How 8 Circuit Studios Hopes to Influence the Blockchain and Video Game Industries
Why Games Matter
The most successful video games combine the important aspects of quality literature and film (compelling story, well-developed characters, immersion) with a key new element: Choice — an ability to influence the story’s development.
Many of my fondest childhood and adolescent memories involve playing games: Age of Empires 2, Ocarina of Time, Final Fantasy 7, The Elder Scrolls: Morrowind, Mass Effect. Epic adventures and massive worlds stretched my imagination, expanded my vocabulary, gave me history lessons, and inspired me to think about the future.
Some of the world’s most successful entrepreneurs and innovators continue gaming into adulthood.
The gaming industry has enormous influence on culture and technological progress. As we enter the age of augmented and virtual reality, this influence will continue growing as our gaming experiences shape our neural wiring with increasing intensity.
Why Blockchains Matter
This post’s primary target is people already convinced of the potential for blockchains to improve our society. For those who aren’t, I’d recommend reviewing writings from some of the industry’s thought leaders.
Blockchains…
“Are a new invention that allows meritorious participants in an open network to govern without a ruler and without money. They are merit-based, tamper-proof, open, voting systems.” — Naval Ravikant: AngelList CEO
“[Are] connected computers reaching agreements over shared data” — Coin Center: Non-profit research and advocacy center
“Sacrifice computational efficiency and scalability — consume more cheap computational resources — in order to reduce and better leverage the great expense in human resources needed to maintain the relationships between strangers involved in modern institutions such as markets, large firms, and governments.” — Nick Szabo: Lawyer, Computer Scientist, Cryptocurrency Master
“Provide an infrastructure for other emergent trends like; IoT, 3D Printing, Autonomous Robotics (drones) to scale securely.” — Outlier Ventures
Are an example of “Software applications as complex adaptive systems” — Ryan Shea, BlockStack Co-Founder
The 8 Circuit Studios Mission
The 8 Circuit Studios development team has over 100 years combined experience working on video games. Team members’ resumes include time spent at Electronic Arts, Bungie, and work on well-known titles including Super Mario World, Age of Empires 2, Madden, Battlefield, Halo 5, Mass Effect, SOCOM, and F.E.A.R.
The team views this as the perfect time to launch an experiment that will test a few hypotheses:
- Our holocracy-inspired development process will lead to rapid production of quality games. Documenting and sharing this method will provide utility for other teams that want to build blockchain-based games.
- Blockchains are ideal tools for building a distribution/collaboration platform where game developers will thrive creatively and financially, and gamers will have an increased ability to participate in the development process.
- Blockchain enabled digital sovereignty, the ability for players to maintain control over crypto-assets earned or created in-game, will lead to enhanced experiences for gamers.
The team has bootstrapped towards an Alpha version of a launch title, D-PARC, scheduled for release in August. D-PARC is an FTL inspired roguelike space ship management game with FPS elements. The game is designed with blockchain enthusiasts in mind, but will remain accessible and educational for mainstream gamers. Significant portions of game code will be open-sourced.
The first D-PARC teaser trailer and a couple of short videos giving a glimpse into the game’s development process are featured below.
The Token Sale
Why do a token sale?
- Cryptocurrency enables new types of game functionality. Player owned assets that can be freely traded on marketplaces, and player owned “virtual land.” D-PARC will include blockchain-based in-game assets.
- The lack of standards and best practices combined with a lack of regulatory clarity has led to a “Wild West” like atmosphere for token sales. The team is putting a lot of effort into conducting a secure, fair, and ethical sale so that we can be added to the list of projects that have used this new crowdfunding mechanism to foster genuine innovation.
- D-PARC is targeting a niche primary audience: blockchain/sci-fi/gaming enthusiasts. The best way to find and connect with people interested in crowdfunding the game’s development and building an open community around the team’s vision is through a token sale. Tokens will enable all sorts of interesting future functionality such as allowing the community to vote on game development decisions.
There hasn’t been much drama surrounding token sales for high-profile blockchain-based gaming projects. Spells of Genesis, Augmentors, and Beyond the Void, have had successful sales and delivered working betas. Decentraland has made incredible progress without raising outside funds and will be conducting a token sale in August. The team is eager to learn from their experiences and hopes to collaborate with these trailblazers in the future.
Conclusion
I’ve observed the struggles facing ambitious gaming projects that rely on crowdfunding and include the community in the development process.
I backed Star Citizen ($152 Million raised so far through crowdfunding) in 2013, and their current Alpha is one of the best video games I’ve played in years. It offers one of the highest quality space combat simulation experiences currently available, even in its early form.
However, it’s also a great example of how quality game development and successful integration of the community in the development process can be overshadowed by mediocre management of community expectations, and a failure to communicate vision/accomplishments to non-enthusiasts. There’s a lot to be learned from their experiences for studios, like ours, that plan to collaborate with the community during game development. The long-term success of 8 Circuit Studios depends on us being responsive to community concerns.
While the team has plenty of experience developing games we, like everyone else, are newcomers to the world of blockchain-based game development. We have much to learn and are looking forward to creating new ecosystems and models that create value for both our users and developers.
For more information on the project and team, see the team’s website, and posts from the founder and business development lead.
