Property Rights = Novel Self-Actualisation

Following Part 3, this section will cover why property rights will enhance avatar and tribal attachment, the fulfilment of quests and novel collaboration.

This essay has been adapted from a more extensive series on why the open metaverse is inevitable, essential, and closer than you might think.

“Virtual worlds are a quest for identity. By being someone virtual, you find out who you are in reality. It’s this that makes virtual worlds fun, it’s this that makes them compelling, and it’s this that designers must understand.” — Richard Bartle.

Property rights = novel forms of self-expression and development?

Virtual worlds are a quest for self-actualisation (or fulfilment). In traditional digital spaces, this has been extensively explored; in the metaverse, much less.

In the metaverse, through quests and avatars, fulfilment is more in reach: competence with the right balance of challenge, relatedness where team play and social interaction are prevalent, and autonomy where there are boundless opportunities to effect change.

But the novel repercussions of using crypto to add property rights, interoperability, and persistence to these quests and avatars in the metaverse are unknown — but let’s have a guess…

Property Rights <> Avatars:

How can property rights increase self-actualisation?

Previously, true ownership of avatars and, subsequently, the extension of selves has been impossible. Now, things can get a bit more real through various property rights-infused (open metaverse native) psychological phenomena:

1. Endowment Effect: People ascribe more value to things because they own them = more attachment.
2. IKEA Effect: People ascribe more value to things they have spent effort acquiring and customising (when labour leads to love) = more attachment.
3. Self Extensions: When objects are owned, they become included in the boundary of the self = more attachment.
4. Loss Aversion: Pain>Pleasure regarding losing vs. acquiring assets — once ownership is achieved, we value the item more because we fear its loss = more attachment.
5. Control: Previously discussed effects of SDT come into play; ownership = autonomy because it entails control, and the more control you have = the more attachment.

Whilst different ways of approaching a relatively similar concept (ownership = more attachment = more avatar embodiment), they are interconnected and synergistically reinforcing. The more these effects are integrated into experiences (e.g., customisability for IKEA), the more powerful they will be.

This newfound attachment and embodiment can enhance various identity avenues previously limited by a lack of ownership, i.e., make avatars more real.

1. Identity Exploration: allowing people to engage in self-reconstruction through a wide range of characteristics that were previously immutable. Resulting in positive/negative feedback loops for in-world experiences (e.g., sense of attractiveness increasing efficacy) and enhanced social (in)validation in social spaces.
2. Sense of Immersion: instrumentally valuable for affirmation of virtual identity. Assists transition of avatars from representative (a puppet of self in a virtual space) → representation (a projection of self in a virtual space) → them (self in a virtual space).
3. Enhanced Blurred Reality (real<>virtual): the lines between virtual and actual selves become increasingly faint (i.e., where does Leeroy Jenkins end and Ben Shulz begin = increased apperception). Related to The Proteus Effect, when one experiences true ownership, their exploration is more likely to be fed back into their real-world self.

Pixelated Tribalism (PFPs):

How does this change in a group setting?

OG Theriantropes

While some avatars exist simply as representations of the individual, people like to form identities based on group membership as a critical part of SDT: relatedness. Certain avatar collectives leverage network effects and crypto rails to create tribally unified brands that uniquely affect identity exploration. Such collectives have formed sets of ready-made identities, many using minor entropy to leave room for a degree of individuality under the same tribal umbrella.

The concepts of property rights strengthening various forms of attachment (I am my avatar, and my avatar is valuable, so I am valuable) can be mutually reinforced through normative social influence (or herd mentality) whereby collectivism > individualism:

• Endowment → contagious ingroup perceived subjective value.
• IKEA → contagious ingroup perceived value from mutual creation.
• Self-Extension → contagious ingroup identification.
• Loss Aversion → collective loss > individual loss or potential ostracism from ingroup.

However, property rights and subsequent price discovery can also affect a sense of attachment where perceived value mirrors reflexive floor prices; unsurprisingly, associating bag worth with self-worth is risky.

Speculation (deciding where to attach) on which tribes will be valuable to join in the future by ingroup status and cultural capital or expectations of a form of shared revenue, but as already seen, near-term results can be underwhelming (wen fee switch on). The former likely proves more sustainable, although squad wealth can be sustainable and non-extractive.

The most successful tribes will likely be more universally attachable across various, but not all, virtual settings (medium agonistic). Increasing the surface area for mining social capital as well as offering some form of relatively perpetual unique tribe identity, regardless of project-specific economic success (although the former will likely lead to the latter).

Questing for Fulfilment:

Why do people enjoy virtual worlds? Because they are fun, for sure. But fun is the hedonistic pejorative that denotes unimportance, still worthy, but there is much more. People also enjoy them for the slightly more eudaimonic fulfilment, to scratch a motivational desire they cannot elsewhere and to pursue self-discovery. Virtual worlds uniquely provide Campbell’s hero’s journey (or monomyth) for a renewed sense of self (or katabatic search for meaning). More simply, these journeys are a search for self-actualisation (to find the real you).

But in terms of ye old quests, not all those who enjoy role-playing do so similarly.

The updated player types model (Bartle, 2003) shows the different types of characters in virtual environments (mainly RPGs). Furthermore, these characters often follow relatively predictable development sequences whilst the change in behaviour is called drifting. The most common, the Main Sequence (below), is as follows: killing → exploring and learning → trying to win → settling down to socialise.

Players drift along to the conclusion of their literal journey; they must fragment to be made whole, passing through levels of immersion from unimmersed to avatar to character to persona (avatar<>human).

In the open metaverse, with the new attachment-infused avatars described above, fulfilment through quests will be even more significant than in traditional virtual worlds and more than in certain aspects of meatspace.

However, there are interconnected design choices in which these quests may be slightly altered: persistence, collaboration, and interoperability.

Persistent Worlds, Eternal Quests & Competence:

How to keep players locked into a virtual world is well-researched. This atonement is not always forthcoming in more commercial instances due to misaligned incentives (increased MAUs and revenue) to attempt to keep players in the game. Players still leave, just less fulfilled than they otherwise could be (meaning they are ultimately less likely to return).

With alternative models such as eternal or autonomous worlds, there are many angles to the quest for fulfilment; one aspect concerns duration. How to keep players engaged over a very long period, especially now with reduced barriers to exit in the open metaverse.

Regarding competence, as mentioned, feedback and progression are crucial to player development, but not infinitely so; optimal game design doesn’t make a game increasingly tricky over time to the point where it is impossible. This negates the feeling of mastery.

Opportunities for action (SDT) are known to increase autonomy by increasing aspects such as avatar customisation and ranges of quests, UGC (and narratives), AI NPCs, trade, co-creation and collaboration. But it remains how to avoid players feeling trapped in a state of perpetual frustration, not borne from an artificial inability to leave, but of an innate inability to complete the experience; the constant wanderer trapped without an end.

These barriers to fulfilment are compounded by an inability to realise intangible progression (or recognition from the father). The ultimate reconciler may be a connection to a composable economic or social substrate.

Some games will never be complete, but degrees of completion will be awarded through tokens or assets (composability being the critical difference to prior in-game currencies or POGW tokens) that players can transfer into a new journey or sell to retire their time elsewhere, thus experiencing recognition. It is also likely that composable but cautious reputation systems may also serve a similar purpose of recognition, potentially diminishing the need for sellable tokens in some instances. In any case, there should be a cautious separation between financial and social capital.

As an aside, designers must be cautious to avoid 1) pay-to-win mechanics for fulfilment as buying atonement will feel cheap and undeserved (limiting self-actualisation), or 2) strictly play-to-earn mechanics as if extrinsic rewards become the primal motivator, intrinsic rewards (fulfilment) are minimised through the overjustification effect — i.e., if the game is over-engineered towards financial fulfilment it won’t work. It is worth noting that financialisation isn’t binary; there are many different types, including financially minimised.

So, good experience > good tokens, but if done correctly, good experience + good tokens > good experience can lead to brighter planes of fulfilment.

But it is not all armchair philosophy. In contrast to traditional models, if you reduce the barriers to exit and allow players to actually win, they may stop playing the ‘levelled’ game aspect. But, as the new masters of two worlds, they will keep coming back (and paying) to explore the open world (as a conqueror might visit their old empire).

Collaborative Transcendence & Competence:

Same for tribal transcendence?

Revisiting some of the characteristics of the metaverse as having worldwide, consistent social interactions between users, resulting in a shared living experience at scale and as an uncapped global layer in various clusters (DAOs > guilds). In certain instances, actions from one user can create ongoing effects for others. In many cases, these worlds will be inherently more social and interactions more impactful than those before.

In such spaces, actions from many other individuals in the same boundary will have positive and negative repercussions for solo experience as there will be increasing levels of meaningful cooperative action; in the more positive form, novel forms of collective transcendence (or collective hero journeys) may appear and thus increase feelings of relatedness (sense of belonging and connection) and collaborative competence (opportunities to achieve shared goals).

These collective interactions already exist in more sandbox-type virtual experiences (e.g., Minecraft or Roblox). But the effects will likely be supercharged in more open virtual worlds plumbed by novel coordination and ownership networks (DAOs, economic hyperstructures, and on-chain bundling) where novel forms of transcendence can occur.

It is already understood that identity developments and the search for relatedness (SDT) can also occur collectively through experiences created by others in narrative collective-assimilation, where those who read about wizards become wizards, etc. and thus, as individuals become part of the broader narrative.

At a virtual world level, where, depending on how open or closed, users have property rights in the world, its characters, and a sense of autonomy over its development, assimilation may likely occur at this level with collective self-actualisation (or transcendence). Marking the transition from I transcend → I helped others to, or we, transcend (individual to collective hero) through shared responsibility of narratives, world development and overall experience.

Interoperability & Fragmentation:

wtf am I?

Interoperability, again, is multifaceted. The general notion is that there will be some form of continuity and connective tissue between all of our digital experiences (playful<>non) as, until now, many experiences, presence, and goods have remained siloed (to enable proprietary monetisation models).

In this context, it may sound like a term for the cross-world composability of unitary avatars and goods across various experiences. There are many different types, and whilst that may occur in more open-world instances, content portability is a technical challenge with various legal headaches and the simple fact that some forms of content should not exist universally for quality of experience reasons.

Whilst there is a mini-reversion against free-trade globalisation to domestic protectionism and a change in the old guard of geopolitical trade, there is still a solid wish to circumvent global world orders, initiatives and plans and create a fluid, interoperable and composable global pixel market.

As a general rule of thumb, more centralised worlds will operate with less interoperability (or composability) as they undermine network effects more than decentralised ones (bazaar-type model). This rule may be broken when related experiences are clustered with mutually beneficial federations and trade deals. At the bare minimum, base-level composability requires property rights and underlying economic substrates, meaning that time spent = ‘proof of work’ that can be sold and recycled elsewhere (liquidity ≈ interoperability).

We have already discussed immersion and avatars as they experiment with identity iteration and increased attachment (transition from unimmersed to persona). But interoperability is also related to immersion. The more seamless the integration of personas with other virtual and physical worlds and consequences (causal effects), the more people begin to experience flow (a sense of deep immersion that transcends time with minimal distractions) that continues to break the magic circle (a world apart).

TLDR: Metaverse ≠ physical life begins to look more like metaverse = physical life

In terms of the positives, these deep feelings of presence and immersion are traditionally conducive to fulfilling basic needs, especially autonomy and competence. With this new form of interoperability or flow, even more so.

If you would like to read more about property rights = heaven and immortality, please carry on here.

If you got this far, you might be thinking: I don’t wanna exist in no goddam closed metaverse with neverending quests, stifled experimentation and intermediated cooperation; I want cryptographically ensured self-actualisation and fulfilment in an open metaverse… I would agree.

Thanks for reading, and if you have enjoyed yourself so much that you want to read more on any of these topics, please feel free to hit the long-form.