Gamification is the Future
With the impending release of community nodes, what comes next?
It’s anyones guess but here’s a proposal that may help set the Lamden project apart from the rest.
Gamification
The idea is to build a self-sustaining ecosystem via gamification. In other words - interactions and contributions by users, developers, and community members will be recognized (via an achievement/badge) or rewarded (via a token or NFT).
This gamification will help create a continuous feedback loop of growth. Developers will earn for developing. Users will earn for using. And the community will earn for growing the community.
Developers
Lamden has a developer-centric, developer-first mantra. The goal has always been to empower developers with easy-to-use tools (ex. Python) so they can seamlessly deliver amazing dApps and experiences. After all, apps are what define a platform.
One way to gamify and encourage more development, is to create leaderboards that track developer contributions and accomplishments. For example, number of commits to track the most active developers, number of active dApp users to show who’s developing the most popular apps, total value locked in contracts to convey who’s attracting the most money, or bugs identified and bugs squashed to see who has the highest attention to detail.
These leaderboards should be supported by achievements or badges rewarded to developers who reach notable milestones. Achievements are a way to give developers notoriety and recognition for their hard work — which they can then use to fuel and support their future projects.
Users
Developers create handy tools and cool dApps for users. But why would a user try a dApp on Lamden when an equivalent dApp is already established on Ethereum? How can Lamden developers put a unique twist on traditional dApps?
Gamification is the answer.
Nebula had a neat idea by taking a traditional vault and gamifying it with “Battle Vaults” and “Survivor Vaults”. There’s an opportunity to expand that creativity to all kinds of traditional applications, for example, take a vanilla DeFi app or a basic DEX and add game-like features and modes to enhance it.
Alongside making traditional dApps more exciting, we also need good old fashioned games. Whether it’s simple games like Wordle, or epic games like Call of Duty, or play-to-earn games like Axie…we should encourage Lamden to become the home to as many genres and types of games as possible.
These games (and furthermore, all dApps) should be further supported by NFT achievements.
These would be NFTs triggered by certain actions within dApps, similar to trophies/achievements you might find when playing a video game. They’re a great way to incentivize and gamify interacting with and exploring the entire Lamden ecosystem. We want to encourage users to try as many dApps as possible!
Social Media / Marketing
Appealing to current users and developers is a start. But we also need to expand, grow the community, and welcome new developers and new users.
Lamden can be a hidden gem, but at some point, we need to step out into the spotlight and show the world what we’ve built.
We can achieve sustained growth by gamifying marketing and social media.
To start, we can gamify social media interactions to incentivize the community to become highly immersed in the latest news across Lamden social channels. More engagement then translates to increased usage and demand for current and future Lamden dApps.
This will help create a continuous feedback loop. Members are rewarded with tokens or NFTs for staying up-to-date on the latest Lamden news which naturally leads them to become more immersed, attached and engaged.
Community engagement is similarly supported by achievements. Achievements can be rewarded for creating marketing content, sharing content, and introducing new members. For example, community members should be rewarded for referring new developers and new users to Lamden. Sharing and advocating for the growth of Lamden is a community effort.
What’s Next?
Up to now, we’ve struggled with the “chicken or the egg came first scenario”. How can we attract more users without more apps and advertising? But how can we attract more developers without more users and social media buzz? And how do we afford building a community without a fully-fledged ecosystem of users and dApps?
Gamification is the answer that will help us retain current users/developers, incentivize users/developers to become more active, and attract new users/developers to Lamden.
This is a proposal to gamify interactions for developers, for users, and for the untapped community. There’s a lot of work to be done to reach this goal. But the end result will bring to fruition the highly connected community and ecosystem we’ve all been hoping for.
