Ownership, Exploration, and Persistence
Why property rights are essential for innovation and expression, novel self-discovery and attachment through avatars, tribes, tokens and reputation, enhanced experience (life) and persistence (death), and the difference between the cathedral (prescriptive and photorealistic) and the bazaar (emergent and homely) approaches to world-building in the metaverse.
This is part 3 in a series of essays about the metaverse, please go back to the enjoyment guide or the overall index to explore further.
Index:
LEVEL 1: RECRUIT
Ownership: why property rights?
The Evolution of Digital Ownership: wen property rights?
Ownership and Innovation: property rights = more innovation?
LEVEL 2: HARDENED
A Neo-Renaissance: what does a new creative revolution look like?
Virtual Worlds, Ownership and Proxy Autonomy: (1) is ownership the only important aspect? (2) who the captain now?
LEVEL 3: VETERAN
Emergent World-Building - Cathedral vs Bazaar: how to frame the two approaches?
Top-Down >< Bottom-Up City Design: does city design = metaverse design?
Cathedral <> Bazaar in Virtual World Design: does software design = metaverse design?
The Sparks that Breed Emergence: who the creative captain now?
How Much Direction: who the creative captain now? contd.
Basic Needs: more BPN in cathedral or bazaar?
Holidays or Hometowns: are we there to live or to experience?
Metaverse Graveyards: why so many empty worlds?
Headsets, Aesthetics and Happiness: is photorealism the highest order good?
Evolutions and Hybrids: who eventually wins the race (does there even need to be one)?
Identity Attachment, Exploration, & Persistence: property rights = novel forms of self-expression and development?
Property Rights <> Avatars: how can property rights assist self-actualisation?
Pixelated Tribalism (PFPs): does this change in a group setting?
Questing for Fulfilment: can property rights enhance the hero’s journey?
Persistent Worlds, Eternal Quests & Competence: do tokens and reputation assist actualisation?
Collaborative Transcendence & Competence: same for tribal transcendence?
Interoperability & Fragmentation: wtf am I?
Loss Aversion, Death & Persistence: property rights = heaven and immortality?
Ownership:
Much of these early sections were written as a primer for a more unfamiliar audience, so whilst it was helpful for me to rehash fundamentals, if you are already familiar with the value of digital property rights and their relationship with supercharging innovation, I recommend skipping on.
Why property rights?
From Ancient Greece to modern Western society, robust property rights have served as a barrier of protection from excessive control and an incentive for development. The importance of formal and robust property rights in developed societies and how they serve in unlocking ‘dead capital’ and protecting individuals is largely understood.
When you have a clear title to land (with reduced possibilities of arbitrary confiscation), you are incentivised to improve (and create more economic flows) or begin to borrow against it.
TLDR: Ownership = incentives = progress.
For investment, credit, innovation, reduced conflict, and resource allocation.
The Evolution of Ownership:
Wen property rights?
The complicated transition to individual land tenure required many hard-fought unlocks. Looking at the UK as it evolved from Manorialism (serfs dependent on their lords) → Feudalism (crown granted land in return for military service) → Magna Carta (crown limited to seize or tax land without due process) → Quia Emptores (ability to sell/alienate land without permission) → Statute of Wills (ability to adjudicate land inheritance without permission) → Inclosure Acts (privatisation of common land) → Law of Property Act (streamlining the ability buy and sell land)... and thats just good ol' earth. Many other notable laws were made to divide minerals, the sea, IP, and the list goes on. But this wasn't always obvious and isn't a universal global norm today.
“Imagine a country where nobody can identify who owns what, addresses cannot be verified, people cannot be made to pay their debts, resources cannot be conveniently turned into money, ownership cannot be divided into shares, descriptions of assets are not standardised and cannot be easily compared, and the rules that govern property vary from neighborhood to neighborhood or even from street to street.” Hernando De Soto
Other quaint countries have very limited traditions of private property (for the masses) that have had far from ideal implications on growth, the protection of individual rights (mega rekt), and subsequent cultural expression; some are now starting to change along the spectrum.
But no more so is a lack of ownership, standardisation and governance prevalent than in our digital experience. True ownership (the right to use, profit, control, transfer and exclude) of goods and presence has, until recently, been extremely limited.
Post the advent of digital scarcity (2008) for fungible assets, unique (non-fungible) assets needed to be accounted for. Enter NFTs (2014), then popularised later (2018), encapsulating complicated ideas of ownership into simple, standardised computing primitives. In certain instances, there are limitations to the extent of ownership conveyed (e.g., copyright). Still, at a bare minimum, they serve as unfalsifiable certificates of authenticity and, depending on the on-chainness of metadata, could encapsulate much more (e.g., NFTs + RWA = bidirectional property rights).
Like meatspace property rights, standards will evolve over time to deal with different asset types (e.g., metaverse commodities) and legacy contracts (IP). From 721 to 1155… the rest is unwritten. With a clear path to digital ownership, trust(lessness), and incentives (replacing violence) the unlock of value and rights protection begins to emerge.
Ownership and Innovation:
Property rights = more innovation?
Much has been written about the unique ability of internet-enabled economic systems to unlock value where it otherwise wouldn't have existed, creating money out of nowhere. But, as already mentioned, the extent of this has been curtailed in recent years.
Most entrepreneurial activity that used to occur directly on public web infrastructure (known and neutral rules of the road) has diminished and since migrated to centralised for-profit companies (walled gardens) offering more advanced services. Great in the interim, but the adverse effects on autonomy, civil liberties (discussed elsewhere) and, more specifically, economic progress leave a lot to be desired.
Much has also been written about why such centralised platforms transition to stifle innovation over time. As they grow, powerful network effects enable high pricing power and increased switching costs, facilitating excessive take rates. Over time, the platforms transition from positive-sum (attract and cooperate) to zero-sum (extract and compete). In short, serving as a rent-seeking (on the backend), limiting growth and serving as risky grounds for innovation that will only continue in more closed instances of the metaverse (<10 companies control nearly all digital economies).
Looking at the city whose network health relies on a delicate balance of incentives for inhabitants, investors, service providers and administrators. It needs infrastructure (roads, bridges, sewage, etc.) to enable innovation, invests in services (safety) and amenities (parks) to attract users (more on upstart cities later), and maintains (sometimes political party agnostic) governing rules and regulations (to keep the landscape consistent and more risk-free). If the balance is optimal, there are net inflows of users, and the positively reinforcing network effects grow as the city advances; if not, net outflows and barriers to exit (social or economic) dictate the timeline of decline.
Mature cities exist on a broad global spectrum of public, private and hybrid ownership and service provision (trending towards public-private over time). But if many cities were entirely privately owned, the rules of the road (inc. takerates) would be more malleable, making investing in communities bad r/r for an individual or a business. The same is true of digital platforms.
But the wide distribution of ownership and incentives in city networks means few entities can get away with drastically changing the rules of the road, stakeholders share skin in the game innovation effects, and take rates become set by the market (ish); long-term investment and innovation then follow. The same is true of digital platforms.
So, how to stop the exploitation of old network effects and first-mover advantages in the digital realm?
Many laws have specifically limited excessive take rates: clauses in the Magna Carta (1215), The Bill of Rights (1689), The Federalist Papers (1787), and the Sherman Antitrust Act (1890); perhaps a similar set of modern state-endorsed legislation is needed for the digital realm?
Due to the factors mentioned above, such as state and corporate assimilation and bidirectional jawboning, constant political upheaval, corporate media ownership, and globalisation making cross-border regulation difficult, as well as tech innovation constantly outpacing regulation, antitrust regs incompatibility with ‘free’ services, normal pen-pushing may struggle.
Alternatively, with significant innovations surrounding novel ownership primitives, new business models can be tested while old ones waver.
Cryptonetworks, acting as quasi-private/public goods providers (general purpose or application specific), provide a more neutral and robust design space (or computing platform) to enforce property rights and support innovation. Takerates are limited by decentralised governance (on and off-chain), open-source nature (forkable), distributed ownership (network effects can accrue to the community with novel incentives), lowered switching costs, and reduced barriers to exit. Furthermore, there will now be an opportunity to distinguish between orders of attention which are no longer fungible (ownership = superfans).
Instead, applications will provide access to the underlying network but won't control it; take rates can exist, but much closer to the free market rate.
But what happens to incumbents over time?
Some will still exist, and we'll get to that later. But a gradual transition from closed to open and enduring economies will require many existing business models to pursue alternatives, motivated by enlightened self-interest and the reassurance that Metcalfe's law and rising tides will prevail over a walled garden approach over time.
Competitive revenue can and will still be achieved through superior service (or experience) provision rather than anti-competitive practice at the expense of the consumer.
Various incumbents will struggle with sovereign digital ownership due to innovators' dilemmas and shareholder short-termism limitations; others may adapt. Transitioning years of ingrained extractive business models and top-down governance to creator-first and bottom-up will be very difficult and not one many will pursue initially.
RECRUIT → HARDENED
A Neo-Renaissance:
What does a new creative revolution look like?
Generally, there is a limit on culture without some form of property rights (some exceptions).
Much like the OG Renaissance, rebundling and leveraging new incentive structures to create agency-infused positive feedback loops for generative (positive-sum) innovation. Following the move from subsistence farmers → financiers, artists, and small business owners (early protocapitalism), Neo-Renaissance individuals can now re-engage across several domains: culture, economics, science and politics, assisted by the proliferation of AI (lowering barriers from imagination to creation) and incentivised by property rights.
“Beneath the cry of protest, much of
medievalmetaverse life was supportive because it was lived collectively in infinite numbers ofgroupsworlds,orderschains,associationsDAOs,brotherhoodscryptobro-therhoods. Never was man less alone.” - Barbara Tuchman
Again, they can do so alone or in clusters of individuals, combining and enhancing their freedom of expression around shared values as part of decentralised groups and movements (with the right to fork or exit if they wish to forgo a particular system and devise a better one). It is important to note that a sizeable portion of innovation will come from smaller groups of long-tail businesses that have yet to find a stable or viable grounding to create (neo-protocapitalism).
“To an increasing degree, individuals capable of creating significant economic value will be able to retain most of the value they create for themselves.” - Davidson & Rees-Mogg
If the first iteration of internet-enabled value creation (already incredibly significant) was a false fork without property rights (largely accrued to corporations, not communities), imagine what will happen in a new era of internet-enabled value creation with property rights and incentive alignment.
A combination of incentive alignments around ownership, the implementation of unique, eternal and universally useable assets, a transition in permissionless, open-source collaboration and, in some cases, reduced IP restrictions (CC0), all built on interoperable and composable rails has already led to a hotbed of innovation; enabled by novel monetisation and coordination mechanisms.
So what, pixelated hyper-capitalism?
There are broadly two ways to look at value creation (see OG American Dream).
Work hardest, step on necks (static wealth), and get what's yours at the expense of your neighbour (zero-sum). Vocation < materialism and the neighbour < the self.
Don't be a burden; find what you enjoy, get good at it and generate value for yourself and your neighbour (positive-sum). Vocation > materialism and the neighbour > the self.
Property rights are helpful for positive (innovation) and negative (preventing overreach) liberties. It's less about stomping on necks and more about creating virtuous cycles for you and your neighbour; it's meaningful, fun, and profitable.
But free markets usually cause emotive reactions (why have 'they' got all the money) from many. Thus far, equality of opportunity > coercive redistribution as a solution (harder to maintain on scale due to globalisation leading to tax arbitrage and reduced barriers to exit, e.g., French experiments with wealth tax). Fortunately, crypto is rooted in equality of opportunity and lowering barriers to entry; all you need is an internet connection and a little startup capital (gas ain't free).
This transition can be seen in many democratisations of access, e.g., investment:
IPO (restricted to well-capitalised entities or 'sophisticated' investors i.e., you are clever by virtue of having enough money to lose) → ICO (restrictions = internet access).
Whilst crypto is often demonised for (1) financialising everything with ponzis, and whilst that's true in several instances, there are many examples of the don't be a burden type:
Long-form Generative Art: fusion of chaos control and network effects. Example.
Generative Audiovisual: symbiotic fusion of sound and visual chaos control. Example.
Collaborative Audio: trustless incentive alignment of disparate musicians. Example.
Decentralised Science: trustless incentive alignment for healthcare R&D in underfunded areas. Example.
Decentralised Gaming: eternal and permissionless IP building block flywheels. Example.
Decentralised Finance: increasing the access, velocity, and composability of money. Example.
Open Education: globally accessible and verified on crypto rails. Example.
Decentralised Governance: trustless clusters of shared values for coordination experiments. Example.
Virtual Worlds, Ownership and Proxy Autonomy:
(1) Is ownership the most important? (2) who the new captain now?
Back to the city analogy, once a baselayer is in place, various worlds can be built on the foundations.
There are many different types: MMO-MMO[RPG/FPS/RTS], social worlds (less structured gameplay), Sandbox, and battle-royale (and this is just some of the ludic). These will vary on their needs, so the approach below is illustrative rather than comprehensive.
The level of integration with the baselayer protocol toolkit will dictate the extent of how open or closed it is.
Property Rights and Open Economy: at the platform (ERC-20s) or fractional level (ERC-721s). Incentive to innovate, belong and the right to benefit or exit through a composable economy.
Censorship: credibly neutral.
Codebase: ability to look under the hood, participate in the development and the right to fork and move on. The more open, the more persistent the system.
Storage & Compute: integrating decentralised storage and compute to minimise single points of failure and counterparty risk.
Virtual worlds will experience a similar spectrum as blockchain-based games. Today, almost all virtual worlds are centralised to some extent. Others utilise crypto rails solely for ownership of in-world items, land, and tokens. Relatively less centralised but still with central points of failure and counterparty risk (rendered elsewhere and subject to de-platforming, etc.), currently less of an issue but likely due to lack of inhabitants. Then, there are more experimental autonomous worlds which rely more heavily on crypto rails, increasing their openness and persistence. There can be subtleties, as shown below:
The old playbook of limited ownership as a barrier to departure is described below:
“You have to give players a sense of ownership in the game. This is what will make them stay–it is a “barrier to departure.” Social bonds are not enough, because good social bonds extend outside the game. Instead, it is context. If they can build their own buildings, build a character, own possessions, hold down a job, feel a sense of responsibility to something that cannot be removed from the game–then you have ownership.” - The Laws of Online World Design
Including (1) on-chain property rights and a connected economy is likely the minimal requirement for inclusion on the openness spectrum as, aside from take rate limitation, inhabitants can be compensated if they decide (or are forced) to exit certain worlds (liquidity = interoperability).
But isn't this just more pixelated hyper-capitalism?
There is a difference between perpetual ownership of in-game cosmetics and land (can be cool) and property rights as a conduit for various freedoms and rights. Ownership over labour, attention and time, and the ability to affect change (governance) and protection against manipulation and data capture also stem from property rights.
Won't people just constantly sell and leave?
A sense of context, belonging and responsibility are not removed but enhanced by true ownership (expanded on here); however, as the barrier to departure is lowered, spaces become less artificially sticky, and worlds compete on the quality of constant experience instead.
The ease of exit will challenge many pre-existing business models (monetisation of tension or time/value lockins) where people had nowhere else to go; eventually, change will be easier and constantly dictated by the competition to provide fulfilling environments.
Within these economies, there will be different balances of non-fungibles. As most digital goods tend to have near-zero marginal costs, much of the perceived value must be earned rather than designed. Using digital land as an example, many traditional valuation factors are challenged: a) location by teleportation, b) size, shape and topography by malleability, c) utilities and or environmental hazards by redundancy, etc. Furthermore, the economy must be more balanced to remove traditional wealth advantages ('pay to win' or 'own to extract') as unlike physical economies; people can easily exit (creator economy > free rider economy).
However, there is still room for some skeuomorphic tendencies, e.g., significant value in letting humans (social) / businesses (economies of scale) aggregate for relatedness or to help those whose raison d'etre isn't (initially) powerful enough to reach escape velocity.
When combined with other attractive factors (and city comps):
(2) Credibly neutral base layer = political stability and or nation-state power in risk analysis.
(3) Open source codebase + open web standards = permissive zoning and planning laws.
(4) Decentralised compute, storage and self-hosted servers = utilities (much harder to achieve for sufficient bandwidth).
NB: perhaps all utilities will be decentralised, or there may be a hybrid of competing federated service providers.
Adding ownership of the world itself (aligned incentives for shared and increased network effects) reduces single points of failure and counterparty risk and increases the openness of the world in question and its subsequent persistence, antifragility and interoperability.
In terms of wider risks, such as assimilation with traditional law enforcement, a transition from less jawboning and wide-net censorship to a more direct and targeted enforcement (the person gets arrested, not the protocol).
But it’s not all roses; more decentralised worlds have latency, UX, and coordination trade-offs (but solutions are slowly arising through scaling improvements, account abstraction, and DAO evolution).
But who’s actually in charge?
Well, everyone and no one. A commitment to governance minimised baselayers and a lack of need for physical public good provision will reduce the scope of decision-making required. Realistically, most will stop here, but for the extra committed, ample room remains for (5) virtual world native governance (importantly separate from the baselayer).
As for what to decide, the list is endless. The shape of the governance itself, moderation, privacy, dispute resolution, economic policy, resource allocation, parameters for UGC, growth initiatives, etc.
“The opinion of 10,000 men is of no value if none of them know anything about the subject.” - Marcus Aurelias
Against all criticism and a new breed of hobgoblins to leverage fear for traditional compliance, self-governed worlds, to different extents, attempt to put themselves outside the purview of the rule of law in favour of the Lex Cryptographia.
“A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions.” - James Madison.
Although many envision the strict use of widespread direct and purely liquid democracies, we will likely see a merge with traditional meatspace playbooks (corporate and public) and maybe a digital improvement thereon over time. For example, a division of powers between stakeholders, elected officials and formalised laws will likely prove more effective than 1 coin 1 vote. Although inclusion to the electorate will likely be restricted to those with some ownership rights, many options exist to combat plutocracy.
“[...] authority in a state must always be divided; and that of the three known forms of government—monarchy, aristocracy and people—the best is a mixture of all three, for each one taken on its own can lead to disaster: kings can be capricious, aristocrats self-interested, and “an unbridled multitude enjoying unwonted power more terrifying than a conflagration or a raging sea.” - Robert Harris X Cicero
Many are disenchanted with the state of meatspace politics; they have a choice, but the big one is limited (one-size-fits-many) and restricted to 4-year cycles. Although things might have been slightly more granular (or representative) had this old bill ever passed. The fact remains there are still several ways to get involved with forms of local governance, but those who are disenchanted lack the time (or maybe even the actual desire) to exercise. Still, in an ideal world, truer coordination (more representation of separate wishes in the same system) could be more true; in the digital world, this might be possible.
But sovereignty can be a burden - we do not (all) have the time or skillset to govern every aspect of our digital lives. As such, similar to traditional representative democracies, constituent apathy and capacity will also favour delegation. Likely specialised in more significant worlds: devs for security, economists for budget, smart-contract lawyers to negotiate the rules of the road, ethicists for codes of conduct, judicial systems for grey area breaches, etc., but all elected with different incentives and likely shorter terms of office than their physical counterparts (how human they will be is another question). Dissimilar to traditional politics, most options for intention bending will be governance minimised by the neutral baselayer. For the remainder, representation may be even more direct, and delegation will likely be even more important.
In terms of the balance finding a balance, proxy representation (or proxy agency) is not necessarily always dilutive to autonomy. If the intentions of the delegate continually and more directly mirror those of the delegator, people still retain a sense of autonomy, enhanced by the granularity that they can withdraw their proxy if things go south. But it's a fine line. Delegate too much, and plebs get rekt (see Caligula vs. the Senate). Or they may accomplish expansive things less encumbered by red tape (see Augustus vs. the Senate). But delegate too little without a sufficient mandate, and they can't accomplish anything, and plebs still get rekt (see Senate vs. Domitian).
But shades of decentralised virtual world governance have been tried and failed outside Lex Cryptographia. The LoL Tribunal tended to marginalise individuals with false positives, and various community managers have been underpaid and abused. Similarly, centralised management may use decentralised governance, e.g., player-run councils in centrally owned worlds.
Time will tell on the best system, as decentralised metaverse governance is more of a blank canvas for exploration than a prescriptive solution. But it's important to emphasise the scope of governance experimentation that will be speedrun in these systems over the coming years.
The lowered switching costs entailed by ownership allow the market to decide efficacy, (relatively) transparent DAOs and related tooling are getting better, native tokens can provide incentives for CMs, decentralised reputation primitives will be a big unlock, and the ragequit-and-fork is the ultimate failsafe. In the meantime, many teething errors may cause many legacy brands to think twice before establishing a presence in more decentralised worlds in preference to more centralised and state-assimilated options.
HARDENED → VETERAN
Emergent World-Building: Cathedral vs Bazaar
How to frame the two approaches?
Great cities weren't built in a day, and neither will buzzing virtual environments (but it will be a LOT faster). Before we return to the metaverse, let's dwell on the words of some old meatspace world planners.
Top-Down >< Bottom-Up City Design:
Does city design = metaverse design?
Many theories suggest the best way to design cities and manage their evolution from informal collectives to fully-fledged hubs. Starting with the relative extremes.
There are shades of top-down (see Athens Charter), favouring extensive planning, cleanliness, and maximum efficiency (chaos averse), whilst not explicit on governance, the general design complements centralised law and order. Then there are shades of bottom-up (see Jane Jacobs), preferring organic (ooh), messy (ahh), and community-driven approaches (chaos conducive) - favouring a more decentralised "eyes-on-the-street” approach to governance. But both had issues; one was overly prescriptive and ambitious, and the other didn't gel with property prices or overambition.
Fast-forward 60 years away from the extremes and arrive at the middle-ish (but still more open) Quito Papers, which has several suggestions:
Openness: cities should be more incrementally experimental (willing to fail), focus on the edge (see Medellin) rather than just the centre (CBDs = rekt), and embrace synchronicity (combining related functions together in a mixed fashion).
Design: rather than fighting chaos, planners should embrace structures that can be messy but flexible over time (see Copenhagen).
Governance and ownership: re-emphasis on public land (resisting privatisation), better distribution of wealth to communities (against the logic of extraction) and re-localising aspects of the economy (Starbucks = bad).
In all those years, urban planners have come to a handy conclusion: that they cannot plan a perfect city.
Using the loose frameworks above, they can establish just enough order to channel an old lesson learned across a number of disciplines. If suitable initial conditions are found, the emergent whole is greater than the sum of its parts. And that this continuously emergent system will become antifragile over time, not in spite of all the challenges it has faced but because of them. Sound familiar?
That doesn't always mean sitting back and letting it ride; there are things one can encourage to foster an emergent city: openness, flexibility and decentralisation. Instead of being overly prescriptive, it is best to make millions of little plans, as big goal-orientated designs often miss tiny but essential details.
Just because ants had already invented TCIP, we still had to find it for ourselves.
Cathedral <> Bazaar in Virtual World Design:
Does software design = metaverse design?
“A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked. The inverse proposition also appears to be true: A complex system designed from scratch never works and cannot be made to work. You have to start over, beginning with a working simple system.” - John Gall
But virtual worlds will not strictly mirror cities, as they are (predominantly) software. They do not all need to provide public goods (so they needn't be similarly efficient), the cost and time of production are much lower and shorter, and the design space is infinite (so they needn't be so picky). Although much of the city design theory is relevant in virtual worlds, including the concept of the Cathedral and the Bazaar, as well as other closed/open metaverse characteristics touched on thus far, can assist in displaying the differences in approach.
Top-Down Design: Cathedral (shiny and cold). Chaos averse.
Openness: overly prescriptive (deterministic), permissioned, and iterations are usually proprietary and less collaborative.
Design: problems are hypothetically identified, and solutions are pre-constructed (fighting chaos). More rigid (path dependent) and fragile (over time). Faster (initially) and more efficient (effective resource management). Immersive (photorealistic and hedonistic).
Governance and ownership: treat users as customers (more extractive), ownership concentrated, clearer defined Ts&Cs (centralised).
Emergent Design: Bazaar (dusty and homey). Chaos conducive.
Openness: bottom-up, more questions than answers (indeterministic + forkable). More collaborative: wisdom of crowds, Galls Law, Joys Law + incentives (for sustainability of contributions).
Design: released early and often. Problems are incrementally identified (chaotic), and solutions are iterated over time (antifragile). Immersive (autonomous and eudaimonic).
Governance and ownership: treat people on a spectrum as co-owners/developers/governors (decentralised), property rights = increased incentives for development, barriers against exploitation and rights to exit.
Whilst the metaverse as a whole is an emergent phenomenon, there are differences in approach at the virtual world level. We have already touched on the difference between these approaches regarding counterparty risks, persistence, censorship, governance, and monetary policy.
But these are not just software or cities; they will not be lived in permanently nor compete on their ability to ship consistent technical upgrades; they primarily compete on their ability to provide fulfilling experiences. In this specific arena, top-down vs. emergent can have mixed results in practice and vary drastically depending on the type of experience created.
The Sparks that Breed Emergence:
Who da creative captain now?
Traditionally, incredible narratives are not born from the depths of collective imagination (too many cooks often dilute an artistic broth); they mostly come from the expansive dreams of individuals that pushed them into existence. Although inevitably standing on the shoulders of others (see Tolkien and Norse mythology).
In more top-down creative systems, designers will orchestrate similarly cohesive and expansive experiences (see RDR) but may struggle to keep them going over time without a creator flywheel.
Alternatively, in emergent design, authors can begin as the central creative force but become less hands-on over time (see dhof). Subsequent administrators can still take a light hand in tending to its creative development, but they release most of the reins to their avid fans.
Of course, this spark has to be good enough (not overly prescriptive nor bare, e.g., playing cards > Go stones) to attract and serve as a solid enough base for contributors. It is a challenging balance to achieve and one that will likely come from smaller creative origins in either design ethos.
How Much Direction:
Who the creative captain now? Cont’d.
Once you have that spark, how best to nurture it? You cannot overly engineer emergence, but some design choices favour the fostering of bottom-up worlds: modularity, coordination, malleable rules and open standards, interoperability, permissionlessness and so on. Without those, you're stuck.
From there, the extent of project management should likely depend on what you're trying to build: more in streamlined narrative-driven, passive and cohesive experiences (exhibitions, structured quests, feature films) and less in emergent, active and unstructured experiences (memes, free roam, wikis). Some worlds will have room for both in different areas of the same experience.
That is not to suggest there shouldn't be directors in virtual worlds. Currently, the ideal recipe of protocols seems to favour some shade of: start with the benevolent dictator(s) + core devs → decentralise over time until most of the core building is done and the scope for governance is (relatively) minimised/ossified → then give people more governance over structurally less impactful areas (once a constitution of sorts is formed); not too much that they can burn it down nor too little that they can't have an impact.
Basic Needs:
More BPN in cathedral or bazaar?
Regarding the basic psychological needs, top-down and emergent designs can produce mixed results:
Competence: variety is essential to get people engaged, but so is the clarity of goals or cohesiveness of the experience. As a general rule, the less clear, the less fulfilling (we like to do a lot of stuff, but we want to know the general aim). Due to their incremental approach, emergent worlds may often feel unfocused around the clarity of the experiential mission. Conversely, top-down designs will have a stronger, more explicit and likely compelling purpose of experience (at least initially).
Autonomy: directly related to the scope of opportunities for action. Generally, the more you can do, the more fulfilling it is. Both will likely allow customisation at a personal level (we will discuss avatars in more detail later), creation (UGC) and exploration of the world, but to different extents. Emergent worlds have the upper hand regarding the scope of positive opportunities (governance, narrative, direction, real-world effects through cryptonetworks, etc.) and limiting negative constraints (excessive manipulation from top-down). But these may not all appeal to the broader audience. Users are likely to experience higher degrees of intrinsic motivation as users can freely own, explore and connect with their environment. Whereas in more closed or controlled instances, users are liable to trend towards amotivation (less perceived persistent link of causality between action and outcome), leading to an eventual ghost world if these interests aren't aligned. More like a Calder mobile in a museum; actions in the surrounding environment can slightly change the perceived form, but not its actual essence. Emergent will enable the change of both.
Relatedness: a mixed bag. Due to existing network effects, more prominent top-down players will initially command significantly larger audiences. More impactful in events that thrive on scale, such as virtual concerts (see social proof). But they also tend to manipulate relatedness as a business model. Emergent worlds will likely be smaller in scale, organised into highly aligned communities with enhanced methods for trustless collaboration and shared responsibility where belonging and connectedness may favour quality over quantity.
Both have the potential to meet or undermine users' basic psychological needs; the debate will likely centre primarily around their ability to balance basic needs and structured experience.
Holidays or Hometowns:
Are we there to live or to experience?
“One of the unique features of being human is that we do not have to be where we are.” - Ryan and Deci.
Different approaches can satisfy various intrinsic motivations in terms of experience:
On holiday: we seek the extremes of adventure and excitement or relaxation and escapism. Top-down deterministic in their curated design to extract from the satisfaction of the extremes of motivations. Release from responsibilities (don't want to co-govern or own your hotel), occasionally repetitive and ossify (become touristy), and sterile in the off-season.
At home: we seek less excitement, security, growth (innovation), connectedness, and contribution. Emergent in its design to evolve to meet needs (but subsequently less specialised). Co-owned and governed (requires constant responsibility), provides incentives for innovation.
Both compete not only with each other but also with the range of experience dictated by how much the inhabitants can access in meatspace (not everyone has a secure hometown, nor can they go on holiday). But where will people spend more time in the metaverse, where the lines will be blurred, and you can be either on holiday or at home in seconds?
Inhabitants will enjoy the richness of top-down design (some cathedrals are fucking cool) but will likely experience the diminishing returns and existential emptiness of the hedonic treadmill. We all go home eventually. In these hometowns, the secure frameworks for less impinged innovation, shared responsibility, and subsequent fulfilment from co-development will serve as a more consistent draw.
Metaverse Graveyards:
Why so many empty worlds?
The reduced cost of failure in the metaverse will inevitably mean more experiments and, subsequently, more graveyards than successes. Manually roaming around barren virtual malls is, of course, incredibly unfulfilling: competence (with what opportunity), autonomy (over what) and relatedness (with whom). But that is part and parcel of the experimentation.
Why various attempts have failed so far is anyone's guess.
Perhaps because a) many built broad platforms devoid of cohesive narrative or purpose that are less compelling than most other digital or physical experiences. You can create all the infra you want, but (obviously) the infra will be unused if you have no committed flywheel for creators. Especially as emergent virtual worlds will initially be empty, and 99% of content will be [AI]UGC. The value is in the quality of experience, not in providing new infrastructure to provide experiences. Unfortunately for some, there's no long-term moat for average experiential middleware.
Perhaps b) many advertised property rights as a major feature, not a given. Instead of 1) providing exciting experiences subsided by 2) a natural evolution into ownership, many forgot to do 1. This will continue to be more problematic when ownership is a norm rather than an explicit draw.
That is one of the major reasons why autonomous worlds are so compelling; not because they will appeal to the masses, but because they enable so many more novel features (not just property rights, although many of others are enabled by some form of ownership) than their predecessors that committed citizens will love.
But how to get past the dreaded cold start.
How do upstart cities attract citizens?
If you want to be a successful upstart city, you need a draw.
Alexandria: Built Libraries, lighthouses, and intellectual institutes that increased prestige, which attracted visitors far and wide, boosting culture and trade in a continual flywheel.
Las Vegas: Competitive taxes, celebs and debauchery dragged this city out of the sand and onto the global map.
Same in pixel-land?
Due to a proliferation of choice and decreased barriers to exit, the metaverse will host the fiercest competition for attention in history. As such, offering various protections, favourable taxes, and property rights as a feature rather than a given over compelling experiences may not cut it.
Maybe poach a big legacy star (unclear why, over time, they wouldn't build their own and capture more of the value), cross-promote, seed content, collaborate with other brands, incentivise earlier adopters, or have a unique gimmick. All help.
Alternatively, foster just enough of a tepid start to build a unique and compelling experience. Start small and aligned, then expand (or emerge); the result will likely be contagious. If not, it will still be enough to fulfil those committed inhabitants.
Generally, it is unlikely that any singular virtual world will achieve the scale of users achieved in Web2 platforms due to reduced barriers to exit. If it did, something would be amiss, but that is not to say they cannot scale meaningfully. Nor can they expect to be as profitable as other historical internet middlemen over time as more value will flow to individuals.
Bro, maybe we're just early, or whilst admirable and not without hope, these unsuccessful ghost towns serve as cautionary deterrents for short-term overambition and experiential incoherence (not fun first).
Headsets, Aesthetics and Happiness:
Is photorealism the highest order good?
In terms of using metaverse adjacent gizmos in the shorter term, it is likely that these devices will only be able to access economically complementary experiences that provide kickbacks to providers. Competitive decentralised hardware is unlikely against such headstarts and budgets. Ideally, hardware would compete on the quality of devices and nothing more, and access to any virtual world (regardless of business model and property rights) would be granted; in the meantime, there are other things to consider.
We have already seen how basic needs > photorealism, as a reminder:
“Yet this investment of graphics, however aesthetically pleasing, is, interestingly, not typically the strongest predictor of whether a world can create presence for a player. The capacity for immersion is, indeed, less about graphic realism and more about a flow of psychological satisfactions that keep players fluidly and fully engaged within the game world.” - Ryan and Deci.
Some top-down worlds will be prescriptive, sleek, photorealistic and hardware-mediated - richer in fidelity and base-level desires but spiritually barren in others. These more hedonistic worlds will prioritise shorter-term happiness: controlled pleasure, predictable satisfaction and passive consumption.
Some emergent worlds will initially be hardware agnostic, have sub-par UX (glitches, bugs and loading times) with lower res graphics, some as a design choice rather than a limitation. These more eudaimonic worlds will prioritise longer-term happiness: self-actualisation, community and connectedness, alongside challenges and growth.
Would it be cool if many aspects of the metaverse had the potential to be highly immersive in both senses of the word (photorealistic and presence-conducive)? Yes. At the expense of the latter? Unlikely.
Maybe it's about sacrificing some base-level pleasures for longer-term meaning. Having both will be ideal and it is highly likely that cathedrals will adopt ownership primitives slowly.
Evolutions and Hybrids:
Who eventually wins the race (does there even need to be one)?
Out the gates, the cathedral is quick, and the bazaar is slow. But top-down becomes repetitive and extractive over time whilst bottom-up scales and improves.
But for purely emergent worlds, it is a case of slow and steady win the race. Centralised > decentralised in terms of efficiency but fulfilment > efficiency in the long term.
But these systems must get through many difficult stages to thrive: perturbation, seed, catalyst, tipping point and threshold - most will not survive. If they do, they will be incredibly sticky (through mutual blood, sweat and tokens).
Again, the different models are not mutually exclusive; the meta[verse]utopia will not exist from excessively maximalist models for each path.
Are these systems mutually exclusive? Nope. Some could be like Wikipedia, some for profit, and others like OS software; each with their own tradeoffs.
Could you have a simultaneous initial top-down design, gizmos, more community governance and connection to an open economic substrate in the same system? Yep. If Fortnight combined open systems for V-Bucks, in-game assets, and reputation alongside top-down experiential provision (with more space for UGC), that would be pretty elite.
These yin and yangs are also complementary at different times; if you've ever experienced the juxtaposed sterile familiarity of a Westernised shopping mall (cathedral) after trudging the chaotic streets of Chennai (Bazaar), you'll know what I mean.
Identity Attachment, Exploration, & Persistence:
“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).
The postmodern self has shifted from a static unitary entity to comprise several intermingled, fluid, yet fragmented selves (socially and economically). A celebration of identity across several different constructs. In traditional digital spaces, this has been extensively explored; in the metaverse, much less.
Avatars can be associated with any alternative representation of a being (in this context - names, profiles, and 3D characters); they provide humans with the unique ability to portray different versions of themselves. Here, the term will refer to all virtually enabled extensions of self that will allow this self-actualisation.
As well as using avatars to explore the self; we do so across a number of quests.
Virtual worlds uniquely provide the ability to undergo the hero's journey (or monomyth) for a renewed sense of self. The prominence of the novel (18th century), the radio (1920s) and cinema (1950s) allowed us to join other protagonists on their quests for self-mastery and subsequently engage in voyeuristic self-renewal (where we could imagine what it might be like but not experience). Then, from the 1960s onwards, traditional virtual environments and later avatars presented an upgrade for meaning finding where voyeurs became active participants in the journey (given an active role or a chance to LARP as the protagonist). In virtual worlds, 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.
The novel repercussions of adding property rights, interoperability, and persistence to these quests and avatars in the metaverse are unknown, but we can have a guess.
Property Rights <> Avatars:
How can property rights assist self-actualisation?
Until now, true ownership of avatars and, subsequently, to a certain extent, the extension of selves has been impossible. At best, joint assets between author and platform (EULA-dependent).
Regarding the open vs. closed dialectic, the more ownership afforded (in more open spaces), the more significant the exploration possible. This is because when ownership<>avatars, there is an enhancement of avatar attachment (the sense that the avatar is you and you are they), outlined below:
Endowment Effect: People ascribe more value to things because they own them = more attachment.
IKEA Effect: People ascribe more value to things they have spent effort acquiring and customising (when labour leads to love) = more attachment.
Self Extensions: When objects are owned, they become included in the boundary of the self = more attachment.
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.
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 (1+2+3+4+5 = exponentially more than 15). The more these effects are integrated into experiences (e.g., customisability for IKEA), the more powerful they will be.
“An avatar is a doll, a character is a simulacrum, a persona is a person - a player in the virtual world.” - Richard Bartle.
This newfound attachment and embodiment can enhance various identity avenues previously limited by a lack of ownership, i.e., make avatars more real.
Identity Exploration: allowing people to engage in self-reconstruction through a wide range of characteristics that were previously immutable - e.g., ethnicity, anthropometry, and gender, as well as different types of personalities, regardless of their physical situation, to become their Ideal Elves. 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. In regards to the capacity for avatar customisation, increased self-representation and experimentation, studies suggest increasing choice leads to autonomy, enjoyment and immersion, and relevance and agency.
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). Ownership can enhance the self or presence (being inside a virtual world), leading to more immersion. NB: similar to narrative, emotional and physical presence.
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 feedback into their real-world self.
Pixelated Tribalism (PFPs):
How does this change in a group setting?
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).
But this will always be a transitory battle for social standing, so don't be shocked if there isn't a winner for longer than a cycle or four as new guards replace the old (even OGs can eventually look like boomers).
Questing for Fulfilment:
Can property rights enhance the hero’s journey?
We pursue a vast amount of this fulfilment via quests. The need to iterate, complete, and ultimately grow. As already mentioned, ownership allows more immersive and enhanced virtual identity exploration. But what about when you combine these enhanced identities with increasing levels of persistence, collaboration and interoperability? To guess the differences, we must first go through some traditional context.
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).
In these virtual worlds, people can fulfil many basic psychological needs they otherwise couldn’t. Moreover, virtual worlds can satisfy these needs with such immediacy (quickly), consistency (often), and density (volume) that is unparalleled in other environments. For example, impactful katabasis is somewhat impractical in physical reality and often, due to conflicting perspectives on ethics, can lead many to return slightly less fulfilled than intended.
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 metaverse, with the new attachment-infused avatars (or meta-personas) or time spent in any more immersive virtual social environments with real-world effects, identity exploration or fulfilment through quests will be even more significant than 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:
Do tokens and reputation assist actualisation?
In traditional hero journeys (or gaming loops), players progress along levels of increasing competence, often through adjustable levels of feedback (levels, chapters, points), to experience a sense of mastery (BNT). The better the clarity of goals and objectives (through granular, sustained, and cumulative feedback), the more fulfilling the experience. In virtual worlds, there is usually a form of ending (Atonement with the Father) where players feel they have won and the achievement is acknowledged (recognition of mastery); from there, they may move on to brighter planes of fulfilment.
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. Moreover, these games must implement an alternative wealth of variety to engage players. 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.
In terms of the metaquest, such planes of fulfilment include the transition to Master of the Two Worlds, entailing the ability to freely and loosely tread the line between the virtual, physical, and spiritual, with improved self-knowledge but simultaneous humility (similar to Nietzshe's Cosmic Dancers). Or eventually achieving the Freedom to Live, an admission that completion or permanence is unachievable, and the lighthearted surrender to the eternal return.
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). Even better, many might not return as is often thought from these worlds to the physical; due to their immersive nature, enhanced real-world effects and integration with physical life, they may tread the boundary more loosely and often.
Collaborative Transcendence & Competence:
Same for tribal transcendance?
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).
Revisiting the renewed desire to rebundle into smaller collectives, observable both in popular narratives (Iron Man → Avengers / Superman → Justice League) and in gaming (COD single-player campaign → team deathmatch). These novel forms of cooperative action will likely continue and evolve in the metaverse.
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 (ludic<>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) separating the traditional and the fantastical and increasing the feeling of presence, immersion and illusion of nonmediation (when you constantly realise you're in the game you lose).
TLDR, it gets more real.
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. As a direct consequence of interoperability (more seamless transitions), it becomes much harder to segregate various player journeys, physical lives, and the search for our ideal elves (self-actualisation) as players become immersed in a plethora of unfinished loops and paths trying to reconcile various simultaneous narrative arcs.
How this will transpire across interoperable and interconnected mediums but entirely different contexts and personalities is unclear. For example, Proteus effects (across exercise, health, racial differences, and gender differences) suggest that elves and work personas' characteristics will experience various, and now exaggerated by novel identity exploration cross-share.
While the consequences are yet to emerge, they will be both beneficial (e.g., increased self-exploration) and harmful (e.g., dissociation and isolation or IDG → M[etaverse]GD). Although we are good at self-monitoring, the psychological lines will be as hard to draw as the physical. As mentioned elsewhere, a more cohesive decentralised identity (with subsets of incohesive constituent parts) will be necessary to combine all the cross-share and various arcs into one relatively unitary entity.
Moreover, as dictated by the need density hypothesis, these externalities will likely be reflexive based on a lack of basic psychological needs in meatspace. Those with less will seek to exit further into this alternate reality, where they feel a superior sense of self. Fortunately, this is just as likely to result in positive externalities as negative due to the integrated physical<>digital nature of the metaverse, where renewed exploration can make meatspace more enjoyable.
Loss Aversion, Death & Persistence:
“[...] mortality is vital to our experience.” - Joseph Raz.
Property rights = heaven and immortality?
And here we have the round trip: from birth, to ownership, to innovation, to death.
Although a touchy topic in the physical, for the ultimate expression of autonomy, you’ll likely want the option to revoke it.
Games way back when (*highlight Papa Holua) were a touch higher on the risk (death)/reward (exhilaration) spectrum. With a few exceptions, we tend to preserve our physical selves and have dabbled in virtual mediated death through gameplay loops, ranging from minor penalties (go back one level) to permadeath (start again from scratch).
As previously discussed, digital property rights create a more significant loss aversion because you now have something tangible to lose (but also to risk) and generally negative > positive when it comes to emotions.
With a new generation of attachment-infused avatars, the repercussions of in-world death may be more dramatic as the loss would include not just a possession but also a sense or part of the persona. This level of experimentation will not be possible, or severely less impactful, than in worlds that don’t respect property rights.
But surely real death > avatar death? Several arguments for why death is bad do not quite square with avatar loss aversion. Nagel's deprivation account (you miss out on a bunch) and Raz's instrumental value (only bad if you were doing well) because you can presumably still excel through other avatars. Williams' Makropulos case (immortality is boring) because your physical self will decay as per. So, it is likely that avatar death won't be comparatively impactful in the traditional sense.
However, one of the usual arguments against the badness of death suggests that death should not be feared as we cannot experience it (because we are dead), but this is no longer the case as we will be there to witness the loss of our extended (and now firmly attached) self, and this is where the significant impact lies. In virtual worlds, offering avenues for permanent death can be extremely useful in breaking the monotony of heroes' journeys as the stakes for atonement (mostly time and attachment) are raised significantly.
Regardless of the extent of bad, death matters because it is life’s temporality, scarcity, and finality that gives it meaning; as such, virtual death can be employed, but some ways can be more fulfilling than others.
But how do avatars actually die? Would you rather go to Hel or Valhalla?
In more closed virtual worlds, death can occur through less-than-fulfilling and non-consensual avenues such as server shutdowns (usually due to lack of economic viability), confiscation, or traditional lower-stakes endings. A cheap end similar that will land you in Hel (for the sick and old).
You can't meaningfully lose something you never truly had anyway.
In more open worlds, non-consensual death of avatars can still occur, including theft or loss that may be equally devastating but not as satisfying.
Whereas consensual avatar death is perhaps the most fulfilling way to go. This will include an agreement to a voluntary outcome to risk property rights or reputation in an area that has preset rules (e.g. Runescape Wilderness) allowing certain forms of death, e.g., the burning of the avatar (can be visited in purgatory) or other economic penalties (ransoms, timelocks etc).
Thus, we find another key feature of property rights and autonomy: the choice to lose it all. Whether it's escapism, existential validation, or plain dopamine, it's definitely more fulfilling and will get you a one-way ticket to Valhalla.
“Then he greeted Death as an old friend, and went with him gladly, and, equals, they departed this life.” - J.K.Rowling
NB: this is to be used sparingly as most prefer to be treated as heroes (usually immortal) rather than common mortals. However, keeping it strictly virtual may not always be enough.
At the point of physical demise, individuals may have managed to avoid consensual and non-consensual digital death and depreciation, and their goods (or personas) can be passed on in their persistent format (Fahrenheit 421 < ERC 721). Normal goods will be straightforwardish, but in terms of persona-infused goods (avatars), there are a lot of questions related to identity persistence (what constitutes Punk69 over time).
IF you have completed the eternal quest into full attachment (I am Punk69, and Punk69 is me) and I dies, then who is punk69? Punk69's new kin? When the persona<>owner connection is broken, where does Punk69jnr draw the line between OGpunk69's previous actions and achievements? What if OGpunk69 was in a digital relationship with Punk66? Should Punk69jnr disclose that they are underage? If not, will there be dead man switch signatures for avatars or proof of personhood?
And if history flattens time, immutability and data availability make it easier to access (the chain's state is the sum of all the history). Can we wind back the clock and experiment with anachronistic gaming if all state is accessible? Do we achieve prescience if enough memory is stored within the tokenised avatar? Can we bring back OGpunk69 if we have enough data, and how to ensure psychological continuity?
Or maybe GDPR 5.0 = removal of your avatar's corresponding behavioural metadata and memories, and punk69 goes back to being an unimmerised shell… idk, questions for another time.
To carry on, please either go back to the overall index or move on to [Meta]Surveillance and Control.