Splinterlands: The Capoeira of Gaming

Last year, when the dev team announced they were working on a land expansion designed to put certain aspects of the game fully in the hands of the players, I thought it was an interesting experiment in gaming.

Now they’ve announced Splintershards, I’m growing more interested in this project as a social and governance experiment.

First, they created a product and a demand for that product, which is basic capitalism 101.

Next, the means of manufacturing is being put in the hands of the community. That’s a concept that’s been heralded as a legitimate foundation for a government for as long as I can remember, so at least a few decades, likely centuries.

Then, governance of proceeds is going to be delegated to those who have assets staked in the project.

This direction implements several elements of social and governance concepts that have generally proven could be successful were it not for people chiseling at its integrity at every turn. This however has the added benefit of being powered by the Law of Code, thus the human points of failure can be circumnavigated or eliminated outright.

This experiment, and those like this, combined with the defi explosion are evolving into a proof of concept of how these ideas are changing the landscape before our eyes.

Historically, an experiment with any of these systems usually results in some degree of physical conflict at some point. However, this experiment has the unprecedented advantage of happening in a digital realm, where physical violence is useless as a viable option to resolve conflict.

I find it interesting and hilarious that Splinterlands is developing into a tool that teaches player to dance by giving them a place to pretend to fight.