The Future of Gaming: DAOs, Politics, and High-Stakes Decision Making

The world of gaming is changing, its evolution occurring at dizzying speed and on multiple fronts. While past improvements were limited to richer graphics or longer gameplay, the growing sophistication of modern gaming technology has turned a pleasant pastime into a many-tentacled experiential whirlwind. One characterized by immersive metaverses, cutting-edge wearables, powerful player guilds, decentralized councils and asset treasuries, inbuilt marketplaces, and high-paying tournaments. The question is, where do we go from here? 

Web3’s Growing Gaming Ecosystem

A cursory review of recent events in gaming illustrates the industry’s irresistible momentum. Sony released its long-anticipated VR2 headset, winning rave reviews for the thrilling experiences it unlocks. Microsoft and NVIDIA tied up a landmark 10-year partnership. And Hogwarts Legacy raked in $850 million after selling 12 million units in two weeks.

Not to be outdone, the web3 gaming ecosystem has fired up its own afterburners: on-chain gaming activity accounts for nearly half of tracked activity on blockchains and games and studios raised $156 million in January. Virtual worlds continue to be a hot topic, but it’s what happens inside such worlds that is really interesting: the politics and power plays, the land building and leasing, the competitions, the fall-outs, the governance, the glory.

A recent event in the DAO-led metaverse Alien Worlds illustrates just how many-layered web3 games can be. Available on Ethereum, BNB Chain and WAX, Alien Worlds is a composable ecosystem featuring multiple games and activities with more in development. At the core of the community are six planets whose treasuries are managed by DAOs – known as Syndicates. Long story short, a cadre of anonymous users managed to take over one Syndicate, access a portion of its treasury worth over $100,000, and make off with their ill-gotten gains. Fearful the thieves might brute-force another planet’s DAO, the game’s community rallied to thwart a second audacious heist. 

And then came the twist, revealed in a series of ‘proposals’ posted to the blockchain: the raiders were acting benevolently, to expose security vulnerabilities stemming from voter apathy. What’s more, they wished to announce the formation of a new Interplanetary Council to ‘promote cooperation and coordination between the different planets’ and ‘further the development and growth of the community.’

If you explained the above scenario to a Millennial gamer, whiling away the hours playing Metal Gear Solid or Tomb Raider in the late 1990s, they would look at you with an expression of profound stupefaction. Real-money heists perpetrated in a video game? Player councils scrambling into action to foil their efforts? Did I inadvertently drop acid? 

But this is where the hands have come to on the clock.

Game DAOs: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Although DAOs remain somewhat niche in gaming as a whole, more and more blockchain-based releases will come to favor this DAO-centric model, with new titles continually appearing on WAX, Ethereum, Solana, Polygon, and elsewhere. And it’s easy to see why given the diversity of empowering duties DAO members have, from managing asset treasuries and voting on development proposals to investing in NFTs, creating prototypes, and sponsoring talented players. DAOs are the perfect vehicle to drive the digital ownership movement because they are the only type of organization that can actually handle digital ownership. 

DAOs are far from perfect, though. In DeFi, as in gaming, they have fallen victim to theft – but their potential is extraordinary, and their evolution is community-driven. Gaming DAOs give players power, the sort historically wielded by a central authority like a developer. Think of it like a gaming union, where every player’s voice is heard.

In some ways, the Alien Worlds incident emphasizes what DAO-led gaming is all about – their potential to bring real change and mobilize a distributed community. Perhaps this is what all gaming will eventually look like, with players bringing their personalities and principles and politics to bear, and ingenious individuals conducting high-stakes war games that have far-reaching implications for the entire ecosystem.

Of course, games also need to be fun. No-one wants to see the industry become a soulless, corporatist habitat whose defining features are monopolized power and social hierarchies. The best games are likely to be those that combine fast-paced, visually appealing gameplay with community empowerment, giving every player the chance to become a power broker rather than a cog in the machine.

Might some game developers fear the growing power of DAOs and reject them in favor of the old web2 power paradigm? Undoubtedly. But this could well portend their doom, because players empowered to contribute ideas and invest in their favorite projects won’t want what they’re selling. In simple terms, players will gravitate towards DAOs because it is there that they have more influence.

We are entering a Brave New World for gaming, one whose hallmarks will be asset ownership, grassroots community initiatives, and people power. Such initiatives don’t just benefit the gaming ecosystem, either; they can have a major impact in the real world. A flurry of recent Alien Worlds community proposals, for example, sought to raise funds for disaster relief following the earthquake in Turkey. Expect to see more DAOs activating in this manner going forward.

Gaming has always been an industry powered by tech and propelled by ideas, but it seems likely those ideas will increasingly come from wellsprings within the games themselves. Will it be plain sailing? Hell no. It’ll be messy and political and fun and dangerous and exhilarating. Kind of like real life.

The ramifications of gaming DAO evolution are huge, particularly when they’re tasked with managing big treasuries. Ultimately, though, the transition towards DAO-centric games is a good thing – scary but exciting – as more power flows into the hands of those who make the industry tick: the players.

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