Yeah, something like 35 years ago, I opined that people would start making “silicon estates”, meaning that they would create virtual shopping malls and experience stations, and sure enough, that’s what’s happening in The URL Formerly Known as FaceBook and others like Sandbox and a whole cattle-herd more.
It’s a real-estate boom, until folks realize that virtual real estate is like real real estate — only the rich get richer.
Of course, that takes a gigantic and really smart and resilient crew on server security, and we just didn’t want to go there, so we kept our games Solo Player, except for the CTF games, which require a few server skills.
Pay to Play
But there’s a way to make a living or at least a side-hustle from this, and I’ll let you in on the secret.
Wouldn’t you love to play a game to win prizes worth actual money? How about buying for a dollar, an item that goes viral and selling it for thousands of dollars?
I’m not advocating that, nor advising anyone about any money matters, but the fact is, you can earn money by playing games, and it’s a well-established and well-known fact.
So in order for a game to survive, it needs constant fresh blood, like the hats in Team Fortress and the Bing-Bongs we used to give out in Paparazi and Exploding Lips before the bottom dropped out of the video game market.
I’m not in the video game market, nor do I wish to be in it, Faustus.
You could even make money on youtube by making a series of commercialized videos about how to exploit crypto games and NFT-based experiences on the internet, pointing to your sales page on opensea.
There are a ton of ways to exploit the whole gaming world, but don’t fall for any of them — they’re all Bardo Traps. You need to create creatively and not just obtain New Freedom, but Stay Free!
It took me several days of research to figure this out — don’t even ask by what convoluted pathways I wandered to get here from there, but the easiest way to make money in a crypto game is to design a level and charge to play the game, and offer prizes in the game that can be turned into profit of some kind, anything from money to bragging rights.
First of all, there are a large number of established play-to-earn type crypto currency games, of which I have selected for the moment the one they call “Blankos Block Party”.
It’s ideal, because I love to play with blocks, and you’re playing a game with a NFT that can run, jump, spin and tumble.
Blocks. Playing with blocks. Yeah.
It’s how I make all my Orbs in goddgames, urthgames and other game outlets. In short, everything I make is made with blocks of one kind or another.
Round objects are models, which are a lot of really tiny blocks stacked funny. They’re like the little glittery things you might place around a major collisionable solid.
Their editor looks crude, like World Craft, but it’s very sophisticated to handle the demands of an ignorant public.
Once in a while, a real designer will show up. Combine that with an art following, and a reputation going back several decades, plus a social media following of over 7 million and a blog and hundreds of video game releases, and you get a winning combination for something that can go public and explode into a viral event.
In short, it’s possible to make and publish a game and charge folks to play it and inside it, stuff it with eminently buyable collectibles.
It would be nice to design some special avatars just to add some more originality to the game structure, and I’d do one game and develop the heck out of it.
Now, this is the kind of thing you can get into and it will only help your design skills, because you can get feedback on your games by watching friends play it and comment on the gameplay.
You can also get the same result in a godd level.
I’m not recommending you get into game design in anything except the godd engine at this time — that’s where you’ll learn the basics but you’ll also line yourself up for The Godd Experience.
I can’t and won’t explain it here, but you need it in order to Move On and Get a Higher Gradation.
I plan to explore the world of blankos on your behalf, and I’ll share any insights I happen to stumble across as I go, but at this time, please don’t divide your energies. Stay with the godd levels for the moment.
When it looks like we can actually MAKE A LIVING from blankos participation, only then can I recommend it to our own game dev community, so give me a few weeks time to scope it out and see what the deal is.
Meanwhile, there are several games developed and published in the blankos world, and you might be able to watch them on youtube to get an idea.
As you’ll see, it’s really a kid style game, not our style at all, but there’s a chance we can adapt what’s there to what we want to see in a game, and then we’re off to the races!
The idea I have in mind is that we can basically make a Disneyland between all of us working together — a theme park, perhaps, where many visitors might play, sing, dance or run a Bardo Level as teamplay?
Maybe A Meditation Temple or a Movements Class on the side?
I dunno, have to see what it is, and what its potential might be in the near future. We don’t know if blankos will actually ever get off the ground, but I’m willing to check it out and test its limits on behalf of our developer gang.
They seem friendly and community-service oriented, and that’s always a good start.
Be patient. I’ll give you the details as fast as they happen.
See You At The Top!!!
gorby