Assetization

This chapter considers the implications of blockchain for game production. I argue that cryptogames are imagined to embody a logic of assetization in the production context—that is, affording a degree of autonomy and control, providing producers the ability to derive value in new and more equitable ways. In so doing, cryptogame boosters see blockchain as bringing about a radical shift in project fund raising, monetisation, and production models and intermediaries (e.g., publishers, platforms). In exploring these promises, this chapter also asks just how decentralised and democratised these imagined futures might be. Do they really upend the inequities and power imbalances in game production, or simply perpetuate or even introduce new forms of control and rent seeking?