Permissionless Innovation on Ethereum
We’re really proud of the community of players, artists and developers that has grown around and KittyHats. We want to see the ecosystem around CryptoKitties ascend to new heights and use it to create a measurable positive impact in our world. In order to do this and to create the next generation of experiences for players, we must begin a conversation around what the future of decentralized games looks like. To create truly immersive worlds we have to build a strong foundation for blockchain gaming projects that fosters a culture of innovation, sharing and social good. We believe in the importance of permissionless innovation when it comes to blockchain products and that it must be “articulated and defended as the policy default” when it comes to games built on Ethereum.
The Beginning
It was my last day at Zynga; after two amazing years making games I was handing in my badge and moving back to Pittsburgh. I was sad to go because I worked with a phenomenal team and was shifting largely for reasons other than my work. I decided to embrace the change and try something new. As I got in the last Lyft ride home from the office I resolved to spend the next month learning about blockchain technology. I also wanted to somehow utilize my skills as a game maker to create a positive social impact. I joined a few Ethereum groups on discord to see what was what. But where to start in this vast, uncertain sea of “blockchain”?
Well, games of course. A friend from work had introduced me CryptoKitties, the cool new blockchain game. I was skeptical at first but as I learnt more about how the game worked, I became hooked. The design, fiction and art were the ideal lure to attract “the first billion users to the blockchain”. Moreover, the exquisitely designed system of contracts, APIs and client code set the benchmark for what a productized non-fungible token (NFT) should look like.
As I played a simple thought crossed my mind. Why can’t these cats have clothes? Or fight each other? Or get hungry and eat food? How would those game features work in this new decentralized paradigm? After a few sleepless nights of learning Solidity and analyzing KittyCore and related contracts, I was convinced that while all of the above were possible the simplest most interesting option was dressing up these adorable kittens.
I would hang out in the #cryptomarkets discord to discuss my ideas with other Ethereum developers. It was here that I met Dan and Jordan. From the moment I mentioned dressing up CryptoKitties in chat the three of us were on the same page. We realized we were working on the same project independently and decided to join forces. On January 19th we launched KittyHats Chrome Extension to the public after two weeks of furious development and several sleepless nights.
A new model
From conception to launch of KittyHats, we never had to talk to CryptoKitties team directly or ask them for permission to access their systems or data — everything we needed was already on the Ethereum blockchain or a public API. With this advantage, we were able to make a feature for a game that was owned and operated by a completely different entity and generate a significant revenue stream for ourselves. More importantly, we were able to create a connected but independent framework under which others could sell and profit from their art— something that would have been practically impossible for a traditional web game for a variety of technical and legal reasons.
We were confident that we had made a product in the truest spirit of the game but this was still uncharted territory. The fear of being found in violation of copyright law by CryptoKitties was still always somewhere in the back of our minds. Regardless, we pushed on and tried to distill the idea of permissionless innovation in the context of blockchain games by declaring in our white paper that:
“We’re jumping in to create the features we want and we hope that crypto enthusiasts and game makers everywhere will join us in building the CryptoKitties experience we want to see.”
We also realized something else — that anyone else could do what we had done and would eventually be able to make a functional clone of our system. This worried us initially but we ultimately decided to embrace this aspect of the decentralized web. After all, a little Darwin never killed anyone. We pushed the button and the site was up. Before we knew it, a small team of artistically gifted CK players had banded together and were hard at work, creating art for our next releases. Though we had planned for community artists from the start, none of us had expected the tremendous turnout or exceptional talent and dedication shown in our #artwork channel. And it wasn’t just artists; Jeff, one of our MVPs, took on the role of Community Manager and organically developed a unique and engaged audience of players and artists. Slowly but surely, things were picking up steam.
Some weeks later, my colleagues attended the Rare Digital Arts Festival in New York. As new entrants into the crypto collectibles space, we decided that it would be helpful to learn from the community and get their feedback on what we had made. The response was overwhelming. We not only raised thousands of dollars in Pepecash for the ASPCA and Ethereum foundation but also walked out with the kernel of an exciting new collaboration; after meeting Bea, Dan and Judy from Dada.nyc, we wanted to work together to create an exciting new way for for KittyHats players and Dada fans to express themselves and show off their crypto collectibles. Three weeks later, we released the KittyHat — Dada.nyc collaboration and enabled CryptoKitties to become the first digital collectible that was able to posses it’s own collection of crypto art.
Soon the folks at CryptoKitties took notice and reached out to us. All my fear, uncertainty and doubt around the possibility of copyright infringement was put to rest by Mack, who wished us nothing but the best and only asked us how his team could enable ours to keep doing our thing. Our artists and developers began talking, imagineering the endless possibilities for these fantastic digital felines. Alan, our Lead Artist, joined the CryptoKitties core team and become a critical link between the two projects. With CryptoKitties community members Bella and Brian leading the way, we worked with the team at CK to kickstart the Kitties4aCause campaign to raise money and awareness for the Seattle Children’s General Hospital. To date, the campaign has raised 21 ETH (~$14,000) by auctioning a limited run of kitties for the hospital. We are humbled and truly grateful to have been part of this effort. We are proud to be part of a community where young people are able to create such a serious positive impact. And we think this community is just getting started.
Why we care about permissionless innovation
So what is this vague and ambiguous term and why should we care? American compilers pioneer Grace M Hopper famously said “it is easier to ask for forgiveness that get permission.” In governance, the permissionless innovation principle is the notion that individuals and businesses are generally free to innovate without having their freedom to experiment restricted by the government or competitors. Conversely, the precautionary principle posits that “new innovations should be curtailed or disallowed until their developers can prove that they will not cause any harm to individuals, groups, specific entities, cultural norms, or various existing laws, norms, or traditions.” In both cases, the fundamental question boils down to whether it is the innovator or society that should bear the burden of proof when innovation takes place.
While there are certainly arguments for applying the precautionary principle on many fronts, when it comes to the Internet and communications technology history has shown us that enabling permissionless innovation is critical to fostering a culture of growth within societies and allowing them to advance rapidly. But what makes a good foundation for this type of innovation?
TCP/IP + DNS A.K.A “The Internet” and Linux are some of the core foundational technologies on which modern platforms like Facebook, Uber and Ethereum could be built upon. In a sense, it was the these first digital playgrounds for permissionless innovation that allowed the Internet age to flourish. To understand what makes a good foundation for permissionless innovation, we must first look to find commonalities between past successes.
- A strong, valuable mission that makers can get behind - The success of each each of these innovations has been fueled by more than a just a monetary incentive. Each project was intentionally organized to protect social goals other than just profit. With the ARPANET, it was the creation of robust infrastructure for the common defense. With Linux, there was a need to provide a free, secure and widely used OS kernel and end the fragmentation of the Unix ecosystem.
- Community — I simply cannot stress this enough. If there is one thing that matters most, it is ensuring that your community members voices are being heard and internalized into product. Listen to your users, do what they ask of you and they will love you for it. Allow them to build for you instead of trying to do everything yourself. Offer bounty programs to find and fix bugs quickly.
- Building strong standards as the foundation for communication. A spoken language is a standard. Computer languages are also standards. The Ethereum Protocol is a standard. All good standards need an active community of utilizers and maintainers who are using the standard to do useful work and and developing it to adapt to current and future needs. To do this a good standard must be well documented and the community must be able to communicate and collaborate effectively.
- Suitable business / regulatory environment. Less regulation is better than more. Permissive, fair and well defined regulatory environments that incentivize more innovation are best. The CryptoKitties team has been spearheading this effort by allowing widely permissive fair use of their IP and technology by their user and developer community.
How do we take these ideas and translate them into concrete strategies to create more valuable collectibles and user experiences? We believe these are good guiding principles to keep in mind when developing your product. While this list is far from complete, we believe it a good start to building successful collaborations on Ethereum
- Create design, documentation, tools that enable users to do useful work and developers to build interesting things on top of your project. Allow others to use your APIs to create new interactions for your players.
- Be open to collaboration with others to leverage network effects. While imitation is the a great form of flattery, it is unlikely to bring you much success. Prevent fragmentation by trying to “clone and beat” competitors. Innovate and provably raise the bar.
- Foster a culture of communication and interconnectedness to drive the evolution of your product by it’s own users: this could mean hiring your users, creating ways for content creators to hook into your product, open sourcing your software or licensing IP for appropriate, open use by developers, asset owners and the community at large. Avoid unnecessary protectionism and lower barriers to entry for makers on your platform.
- Aggregate user communities and communication when possible. Use cross promotion to drive valuable use cases. The K4C campaign and the KH<>Dada feature are good examples of how bringing communities together can benefit everyone involved.
- Have a well defined mission that resonates with your community. CryptoKitties stated goal is to bring the first billion users to the blockchain. At KittyHats we want to push the boundaries of NFT possessions and build a platform where artists and players can express themselves through their crypto collectibles. A strong mission that can be a rallying cry for your team and community is critical to long term success.
- Create incentives for others to build on your product— This includes creating opportunities for others to learn and self employ. Needless to say, CryptoKitties was the necessary base on which KittyHats could be built. In turn, KittyHats enabled artists to profit from their art.
- Understand your unique design and product strategy. Develop your fiction. Share it proudly with the world. Iterate and continuously improve it with feedback and by looking to your competitors. At KittyHats, we strive everyday to look and feel like a natural part of the KittyVerse and to make the experience as seamless as possible for our users. This meant placing players and artists at the very center of our design strategy. Growing our community of artists organically through a largely independent and collaborative process meant users to easily become content creators.
- Leverage standards and open source technologies wherever possible. Drive the creation of new ones when you see a commonly encountered problem arise. Support the research and development of shared technologies that benefit your community of users and developers. We’re excited to be working with the greater Etherum community to build meaningful integrations for our players. We’re also excited about the ERC-998 standard for Non Fungible Token Possessions.
So let's all work together see how far we can push this. Could a CryptoKitty eventually have a career? Or perhaps an estate in Decentraland? Could it have it’s children inherit it’s estate upon it’s ultimate death? How might it even die, exactly? And how does all this this tie back to enhance the experience for the a CryptoKitties player? Thanks to the magic of the Internet, Ethereum and CryptoKitties, we can all begin to answer these mind bending yet entertaining questions by creating value chains where crypto-economic incentives become entertainment and entertainment is ultimately transformed into social good. The time is meow!
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