is priceless.

Scene 4 - Alt A: Its the middle of the night. A band of thieves, orphans barely in their teens, an adultish figure keeps them in order and has directed them into the castle. The jewels and gold are in the vault, its very guarded but the children don't turn right towards the basement. Everyone that has tried for the vault has been hung in the town square. They move quietly to the great room. Their orders are clear. They pull down the canvas, open the frame, roll up the canvas, and are out. (in the morning) The town bells ring. The streets are a mess of militia. The thieves are already miles away and meeting their fence.

Scene 4 - Alt B: There has been a multi year famine in town. The town is upset, angry with the family. The solution is to go to war! They do battle with the neighboring city. They just happen to win. The cost was many lives but now they have enough reserves to get through many winters. This doesn't solve the actual root cause and the fields still don't make food. The resources continue to deplete and the canvas of chalk was sold at a massive loss to some close enough but far away town's wealthy family. Mostly as a reminder / teaching tool for their children not to "waste" money like X. "It drives a town to famine".

Both versions of this story have happened through human history. They just predate documentation. Meanwhile, Art today can still be worth a lot of money.