Creators vs Gamers: How the Metaverse Accelerates the Gamer Economy
Like most people, my interest in the metaverse stemmed from playing video games growing up.
My favourite one by far was Mega Man Battle Network on the Game Boy and its Nintendo DS spinoff, Mega Man Starforce. Characters in Mega Man have virtual avatars called NAVIs. NAVIs lived in “personal terminals” — handheld devices that the player uses to “jack in” to the web, where they can customize their NAVI and earn real world money fighting viruses.
And all my favourite video games had one specific thing in common: they sold a future where people could make a living by playing games.
Characters who won Digimon battles, beat Pokémon gym leaders, or crushed Beyblade bullies earned cash to buy food for their Digimon, Pokéballs to catch more Pokémon, and upgrades for their metal spinny tops.
Ash didn’t have to work at a job to travel the world on his quest to be a Pokémon Master. His friends Misty and Brock both ran their own Pokémon gyms for a living when they weren’t out adventuring.
We’re in the era of the creator economy, while in Ash, Misty, and Brock’s made-up world the gamer economy already thrives. Here’s the difference:
The creator economy is about indirectly making a living playing games. We see this with creators who collect ad revenue from YouTube reaction videos, streamers playing Fortnite on Twitch, or strategists who coach people to Hearthstone glory. Still, being a millionaire in GTA V doesn’t make you a millionaire in real life.
The gamer economy is about the ability to directly cash out virtual rewards, coins, and tokens for real world equivalents. In the gamer economy, a player don’t have to amass an audience to make a living playing games. Here, a player who profits from selling Axies on Axie Infinity equates to extra spending money IRL.
I’m so psyched for it to accelerate the gamer economy. I’m excited to one day live in a world where I can convert the virtual gold I get from Pokemon Go into grocery money, the latest MacBook, maybe even a house.
As of this writing, Pokémon is one of the most profitable video game franchise in history. In the future, its world will live alongside Mario, Grand Theft Auto, and Fortnite within the metaverse — what will then be known as history’s biggest and most profitable video game.
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