In the last couple decades I’ve played a lot of games (relatively speaking given that’s most of my life). I love a lot of game franchises, but despite having played the original StarCraft, DotA, Halo, Counter-Strike v1.6 etc. I don’t have much to show for it except memories and fractured (many lost) gamer profiles. Without modding abilities, I and most gamers were not able to contribute to these IPs, but merely consume content, at most being part of a community forum or subreddit. This was not through lack of trying, but lack of tools to do so and lack of relationship with the developer who is unable to meaningfully absorb feedback from said community, and even less able to efficiently incentivise it.
So if there is an army of marketers ready and waiting, why don’t IP owners tap into that evangelism?
Nowadays it is easier to create UGC, and some game economies depend on it. But even still it is difficult for most people to meaningfully contribute, and harder still to be rewarded for it fairly. And so those that receive upside are only a small minority who self-select for perceived abilities like story writing, concept art, or programming. And in these cases rewards are often simple cash bounties, or heavily taxed by the closed platforms within which creators have no choice but to build.
Enter StriderDAO, providing content modules (gamified, curated experiences) for everyone to contribute, regardless of ability, so that:
1. IP owners get input on:
– Storytelling
– Visual assets
– Game mechanics
– Other products like merchandise, comics, spin-offs etc.
2. Contributors get not just cash and tokens as per existing bounty systems, but also:
– Persistent reputation and status within their community
– Governance over the direction of both their favourite IP and Strider’s community of creatives
– Exclusive game assets or collectibles
– Ownership of the IP and future royalties
– The pride of their contribution becoming implemented as canon
This transforms communities from substantially passive consumers to extremely engaged hyper-evangelists, who have a sense of concrete ownership through direct feedback from their peers and the IP owner, thus creating a stronger and more loyal fanbase that will ultimately also pay dividends to the developer through reduced marketing costs and greater retention.
Not only do these individuals become more engaged with the first IP they contribute to, but they also form a broader Strider community of enthused creatives who socialise through collaboration and cross-pollinate between IPs.
In time, much like the open source developmental philosophy of The Cathedral and the Bazaar, by opening up to a horde of eager contributors, open source IP development can outcompete the hierarchical world of closed IP by:
- Tapping into a wider pool of ideas, augmented through collaboration and creative abrasion
- Lowering the barrier to entry for contributors, increasing diversity and inclusion
- Enabling faster development and lower costs, and becoming less reliant on a single central organisation
Fabric is a venture contributor: building, backing and accelerating the boldest ideas in Web3, to create a more open and fair economy. As a top European Web3 fund, Fabric focuses on being the “first institutional cheque” invested in companies, crypto assets and digital networks on a path to be global winners, identified primarily through its peerless pan-European footprint.
The Fabric team is made of founders and operators who have built companies to over $3 billion in value, and holds operational and investing experience from Google, PayPal, Sun Microsystems, Visa, Accel, eVentures, and EQT. Fabric Ventures’ portfolio includes Sorare, NEAR Protocol, Coinbase, Sky Mavis (the team behind Axie Infinity), Nansen, Consensys, Messari, Polkadot, Ledger, Ramp.network, YGG, Argent, 1inch, and The Graph. Historically the team also invested in Tagomi, Bitstamp, Bitcoin, Ethereum, Supermetrics, Thimble, Bitrise, Wagestream, Citymapper, Tray.io, Pusher, Modulr, Codat, Shazam, Raisin, PPRO, Tink, (Transfer)Wise, iZettle, and many more incredible teams.
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